Do you think that the 'in' class is monolithic in their interests and values?

I think I recall you taking great offense at me ascribing to "Israel" a particular intent ... but I'm pretty sure I could back up evidence for "Israel's" intent based on actions far better than you could back up your doubts about the Ivy League 'in' class.

(That reads more snarkily than I intended it.)

I would guess that for some -- certainly not all, but enough that sometimes they are able to control policy -- the "target audience" is making the world a slightly better place to live.

Do you doubt that there are Black people from poor neighborhoods whose life was improved because they were accepted into an Ivy League school in part because of a DEI initiative -- ?

That of course is a marginal thing: a small handful of successful Black professionals from poor neighborhoods -- who may very well have abandoned any connections they had with their neighborhoods of origin -- doesn't mean very much.

But at least there is a chance that someone sharing the interests of poor neighborhoods has a seat at the table, and that's worth a lot.

Contrarily, in the State of Alabama, the University of Alabama occupies a position within the state that is similar to that of the Ivies nationwide. There is a fairly corrupt -- and fairly racist -- organization of fraternities and sororities at the UofA that have for decades controlled the student government and whose members have continued their associations in order to exercise a high degree of control over the state government.

And there are probably similar systems in many of the states that were formerly part of the Confederacy.

And Black people from poor neighborhoods are doing much, much worse in those states than they're doing in states where the universities participate more willingly in DEI initiatives, I assure you.

By the way, I looked into it, and it seems that the totality of Carol Swain's complaint against Gay is based on this:


Swain original:

Since the 1950s the reelection rate for House members has rarely dipped below 90%. For 1988 and 1990 it was 98.4 and 96.9 percent, respectively. The reelection rate was 82.1 percent in 1992, and 92.3 percent in 1994.

Gay (yes, it included the attribution):

Since the 1950s, the reelection rate for incumbent House members has rarely dipped below 90%. In 1994 it was 92.3% (Swain 1997).

If that's the hill you want to die on ... I definitely think you should be shot.

Well, looking at this example, I must admit that it's not clear to me what is called "research" in this subject at all. Digging out reelection rates from sources?  
P.S. There were other examples https://www.city-journal.org/article/is ... plagiarist

This kind of "pseudoscience" is worse than astrology. Ethical AI bullshit is in the same category, but might be better rewarded. 

Indeed.

I think it was first in the early 1980s that I first heard that the re-election rate for Representatives was over 90% -- why did Swain not reference whoever it was who first published something on that -- ?

And the answer may be that there was no ground-breaking academic publication on it; it must have been pretty obvious even to a casual observer that the re-election rates were really high, and one day someone decided to see exactly how high they were, and had an interesting statistic to share with his friends at the next beer outing. Nothing published. Similarly, the "Laffer Curve" was apparently "published" on a paper napkin because it was also pretty obvious ... even if where we are on the "Curve" is debatable.

Now, it looks like what Swain was focusing on was the 1992 Election, where the general rule was violated. I don't know because I haven't looked at the whole work. If Gay had seized on this and made some point about what was going on in 1992, then I'd wonder if she wasn't just rehashing Swain's work.

But it seems that all Gay was interested in -- and I haven't looked at very much of her work, either -- was just that the re-election rate was generally so high; she doesn't mention 1992 at all. She very easily could have run a few numbers herself to verify a fairly obvious impression, and given Swain no credit at all.

As you say, there is no research there, and that's largely exonerating for Gay, to my thinking: if you take someone's original idea and claim it as your own, or at least fail to credit them for it, that's the most egregious form of plagiarism.

But if you're explaining the Pythagorean Theorem, for example, en route to your actual thesis, and of the dozens of explanations of the Pythagorean Theorem that you've seen, you think that Smith's is the best, you might lift heavily from Smith -- and you surely ought to credit him if you do -- but that's hardly the same as replicating the proof of the Smith Theorem and claiming it as your own.

Gay's offenses in all of the examples of her "plagiarism" that I have seen are of the former type and not the latter. And it would be interesting to see how many sitting professors in the humanities at any university would have clean hands if their work was subjected to the same scrutiny as Gay's was. I doubt it would be many, and more importantly, I (at least) would think of the few who did have clean hands that maybe they could have accomplished more real advancement of knowledge if they had spent less time worrying about dotting their teas and crossing their eyes.

In a rather hilarious development, Bill Ackman’s wife (Neri Oxman) was just called out for plagiarism in her PhD thesis. Oops! She also evidently created a sculpture for Jeffrey Epstein in exchange for a six figure donation to her lab at MIT, but her husband made some (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to keep that family connection out of the limelight.

That would be hilarious, indeed, but wasn't she an architect or some kind of artist? How and what could be possibly plagiarized in this line of business? 
 

I think you are indeed half right, but she still wrote a dissertation. That borrowed a little too freely from source materials. https://www.businessinsider.com/neri-ox ... 2024-1?amp

It feel the most hilarious outcome (despite sad circumstances that preceded it) is that people started to read and scrutinize all kind of bullshit dissertations that wouldn't have been read in million years otherwise, the dissertations which should have been used as a toilet paper in some parts of the world. 

So maybe academic freedom in America is gone: if the president of Harvard can be forced out by an effort begun by a lower-tier billionaire, what happens to a lowly professor at some less prominent school if some wealthy person who supports a bigger political cause decides that they're causing too much trouble?

Well, actually we already have a pretty good idea from Norman Finkelstein's experience at DePaul University after Alan Dershowitz -- prominent person, but not even a billionaire -- decided to target him.

So maybe academic freedom in America is gone.

Did it ever exist?

At the very least, control changed hands occasionally.

Back in the old good days the science was done by "gentlemen of independent means" like Newton,  Leibniz. That was perhaps the only way to enjoy academic freedom. Even in exact sciences US universities nowadays make their decisions based on politics, for example in high energy theoretical physics getting a position at university is virtually impossible without a nod from Edward Witten. In Europe the situation seems to be better in this sense. 

I have very little sympathy to people screwing each other in "political" or other similar bullshit sciences. Their activity is more like show business with very limited budgets and upsides.  

Scotland's new hate crime law came into effect on April 1st. In the first week there were 7,152 reported 'crimes.' Let's hope that doesn't continue, as it means that it will match the number of actual crimes.

Try Gaelic, no one will understand.

Scotland's new hate crime law came into effect on April 1st. In the first week there were 7,152 reported 'crimes.' Let's hope that doesn't continue, as it means that it will match the number of actual crimes.

Sure, but 7,000 were mean tweets from J.K. Rowling

She has volunteered herself up to the scottish rozzers, but they don't seem too keen...they know when they are beaten!