THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2024
So far, it remains undescribed: We're rarely happy to hear that someone has lost her job.
So it is in the case of Claudine Gay, who has now stepped down as Harvard's president.
We don't know why Gay was hired in the first place. We don't know what her academic scholarship has been like.
We haven't tried to form a judgment about the allegations of plagiarism. We simply aren't inclined to feel glad when someone loses her job.
We do remain transfixed, and alarmed, by what happened at that December 5 House committee hearing. Also, by the ongoing failure within the mainstream press to describe what happened that day.
What actually happened during that hearing? More specifically, what actually happened in the groaning interactions between Gay and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the "odious demagogue" (Rep. Ritchie Torres) who kept grilling Gay about—well, what exactly was Gay grilled about during that ridiculous hearing?
What was Gay asked about? What did Gay say in reply? We may explore those questions in a bit more detail next week, but for today, we'd say this:
Mainstream journalists have had trouble paraphrasing Stefanik's questions, right to this very day. With great regularity, Stefanik would proceed to interrupt Gay as soon as Gay started to answer.
As for Gay, when she was given the chance to respond to questions without being interrupted, she repeatedly offered non-answer answers—scripted replies which weren't responsive to the questions she'd been asked.
Penn's president was even more strongly inclined to cling to a handful of formulaic pronouncements. When the presidents were allowed to speak, they performed very poorly that day.
Stefanik kept interrupting and shrieking about the presidents' "answers." The presidents kept failing to offer responsive or illuminating replies, even when they were given the chance.
So it went when our blue elites went head-to-head with the red demagogue. In a way which we would regard as instructive, it seems to us that our blue elites performed remarkably poorly.
Are we blue tribals able to see the way our lauded blue team failed? Or will we fall back on formulaic forms of denial?
"Can you see? Will you care?" More on this problem to follow.
If I'd waited a few minutes. I could have posted my comment about Gay here, where it would not have been off-topic.
ReplyDeleteBob harshly criticizes Stefanik, calling her an "odious demagogue". He tries to soften the epithet, by pointing out that he's quoting someone else. That's a cheap trick. He chose to quote those words, so the words represent his POV.
He also used the trick of pleading ignorance. He says he isn't inclined to feel glad that Gay lost her job, even though he claims to be entirely ignorant of what she was doing. That's a way of supporting her but without making an argument.
He faults Stefanik for interrupting the witnesses, although he is honest enough to acknowledge that the witnesses were not answering the questions. Bob surely knows that this dance is normal in the give-and-take of Congressional hearings. Many witnesses try to evade the question, whereupon Congresspersons interrupt them and try to pin them down.
An anonymous responder in the prior post had a link to a longer segment of the Q and A. IMO it helped prove that the witness was evading the question, as well as lying about Harvard's alleged support for free speech.
Bottom Line -- I would like to know exactly why Somerby considers Stefanik to be a demagogue. Can someone elucidate?
If Somerby were supporting Gay, he wouldn't be so wishy washy about her losing her job. Somerby doesn't like to see anyone go to jail either. I wonder how he felt about Jeffrey Epstein.
DeleteShe is a demagogue because her questioning was not intended to further the purposes of the hearing but to score political points and make political statements. That is why she kept interrupting the presidents.
DeleteDon't kid yourself. Somerby is gloating over Gay's firing or he wouldn't be mentioning her at all.
DeleteIs it truly that no one person in the world can read simple essays anymore? Bob did not harshly criticize Stefanik, calling her an "odious demagogue". Representative Ritchie Torres did. It's all up there in black and robin egg blue.
DeleteOr pale ivory or whatever.
DeleteWhat's up? Why can not one commenter here actually comprehend what is written? What. is. up?
DeleteSomerby didn’t call stefanik a demagogue, he just repeated someone else calling her that. But also, he didn’t NOT call her a demagogue.
Delete7:53 - For some unknown reason, this comment section harbors an infestation of Anonymice who waste everyone’s time spewing their hatred of the host.
DeleteIt is imperative that every commenter express nothing but fulsome praise for the blogger, eh, Dogface?
Delete"It is imperative that every commenter express nothing but fulsome praise for the blogger." But that's not what he said at all, Weirdo Mao.
DeleteIt was a question to Dogface, Mike. But thanks for playing.
Delete"Are we blue tribals able to see the way our lauded blue team failed? Or will we fall back on formulaic forms of denial?"
ReplyDeleteI'm taking bets. I'll put all my money on "falling back on formulaic forms of denial." Let's see how the comments shake out.
I assume your view is that any pushback against Somerby is a “formulaic denial of failure”, amirite?
Delete
ReplyDelete"We simply aren't inclined to feel glad when someone loses her job."
Cheer up: someone will be getting this job! The circle of life...
And perhaps (albeit unlikely) it'll be someone who hasn't done any academic thefts too.
Gay is still working for Harvard and it’s likely she negotiated her salary upon saying she would resign if she got the right offer..
DeleteYes, this situation has damaged her career and it was not anything she did to provoke a political firestorm related to Israel/Palestine. She is a victim of Stefanik's political ambitions and it is fair that she should not suffer more than she has.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:21pm, it’s more than “fair”, it’s astounding.
DeleteYes, the three University Presidents performed badly. Why did that happen? They knew what the topic was. They obviously had legal input. They may have even coordinated their testimony. All three used the "it depends on the context" excuse.
ReplyDeleteYet, two of the three lost their job, with the third hanging on by a thread. Why didn't they do better? Some theories
1. \the truth itself was damning . Antisemitism on their campuses is more acceptable than racism, gay-bashing, etc.
2. The lawyers gave them bad advice
3. They were in "cocoon" and didn't realilze how their answers would sound to people outside the university
Or, any defense of the Palestinians would have automatically resulted in charges of antisemitism from people like you. She was in a no win situation.
Delete"We don't know why Gay was hired in the first place. We don't know what her academic scholarship has been like."
ReplyDeleteYou don't get hired as university or college president based on your scholarship. Hers was an administrative position and she would have been hired based on her administrative skills.
Unlike Bob, I was happy that Gay lost her job. The more we learned about Gay, the worse she looked. By the time she resigned, a massive number of instances of plagiarism had been discovered. There was evidence that one of her papers had used invalid data which she keeps hidden. Her entire oeuvre was being exposed as mediocre or worse. It was becoming more and more clear that the Harvard Corporation lied when they claimed to have evaluated Gay's work and cleared her. It was also becoming clear that Gay never should have even gotten tenure, let lone the higher positions. The only reason to regret Gay's departure is that Harvard will now cover up these and other potential scandals.
ReplyDeleteThis whole complaint about plagiarism is going to seem very silly once AI becomes widespread, which should be very soon. The kinds of plagiarism she engaged in fall into the category of potentially accidental and not substantive -- she didn't steal anyone's ideas or poetic expression. Her kind of plagiarism is routine in Europe where citing conventions are different, more relaxed. Her work was not mediocre and David is hardly qualified to evaluate it, since he has no academic training whatsoever other than in statistics (assuming he is actually an actuary).
DeleteDavid and Somerby have no idea whether she was a good administrator or not -- which was her job. She was not hired as a scholar or researcher. She will now be returning to teaching, which according to them is not her best niche. Are they happy to have put her back in the classroom after saying she didn't belong there?
Harvard has covered up many previous scandals, some much worse than anything Gay might have done. Marc Hauser outright fabricated data and was turned in by his grad students. They covered that up until they were forced to encourage him to resign four years after his actions were reported to Dept Chair and Dean. How does that stack up against Gay's treatment? But he is a white male and thus entitled to better treatment, eh David and Somerby?
i am accustomed to unfair accusations of bigotry based on something I said here. But, accusing me of racism and sexism based on something imaginary that I didn't say is a step beyond, @7:03.
DeleteWhere did someone accuse you of racism/sexism?
Delete@7:03 implied that I support favorable treatment of white males. He wrote "But he is a white male and thus entitled to better treatment, eh David..."
DeleteWhy was Hauser kept on for four years after his wrongdoing was reported? You tell me.
Delete@8:12 -- Are you implicitly accusing Harvard of sexism and racism? Are you accusing Harvard of a past practice of corruption. Whatever you believe Harvard did wrong has nothing to do with me. I wasn't involved and I know nothing about it.
DeleteTo me the important aspects are professional competence and integrity. In today's world, people have reduced confidence in institutions. Institutional competence and integrity are less and less taken for granted.
DeleteWe lost confidence in corporations a long time ago. When Kellogg's tells us how good Rice Crispies are for our health, we take that with a grain of salt. . But, for Harvard to lose its reputation for integrity is worse. Sadly, it's clear that the Harvard Corporation lied when they "cleared" Gay after an investigation. All the additional charges of plagiarism show that there was no proper investigation. Harvard doesn't help their reputation by not even divulging the names of the people who supposedly did this investigation.
I want to live in a world where I can trust the opinions of academic experts. Harvard can take a step in that direction by replacing Gay with someone of unquestioned integrity and competence. The new President's race, sex, religion, etc. don't matter to me - just competence and integrity..
Yes, I think it is obvious. Hiring Gay was a step in the right direction but the failure to defend her was not. You can see as well as anyone that the firing of Gay is political while the refusal to even investigate Hauser for so long is an example of white male privilege. You are guilty of joining the lynch mob against Gay because she didn’t say what you wanted about antisemitism. Pretending it was because she was a diversity hire is the offensive part.
DeleteEuphemisms are wonderful. "She didn't say what I wanted" is a nice way to put it. A more precise version is that she said calling for genocide of the Jews in Israel might be OK depending on the "context". In response to follow up questions, she didn't explain in what context such a statement would be OK. @8:58 can you explain in what context it would be OK to call for genocide of Jews?
DeleteHaving said this,, for me, what she said is less important than what she did:
-- She permitted and encouraged antisemitic demonstrations on campus after the Oct. 7 attack..
-- Her academic work was filled with stolen words and ideas.
-- Her academic work is mediocre to poor. That sets a bad standard and a bad example.
Oh my fucking god. Ok, everyone, please, as excruciating as it might be, go back and reread the moralizing, platitudinous bullshit Dick in Cali just wasted our time with above, and as you read, keep in the forefront of your minds that this is coming from someone who supports and defends Donald. Fucking. Trump . . . almost certainly the most pathologically dishonest, corrupt, incompetent, integrity-less sociopath to ever disgrace the office of the presidency. Trump University. 91 indictments. Tax cheat. Corrupt, unethical business practices. Credibly accused by more than two dozen women of sexual assault. Stole the most sensitive of top secret documents, and refused to return them when ordered to. Refused to properly divest from his business interests while serving as president. Obstructed justice. The only president to be impeached twice. His lies about covid (Woodward's tapes showed they were bald faced lies) which caused people to take it less seriously and put them at risk. The incompetence of his administration's response to covid, which led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Attempted to overturn a free and fair U.S. presidential election, including by inciting a mob who violently attacked our government, while Trump sat and watched for over three hours, and only when he saw the attack wasn't going to succeed did he finally call the mob off, telling them they were very special and he loved them. His race-baiting rhetoric which almost certainly led to an uptick in race-related violence and vitriol. This is just stuff off the top of my head. If I went back and looked at the headlines from when he was in office, I could literally make this list ten times longer. I mean seriously, Trump supporters' unbelievable hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is simply jaw dropping. This is why you can't persuade these people. They are beyond reason.
DeleteDick is fine with all of that, but if a college president in years past didn't properly cite her sources in some academic writing that no one outside of the ivory tower gives two shits about, or gives mealy-mouthed answers because she's forced to participate in an obvious bit of political theatre, in an attempt to just weather the storm, well then OFF WITH HER FUCKING HEAD!! You make me sick, dude.
DeleteMike I.,
DeleteIt's good to see you posting again. You said what I was thinking. DiC's phony sanctimonious pious bilge makes me sick to read also. The fucking balls he has to deign to lecture us is too much to take.
DiC's life won't be complete unless he knows the President of Harvard has "unquestioned integrity and competence". LOL, sure David. I am sure you lose sleep over this problem.
What kind of cretin can write the following?: I was happy that Gay lost her job
as though this just was a natural course of events instead of a coordinated right wing relentless attack on this black woman.
***************
In another post, [Christopher] Rufo cheered the decision, writing, "This is the beginning of the end for DEI in America's institutions. We will expose you. We will outmaneuver you. And we will not stop fighting until we have restored colorblind equality in our great nation."
"Today, we celebrate victory. Tomorrow, we get back to the fight. We must not stop until we have abolished DEI ideology from every institution in America," another post read.
DiC wrote, "Her academic work is mediocre to poor."
DeleteWhat are your qualifications to make that kind of judgement, David? How many of her papers have you read?
Without a doubt, the best thing about Trump is his outright contempt for Republican voters.
DeleteThat's one area where every American should aspire to be like Trump.
Republican voters are deplorable.
Delete"she repeatedly offered non-answer answers—scripted replies which weren't responsive to the questions she'd been asked. "
ReplyDeleteRecall that Somerby rarely thinks that anyone being interviewed has been responsive to the questions asked. His biggest beef about journalists has been that they failed to pin down and get a straight answer from whoever they were interviewing. He calls for follow-up questions because the interviewee has not been responsive. He hasn't like any questioning at presidential press conferences. He doesn't like how folks are interviewed on cable news shows.
So why would he feel any differently about Gay's supposedly non-responsive answers?
I have no doubt that all the presidents offered accurate answers that were within the legal bounds of what their attorneys advised them to say. This is congressional testimony and none of them would be giving spontaneous answers. Stefanik, meanwhile, had her own idea of what she wanted to hear from the presidents, to embarrass them or make them scapegoats or otherwise blame them for her imagined crimes and misdemeanors. Unfortunately for the presidents, the press decided to pillory them anyway.
The so-called blue elites have not done a good job of defending these college presidents because they have their own conflicts over Palestine/Israel and they have allowed their feelings about those politics to let the right wing drive a black president who did nothing whatsoever wrong out of her job.
Now Somerby is hinting that she was incompetent and deserved to go. He doesn't know about her scholarship he says (hinting that it may have been inadequate). He doesn't like the way she answered the questions. How did she get there in the first place (implying she was underqualified due to her race)? And of course, the whole situation is the fault of the blue tribe, not the right wing yahoos who targeted these university administrators.
It was all the media’s fault that Gore lost. On the other hand, it was a blue tribe failure when the president of Harvard lost her job, because all liberals care deeply about Harvard and its administration and are wounded when something like this happens. I am not a crank.
ReplyDeleteSuppose students made the following statements:
ReplyDelete1. The State of Israel is illegitimate.
2. Jews should emigrate from the Middle East.
3. A Palestinian state would be illegitimate.
4. Palestinians should emigrate from Gaza and the West Bank.
Would any of these statements be reasons for students to be disciplined ? Are any of these statements acceptable?
Why should any of them result in discipline? Isn’t there freedom of speech?
DeleteYes, that is one of the point Gay made. The code of conduct is about behavior not speech because there is freedom of speech.
DeleteYes, @8:10 that's what Gay said. I only wish it were true. Harvard has terrible freedom of speech, the worst of school in an analysis by a free speech organization.
DeleteHopefully this incident will lead Harvard to institute true broad freedom of speech.
this year, Harvard completed its downward spiral in dramatic fashion, coming in dead last with the worst score ever: 0.00 out of a possible 100.00. This earns it the notorious distinction of being the only school ranked this year with an “Abysmal” speech climate.
DeleteWhat’s more, granting Harvard a score of 0.00 is generous. Its actual score is -10.69
https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-fires-college-free-speech-rankings
Are you trying to earn your hall monitor scout badge or something?
DeleteI'm certain that Harvard will do all that it can to ascend to the rarefied pinnacle occupied by Michigan Technological University, an institution with an admissions rate of 86%. Which, I suspect, means that 14% could not successfully complete the application. No letters of recommendation and no test scores required for acceptance. If there were such a thing as an academic transfer portal, Harvard undergrads would be lining up to pack their bags for Houghton, Michigan at this moment. Or maybe to sign up for Liberty University, a bastion of academic freedom and enlightened thought that scored higher than Harvard (score of 36 vs 0), with the added plus that learning the history of the Earth requires only a knowledge of the 6,000 years of its existence. (To be fair, although the Liberty students ranked their school higher than the Harvard students did theirs- this was a poll of student opinions- Liberty was excluded from the Fire competition because of troublesome issues related to their administration's views of academic freedom). The ratings game played here straddles the gamut from funny haha to funny strange with the naive conviction that something meaningful is being measured.
DeleteThe media focuses way too much on elite institutions. — Bob Somerby, at some point in the past
ReplyDeleteSuppose students made the following statements:
ReplyDelete1. Jews are evil.
2. Christians are evil.
3. Muslims are evil.
Should students making any of these statements be disciplined? Are any of these statements acceptable?
Free speech.
DeleteEvil? Kind of harsh. Pathologically gullible to the point of murdering innocents in the name of their respective cults? Unequivocally.
DeleteThere are two strains of Zionism:
DeleteCultural zionism, non-state. Jerusalem the city of gold is found within.
Political zionism, state ideology. Jerusalem is created through colonial aggression.
The same is true of mystical versus political schools of every religion. But not everyone is as gullible as the others.
Don't confuse the state buying off religious leadership with religion itself.
DeleteThe sine qua non for tragedies, the likes of which are ongoing in Gaza currently, is the precious belief that a god exists that would be such a bad parent as to choose some of his children over others, thus inviting millennia of bloodshed. Protective Services would have a field day with this clown.
DeleteNonsense; it has nothing to do with any gods. It's a garden variety of Western colonialism and imperialism.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:18pm, it truly does depend on the context and upon the nature of the discipline.
DeleteCecelia, what do context and the discipline have to do with it? Are these statements allowed or forbidden?
DeleteAnonymouse 8:49am, I didn’t notice that the context of the anonymouse’s question was students.
DeleteI took as anyone in general saying such things.
Still context would apply to students as well. One consideration would be if one of these statements was coming from a student who has some sort of responsibility towards other students, which would include people of faith?
For example is she a student dorm captain, a designated tutor, etc.
So students who haven’t been given authority over others would be allowed to say such things and should not be disciplined. Is that right, Cecelia?
DeleteAnonymouse 11:17am, the discipline would not be to kick them out of school, but to not allow these students to hold positions in which they make decisions for people they despise. It wouldn't be a decision that was lightly made.
Delete3:27 I say that religion here is genuine and misguided; you say it is pretext for land grabbing. So be it. The sense of entitlement in either case is a guiding principle.There is no prize for cynicism on this thread, in case you are looking to collect one.
ReplyDeleteReligious/ethnic struggle is not a pretext, but rather a mechanism to motivate the rubes.
DeleteAnd there's no cynicism in what I said; it's a normal materialistic view.
DiC - December employment report: 216K new jobs!
ReplyDelete