Tag Archives: Harvard

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

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On Tuesday, The Daily Caller noted that Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain at her job after accusations of plagiarism. This action does not seem to be consistent with the University’s Code of Honor.

The article reports:

The Harvard Corporation, which is one of Harvard’s governing bodies, announced Tuesday that they would remain supportive of Gay after a contentious Congressional hearing and accusations  of plagiarism, although the Corporation admitted that a review of her work found “a few instances of inadequate citation.” Harvard University has disciplined students for similar violations of its honor code, which prohibits turning in work that is “not their own,” The Harvard Crimson reported. 

I like the term “inadequate citation.” That term is further proof that he who controls the vocabulary controls the issue.

The article notes:

The Honor Council heard 138 cases of “academic integrity cases” during the 2020-2021 school year and 99 of those resulted in an “academic dishonesty violation,” in which 27 students were forced to withdraw from the school, according to the Crimson. There were 47 reported violations regarding plagiarism during the academic year.

“Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College,” Harvard’s plagiarism policy reads.

An approximate average of 18 students per year were forced to withdraw from Harvard between the 2015-2016 academic year and the 2020-21 academic year, according to the Crimson.

The article concludes:

Along with Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth faced calls for removal after refusing to say whether calls for genocide against Jews violated the schools’ codes of conduct. Gay and Magill both backtracked their comments, and the latter resigned on Dec. 9.

Harvard and Gay did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

An Interesting Fact About College Protests

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about the pro-Palestine protests that are happening at some of our elite colleges.

The article notes:

TV host Mike Rowe said that eight years ago, he was switching the news channels on his television and saw several college students setting fire to the American flag and dancing around a pile of burning flags. They were telling reporters in interviews they were disgusted with Old Glory and “fearful” of the flag.

“It wasn’t lost on me in the moment that all of these events were happening at what is considered the best of the best elite universities across the country,” Rowe told me. Among supposedly non-elite students, though, the situation wasn’t and isn’t as bad.

Rowe said it didn’t take long for him to figure out why those “elite” students drew those conclusions about Old Glory: The idea of associating fear with the flag came from the very people who were supposed to be instructing these privileged students.

Rowe said the evidence was crystal clear when Jonathan Lash, then the president of Hampshire College, chose not to assure the students that no country offers more liberties to their people and therefore there was nothing to “fear” from the flag. Instead, he spoke up in ways they understood to validate their fears.

“Lash actually removed any traces of the American flag from the campus and said in a statement that removing the flag from the campus ‘will better enable us to focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors,’” Rowe explained.

Lash, a former Peace Corps volunteer, federal prosecutor, Harvard graduate, and president of a Washington-based environmental think tank, left the college in 2018. Hampshire College, under Lash in 2015, was one of the first elite schools in the United States not to accept SAT scores from applicants, in part because Lash said SATs were strongly biased against students of color.

The article notes that Mike Rowe has observed that these protests are not happening in community colleges and trade schools. Generally speaking, students at those schools are concerned with graduating and making a living–they are not from homes that guarantee their future.

The article concludes:

The Department of Education tallies show there are nearly 4,000 colleges and universities across this country with 40% of their students holding some type of job while attending school.

In contrast, there are just a little over 1,000 community colleges and 7,407 trade and technical schools as of 2022 with 80% of those students employed while attending school in the former.

Rowe said that when the protests at the elite universities started to unfold after the Oct. 7 massacre, he wondered what seemed so familiar. “And the answer isn’t because it’s familiar in terms of bad behavior. It was familiar because it’s another thing that never happens at schools where people go to learn a skill.”

Unfortunately, the students at the elite colleges often go into politics and attempt to shape national policy.

Challenging Admission Policies

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

  • University of Michigan professor Mark Perry told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he filed a Title VI complaint over a program application at the University of South Carolina that was restricted to students of certain race and ethnicities. 
  • Following his complaint, the application was updated stating the program is  “Open to all Rising High School Juniors and Seniors in South Carolina,” but highlighted students “who are in support of the advancement of business students from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply,” Perry told TheDCNF. 
  • “They’re so corrupt and they’re so unprincipled, that they do this all the time,” Perry said. “They might not even realize they’re violating federal civil rights laws or they know that it’s illegal, but they do it anyway because they’ve done it in the past (and) they’ve always gotten away with it because no one has ever challenged them.”

On Monday, The Carolina Journal reported:

The N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Virginia Lt. Gov Winsome Sears, each the first black lieutenant governor of their respective state, have joined forces to pen a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Asian-American students suing Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill. Carolina Journal was present at the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion on May 19 at a press conference where the North Carolina Asian American Coalition (NCAAC) thanked Robinson for his support.

The students in the lawsuit accuse the institutions of discriminatory admissions practices, where they are held to a higher standard during consideration because of their race. The Robinson/Sears Amicus brief was filed May 9th.  

“While it can be argued that these policies had a role in helping many Americans overcome the persistent effects of historical and past discriminations in higher education, those effects are becoming less impactful the further we travel from the dark days of state-sanctioned discrimination,” said Robinson at the event. “Instead, they now function to unfairly discriminate against and deny opportunity to other ethnic and racial groups. Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity is immoral in all of its forms, and we can do better. We must do better.”

The nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions filed the original suit in 2014, but when it was ruled in November 2021 that Chapel Hill could continue to use affirmative action in their admissions, the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

College admissions should be based on merit. If a student is admitted because of race or ethnicity and does not have the ability to do college work, the student is being set up to fail. No one gains by doing that. I hope the lawsuit is successful and we go back to rewarding people who work hard and stop rewarding people or punishing people for something they have no control over.

Ending Racial Discrimination In College Admissions

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On Wednesday, The New York Sun posted an article about a case the Supreme Court has recently decided to hear. The case involves Harvard University and its discrimination against Asian students based on their race.

The article reports:

The future of how America’s oldest university chooses its students will be decided not in faculty lounges in Cambridge, but in judicial chambers in Washington, D.C. As the Sun has reported, the high court looks set to decide the future of college and university admissions after elevating cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

Mr. Bacow (Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University) struck a defiant note in response to the dramatic legal development, maintaining: “Our admissions process, in which race is considered as one factor among many, makes us stronger.” He promised to “defend with vigor” that approach against “narrowly drawn measures of academic distinction.”

Harvard’s admissions process is one of the nation’s most selective. Last spring, it extended offers to just more than 3 percent of applicants, making it a bellwether for how thick and thin envelopes (or their email equivalents) are sent out nationwide.

Mr. Bacow wrote that Harvard is “more than our numbers, more than our grades, more than our rankings or scores.” The question is whether just such a “holistic” approach runs afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws and the promises of the Constitution.

The article concludes:

To argue this, Students for Fair Admissions, the group mounting the legal challenges, points to Harvard admissions practices that penalized Asian-American students by giving them low marks on such metrics as “likability,” “courage,” and “self-confidence.”

While Mr. Bacow argues that Harvard’s admissions process reflects the reality that “race matters in the United States,” Students for Fair Admissions maintains: “The cornerstone of our nation’s civil rights laws is the principle that an individual’s race should not be used to help or harm them in their life’s endeavors.”

The University of North Carolina, which shares a Supreme Court docket with Harvard, fired back that the “true agenda” for Students for Fair Admissions is to “deny opportunity to qualified students.”

While both North Carolina and Harvard are undaunted, all eyes will now be on affirmative action’s suddenly very uncertain future.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., once stated, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” If you truly want the students you admit to your college to graduate, you should admit them according to their academic record and their achievements–not on the basis of their race. Diversity is a nice idea, but how many of the students that colleges accept in the name of diversity have the academic skills to graduate in four years?

An Interesting Relationship With The Truth

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In 1996, Fordham’s Law Review celebrated Elizabeth Warren as Harvard Law School’s “first woman of color.” That was because Ms. Warren had listed her heritage as Native American. Later DNA tests proved that this was not true. The latest tale told by Ms. Warren involves why she left teaching.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today that includes public records that indicate that Ms. Warren was not fired from teaching because she was visibly pregnant, but rather that the Riverdale Board of Education offered her a contract to continue what she had been doing. The minutes of the meeting are included in the article.

The article reports:

Toward the end of Warren’s first year on the job, in April 1971, the board approved her contract for the following school year, the meeting minutes show. Two months later, the meeting minutes indicate that Warren had tendered her resignation.

“The resignation of Mrs. Elizabeth Warren, speech correctionist effective June 30, 1971 was accepted with regret,” the June 16, 1971, minutes say.

There are no further mentions of Warren in Riverdale Board of Education meeting minutes, according to a spokesman for the board.

Scrutiny of Warren’s explanation for her jump from teaching to law comes months after the Massachusetts senator steadied her campaign after a rocky start.

In October, two months before her campaign launch, Warren executed a botched attempt to put questions about her claims to Native American heritage behind her by releasing the results of a DNA test. The results, which showed she has minimal Cherokee ancestry, did little to quell the controversy.

She went on to issue a public apology for taking the test in the first place.

“I have listened, and I have learned a lot. And I’m grateful for the many conversations we’ve had together,” Warren told a Native American audience in Iowa in mid-August.

Though many on both sides of the aisle counted her out due to her handling of the issue, Warren has managed not only to bounce back but to climb to the top of the field. Even President Donald Trump, who savaged Warren for her attempt to claim Native American ancestry, has said publicly he regrets drawing attention to her early on given that she has managed prevail—at least thus far.

“I did the Pocahontas thing,” Trump said to supporters at an August rally. “I hit her really hard and it looked like she was down and out but that was too long ago, I should’ve waited.”

If white privilege exists, why did Elizabeth Warren claim to be a Native American to advance her career?

Now They’re Coming After Bacon

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On Sunday, PJMedia posted an article with the following headline, “Harvard Climate Loon: Keto Dieters Are Killing the Planet Because Bacon and Butter or Something.”

The interesting thing about the article is that it contains two contradicting tweets:

What’s a person to do? Note the comment by Dr. Wrigley, “…puts power with those who own the food.” It makes me wonder if all the emphasis on eating plants and not meat might have something to do with power and control.

The Case For Voter ID

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article yesterday with the following headline, “Study: Voter ID Laws Don’t Stop People Voting.”

The article reports:

Strict voter ID laws do not suppress turnout, a new paper finds, regardless of sex, race, Hispanic identity, or party affiliation.

Requiring photo ID to vote is a hotly contested subject in American political discourse. Proponents argue that it is necessary to insure against fraud and preserve the integrity of the American electoral system. Opponents argue that it will disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters—many of whom would be poor and of color—who are unable to easily obtain ID.

In total, 10 states, ranging from Georgia to Wisconsin, require voters to show ID in order to vote. Seven of those states require a photo ID, and three do not. An additional 25 states “request” that voters display ID, but may still permit them to vote on a provision ballot if they cannot. The remaining states “use other methods to verify the identity of voters,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The new research, from an economics professor at the University of Bologna and another at Harvard Business School, indicates that “strict” voting laws of the type implemented in those ten states do not have a statistically significant effect on voter turnout.

A few years ago, North Carolina tested a voter ID system during a primary election. Turnout was higher than in previous primary elections. The voter ID requirement did not suppress the vote. The system allowed the poll workers to scan the voter’s driver’s license in order to print the correct ballot. Implementing that system allowed the lines to move quickly and resulted in more efficient voting for everyone. The idea that voter ID limits voters is a myth. You need an ID to do a lot of everyday things, so most people have an acceptable form of ID.

The article concludes:

At the same time, the study’s authors use the same data to examine the actual effect of strict voter ID laws on voter fraud itself, and similarly find no statistically significant effect. Using two datasets of voter fraud cases (which represent a cumulative 2,000 proven or hypothesized events over eight years), the study examines the relationship between laws and frequency of measured voter fraud, finding no evidence of a change after implementation.

This finding is naturally limited by the extremely small number of voter fraud cases actually identified: fewer than one per million people per year. It is possible that voter ID laws would be more effective suppressing fraud in a context where it was more evidently prevalent; as is, the authors estimate that the laws themselves only cover about 0.3 to 0.1 offenses per million people per year.

In total, then, the paper suggests that voter ID laws are not suppressive, but also that they do not have much of an impact on elections overall.

“Our results suggest that efforts both to safeguard electoral integrity and enfranchise more voters may be better served through other reforms,” it concludes.

Voter ID will not end voter fraud. It will, however, make it more difficult.

Some Rational Thought On Global Warming

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John Horgan, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, has written an essay for the Scientific American about global warming. Breitbart posted some of his comments today.

The article reports:

The essay, penned by John Horgan, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, analyzes two recent reports by “ecomodernists” who reject climate panic and frame the question of climate change and humanity’s ability to cope with it in radically new terms.

One of the reports, a work called “Enlightened Environmentalism” by Harvard iconoclast Steven Pinker, urges people to regain some much-needed perspective on climate, especially in the context of the overwhelming material benefits of industrialization.

Pooh-poohing “the mainstream environmental movement, and the radicalism and fatalism it encourages,” Pinker argues that humanity can solve problems related to climate change the same way it has solved myriad other problems, by harnessing “the benevolent forces of modernity.”

Separating himself from environmentalists who seem to detest modernity, Pinker asserts that industrialization “has been good for humanity.”

…The second report put forward by Horgan is a recent article by Will Boisvert titled “The Conquest of Climate,” which contends that the “consequences for human well-being will be small” even if human greenhouse emissions significantly warm the planet.

Boisvert, who has been described as a “left-wing environmental expert, is no “climate denier,” yet he calls for climate alarmists to take a deep breath and step back from doomsday forecasts that likely have little to do with what will actually take place in the future.

As an example, the author pokes fun at a 2016 Newsweek article announcing that “Climate change could cause half a million deaths in 2050 due to reduced food availability.”

The story, based on a Lancet study, made dire forecasts regarding the effects of climate change on agriculture, while failing to note that the study actually predicts much more abundant food availability in 2050 thanks to advances in agricultural productivity. These advances will “dwarf the effects of climate change,” he contends, and the “poorest countries will benefit most.”

Like Pinkers, Boisvert tries to factor in what climate alarmists ignore: the capability of human beings to react to changing scenarios in remarkably ingenious ways.

The activities of civilized human beings may have some small impact on the environment, but we are not significant enough to control climate. We have a responsibility to keep the air and water as clean as possible, and sometimes we do not live up to that responsibility. As human beings, we need to be good stewards of our planet, but we do not need to cripple the economies of prosperous nations to do it.

The article concludes with what is actually a concise summation of what is driving much of the climate change hysteria:

While climate skeptics will welcome this gust of common sense wafting in from the Scientific American, establishment climate alarmists will undoubtedly seek to quash the news, knowing it could affect not only the funding they depend on, but the ideologically driven political programs they seek to impose on the world.

After all, if the world is not under imminent peril from climate change, who will listen to—and fund—the prophets of doom?

It really is all about the money!

If You Ever Wondered What The Problem Was With Higher Education, This Might Be Your Answer

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On Thursday, The Hill reported that on May 25th the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University was going to present Hillary Clinton an award that recognizes individuals who have had a “transformative impact” on society. I assume the award may be conditional based on whether or not she is in jail by then.

The article reports:

“Hillary Clinton’s life and career are an inspiration to people around the world,” Radcliffe Institute Dean Lizabeth Cohen, who teaches American studies at Harvard, said in the press release.

“Whether in Arkansas, Washington, D.C., New York state or traveling around the globe as secretary of State,” Cohen said in the statement. “Secretary Clinton has provided a model of what it takes to transform society, often under scrutiny — tireless effort, toughness amid the political fray, and an enduring capacity to envision a better future.”

The event in May will feature a tribute to Clinton delivered by friend, former secretary of State and fellow Radcliffe medalist Madeleine Albright, according to the release, as well as a conversation between Clinton and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D).

Clinton, who ran unsuccessfully against President Trump in 2016, was the first woman to secure a nomination for president from a major political party in the United States.

In the statement, Radcliffe added that Clinton was a “skilled legislator,” and “an advocate of American leadership to create a world in which states live up to their responsibilities.”

“We commend Secretary Clinton for her accomplishments in the public sphere as a champion for human rights and the welfare of all,” Cohen said.

Yes, Mrs. Clinton was the first woman to run for President. Based on what? She was elected a Senator from New York on the basis of her husband’s popularity. She rigged the Democratic primary election to become the candidate. The jury is still out on the corruption in the Clinton Foundation (although that may come to a head very soon). She obviously mishandled classified information in a way that would have put other people in prison. The list of scandals that has followed the Clintons since the 1990’s is almost endless. And this is the woman Harvard is choosing to honor.

I will admit that Hillary Clinton has been transformative in that she has transformed the meaning of the word ethical.

The Real Threat To The Integrity Of Our Elections

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On Monday, The Washington Times posted an article about research into the number of ineligible voters who are voting in our elections.

The article reports:

Just Facts’ conclusions confront both sides in the illegal voting debate: those who say it happens a lot and those who say the problem nonexistent.

In one camp, there are groundbreaking studies by professors at Old Dominion University in Virginia who attempted to compile scientifically derived illegal voting numbers using the Harvard data, called the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.

…On the other side are the professors who conducted the study and contended that “zero” noncitizens of about 18 million adults in the U.S. voted. The liberal mainstream media adopted this position and proclaimed the Old Dominion work was “debunked.”

The ODU professors, who stand by their work in the face of attacks from the left, concluded that in 2008 as few as 38,000 and as many as 2.8 million noncitizens voted.

Mr. Agresti’s analysis of the same polling data settled on much higher numbers. He estimated that as many as 7.9 million noncitizens were illegally registered that year and 594,000 to 5.7 million voted.

These numbers are more in line with the unverified estimates given by President Trump, who said the number of ballots cast by noncitizens was the reason he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

Last month, the president signed an executive order setting up a commission to try to find on-the-ground truth in illegal voting. Headed by Vice President Mike Pence, the panel also will look at outdated voter lists across the nation with names of dead people and multiple registrants.

For 2012, Just Facts said, 3.2 million to 5.6 million noncitizens were registered to vote and 1.2 million to 3.6 million of them voted.

There is real evidence that this is a problem:

There is hard evidence outside of polling that noncitizens do vote. Conservative activists have conducted limited investigations in Maryland and Virginia that found thousands of aliens were registered.

These inquiries, such as comparing noncitizen jury pool rejections to voter rolls, captured just a snapshot. But conservatives say they show there is a much broader problem that a comprehensive probe by the Pence commission could uncover.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which fights voter fraud, released one of its most comprehensive reports last month.

Its investigation found that Virginia removed more than 5,500 noncitizens from voter lists, including 1,852 people who had cast more than 7,000 ballots. The people volunteered their status, most likely when acquiring driver’s licenses. The Public Interest Legal Foundation said there are likely many more illegal voters on Virginia’s rolls who have never admitted to being noncitizens.

Every vote cast by a noncitizen cancels out the vote of a citizen. It is time for voter identification and proof of citizenship before people can register to vote.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There are problems with our voter integrity, and those problems have nothing to do with Russia.