Category: academics behaving badly

The AAUP abandons its mission to defend academic freedom

February 19, 2025 • 9:30 am

In less than a year, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has completely abandoned its mission, originally conceived

. . . to advance academic freedom and shared governance, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good.

Academic freedom is generally understood as the freedom of faculty to research and teach what they want, subject to the requirement that they have to teach their subject and not something else (e.g., no creationism in evolution class), nor engage in irrelevant proselytizing.  “Shared governance” is the making of university rules by groups (usually faculty) rather than constituting rules handed down from on high.  At the University of Chicago, both academic freedom and free speech are connected as two of our several “fundamental principles” installed to ensure an atmosphere of free inquiry without intimidation.

As U. Chicago law professor Tom Ginsburg points out in a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, however, the  AAUP, however, has taken several positions within the last year that are either inimical or orthogonal to academic freedom. To put it frankly, the AAUP has become authoritarian, adhering to “progressive” politics and abandoning those precepts that it once adopted to further academic freedom. The three changes the AAUP has made to this end include these (there are a few other and more minor ones included in the piece):

a.) Abandoned its opposition to academic boycotts

b.) Approved of the use of diversity statements, finding them “compatible with academic freedom”

c.) Averring that institutional neutrality, as embodied in Chicago’s Kalven Report, need not impact academic freedom one way or the other, so one need not adhere to the Kalven principle that the university or parts of it cannot issue ideological, political, or moral statements unless those statements bear directly on the mission of the University.

This is basically abandoning much of what the AAUP was set up to support: academic freedom. These changes are shameful and reprehensible, and all I can guess is that the AAUP, like much of the academic “progressive left,” has gone woke, which means clamping down on freedom of speech and putting in place more authoritarian policies.

You can read the article by clicking on the headline below or find the piece archived here.)

I have written on two of the AAUP’s backsliding before (on boycotts here and on DEI statements here and here), but Ginsburg provides a handy summary of why the AAUP’s actions contradict its mission. In effect, he takes the organization to the woodshed.  I’ll quote him briefly on the three issues discussed above, with Ginsburg’s words indented:

Approving boycotts. (Everyone but the AAUP admits that its tacit approval of boycotts was intended to rubber-stamp the BDS policy of boycotting Israel, including its academics).

The first salvo came last summer, when the committee issued a statement legitimating academic boycotts, reversing a prior position from 2006 that had declared systemic boycotts to be incompatible with academic freedom because they limit the capacity of scholars to collaborate with whomever they choose. That had been a sensible position. But the new iteration of Committee A suggested that academic boycotts were a “legitimate tactic” and were acceptable against colleges that had themselves violated academic freedom. A bitter debate about Israel is the barely veiled subtext. Whatever the proponents of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement say about it being limited to institutions and not individuals, it has led to hundreds of cancellations of collaborations with and invitations to individual Israeli scholars, both Arab and Jewish, at a time when that country’s democracy is in deep trouble. In other words, the AAUP has endorsed a practice that interferes on the ground with the academic freedom of individual scholars — precisely the outcome the prior committee had foreseen — while claiming to be neutral on the specific issue of Israel.

Okaying diversity statements.

Next, in October, the AAUP blessed diversity statements as compatible with academic freedom. Mandatory diversity statements are in fact orthogonal to academic freedom, as they do not concern research or teaching. Faculty are divided on their use: Some view them as providing mechanisms to enhance racial diversity among the faculty without running afoul of the law, while others see them as devices to ensure ideological homogeneity. There is significant concern about their legality. The AAUP affirmatively defends them: “Meaningful DEI faculty work,” the organization says, “should be evaluated as part of the core faculty duties of teaching, research, and professional service.” It is hard to imagine that any college receiving federal funds will be able to sustain this posture over the next month, much less the next four years. No leader should have to fight for an already controversial enterprise, one essentially unrelated to academic freedom, when the academic enterprise is under existential threat.

I am one of those opposed to diversity statements, as I see them as both compelled speech (a violation of the First Amendment) and as forced adherence to a particular ideology, since DEI has various interpretations that people disagree with.  Mandating their use thus violates both institutional neutrality and free speech, as well as Chicago’s 1972 “Shils Report“, which says that hiring and promotion must be based on criteria of merit: merit in research, merit in teaching, merit in contributing to the intellectual climate of the university, and meritorious service on committees that further the university’s mission or public service that has an intellectual or research component.  At the very least, the AAUP should not have said anything about diversity statements save the second sentence in the paragraph above.  DEI statements should not have been defended as compatible with academic freedom, as that’s a debatable proposition. (See Brian Leiter’s post highlighted at the bottom.)

Allowing violations of institutional neutrality.

Now comes a third statement, this one adopted in January: “On Institutional Neutrality.” Committee A unhelpfully declares that institutional neutrality is “neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it.” The main feature of its analysis is a rejection of the policies of the University of Chicago. But the statement contains several mischaracterizations, including a grave misunderstanding of academic freedom itself.

As I’ve written manyt times, institutional neutrality as embodied in Chicago’s Kalven report is essential in buttressing free speech, for “official” statements of the university or its parts that aren’t connected with the university’s mission will have the effect of chilling speech. What student, newly hired faculty, or professor up for tenure would take issue with a political or moral view made “official” because it came from the University or one’s department?  As Ginsburg notes:

The university’s 1970 Shils Report defines academic freedom, which is a function of disciplinary expertise, as “the freedom of the individual to investigate, publish, and teach in accordance with his intellectual convictions.” The AAUP, conversely, conceives of academic freedom as allowing collective units within the university to adopt, by majoritarian vote, policies and statements on external issues, so long as those statements are arrived at in the name of “properly shared governance.” As even Committee A [of the AAUP] acknowledges, this practice has the obvious ability to intimidate junior members of the department. It certainly disincentivizes inquiry on the issues in question. It also invites capacious claims of expertise. Nothing, of course, prevents groups of scholars from signing collective statements on anything. But departments are not bearers of academic-freedom rights. When departmental power is deployed to establish orthodoxies, it inevitably disincentivizes dissent and undermines individual inquiry.

There’s more, but you can read the article at the link above.  The upshot is that the AAUP has been ideologically captured and can no longer be counted on to buttress academic freedom. As Ginsburg concludes (bolding is mine):

The Kalven Report warns us that higher education should not become a “second-rate political force.” But the AAUP itself has become a third-rate defender of academic freedom against a powerful enemy. Rather than focusing on the academic freedom of the individual scholar, Committee A emphasizes collective academic freedom, which it conflates with “shared governance.” It offers us a vision of higher education in which departments promiscuously opine on politics, diversity screening is imposed in hiring and promotion, and unlimited encampments have the warrant of academic freedom. Let’s see how that works out. In our moment of crisis, we need principled leaders able to navigate the storm — and to defend real academic freedom.

Greg Mayer just pointed out to me that over at his website Leiter Reports, U of C law professor Brian Leiter agrees completely with Ginsburg. Two short excerpts from his post of October 10, 2024:

Oh how the mighty have fallen; Committee A of the AAUP used to be a reliable defender of academic freedom, but since its capture by the enemies of academic freedom, it has been going downhill fast.   The latest absurd statement in defense of “diversity statements” reflects pretty clearly the influence of UC Davis law professor Brian Soucek (a member of Committee A), whose mistaken views we have discussed many times before (see especially).   Let me quote the appropriately scathing comments of Professor Tyler Harper (Bates College) from Twitter:

The AAUP statement insisting that mandatory DEI statements are compatible with academic freedom—and not political litmus tests—is ridiculous. DEI is not a neutral framework dropped from the sky, it’s an ideology about which reasonable people—including people of color—disagree.  I have benefited from and support affirmative action, and there are some things that fall under the rubric of DEI that I agree with. But pretending that DEI is not a political perspective or framework—when only people of one political persuasion support DEI—is a flagrant lie.  Evaluating a professor’s teaching with respect to their adherence to a DEI framework is a clear violation of academic freedom. DEI is not some bland affirmation that diversity is important and all people deserve accessible education. It’s a specific set of ideas.

Professor Harper adds:  “Recent events should have made clear that professors, particularly those of us on the left, must defend academic freedom without compromise, even when we disagree with how others use that freedom. When academic freedom is softened, we are always the ones who end up losing.”

. . . DEI is an extramural social goal, just as much as being pro-America in MAGA-land is.  Committee A is dead.  We are fortunate that both FIRE and the Academic Freedom Alliance are actually still defending academic freedom.   I would encourage all readers to resign their membership in the AAUP.  It’s a disgrace.

I hasten to add that I am NOT a member! And had I been, I would have resigned the second the AAUP issued the it’s-okay-to-boycott-Israel statement.

The AAUP goes all in for DEI

October 9, 2024 • 12:00 pm

You know what DEI is, and in case you don’t know AAUP, it’s the American Association of University Professors, the most powerful association of faculty in the country. After dropping their longstanding opposition to academic boycotts, presumably so schools and people could boycott Israel at will, they’ve now pulled another woke-ish and academically harmful move: they’ve issued a statement called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Criteria for Faculty Evaluation” (pdf here).  It’s more or less what you think: a statement that diversity, equity, and inclusion should be an important basis for hiring and promoting faculty. Some excerpts:

The Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure views the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) criteria in faculty recruitment, promotion, and retention within this broader vision of higher education for the public good. Since the 1990s, many universities and colleges have instituted policies that use DEI criteria in faculty evaluation for appointment, reappointment, tenure, and promotion, including the use of statements that invite or require faculty members to address their skills, competencies, and achievements regarding DEI in teaching, research, and service. Such criteria are one instrument among many that may contribute to evaluating the full range of faculty skills and achievements within a diverse community of students and scholars.

Some critics contend that such policies run afoul of the principles of academic freedom. Specifically, they have characterized DEI statements as “ideological screening tools” and “political litmus tests.” From this perspective, DEI statements are sometimes thought to constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and a threat to faculty members’ academic freedom because they allegedly require candidates to adopt or act upon a set of moral and political views. This committee rejects the notion that the use of DEI criteria for faculty evaluation is categorically incompatible with academic freedom. To the contrary, when implemented appropriately in accordance with sound standards of faculty governance, DEI criteria—including DEI statements—can be a valuable component in the efforts to recruit, hire, and retain a diverse faculty with a breadth of skills needed for excellence in teaching, research, and service.

But objections to DEI by myself and others aren’t based on whether it impinges on “academic freedom”—the freedom of faculty already hired to work on or teach pretty much what they want without interference. Or, as Wikipedia puts it:

Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism.

DEI, in contrast, at least as the AAUP construes it, is a program to hire people with the aim of achieving equity (equal representation of all groups).  DEI programs in place aren’t much concerned with viewpoint equity, despite what the statement says, but rather with the AAUP’s undescribed elephant in the room: ethnicity (race) and sex.  When they speak of a “diverse faculty,” they mean racially diverse, not diverse in viewpoint. (One could argue that viewpoint diversity is the most important thing to emphasize, but I’ll leave that aside.) And DEI is certainly an “ideological litmus test”. What else do you think required or invited DEI statements are when used for hiring or promotion? If you don’t write something in line with the progressive view of DEI, you will sleep with the academic fishes.  We know this from seeing how those statements are actually used in academia.

Ergo, DEI initiatives are indeed a political litmus test, requiring fealty to the view that characteristics like ethnic background or sex can outweigh merit in hiring, promotion, or tenure.  Of course nobody wants bigotry in these processes, but it’s strongly disputed about whether one should preferentially hire people to increase the diversity of race or sex. Indeed, the Supreme Court has just outlawed race-based admissions to college, and if that is illegal, so will be race- (or sex-) based and promotion.

If DEI programs were just there to ensure that there was no bigotry that held people back in universities, that would be fine. But it’s not: it’s a program that puts background above merit, is based on dubious premises like “implicit bias,” and is divisive, setting up a hierarchy of people based on their immutable characteristics. And, by placing merit lower than background, it leads to the decline of academic standards (see here for more arguments). In general, DEI programs haven’t worked, and are being dismantled throughout America.

The AAUP keeps issuing these weaselly statements that give their imprimatur to things they won’t say explicitly: it’s okay to boycott Israel, and we should have hiring in which race and sex can outweigh merit.

As one sign of how DEI is ruled out in my school for hiring and promotion, we have the Shils Report, whose summary is this:

On 15 July 1970, the Committee on the Criteria of Academic Appointment was appointed by President Edward H. Levi. This Committee was charged with writing a report that would become the basis for evaluating faculty up for promotion. The Shils report dictates that faculty at the University of Chicago must display distinguished performance in each of the following criteria when being considered for promotion:
  • Research
  • Teaching and Training, including the supervision of graduate students
  • Contribution to intellectual community
  • Service
This Committee understood that unless such high standards existed and were used, the University would – indeed – become a pantheon for dead or dying gods incapable of attracting the best minds from around the world.

There is nothing in here about viewpoint diversity, much less equity and the use of sex and ethnicity as criteria for promotion (these same criteria apply to hiring).

The reason for the AAUP’s new statement may be seen in the its insistence that one of the reasons for issuing it is to counteract Republican legislation (they don’t say that explicitly, of course):

Debates about the appropriateness of DEI criteria cannot be understood in isolation from the current political context of higher education in the United States. Wholesale opposition to the use of DEI statements has often gone hand in hand with partisan legislative and other efforts to restrict or ban certain subjects of research and teaching—especially in fields and disciplines that expressly address histories of inequity.5 A recent AAUP joint report with the AFT analyzes more than ninety-nine bills representing direct political interference in higher education that have been introduced in more than thirty state legislatures. The report notes four trends: (1) limiting teaching about race, gender, and sexuality (so-called divisive concepts bills); (2) requiring intellectual and viewpoint diversity statements and surveys; (3) cutting funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; and (4) eliminating tenure for faculty members.6 Thus, attacks on DEI have played an integral part in the partisan political playbook to turn back the clock on advances that have been made toward the goal of diversity in the faculty, student body, and areas of study. Furthermore, it is crucial to consider how such attacks can easily reinforce and indeed fuel portrayals of entire fields and disciplines—including ethnic studies, critical race theory, and gender studies—as “political” and “ideological” projects and not serious subjects or research disciplines. When entire fields and subjects related to the study of race and gender, for example, are not considered “intellectual” pursuits, both academic freedom and DEI as social and institutional values are compromised, and the charge of orthodoxy gains purchase. This not only affects the fields and subjects traditionally tarred as ideological but also compromises the progress of knowledge by thwarting interdisciplinary exchange and endangering the very mission of higher education.

But forget about politics. The authors of this statement, probably comprising social scientists and people in the humanities, don’t seem to realize that yes, entire fields of study (the “studies” areas) have indeed been compromised and made into vehicles to push progressive propaganda on students. If you think that a department of race, diaspora, and indigeneity won’t be teaching students what ideological views are acceptable, I have some land in Florida to sell you.

The AAUP statement is “progressive,” but it’s too late. DEI is already crumbling, both in academia and the corporate world.

In Science, fifteen New Zealand researchers criticize the initiative to teach indigenous “ways of knowing” as science

July 12, 2024 • 9:30 am

Two letters have just been published in Science signed by a total of 15 scientists, all criticizing the first article below (published in Science last February), a piece arguing for teaching indigenous knowledge (including N.Z.’s version, Mātauranga Māori) alongside science in the science classroom. (Click to read.)  Now the authors, after being criticized, denied that they really meant what they argued in this paper:

I also published a post in February criticizing Black and Tylianakis’s paper, and was pretty hard on their claims, which deserved such criticism. Science clearly published their article as part of the performative wokeness infecting major science journals, and it was full of assertions and short on facts. It was, in reality, an attempt to sacralize indigenous knowledge—a dangerous gambit.  Some quotes from my critique:

In the end, this article appears to me to be a DEI-ish contribution: something published to advance “the authority of the sacred victim” by arguing that indigenous knowledge and ways to attain it is just as good as modern (sometimes called “Western” ) science, and that teaching it will empower the oppressed. Here’s one line from the paper supporting my hypothesis:

In addition to a suite of known benefits to Indigenous students, we see the potential for all students to benefit from exposure to Indigenous knowledge, alongside a science curriculum, as a way of fostering sustainability and environmental integrity.

In other words, the argument here is really meant to buttress the self image of indigenous people, not to buttress science. You can see this because there are hardly any examples given to support their thesis. Instead, there is a lot of palaver and evidence-free argument, as well as both tedious and tendentious writing.

The publication of this paper is somewhat of a travesty, for it shows that the AAAS is becoming as woke as New Zealand, where the claim that you should NOT teach MM in the science classroom can get you fired!  If this kind of stuff continues, the authoritarians will eventually shut down anybody who makes counterarguments, as is happening in New Zealand, where counterspeech against the “scientific” nature of MM is demonized and punishable.  Did the AAAS[ The American Association for the Advancement of Science] even get critical reviewers for this piece?

But it’s especially important for Kiwis themselves to push back on this paper, for authors Black and Tylianakis are both from New Zealand, and their paper could be seen as supporting the widespread but misleading idea that indigenous knowledge, at least in New Zealand but probably everywhere else, is coequal to modern science.

The first paper pushing back, which you can access by clicking the screenshot below, has fourteen authors, including all but one of the Auckland University researchers who signed the Listener Letter on science—the letter that ignited this conflagration. In fact, that letter, which argued that indigenous knowledge in NZ had a place in the classroom, but not the science classroom, is quite similar to what you’ll read below (click headline to read). But you can’t attack this stuff too often, for the postmodern-derived claim that “all ways of knowing are equal” must be debunked before it destroys New Zealand science (it’s already done a job on social science and the humanities).

Here’s Ahdar et al.’s argument against what Kiwis, in their drive to sacralize Māori language, call mana ōrite, defined below. An excerpt (I’ve highlighted the money quote):

We agree with A. Black and J. M. Tylianakis (“Teach Indigenous knowledge alongside science,” Policy Forum, 9 February, p. 592) that the arguments of those supporting the “mana ōrite” policy (translated as “equal status” or “equal value”) between Indigenous knowledge and science are largely based on ethics and morals; that science is typically considered discrete from nonscience academic disciplines, whereas Indigenous knowledge lacks such divisions; and that science and Indigenous knowledge systems are distinct in “methodologies, philosophies, worldview, and modes of transmission.” However, such distinctions (1, 2) are precisely why Indigenous knowledge—although it contains empirical and cultural knowledge of great value—should be taught as a distinct subject or as aspects of other subjects, not “alongside” science in science classes, as Black and Tylianakis suggest.

Black and Tylianakis fail to consider how to resolve conflicts between science and Indigenous knowledge in empirical content or methodology in the classroom. In Indigenous knowledge, empirical observations generally merge seamlessly with, and gain an authority not to be challenged from, spiritual and religious beliefs (3–5). Therefore, incorporating such observations into science curricula has led to, and will continue to lead to, the use of spiritual concepts in science classrooms (6).

Placing science and Indigenous knowledge alongside each other does disservice to the coherence and understanding of both, and leading Māori scholars have cautioned against such comparisons (7, 8). Black and Tylianakis do not explain how science students might reconcile content from these two very distinct systems when taught as being of “equal value,” nor do they acknowledge that teaching Indigenous knowledge alongside science greatly limits the delivery of science curricula that meet international academic disciplinary standards.

 

Note how the authors use the Dennett-ian strategy of first showing where they agree with the paper they’re criticizing before they start hurling the brickbats.

And indeed, as I’ve written before, attempts to equate MM with science has lead to confusing lessons incorporating Māori myths and the concept of “mauri”, or vitalism, into the science classroom (see here, here, and the many posts here). What’s new in this letter is the authors’ digging for the roots of mana ōrite, which, they say, lie in social constructivism (my bolding):

The mana ōrite policy (9) states that Indigenous knowledge and science should be given equal status, but equating such vastly different systems is meaningless and based on the relativist concept of social constructivism. This ideology posits that all knowledge depends entirely on its cultural context, which it cannot transcend, and therefore epistemic claims from one culture cannot challenge claims from another. This is inherently antiscience; science is open to all to pursue and critique, and it depends on every claim being open to challenge. Framing the mana ōrite policy in terms of “relative value” or “relative status” is the problem, not the solution, because it tips the discussion into an emotive moral judgment that purports to say something about the merit of cultural differences. Under this view, the contest of ideas becomes a battle of cultural and political power rather than a matter of empirical evidence and theoretical coherence.

Their letter goes on to say that because science is based on testing factual claims, but indigenous knowledge, in contrast, comes with a heavy dose of spirituality and other nonfactual stuff, it shouldn’t be taught in the science class, or construed as a form of “knowledge”.  This parallels the Listener letter, but this and Matzke’s letter are more important because they are peer-reviewed letters in one of the world’s most prestigious science journals. It goes without saying that the letter could not have been publishe in New Zealand, and that’s very sad.

There’s another critique as well: a single-authored paper written by American Nick Matzke, now working at Auckland Uni. Nick may be familiar to you as a prolific author on The Panda’s Thumb website, and as a fighter against creationism as a member of the National Center for Science Education. Nick is now battling the Kiwi version of creationism: the spiritual/religious aspects of MM.  He’s argued against the vitalism of MM (“mauri“) in a video (see here), but in this letter, again peer reviewed, he criticizes the vitalism of New Zealand’s indigenous “ways of knowing”. Letters in Science have considerable clout, though of course Nick and the other 14 authors are up against powerful ideological and political forces in their own country and university. (Click to read.)

Nick points out several examples where vitalism (“mauri“), a supernatural concept, remains in the Kiwi science curriculum—at the behest of NZ’s Ministry of Education:

A. Black and J. M. Tylianakis (“Teach Indigenous knowledge alongside science,” Policy Forum, 9 February, p. 592) give an overly rosy picture of New Zealand’s policy of “mana ōrite,” or equal status for mātauranga Māori, in science education, which they say teaches Indigenous knowledge “alongside” science rather than “as” science. They suggest that this policy avoids problems such as teaching creationist myths in science class. However, the New Zealand Ministry of Education placed supernatural content directly into science and math curricula with no clarification that it was nonscientific material.

The chemistry curriculum required students to “recognise that mauri is present in all matter which exists as particles held together by attractive forces” (1), with a glossary that defined mauri as “[t]he vital essence, life force of everything.” This concept, known as vitalism, has long been debunked (2). Teaching concepts that directly conflict with empirical evidence undermines the goals of science education. Dozens of science teachers opposed the inclusion of mauri in the chemistry curriculum, but the Ministry steamrolled their objections, citing “the requirement for mana ōrite” (1). The objective was only removed after 18 months of controversy, at a time when the 2023 election was looming. The Ministry, ignoring vitalism’s evidentiary flaws, claimed the reversal occurred because inserting concepts such as mauri into science curricula ran the “risk of recolonisation” (3), despite the fact that mana ōrite’s entire rationale was decolonization.

Problems remain in 2024. Despite its removal from exam objectives, mauri remains in the chemistry curriculum, in which students are told, “Revisit the concept of mauri” (4). This learning can sit beside learnings in atomic theory” (5), and the Gulf Innovation Fund Together website (4) says that mauri is “the force that interpenetrates all things to bind and knit them together.” A math qualification on practical problems of “life in… the Pacific” asks trigonometry students to calculate how much flaxen rope the demigod Maui made to lasso the Sun, slowing it to lengthen the day (6). The text of the exercise is studiously agnostic about the literal truth of this story, describing it as a “narrative.” Black and Tylianakis might categorize this as teaching Indigenous knowledge alongside math, but teachers face the prospect of strife among students over whether it is appropriate to call it knowledge or myth and if students of various backgrounds are expected to defend or disclaim its verity.

The letter (limited to about 300 words) goes on to emphasize that the Ministry’s current policy puts supernatural content in the science classroom, and suggests, as is only sensible, that MM, if it’s to be taught as a whole, has to be in a “nonscience class or unit” that discusses the content and diversity of Māori beliefs.  Nick also wrote a brief backstory about this on The Panda’s Thumb website and makes two minor corrections of his letter.

Now of course the original authors, Amanda Black and Jason Tylianakis, got to respond, and they were given more words than the critics.  Click below to see their reply:

I’m biased, of course, but I consider this response very weak, as it continues to defend the nonscientific aspects of MM, including mauri, as forms of “knowledge”.  In fact, I don’t think that they realize that all verifications of truths about the world, whether they come from science or sociology, are examples of what I call “science construed broadly”.  Here are some statements that weaken their response (my own comments are flush left):

Indigenous knowledge must retain its integrity as a separate, parallel knowledge system. Analogous to philosophy, Indigenous knowledge should be taught alongside science as a separate form of knowledge, not within the science curriculum.

Indigenous “ways of knowing” such as MM are not “parallel knowledge systems”. In fact, MM is not a “knowledge system” at all, for, although it does contain some empirical knowledge, it’s also laden with religion, tradition, superstition, ethics, social strictures, legend, vitalism, and so on.  This gemisch cannot be a knowledge system, though later on the authors try to argue that, for example, vitalism is also “knowledge.” Further, philosophy, a useful discipline when applied to real issues, is not a “way of knowing” but a “way of thinking”.  Philosophers can verify what’s true about the world only in the same way scientists do: via observation, replication, hypothesis testing, pervasive doubt, experiments, and so on, And that’s part of science, not philosophy. But wait! There’s more!

Matzke demotes Indigenous knowledge to a “belief system” rather than knowledge, and Ahdar et al. dispute the idea that “epistemic claims from one culture cannot challenge claims from another.” Philosophy, arts, and other social sciences and humanities are all valuable forms of knowledge that sit alongside science in the curriculum without positivist science proofs of their “verity,” as Matzke requires of Indigenous knowledge. We thus agree with scholars who have cautioned against using science to test nonscience concepts from other knowledge systems (2). (Ahdar et al. claim to agree with such scholars as well but contradict themselves.)

No, philosophy, art and much of the humanities are “ways of seeing,” not “ways of knowing”. Knowledge or empirical truth, defined as “justified true belief” accepted by most rational people, cannot be attained without using the methods of science. If you make a claim about what’s true in the world, then yes, you need science construed broadly to test that claim.  These authors are so immersed in their “all knowledge systems are true in their own way” mantra that they don’t seem to even know what science is.

Here they try to shoehorn mauri, indisputably a form of vitalism and supernaturalism, into science:

 The concept of mauri, a key feature in the Māori worldview, has been frequently explored within the peer-reviewed scientific literature as a measure of ecological resilience (2) without being absorbed by or undermining science. Similar to the concept of health (4, 5), mauri is not directly measurable, but both health and mauri can be operationalized through quantifiable indicators, and both concepts are useful for communicating societal and environmental well-being to the public. Nonscience concepts (assuming that they are not presented as science) can have value for connecting with communities.

I’m not sure what the sweating authors are trying to say here. What do they mean by “operationalizing vitalism through quantifiable indicators”? If they mean that, then yes, the concept of mauri is testable in the same way that intercessory prayer as a way to cure disease is testable (and of course it’s failed: prayer doesn’t work). I’d put up many dollars if they could find a way to test whether vitalism was operating in nature. The authors’ last statement, that supernaturalism can be valuable in “connecting with communities”, is undoubtedly true, but irrelevant to the argument of these letters.

Here’s another example of their relative ignorance about indigenous knowledge. If they mean what they say below, let them give just ONE EXAMPLE:

Matzke’s concern about “whether it is appropriate to call it knowledge or myth” fails to acknowledge that Indigenous knowledge systems can encode knowledge within apparent myth (2), so neither English term may fit perfectly. Education on Indigenous knowledge would avert such misunderstandings.

Yes, true. Separate the empirical wheat from the supernatural chaff, and then plant the wheat alongside science.  But teaching myths that mix both empirical knowledge and superstition can only confuse students. Are the authors suggesting that teachers tell students that part of MM isn’t really true?  If so, they should admit that (this would get them into big-time trouble), but they should also clarify what they mean by this:

We believe that harm arises when nonscience is presented as science, and we remain unconvinced that the intent of the mana ōrite initiative (8) is to present Indigenous knowledge and culture as science or to compete with scientific concepts in science classes.

Well, ante up, Drs. Black and Tilianakis! MM is in fact being funded and taught as science, and there are personal penalties levied on those who criticize it.  In the end, Black and Tilianakis admit that MM, which is largely nonscience, should not be “presented as science”. So far, so good. But it’s clear that the mana ōrite initiative is indeed presenting myth and tradition as science and is pitting MM and other forms of indigenous “knowledge” against science.

Kiwis really need to debate this issue: in fact, this is the most important of aspect of science that needs discussing in New Zealand right now.  What a pity it is that this discussion has effectively been banned. Remember Auckland Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater’s promise to hold such a debate three years ago—a promise she never kept?

Academic boycotts against Israel spread

July 10, 2024 • 11:30 am

This new article from the Wall Street Journal describes in some detail the way the world is boycotting Israel since October 7, both because it’s defending itself and because it’s a Jewish state.

Such boycotts aren’t new, of course, as the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement has been in swing since about 2001, but the boycotts, and calls for them, have intensified since the war in Gaza.  I’m most concerned with the call for academic boycotts, in which non-Israeli universities swear that they won’t exchange scholars or knowledge with Israeli universities. Such boycotts violate the free exchange of ideas that is the lifeblood of academia. But there are also material boycotts as well: BDS was, I believe, mainly meant to impede the exchange of goods. The academic part began around 2014, and was very quiet—until recently. And that’s what this article documents:

Click below to read the article, though it’s not archived (pdf available with judicious inquiry). I’ll give some quotes (indented):

Some examples of boycotts or calls for them:

When an ethics committee at Ghent University in Belgium recommended terminating all research collaborations with Israeli institutions in late May, Israeli computational biologist Eran Segal didn’t see it coming.

The sciences had seen little impact from global boycott movements, even months into the war, and Segal’s work had nothing to do with the Israeli military effort. The university’s research collaborations, the Ghent committee noted, include research on autism, Alzheimer’s disease, water purification and sustainable agriculture.

. . . Israelis are finding they are no longer welcome at many European universities, including participating in scientific collaborations. Their participation in cultural institutions and defense trade shows is increasingly becoming taboo.

Ghent University is, of course, where my philosopher colleague Maarten Boudry works. He’s vehemently opposed to such boycotts, and has decried them in Belgian and Dutch magazines and newspapers.

Below is an example of Israel being booted out of international meetings, though this one has little to do with academia:

Lidor Madmoni, chief executive of a small Israeli defense startup, prepared for months for a June international weapons show in Paris. The conference, Eurosatory, would be a rare opportunity for his small staff to expand their business, he said. Then came an email informing him that, because of a French court decision, his company was prohibited from attending.

“We have the obligation to block your access to the exhibition starting tomorrow,” the organizers said on the eve of the event, citing court orders that followed a French defense ministry ban issued in response to Israeli military operations in Rafah, the Gaza city where more than one million people had sought refuge.

The French decisions “shocked the entire community” of Israeli defense technology companies, said Noemie Alliel, managing director in Israel for Starburst Aerospace, an international consulting firm that develops and invests in startups in aerospace and defense. Conference organizers said they had appealed to overturn the court decision and told Israeli companies in an email that they were doing all that they could to enable them to attend.

. . . The Israeli defense-exports sector—flourishing before the war, with a record $13 billion in sales in 2023—got wind in March that it could be a target, when Chile barred Israeli companies from taking part in Latin America’s biggest aerospace fair. The French ban followed in June.

Back to academics (my bolding):

When the war began, new boycotts began to trickle in, mainly from humanities and social-science departments, said Netta Barak-Corren, a law professor who heads an antiboycott task force formed during the war at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The boycotts began to widen around two months ago, spreading to the hard sciences and to the university level—“universitywide movements and more importantly decisions to cut all ties with Israeli universities and Israeli academics,” she said.

More than 20 universities in Europe and Canada have adopted such bans, she said.

O Canada!  And from Europe:

An Israeli student who was preparing to study at the University of Helsinki said she was already looking for housing in Finland—until the school told her in May that it had suspended its exchange agreements with Israeli universities.

The University of Helsinki stopped sending students to Israel after Oct. 7 and decided to suspend exchanges in May to express its concern about the conflict, said Minna Koutaniemi, the head of the school’s international exchange services. The university doesn’t intend to restrict its researchers from collaborating with Israelis, she said.

From the U.S. (this “ban” may be rescinded):

Boycotts are gaining traction across the academic spectrum. Cultural Critique, a journal published by the University of Minnesota Press, told an Israeli sociologist in May that his essay was barred from consideration because, they believed, he was affiliated with an Israeli institution.

The journal told the scholar that it follows BDS guidelines, “which include ‘withdrawing support from Israel’s…cultural and academic institutions’.”

Cultural Critique subsequently apologized for excluding the article on the basis of the scholar’s academic affiliation and amended its website to say that submissions would be evaluated “without regard to the identity and affiliation of the author.” It invited the scholar to resubmit.

Authors participate as well:

. . . some creative artists abroad are cutting themselves off from Israel. Since the start of the war, a few dozen authors, most of them American, have refused to have their books translated into Hebrew and sold in Israel, said Efrat Lev, the foreign-rights director at the Deborah Harris Agency in Israel, a literary agency.

One author who had worked with the agency and wrote a young-adult book focusing on queer acceptance refused to publish a second book in Israel, although a contract had already been signed and a translation to Hebrew was under way, said Lev.

“I felt that it was an important book for Israeli kids who are experiencing similar experiences,” she said. “This broke my heart.”

Better to demonize Israel than to help gay Israeli kids!

Academic boycotts seem to me worthless; indeed, they’re counterproductive because they divide a worldwide academic community and impede the dissemination of knowledge.  The University of Chicago issued this statement when Bob Zimmer was President:

On December 22, 2013, the University of Chicago released the following statement on the subject of academic boycotts:

“The University of Chicago has from its founding held as its highest value the free and open pursuit of inquiry. Faculty and students must be free to pursue their research and education around the world and to form collaborations both inside and outside of the academy, encouraging engagement with the widest spectrum of views. For this reason, we oppose boycotts of academic institutions or scholars in any region of the world, and oppose recent actions by academic societies to boycott Israeli institutions.”

It’s not rocket science!  But people, including academics who should know better, are hell-bent on punishing Israel and, of course, those uppity Jews who defended themselves against Hamas.  As Dorian Abbot also pointed out, such boycotts violate the Mertonian Academic Norms:

You can see those norms here, which were given by sociologist Thomas Merton as “the four norms of good scientific research. . . . These norms are communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism.”  The one Dorian refers to is the second:

  • “universalism: scientific validity is independent of the sociopolitical status/personal attributes of its participants.”

Ergo the status of “being Israeli” has no bearing on whether science should be exchanged or impeded.  Academic boycotts are, to use the argot, stupid.

Bill Ackman’s wife Neri Oxman accused of plagiarism, admits guilt

January 6, 2024 • 11:30 am

Bill Ackman, you’ll recall, is the billionaire who helped bring down Harvard President Claudine Gay. First he chastised her for her performance before the House committee, calling out the antisemitism that occurred at Harvard on Gay’s watch. Then he announced that he would no longer donate to Harvard until they cleaned up their act. Finally, when Gay’s plagiarism in her scholarly papers came to light, he bored down on that, and kept doing it until she resigned as President.  There’s little doubt Ackman’s his stream of tweets about Gay promoted her resignation by calling everyone’s attention to Gay’s missteps and embarrassing the board of Harvard Overseers, which is Gay’s boss.

As I’ve said repeatedly, I think Gay shouldn’t have resigned until the evidence of plagiarism surfaced. Her remarks about antisemitism to the Representatives were wooden and unempathic, but a First-Amendment construal of Harvard’s speech code would indeed have deemed cries for genocide of the Jews as “conditional”. Sometimes it’s legal, and sometimes not. The problem was that Harvard doesn’t have a First-Amendment-based speech code, and it applied its own code unevenly, giving rise to hypocrisy.  However, I would have given her a chance, for if she’d implemented something like Steve Pinker’s “fivefold way”, Harvard would have greatly improved.

In the end, her plagiarism, which also called attention to a rather thin academic resumé, brought her down, and made me agree that she should resign.

Now, however, Ackman is somewhat hoist with his own petard, for his wife, Neri Oxman, a designer and a professor at MIT until 2021, stands accused of plagiarism herself.  It doesn’t seem quite as bad as Gay’s missteps, for Oxman, in her dissertation, did cite the sources of her information. What she failed to do, however, was put quotation marks around phrases and paragraphs she lifted from cited sources, and that’s a violation of MIT’s own plagiarism code.

Business Insider (BI), in the first two articles below, found examples of her plagiarism, and you can see that BI can barely contain its joy of catching an Ackman-adjacent person in the act of plagiarism. It’s almost tabloid journalism.

Click on either to read. The third article is a summary from CNN.  In the end, Oxman admitted guilt and said she’d correct the quotations, but Ackman is pushing back against the charges, vowing reprisal against both MIT and BI while not denying what Oxman did. But since Oxman is no longer at MIT, she has no academic job to lose.

Click below or find this article archived here:

Again, click below or go to the article archived here:

And from CNN, not paywalled.

The accusation (from BI):

The billionaire hedge fund manager and major Harvard donor Bill Ackman seized on revelations that Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, had plagiarized some passages in her academic work to underscore his calls for her removal following what he perceived as her mishandling of large protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza on Harvard’s campus.

An analysis by Business Insider found a similar pattern of plagiarism by Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, who became a tenured professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2017.

Oxman plagiarized multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation, Business Insider found, including at least one passage directly lifted from other writers without citation.

. . .An architect and artist who experiments with new ways to synthesize materials found in nature, Oxman has been the subject of profiles in major outlets such as The New York Times and Elle. She has collaborated with Björk, exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and had paparazzi stake her out after Brad Pitt visited her lab at MIT in 2018.

There are two kinds of accusations. First, that Oxman “self plagiarized”, using her own writing in her dissertation word-for-word in her published papers. That’s okay, and isn’t really plagiarism because a dissertation isn’t published, and in most cases is intended to be turned into papers. Thus, BI’s statement below isn’t incriminating:

She also recycled phrasing she used in her dissertation in subsequent papers. The opening paragraph of her dissertation, for instance, appears almost word-for-word in an article she published in 2013. While re-using material isn’t a formal violation of MIT’s academic-integrity code, a guide to “ethical writing” recommended by the university to its scholars and students warns against it.

Self-plagiarizing isn’t a good habit if you use the same phrases or paragraphs in one paper after another, but “plagiarizing” from a dissertation into a paper is not at all a violation. I suspect MIT’s dictum here refers to using your own words repeatedly in published work. And that’s not what Oxman did.

The evidence:

Then there are the other cases, in which Oxman did cite her original sources but also used big chunks of wording from them—without quotation marks. That’s a no-no, but it’s not as big a no-no as what Gay did, which was lift chunks of prose and then not include her using proper citations.

Here are a couple of examples of how Oxman used wording from previously-published papers in her thesis. Notice that she does cite the sources in parentheses, though:

and one more:

The MIT academic integrity code (below; click to enlarge) says that even though sources are cited, this is a no-no. But remember, this is plagiarism in a dissertation, not in a published paper. I’ve circled the bit that Oxman violated:

Oxman apologized for these errors in a tweet, though she couldn’t verify one of the accusations because the source was online. She’s going to get MIT to correct the citations. BI notes:

Neri Oxman, the wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, admitted to failing to properly credit sources in portions of her doctoral dissertation after Business Insider published an article finding that Oxman engaged in a pattern of plagiarism similar to that of former Harvard president Claudine Gay.

BI identified four instances in Oxman’s dissertation in which she lifted paragraphs from other scholars’ work without including them in quotation marks. In those instances, Oxman wrote in a post on X, using quotation marks would have been “the proper approach for crediting the work. I regret and apologize for these errors.”

. . .Oxman wrote on X that after she has reviewed the original sources, she plans to “request that MIT make any necessary corrections.”

“As I have dedicated my career to advancing science and innovation, I have always recognized the profound importance of the contributions of my peers and those who came before me. I hope that my work is helpful to the generations to come,” she wrote.

Oxman now leads an eponymous company, Oxman, focused on “innovation in product, architectural, and urban design,” she wrote on X. “OXMAN has been in stealth mode. I look forward to sharing more about OXMAN later this year.”

I don’t know how MIT will correct these errors, because I don’t think most Ph.D. theses are online (mine certainly isn’t). If it is they can fix it, but perhaps they’ll just append the corrections in her thesis that reposes in MIT’s library.

If you read the Business Insider articles, they come off as hit jobs, as if somehow they’re joyfully getting back at what Ackman for what he did to Claudine Gay by showing that Ackman’s wife did the same thing. But Oxman didn’t do the same thing: she is guilty of not using quotation marks around quotations taken from an attributed source in a dissertation. Gay, on the other hand, is guilty of not using quotation marks around unattributed quotations, and doing this in published papers, not in a dissertation.  Further, Oxman is no longer a professor at MIT, and was never dean or president of any university, so it’s not such a big deal. Yes, she should have cited sources correctly, but in the end the damage is minor. Her missteps are far more excusable than Gay’s. But they are missteps, and academics need to know what constitutes plagiarism.

Business Insider keeps mentioning Ackman in their two pieces, which of course is what gives this story its legs, but BI also adds superfluous material to make both Ackman and Oxman look bad, like this:

In 2019, emails uncovered by the Boston Globe showed Ackman pressured MIT to keep Oxman’s name out of a brewing scandal over an original sculpture she gave to Jeffrey Epstein in thanks for a $125,000 donation to her lab.

So what? This is irrelevant to the story, and is pretty much of a smear.

As for Ackman, he’s not denying that his wife did what BI accused her of, but is standing by her nonetheless (see the linked tweet below):

Her husband, Ackman, lauded her transparency in his own post on X following the publication of Business Insider’s article.

“​​Part of what makes her human is that she makes mistakes, owns them, and apologizes when appropriate,” he wrote.

However, this empathic stand is weakened by Ackman’s threat to examine the writings of Business Insider staff for plagiarism:

. . . and he’s going after plagiarism at MIT, too!

The guy is combative, that’s for sure! It’s not seemly for him to strike out at everybody, trying to find plagiarizing skeletons in their closets. Gay is gone; Oxman admitted fault and will correct her writing. It’s time to move on!

Here are Oxman and Ackman from NBC News; the caption is from NBC:

h/t: Greg Mayer

Claudine Gay discusses her resignation in the New York Times

January 4, 2024 • 11:30 am

As we all know by now, Harvard’s President Claudine Gay the first black woman head of the University, resigned on Tuesday (her letter of resignation, here, is also reproduced below the fold).  In her formal letter she doesn’t explain why she resigned, but simply says this:

. . . . after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.

There’s a soupçon of self-pity in her resignation, as well as calling attention to “personal attacks” and “threats fueled by racial animus.” I don’t doubt she received these, but had it been me, considerations of dignity would have compelled me to omit this stuff.  Still, it doesn’t bother me that much, but it’s worth noting this stuff:

Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.

Originally there was speculation that Gay might resign because of her rather uninspiring performance testifying before a House committee, but I didn’t think her performance was that bad: she reiterated that Harvard’s speech code allowed people to call for Jewish genocide on some occasions, but not others. As she implied, “context matters,” and that’s true if one is adhering to the First Amendment. The problem was that Harvard had never adhered to the First Amendment, for it has no speech code stipulating that. Rather, Harvard applied its speech code unevenly, sanctioning or warning some people for “offenses” far smaller than saying, “Gas the Jews.”  The problem was not context but hypocrisy.

That said, I thought that this could be a “teachable moment” for Gay and Harvard, one that might prompt her and the Overseers to finally fix the problems with “free” speech at Harvard. But when accusations of plagiarism began accumulating, and were undoubtedly plagiarism, eventually her position became untenable (see above).  Do note that those accusations were leveled largely by conservatives: Christopher Rufo and the New York Post.  This shows you that, unless you want a plagiarist as President of Harvard, it’s not good to write off what conservatives say simply because of their politics.

Gay will be replaced temporarily by economist and physician Alan Garber, Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer. And then the search will begin for Gay’s replacement. There is lots of speculation here (will it be another black woman?, etc.), but I won’t engage in any prognostications. As for Gay, she will return to her position as tenured professor of government and African and African American studies. But the tweet below suggests that she’s going to keep the enormous salary she got as President—nearly a million bucks a year. And that implies that she made some kind of deal with the Overseers to resign quietly so long as she got to keep that huge salary.  To me that seems unfair, but it’s better for Harvard that she leaves and gets a big salary than if she stayed.

 

The New York Times allowed Dr. Gay to respond to her “resignation”—surely more than just a suggestion from the Corporation—by writing an op-ed giving her take on the matter. And I have to say that she’s far less dignified, far too unwilling to own up to why she was fired, and far too self-pitying for such a piece.It makes her look petty, fragile, and too willing to blame others for her faults.  She should have just stuck by her resignation letter. Click the headline below to read.

I’ve reproduced her op-ed, paragraph by paragraph (indented) with my own comments, which are flush left.

Gay begins with a combination of self-pity, virtue-flaunting, and deflecting the blame for her resignation onto others.  Now I have no use for people who threaten her or use the n-word, but again, considerations of dignity would, at least to me, mandate that she leave this stuff out.  The bit about “weaponizing her presidency”, and accusing “demagogues” (Ackman?) of engaging in a campaign to erode the ideals of Harvard is simply silly, and makes her look unwilling to accept any culpability. Furthermore, it’s not right. People like Steve Pinker have used the occasion not to impugn Gay or call for her resignation, but to lay out principles Harvard could use to improve itself.

On Tuesday, I made the wrenching but necessary decision to resign as Harvard’s president. For weeks, both I and the institution to which I’ve devoted my professional life have been under attack. My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count.

My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth.

Continuing on:

As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning. The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society. Campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise, because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda. But such campaigns don’t end there. Trusted institutions of all types — from public health agencies to news organizations — will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility. For the opportunists driving cynicism about our institutions, no single victory or toppled leader exhausts their zeal.

Here she shows what, exactly, is “bigger than me” (it should have been “bigger than I”). She clearly blames anti-wokeness as the force behind attacks on her.  Or at least that’s how I interpret it, for I can see no other forces trying to undermine “trusted institutions of all types”. Yes, the antiwoke went after the liberal media, but did they go after “public health agencies”? Perhaps, if you think that that’s what motivated the conspiracy theorists and Republicans who fought covid mandates. (But some of them were right, viz., about the value of masking and closing schools.)  Here Gay lumps together a whole bunch of disparate groups—conservatives, conspiracy theorists, people concerned with the truth about medicine, and liberals like me—as her “basket of demagogues.” The Associated Press implies that in the tweet below.  But does it really matter whether liberals, conservatives, or centrists call attention to plagiarism, so long as it turns out to be true?

Gay continues:

Yes, I made mistakes. In my initial response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know: Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state. And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. I neglected to clearly articulate that calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable and that I would use every tool at my disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.

Well, it would have been better for her not to have doubled down on Hamas, but rather to point out the hypocrisy of Harvard’s uneven enforcement of the speech code,  noting how odd it was that calls for adherence to the First Amendment arose only when that Amendment would have permitted calls for genocide against Jews.  But yes, she appeared wooden and unengaged, and she could have done better. Blame the lawyers. Still, her performance alone would not have gotten her to “resign” (the euphemism for “being asked to leave”).

Then she goes on to the plagiarism charges, refusing to admit she copied (well, she could hardly admit that, could she?):

Most recently, the attacks have focused on my scholarship. My critics found instances in my academic writings where some material duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution. I believe all scholars deserve full and appropriate credit for their work. When I learned of these errors, I promptly requested corrections from the journals in which the flagged articles were published, consistent with how I have seen similar faculty cases handled at Harvard.

I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others. Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field.

Despite the obsessive scrutiny of my peer-reviewed writings, few have commented on the substance of my scholarship, which focuses on the significance of minority office holding in American politics. My research marshaled concrete evidence to show that when historically marginalized communities gain a meaningful voice in the halls of power, it signals an open door where before many saw only barriers. And that, in turn, strengthens our democracy.

Here plagiarism becomes “material that duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution”.  It’s been euphemisms all the way down with her and Harvard, with nobody daring to use the p-word.  However, she requested corrections of only three items (there were forty or more), and attributed her mistakes to “errors”—as do all plagiarists. It’s hardly possible, I think, to engage in the amount of plagiarism she did without knowing that you’re doing something wrong.  She also decries the people who brought her down as being afflicted with “obsessive scrutiny”.  Her “scholarship” is still under question, with some saying that what she published from her thesis differs from what the original sources say, but we’ll wait to see how that shakes out.

Throughout this work, I asked questions that had not been asked, used then-cutting-edge quantitative research methods and established a new understanding of representation in American politics. This work was published in the nation’s top political science journals and spawned important research by other scholars.

Never did I imagine needing to defend decades-old and broadly respected research, but the past several weeks have laid waste to truth. Those who had relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument. They recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament. They pushed a false narrative of indifference and incompetence.

I’ll let others assess her scholarship and methods, but let it be known that she published a total of only eleven papers in her career (and edited one volume), a remarkably thin record of scholarship for a scholar picking up the reins of Harvard. As for the “truth” of her research, other scholars are now vetting her papers (some have claimed that she won’t provide her original data), and we’ll see what happens. If she did manipulate or misrepresent data, that is one thing that could cost her her job at Harvard, though I doubt that this will happen.

It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution. Someone who views diversity as a source of institutional strength and dynamism. Someone who has advocated a modern curriculum that spans from the frontier of quantum science to the long-neglected history of Asian Americans. Someone who believes that a daughter of Haitian immigrants has something to offer to the nation’s oldest university.

Above she descends deeply into defensiveness and self-pity, and most clearly plays the race card, which is beneath her. Yes, racists may have assailed her, but she should ignore them in a public discussion like this, except perhaps for a brief mention. There’s no evidence that she was attacked by Rufo, Ackman and the NY Post because of her race. In Ackman’s case, it was clearly his being fed up with the antisemitism at Harvard, not Gay’s race. Self-pity is undignified.

Finally, she engages in a bit of virtue flaunting, and once again refers to the demagogues who brought her down, implying that she was unfairly pressured to resign by Evil Outside Forces pursuing an agenda to destroy Harvard’s wonderful values:

I still believe that. As I return to teaching and scholarship, I will continue to champion access and opportunity, and I will bring to my work the virtue I discussed in the speech I delivered at my presidential inauguration: courage. Because it is courage that has buoyed me throughout my career and it is courage that is needed to stand up to those who seek to undermine what makes universities unique in American life.

Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be. Too often they are pursuing self-serving agendas that should be met with more questions and less credulity.

College campuses in our country must remain places where students can learn, share and grow together, not spaces where proxy battles and political grandstanding take root. Universities must remain independent venues where courage and reason unite to advance truth, no matter what forces set against them.

It all comes down to this summary statement: “Antiwoke people, including demagogues, brought me down, largely because of my race. Yes, I made mistakes, but they were trivial. In the end, it was political grandstanding that pried me out of my position as President. And by the way, I’m a very good person.”

She’s enmired in victimhood. Color me unimpressed.

Click “continue reading” to see Gay’s letter of resignation:

Continue reading “Claudine Gay discusses her resignation in the New York Times” →

Stanford Law School tries to succor Federalist Society by sending its members into the jaws of lions

March 13, 2023 • 12:00 pm

Get a load of this. Although Stanford University Law School is trying to make amends for the shameful display put on by its students last week, they continue to stick their feet deeper into the mud.

Yesterday I reported on the execrable deplatforming of Fifth Circuit federal appellate Judge Kyle Duncan during his scheduled talk at Stanford Law School (SLS). Students, outraged that a conservative judge should be given any platform, interrupted the Judge so persistently and loudly that he was forced to stop his speech. (His topic was the relationship between his court and the Supreme Court.)

The students had been egged on by Tirien Steinbach, the Law School’s Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Before Judge Duncan’s talk, she sent an email to the students explaining why Duncan was an oppressor And then when Duncan asked for faculty help in quelling the in-class demonstration, Steinbach stood up and read nine minutes of prepared remarks to Duncan explaining how awful and hurtful he was and how,  perhaps, Stanford’s policy of free speech wasn’t so great after all because it caused “harm”. As she suggested, perhaps the “juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.” Steinbach’s method of promoting harmony apparently involves setting groups against each other.

In a “mistakes-were-made” brand of email to the Stanford community, SLS Dean Jenny Martinez apologized for the incident without placing blame on anyone. But the next day, Martinez and Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne sent a joint apology to Judge Duncan promising that an incident like this would never happen again. Here’s that email:

Dear Judge Duncan,

We write to apologize for the disruption of your recent speech at Stanford Law School. As has already been communicated to our community, what happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech, and we are very sorry about the experience you had while visiting our campus.

We are very clear with our students that, given our commitment to free expression, if there are speakers they disagree with, they are welcome to exercise their right to protest but not to disrupt the proceedings. Our disruption policy states that students are not allowed to “prevent the effective carrying out” of a “public event” whether by heckling or other forms of interruption.

In addition, staff members who should have enforced university policies failed to do so, and instead intervened in inappropriate ways that are not aligned with the university’s commitment to free speech.

We are taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again. Freedom of speech is a bedrock principle for the law school, the university, and a democratic society, and we can and must do better to ensure that it continues even in polarized times.

With our sincerest apologies again,
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Ph.D.[,] President and Bing Presidential Professor
Jenny Martinez[,] Richard E. Lang Professor of Law & Dean of Stanford Law School

In the penultimate paragraph, they clearly place some of the blame on diversity dean Steinbach for inciting the disruption.  Will they discipline her, or at least tell her to lay off the incitement; and will Stanford discipline any of the disruptive students?  I’d bet money they won’t. And, of course, a policy that isn’t enforced is not a policy at all.

If Stanford were real mensches, they would invite Duncan back to deliver the talk he prepared, and ensure that the event would be peaceful. That won’t happen, either.

But in a really hamhanded gesture, Jeanne Merino, the SLS Associate Acting Dean of Students, “reached out” to the Federalist Society, which had invited Duncan, and offered them University sources of succor. What’s unbelievable is that one of the sources suggested was Steinbach, the diversity dean who escalated the whole affair.  They also offered help from the other two deans (and Merino herself), all of whom had been in the classroom and did nothing to stop the demonstration. You can read Merino’s email here. 

Here’s part of it (second bolding is mine)

2. Connection with OSA, DEI, Levin Center: Please reach out to any of us here at SLS if you would like support or would like to process last week’s events: a. OSA (Jeanne Merino, jmerino@law.stanford.edu, Holly Parrish, hparrish@law.stanford.edu, John Dalton jwdalton@law.stanford.edu, and Megan Brown, mybrown@law.stanford.edu), b. DEI (Tirien Steinbach, tsteinbach@law.stanford.edu) c. Levin Center (Diane Chin, dchin@law.stanford.edu; Anna Wang, annawang@law.stanford.edu).

Apparently, besides Conflagator Steinbach herself, Merino, as well as Associate Director of Student Affairs Holly Parrish and Student Affairs Program Coordinator Megan Brown, were all in the room—and did nothing— as the demonstration unfolded.  But to suggest that the Federalist Society should reach out to Dean Steinbach for comfort (not to mention to the other three as well) is like suggesting that the Roadrunner reach out for help to Wile E. Coyote.

Stanford has affirmed in writing that the juice (a climate conducive to learning) is indeed worth the squeeze (the school’s free-speech policy).  The real question is whether the juice is worth the squeeze of having a diversity dean who’s out of control.

These days, Stanford Law School (and its East Coast counterpart Yale Law School) are like a pair of cross-country soap operas. But it’s important to see that this kind of thing is inevitable so long as you claim that DEI programs are in complete harmony with free speech policies. As Steely Dan sang, “Only a fool would say that.”