Harvard President Claudine Gay resigns | Hacker News Reader

Harvard President Claudine Gay resigns

cnn.com

66 pointsTomte199 comments

I guess I am not shocked by the plagiarism but I am disturbed by the legal threats Harvard sent to the New York Post. Harvard seems to act more like a bully the wealthier it has gotten.

Any sufficiently large pool of capital works to further itself.

The plagiarism is really unacceptable, but the political pressure targeting academia makes me sad. IMO this really should have been handled internally at Harvard - not on a national stage.

> this really should have been handled internally at Harvard - not on a national stage

Isn’t that the Corporation’s fault? If they’d handled it internally there wouldn’t have been a public scandal.

How Harvard handles it is up to them. They're a private university. If they choose to stand behind Gay then that's their and their student's choice.

Nothing about this scandal was public until they were brought in front of congress to talk about antisemitism.

> How Harvard handles it is up to them. They're a private university.

They’re tax advantaged and publicly funded in ways that invite public scrutiny.

> Nothing about this scandal was public until they were brought in front of congress to talk about antisemitism

Where Gay promptly screwed the pooch. Also, how is unethical behaviour permissible if hidden?

Go after the churches and religious organizations first, in that case, as they’re also tax advantaged and their leaders and congregations have a profound pull upon politics and politicians.

The Mormon Church in Utah is essentially a government with real state power of its own, for example.

And the Westboro Baptist Church is still allowed to organize and shout God Hates [Gays] at funerals of private citizens by an 8-1 Supreme Court Ruling.

> Go after the churches and religious organizations first, in that case, as they’re also tax advantaged and their leaders and congregations have a profound pull upon politics and politicians

Plenty of people do.

Gay is being terminated for plagiarism. Her ethics breaches simply came to light because she fucked up answering an incredibly simple question that points to a fundamental disconnect from how most people view the world.

Who exactly are these people going after churches and religious organizations, and when was the last time they were brought in front of congress for it?

> Go after the churches and religious organizations first

This veers into whataboutism, and changing the subject. Both can be done at the same time as they are not mutually exclusive. It is not an either or question and it distracts from the original discussion.

Well, they clearly can’t, because one is being bolstered by politicians and the other attacked by the same set of those politicians.

I have not heard of a single Democrat politician advocate defunding religious organizations. I have often heard the GOP advocate for punishing college faculty/students/administrators and withholding accreditation/nonprofit-status.

Regardless, I actually think it’s a bad idea to go after either: both of those institutions, ultimately, are checks on the State — and historically, when a state turns to fascism, universities and religious organizations (save the “favored/officially sanctioned religion”) are the first thing to go.

Harvard is private, but they do receive public funds. This exposes them to additional scrutiny.

Weren’t they brought in front of Congress because they chose not to handle the antisemitism on campus?

> How Harvard handles it is up to them. They're a private university.

Harvard's true status is rather unusual. They were established by the Massachusetts colonial legislature, which formally retained the right to interfere in Harvard's governance, but very rarely used that right, largely leaving Harvard to run itself. The Massachusetts state constitution has a whole section on Harvard (Chapter V Section I), article III of which says "nothing herein shall be construed to prevent the legislature of this commonwealth from making such alterations in the government of the said university, as shall be conducive to its advantage and the interest of the republic of letters, in as full a manner as might have been done by the legislature of the late Province of the Massachusetts Bay", [0] meaning that the Massachusetts state legislature formally retains its right to intervene in the running of Harvard, even though it has never used it. This means Harvard is not a fully private university, rather one occupying a sort of grey zone between private and public - private in practice, but subject to state control in theory - and maybe one day in practice again, the recent controversies over Harvard have led to suggestions [1] that the Massachusetts state legislature take up its power to intervene in Harvard, e.g. by granting itself the right to appoint members to the Harvard Corporation. Politically, I think the odds are against that actually happening, but you never know. Legally/constitutionally, I don't think there would be any problem with it, since Harvard has never been a fully private institution, it has always been under theoretical state control, and the state does not lose its theoretical legal powers through failing to use them in practice

[0] https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution#chapterVSectionI

[1] see this WSJ article https://archive.md/t0jYc - "One faculty member, citing a carve-out in the Massachusetts Constitution that reserves authority over Harvard to the state legislature, has urged Massachusetts lawmakers to install a government official on the board to provide more transparency and public accountability. A spokeswoman for Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said the governor is aware of the proposal and looks forward to reviewing it"

It's not sad. we need to hold these administrators to the same standards they hold their students or public. nothing political about it. Students get expelled, auto-fail for plagiarism.

It's sad that this is this even a national topic of discussion instead of an internal investigation and change at the university itself.

Harvard is a the most influential higher-ed institution and affects its president, which is its highest ranking member. there is no way it cannot be a national story. When Lawrence Summers resigned for comments he made in 2005 it was national news too.

I think OP is saying it's sad it escalated due to incompetence from university leadership. As a result, we have a loud public precedent around donors and politicians calling shots at universities.

As they should! Administration should definitely be subject to public scrutiny to the extent that it doesn't impinge on faculty and students' academic work or opinions. I would heavily oppose any consequences to a university resulting from a professors comments, including threats to withhold funding unless a professor is fired. But consequences to the administration should be on the table, including, in extreme cases, reducing funding to research at the university in a manner that doesn't target individual professors. Only then is there likely to be a moderating force that prevents university administrations from spiraling into political activism as they have done, especially over the past decade.

It's natural that universities will experience political accountability as they become more politically active. Education consumes a lot of resources, it's only natural that it's the subject of a lot of scrutiny.

Why do you think universities are more politically active? They have always been a safe-haven for ideas that go against the fray. I would argue they have always been "politically active."

When the administration of the University is making political statements and engaging in political activism, I would argue that they should lose the implicit protection that University faculty (I'd be willing to grant students that protection too) have for controversial ideas that they profess in the role of an academic. Even professors or students that take administrative roles should expect to lose such protection, since they have come to represent the university as an institution.†

For an example from the other side of the aisle, I opposed Steve Hsu being fired as VP of Research at Michigan State University in 2020 for his opinions, particularly regarding the genetics of race and intelligence (https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/16/open-thread-156-25/). Yet, ultimately, that was the risk of an administrative position such as his. He still is a full professor, and he has started several startups since then, so he's doing okay.

The main objection I have to positions like yours is that you believe that university administration should not be subject to pressure from politicians who grant universities the great privilege of being untaxed nonprofits with immense endowments and great influence in all the pillars of society. On the other hand, you believe that administrators should be subject to influence and control by left-wing student and academic protestors (I'm sure you think right-wing protestors would be illegitimate). I'm arguing that pressure on administration from both sides is legitimate, and that the former should flex its muscle more.

† I would also argue that academic fields that adopt activism as policy (so, all critical theory-influenced fields) should lose protection for their ideas, since they are clearly not pursued in a commitment to the truth, but that's a bit of an aside from my point here.

You’re advocating placing limits on free speech of those best situated to speak truth to power — this is straight out of the fascist playbook.

Go after the Churches and religious organizations first, in that case, as they’re also tax advantaged and their leaders and congregations have a profound pull upon politics and politicians.

I liked the discussion you both had. I think heavy scrutiny should be applied to any institution with that much power. Universities, churches, etc. all seem like valid targets

Funny enough, I actually think it’s a bad idea to go after either: both of those institutions, ultimately, are checks on the State — and historically, when a state turns to fascism, universities and religious organizations (save the “favored/officially sanctioned religion”) are the first thing to go.

I think the State should stay out of religion’s business entirely (that also means no “religious freedom” exemptions to treat others like second-class citizens that the evangelical right has been winning recently), along with universities too.

Leave both organizations tax-exempt, but they should not receive any public funds for any reason, nor get any other special protections from the government, lest there’s an explicit agreement to pay it back in the form of bonds or loans. Publicly-funded research at private institutions could remain the same as it is, with the caveat that results by-default should be public to all, rather than locked behind institutional paywalls.

(State universities are a valid edge case, but I’m specifically talking about private non-government organizations here)

Good point, I think if we look at quadrant of "Receives public finds" and "pays taxes" I'm fine with either "no funds, no taxes" or "taxes, and funds" sections

Are you saying you can't see the reason why institutes of higher learning should be neutral - to a fault?

I actually would argue universities should not be neutral. They're a historical check on the State. Universities should do whatever works to attract intellectual talent, and if their ideology sucks, they'll naturally lose talent and influence to other institutions who have a different pedagogy.

That's the marketplace of ideas – not platforming every single idiot who wants to speak. Is Harvard supposed to, hyperbolically, entertain the notion of a flat earth if enough people believe it? I'd argue absolutely not (that's what the internet is for). Maybe the reason that the makeup of Harvard and similar schools is so liberal is because the right hasn't offered much in the way of intellectual fodder other than "Harvard bad" ?

If you don't agree with Harvard's policies, don't go to Harvard.

> They're a historical check on the State.

This one is intertwined with it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_schools_attended...

https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/24598/first-degree-colleg...

That's what makes them an important check on the state -- if they solely existed in a vacuum than what would speaking truth to power entail?

Unfortunately, the territory has already been marked when it comes to the political slapfight. Florida for example has been waging a battle on all forms of education so that they can funnel the money towards religious initiatives and schools (See: New College of Florida). The goal is to find any flaws they can in universities or schooling then twist the knife until they can take it over.

Expecting people to be consistent when it comes to treating organizations the same way is a fools gambit.

Yes, the broad class of tax advantages used to launder political spending through churches and universities should be revoked and that money should be paid up to the government in taxes. Elections should be publicly funded, too!

> those best situated to speak truth to power

Why are they the best situated to speak truth to power?

Today they are safe-havens only for ideas that fall on one side of the political divide in the US.

What are the ideas of the other side you feel are not allowed?

"Israel has a right to exist and defend itself" is allowed but will certainly get you subjected to both overt and under-the-table harassment. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/queering-an...

> They have always been a safe-haven for ideas that go against the fray.

Every academic knows that you have to "play ball" to get to tenure, and that's regarding the direct subject matter of your own scholarship. Electoral endorsements are practically the only form of outspokenness that cannot and will not be used against you, only because the courts would come down too hard on the institution.

Everything else is office politics!

I think the difference between now and back then is that now the top administration of the universities have become politically more active. Before it was mostly students and faculty, which makes sense.

edit: I would also note that the such actions by top administration imperils and has a chilling effect for faculty and student's contrarian thoughts and free speech. You you're not as likely to speak out against your boss/principal's ideas.

Plagiarism is really the least of my concerns in that case. The fact that a university president had to use convoluted statements to answer something as basic as "is calling for the murder of jews against the rules of university", is, IMHO, the most troubling event happening to the american university world in a while.

Are you for free speech or against it? Where is the line drawn?

These are hard questions to answer, especially in the manner they were "asked." And it's probably not exclusively up to Gay to decide & answer them.

Yes but it was an obvious trap and self-inflicted wound. Is giving the technically correct answer alone actually better considering the resulting consequences? Would have been smarter to give both the desired answer (calling for genocide is bad) AND follow it with the technical answer to make it clear she understood both what the schools rules are as well as what was happening in that hearing and why.

Only someone as credentialed as a Harvard president would think this is a hard question to answer. You can be for free speech and not deliver a word-salad answer that basically sounded like "maybe" to most of the people listening.

It is a hard question to answer because the school has a policy of allowing and supporting free speech. The question isn’t black and white. If you support free speech, you have to support objectionable speech that you disagree with, unless it moves from being speech to being targeted or actionable. That was the whole crux of her answer and why it was a completely dishonest question. Harvard allows the Westboro Church to say “God hates f*s” and “death to queers” despite many not liking it because it’s free speech until someone takes action on that.

It’s even more ludicrous considering that the people attempting to push the question dishonestly are the same ones who like to cry about free speech on Twitter, a private platform, while saying free speech should be curbed if it’s objectionable in this case at a university that takes public funding.

> It’s even more ludicrous considering that the people attempting to push the question dishonestly are the same ones who like to cry about free speech on Twitter

How do you know they are the same people?

Because Elise Stefanik, the Congresswoman in question, cosponsored the “Protecting Free Speech” Act and the “Restoring Academic Freedom on Campus” Act which are supposedly meant to “prevent colleges and universities from stifling the free expression of diverse viewpoints”. As usual, it’s only to prevent stifling the viewpoints they agree with.

I think "death to queers" doesn't fall under freedom of speech because it seems to directly call for violence- speech doesn't need to lead to actions to be considered uncovered by free speech rules.

The other example you gave is free speech, because it's not a call to violence.

(I am applying my own interpretation of free speech laws, as well as the general understanding of legitimate free speech in the US; please assume I have a reasonable level of education on this).

It’s already been ruled that “death to queers” is allowed as long as it doesn’t target individuals or amount to a “true threat” which exactly what Gay’s point was during the hearing. The speech itself is protected unless it’s targeted (which “from the river to the sea” or whatever it is and the word “intifada” likely wouldn’t be) and actionable which it definitely isn’t. It would need to be proven that the people making the speech had the intent of directly or indirectly harming the people they had targeted.

All this discussion does is prove that there’s nuance to the question and that it’s not black and white which is exactly why I believe it was a dishonest question to begin with.

> speech itself is protected unless it’s targeted

It's First Amendment protected. Universities have a long track record of having policies more restrictive than that.

Yes and that’s a direct quote from Gay during the hearing - “Gay, in her testimony, said such speech can be a violation of the school’s policies “depending on the context” if it is “targeted at an individual.””

Which is mincemeat of an answer. Plenty of hate speech is banned on university campuses even when not targeted at an indi vidual.

That’s irrelevant unless you have examples of this being the case at Harvard.

Harvard is notorious in its modern history of censorship [1].

[1] https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...

None of those things are examples of students being censored. Disinvitation and protesting are themselves protected activities. This doesn’t say what you’re claiming it says.

Can you point to the ruling? It looks like Google searches don't uncover any useful writing about a specific legal ruling allowing direct calls to violence against a group, but as usual, I am always best convinced by specific links to articles referencing case decisions.

Look up the true threats doctrine. There won't be any specific case law on the phrase you mentioned. Here's one summary of the doctrine:

> The U.S. Supreme Court defined true threats in Virginia v. Black (2003) as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” According to the Supreme Court, true threats include when a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. [1]

https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/wha...

I don't agree that applies in this case- in terms of Westboro, they very clearly advocate actual direct violence. In the case of the protesters at Harvard their intent is much less clear - I suspect even the people calling for intifada aren't attempts to elicit immediate violence.

I broke my cardinal rule- never get involved in an internet discussion of free speech. Also, and this is purely opinion- I think the Supreme Court made an error in their ruling.

It does apply. Westboro has already argued the “true threat” position and won.

https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-hurtful-speech-westboro...

Clearly, the justices and I have a difference of opinion about what a direct threat looks like (in the case of Westboro).

Yes but, as someone else pointed out, Harvard is a private school that takes federal funding. The Supreme Court’s decision wouldn’t affect them either way.

> I don't agree that applies in this case

You don't think the doctrine applies, or you don't think it is satisfied?

I think the bigger issue here is that Harvard does not guarantee First Amendment levels of free speech protection. They caution students about all sorts of protected speech, so what the First Amendment does or doesn't protect isn't really relevant.

> in terms of Westboro, they very clearly advocate actual direct violence.

They did? When I learned about them in law school, we only covered their unsavory protesting at military funerals, which did not involve advocating violence. What did they do that advocated direct violence?

Sorry, I was working on the assumption that "Death to gays" was considered a direct call to violence, but it does not seem to be.

(All of this was a misunderstanding caused by me misparsing a statement above suggesting Westboro was protesting at Harvard)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_president_of_t...

It needs to something that a reasonable person who directly heard the speech would interpret as a “true threat” to a person or group. In the case above, the defendant made a claim that he was going to “set his sights on LBJ” if he was drafted and they “ever gave [him] a rifle”. He threatened to shoot a President of the US and his speech was found to be protected because of the qualification mentioned above. Two prior courts found him guilty and the Supreme Court reversed the decisions.

What do you mean "Harvard allows the Westboro Church"? Harvard has no power over the church.

Westboro Baptist is allowed to protest at Harvard graduations based on the university’s policies. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/12/2/harvard-protest...

Based on that article, it doesn't sound like Harvard is allowing them, it sounds like they have no power to stop them, since they're protesting near Harvard.

They are allowed on campus. Harvard is a private school and can ask anyone to leave the campus for any reason.

> It is a hard question to answer because the school has a policy of allowing and supporting free speech. The question isn’t black and white. If you support free speech, you have to support objectionable speech that you disagree with, unless it moves from being speech to being targeted or actionable.

This is a great philosophy. I only wish Harvard had thought to embrace it prior to last October, instead of coming in dead last on FIRE's free speech index: https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...

I hope that this experience will lead Harvard to actually commit to a free speech culture across the board. But I am admittedly pessimistic that any kind of consistent application of these principles will result.

FIRE's free speech index is hardly definitive. It asks students about how they feel, not about actual, verifiable support from the school. The survey uses questions like "Would you be opposed to a speaker with x view coming to campus to speak" and then base the results on how the students responded, not based on whether or not the school actually restricted students' speech. Additionally, disinvitations are measured as well despite not being examples of student speech being censored.

Harvard clearly scored poorly but it seems like they only scored poorly because the students aren't ok with viewpoints that are non-inclusive or borderline hate speech. It has nothing to do with the school's policies or positions on free speech and what is or isn't allowed.

The survey does not ask "Would you be opposed...?" It asks:

> Student groups often invite speakers to campus to express their views on a range of topics. Regardless of your own views on the topic, should your school ALLOW or NOT ALLOW a speaker on campus who promotes the following idea?

Someone who truly supports free speech would say "ALLOW" even if they themselves personally disagree with the speech. Students at Harvard apparently do not.

Additionally, the survey asks students whether they support suppressing speech via deplatforming or violence, and whether they believe that the administration would defend the rights of speakers when controversy arises.

The questions can be found on page 76 of this PDF: https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/09/CFSR%202...

> Additionally, disinvitations are measured as well despite not being examples of student speech being censored.

A second ago you said that free speech covers the Westboro Baptist Church coming on campus. Now it only applies to students? If someone is being disinvited, presumably someone invited them to begin with, whether students or faculty.

How is that in any way materially different from my point? The survey still isn't about what actions any of the schools have taken or whether the schools' policies allow for free speech. That makes it completely irrelevant in a discussion about whether the President of the school was committed to free speech. The survey asks students their opinions. FIRE actually has a separate tracker for disinvitations and, based on population sizes and breakdowns by political lean, conservatives request more disinvitations than should be expected for the population of students that consider themselves conservatives.

>A second ago you said that

Yes... and I also said that, as someone else pointed out also, it was irrelevant to a private university that is allowed to remove anyone from campus that it wants. Allowing Westboro to stay on campus shows that their policies on free speech extend to objectionable speech regardless of what ideology is stating it. That's not the same thing as students choosing not to invite or hear views from people whose views are readily available on the internet nor is it the same thing as student opinions overriding the actual actions of schools.

>The survey still isn't about what actions any of the schools have taken or whether the schools' policies allow for free speech. That makes it completely irrelevant in a discussion about whether the President of the school was committed to free speech. The survey asks students their opinions.

In cases like this though, perception is probably closer to reality than actual activity. For instance, I think it's pretty fair to say that society is pretty against robberies. If you did a survey asking how comfortable people are with robbing people[1], I think most people would answer "Very uncomfortable". However, if you look at FBI crime statistics[2], you see that majority of robberies don't result in arrests. If we were applying your logic, we'd conclude that clearly society/the police don't have a policy of catching robbers.

[1] For the purposes of this argument, we can further presume we're robbing a Bad Person (eg. anti-abortion protesters if you're a liberal) to get past any ethical considerations

[2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

>If we were applying your logic, we'd conclude that clearly society/the police don't have a policy of catching robbers.

No we wouldn't. My logic is that we'd have stats regarding how many crimes were documented, whether they were solved or not. And, as you've shown, we do.

No police department will have a 100% closure rate but that doesn't mean at all what you're claiming should be the conclusion based on that fact. The conclusion would be to look at how many cases of free speech issues were reported and what was done as a result. Transparency is what's needed, not misleading and inappropriately applied surveys.

If there is a climate where people expect that exercise of free speech will result in retaliation, then people will self-censor before there can even be an incident to report. This phenomenon is known as a Chilling Effect.

This is why people's beliefs about whether speech is properly protected or not are relevant. If people don't believe that free speech is protected, speech can effectively be curtailed even with few actual incidents.

The complaint is that liberals are reporting conservative viewpoints they disagree with. If the school was doing that, why would the liberals be self-censoring? You’re not making any sense.

> the school has a policy of allowing and supporting free speech.

No they don't!

They literally have a policy that allows students to say things that are considered objectionable and, unless you have examples where they've violated that (disinvitations are not censorship of student speech as the invites are external), you'll need to do better than just "No they don't!".

It doesn't have such policy. It's the lowest ranking university with a free speech score of 0. ZERO.

It does. FIRE asks students how they feel about free speech. It has nothing to do with what actions schools have actually taken and what their policies are.

Are you for free speech? Is Gay? We all know Harvard would attempt to discipline students for opinions they perceive as "racist" or "transphobic".

Is that true, though? I know colleges bar speakers that espouse disagreeable views but do they prevent students from espousing disagreeable opinions?

>Is that true, though? ... do they prevent students from espousing disagreeable opinions?

In Harvard's case yes. They have an appalling record of trying to suppress views they don't like for students, speakers, and staff. https://www.thefire.org/news/harvard-gets-worst-score-ever-f...

If someone at Harvard was publicly advocating for killing black people, I have no doubt that they would be immediately expelled. So freedom of speech doesn't apply here.

Even saying "All Lives Matter" was effectively fatal to several academic careers even though it's a positive affirmation.

The context is important. “All Lives Matter” sprung up as a reaction to “Black Lives Matter”. It was hardly ever said outside of the context of Black Lives Matter, and if it was, it was probably referring to something unrelated, such as animal rights.

The only reason people say “All Lives Matter” as a response to “Black Lives Matter” is to void or nullify the latter statement, and as such a very obvious dog whistle for something which is hate speech.

That's not correct: many people who said All Lives Matter meant it in good faith and not to nullify BLM. Claiming otherwise is .... not a realistic assessment of their intent. And in fact, in saying so,m you're basically trying to shut down discussion by calling people racist.

If “All Lives Matter” is used outside of the context of BLM, then it is harmless. If it is used inside the context of BLM it is a racist dog whistle.

That said, I stand by what I said that most of the time it is being used in the latter case. Wikipedia has an article about the latter case, not the former. Searching the term in any search engine will have you scroll very far down before you see it outside the context of BLM.

Perhaps that's because so many people who wanted to say "All Lives Matter" were terrified of saying it because... well, a small number of people used it abusively?

Suppose everything that you said is true. What does this mean for arguably "dog whistle" terms like "from the river to the sea"?

From the River to the Sea is usually said in the context of Palestinian liberation, Israeli occupation or zionism, so applying the same logic it seems to affirm Palestinian liberation and decolonization or deny or nullify zionism. Doesn’t really sound like a dog whistle in that context.

Wikipedia seems to agree with my assessment:

> All Lives Matter is a slogan that was created as a negative response to the Black Lives Matter movement. It is a conservative rejection of the acknowledgement of police brutality and ethnic violence that is the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement.

> "From the river to the sea" (Arabic: من النهر إلى البحر, romanized: min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr; Palestinian Arabic: من المية للمية, romanized: min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye, lit. 'from the water to the water') is a political slogan that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area described as Palestine, which today includes Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

> Palestinian progressives use the phrase to call for a united democracy over the whole territory while others say "it's a call for peace and equality after ... decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians."

Even the Hamas charter is pretty explicit about what it means (where the context is obvious):

> Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea [...] along the lines of the 4th of June 1967

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Lives_Matter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea

This is one of those cases where wikipedia is not a useful reference.

It sounds like you are saying that it is cancellation-worthy to be aligned with an American conservative position, but normal and acceptable political expression to be aligned with Hamas. Is that your position?

>> All Lives Matter is a slogan that was created as a negative response to the Black Lives Matter movement. It is a conservative rejection of the acknowledgement of police brutality and ethnic violence that is the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement.

>> "From the river to the sea" (Arabic: من النهر إلى البحر, romanized: min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr; Palestinian Arabic: من المية للمية, romanized: min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye, lit. 'from the water to the water') is a political slogan that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area described as Palestine, which today includes Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

I can think of opposite interpretations of both examples. For instance, "all lives matter" is to be taken literally to be an inclusive declaration of equal treatment under the law, or "from the river to the sea" calls for ejection of jews from region. How do you arbitrate between them, without relying on an authority like wikipedia?

By listening to the context in which they are said. The Wikipedia quotes were simply to reaffirm the context in which both phrases are most likely to be used in. “All lives matter” is most likely to be used as a reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement. While “From the river to the sea” is most likely to be used in the context of Palestinian Liberation (sorry I’m repeating my self).

"From the river to the sea" has nothing to do with expulsion and everything to do with an end to militarily-enforced apartheid. It's highly disingenuous to continue to affirm that this slogan is genocidal when it simply isn't. Astonishingly bad faith when the people saying it are telling you exactly what they mean by it, and it's not mass expulsion or genocide, but equal treatment under the law and a respect for human rights.

The Arabic original of the slogan is, "min el-mayeh lil-mayeh, Falastin Arabiyeh" or in English "from the water to the water, an Arab Palestine". It's a clearly nationalistic slogan that goes well beyond equal treatment under law or human rights.

Sure, but that's not what's being said. If that were the dominant use of the phrase that would be one thing, but the dominant use (and the one that's got everybody upset) is "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free".

Are we to believe that the English and Arabic speakers at these demonstrations mean two completely different things, simply by virtue of the English speakers using a nonliteral translation?

Yes, a phrase that's used in English that has a different literal meaning than a slogan in another language with a similar phrasing but different meaning is literally not the same thing. I doubt the majority of English speakers are even familiar with the original Arabic, but it's also irrelevant because it's not what it being repeated. If people meant that they would say that.

They mean something different, so they say something different, and keep refuting loudly and repeatedly the baseless accusations of antisemitism lobbed at them by those who want to silence their message by policing the language used to communicate it.

>I doubt the majority of English speakers are even familiar with the original Arabic, but it's also irrelevant because it's not what it being repeated.

Yes it is. Lots of people in the current wave of demonstrations have been using the Arabic version.

Have they? That's not something I've encountered anywhere. I'm willing to entertain the possibility, but can you back that up with any evidence?

Let me find you the video clip I saw of demonstrators in Toronto.

I haven't managed to find the video of Toronto, but here's one of New York: https://twitter.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1748449960368996486

In the time it took you to find this one demonstration with honestly not that many participant, all of whom young students, cited from inside a twitter thread full of bad faith arguments, we’ve had Benjamin Netanyahu himself use this phrase to mean total Israel control (which at best means colonization or apartheid, or worst genocide against arabs).

The difference here is that those are all pretty young students, and have no control over any policy, while Netanyahu is the Prime minister of a country at trial for Genocide.

And while this variation of the phrase is definitely nationalistic, in the context of Palestine being colonized by a non-arab population it is probably more in line with “Colonizers go home” as opposed “No Jews allowed”, after all there are Jewish Arabs too.

And finally these very same protesters were sprayed with skunk water at the very same demonstration[1]. That really shows how the powerdynamic actually aligns and who is actually at risk.

[1]: https://twitter.com/ColumbiaSJP/status/1748729253770698944

> Palestine being colonized by a non-arab population

Colonized? Jews are the indigenous people of the region. Arabs are the colonizers.

> there are Jewish Arabs too.

Not any who identify as Jewish Arabs, no: https://k-larevue.com/en/arab-jews-another-arab-denial/, https://www.jimena.org/who-is-an-arab-jew/

I think you might be a little dishonest here.

Have you ever heard Arabic speakers at a demonstration chant “فلسطين عربية” or “فلسطين إسلامية”?

What you did was open my own wikipedia source, scroll down to the Variations section and found this old variation there.

However if you open the original source[1] which claimed this historic use of the slogan, it specifically states that some people remember it being this way during the first intifada (1987-1993). This same source also says:

> It is true that a state of Palestine would entail the end of Israel as a Jewish ethnic-national state. But as many Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals (and others) have noted: replacing Israel with a Palestinian state need not result in genocide or the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

This article also raises an important point:

> If one of our goals is to move Jewish American audiences, we need to recognize that the Israeli state and its allies have found it easy to weaponize this particular slogan in order to incite fear among Jews.

I recommend you read this article, it is quite brilliant.

1: https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/on-the-history-meaning-and-po...

>Have you ever heard Arabic speakers at a demonstration chant “فلسطين عربية” or “فلسطين إسلامية”?

Yes, during the current wave of violence and demonstrations.

I did some online searching and yours is the only claim I’ve found that this variation is used in the current era of demonstrations. The article I just cited seems pretty sure that this old variation has gone out of fashion in favor of the current one:

> Friends and activists I have asked remember this phrase being used during the Oslo era, when it was adapted and developed as part of a critique of and complaint against a Palestinian leadership from Tunis that surrendered claims over historic Palestine. At some point, the phrase became the rhyming couplet that it is today: “Min al-nahr ila al-bahr / Filastin satatharrar” (“from the river to the sea / Palestine will be free”). It is this version—with its focus on freedom—that has circulated within English-language solidarity culture from at least the 1990s.

> For instance, some variants promote an Arab nationalist frame (“Palestine is Arab”), and others propose an Islamist frame (“Palestine is Islamic”). In contrast, the current version [emphasis mine] (“Palestine will be free”) expresses an open-ended but emphatic aspiration for liberation—this has allowed it to resonate with other freedom struggles.

Now I did find material for the Arab nationalist variation, including a rather catchy protest song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldX9UEVJo0g). I don’t speak arabic so it is possible that the older variation is still used and discussed on the arabic speaking web, however I’m not finding it at all on the English speaking web, I can only find it being discussed in the historical context.

The issue is that elite universities have not actually been protectors of free speech/academic freedom in recent years, so it becomes difficult for them to make legalistic claims about how calls for genocide are not technically against their policies.

Free speech in what sense? Freedom from government sanction (outside of the realm of things like incitement, defamation, breaking classification, etc) or freedom from any accountability and consequences? The former I support entirely, the latter is simply not a real thing and never has been. People who frame their desire to be free from a public reaction to what they say as "free speech" make me suspect their motives in making those claims.

I have no idea what the rules are in american universities, but all the recent stories i've read regarding eg gender pronouns, and how people should behave on campus in general made me think free speech is quite a remote consideration.

If i'm wrong however and people really are allowed to say absolutely anything they want, then it would have been a very simple statement to make "we are free speech absolutists, we believe people shouldn't be punished for what they say, no matter how offensive it is, only for what they do". In which case i would have been 100% supporting her.

So her answer was complicated in testimony because the pro-Israel side has been trying to frame the words "Free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea" as a call for genocide against Jewish people. Maybe for some people that's what those slogans mean, but for many others those slogans mean a one (secular) state solution with equal civil rights for Jewish Israelis and no military occupations or apartheid. To others it means the establishment of a Palestinian state around the 1967 borders.

The problem is the pro-Israeli right was out to "scalp" Gay (Christopher Rufo said exactly that). Her testimony was bad, but largely because she was not being asked questions in good faith.

Nothing Chris Rufo says matters. He'd claim responsibility for Sam Altman's ouster from OpenAI if it somehow suited the grandiose public profile he's attempted to craft for himself. Certainly no matter who was serving as president of Harvard, and no matter what they'd said, Rufo would love nothing more than to associate himself and his "movement" with their failure.

It's nobody's fault but Rufo's opponents if an Ivy League university administrator somehow becomes a cause celebre and a major 'L' for the left. He's a gigantic troll and there is no reason to empower him.

There's no reason to concede the culture war framing in the comment you responded to. We have in fact extraordinarily clear evidence that Gay engaged repeatedly in (perhaps minor, perhaps major) instances of plagiarism. Nobody has a divine mandate to serve as Harvard president; no cause depends on a particular person holding that role; no great injustice can be done by someone losing it who has, for whatever reason, become a liability to the institution. Claudine Gay will be fine. Someone else will be Harvard president.

I agree with your framing here almost entirely, but I think it's a mistake to write off Rufo entirely. It may be in this case it's a self-serving post hoc analysis of events on his part. Maybe even probably that. But he's managed to start moral panics before (he was championing CRT and "parental rights" as wedge issues long before they were in vogue). Not worth listening to, but imo worth monitoring.

"trying to feame the words free palestine" : i understand that was the goal, however the question in itself was super unambiguous.

If she wanted to be vague or super careful it should gave been on the following questions, not on that one. The least one can say is that she's not very smart.

These are not hard questions to answer. To the standard of bullying and harassment that private universities are legally permitted to regulate in their Student Code of Conduct, calling for genocide is in fact bullying and harassment. To the standard of constituting a crime for which an offender can be arrested and tried in court, calling for genocide is not a crime.

Public universities are, as institutions of the state, required to scrupulously uphold the First Amendment, and have an entire toolkit of time-tested ways to do that without making campus life unlivable for whomever the undergrads go on a moral crusade against this semester. I went to a public school that encountered some of the same controversial issues Harvard, Penn, and MIT flubbed, and did a lot freakin' better by standing for the letter of the law in distinguishing between private speech and student conduct in the course of campus activities (eg: in a classroom).

You wanna call for genocide in a campus newspaper editorial? As a hypothetical, it's free speech if the newspaper agrees to print your piece. You wanna mob someone's dorm room or community center calling them a genocidaire (much closer to what Harvard and MIT students are actually doing!), without letting them go in and out of their own space undisturbed? That's harassment insofar as you prevent any specific individual from going about their normal life, including its public component as a student (of a university) or employee (of a firm).

You don't get to walk into a random office building downtown and force the security desk to take you upstairs to the 15th floor so you can hold placards and yell slogans at desk-jockeys working for Web Marketing Firm #23. You don't get to barge into a classroom where course lectures are being given to do that either.

The problem was that the tolerance of "kill all Jews" didn't arise from a principled defense of freedom of speech in general. Harvard clamps down on a lot of speech, but then hand-wrings and carefully looks for "context" when the particular group attacked is Jews. That's not even-handed, or a case of biting the bullet in hard cases of free speech.

I would ask if you apply the same rules regardless of the subject (Jew, Islamic, North Korean)?

"Is calling for the murder of Osama Bin Laden against the rules of university"?

That is a specific person, so yes.

I never heard anyone in the US calling for the murder of Osama Bin Laden.

What are you trying to push here? I understand it's a hypothetical, but it's not a good one. Osama bin Laden was basically the most hated individual in this country for a decade, and lots of people rejoiced when the US special forces killed him in 2011. Yet, he was killed following an order issued by the United States President. People were not demonstrating in the streets calling for the murder of Osama bin Laden. Or of known Al Qaeda terrorists for that matter, or for members of ISIS.

My point here is that many people determine what is allowable for an academic to say based on their own personal political belief. Perhaps a better example would be academics shortly after pearl harbor?

Your biggest concern is a convoluted but "legally correct" (as determined by the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) reply given to lawmakers while testifying in a congressional hearing?

For reference, Will Creeley (the aforementioned legal director of FIRE) agrees: "it does depend on context."

Here's her actual response:

> The rules around bullying and harassment are quite specific and if the context in which that language is used amounts to bullying and harassment, then we take, we take action against it.

Which part of her response do you take issue with?

A free speech absolutist would argue that everything should be permissible. Gay leaned that way, but suggested that certain speech might cross the line into action. Are you arguing for a blanket ban on certain forms of expression?

> Which part of her response do you take issue with?

Not GP, but what I found most objectionable about the situation is that Harvard has not stood up for academic freedom/free speech in recent years, but now they want to pretend that it's the value they hold the most dear. This rings hollow, and makes it look like they are fair-weather fans that use the banner of free speech to protect their favored groups and bludgeon the disfavored ones.

A Harvard professor put it this way:

> “The problem with the university presidents saying that calls for genocide are not punishable is that they have such a risible record of defending free speech in the past that they don’t have a leg to stand on,” Dr. Pinker said in an interview.

Yes, liberal academia worked itself into a position that it's going to be hard to argue itself out of.

The blade of a knife is sharp both ways.

Is there a major institution (public, private, education, government, business, you name it) out there that operates exclusively on principle? And is immune to accusations of hypocrisy as a result? I can't think of one.

No institution lives up to all of its principles. But Chicago is pretty well-known for its adherence to academic freedom, and I don't think it has had any major scandals recently. Stanford also stood up for academic freedom last year when the SLS incident went down. The SLS dean who led the administration's response was then elevated to interim provost, which shows the university/board supports that approach. (Of course, Stanford has had it's share of criticism over the outgoing president's issues, but that wasn't about hypocrisy, I don't think.)

The problem is that they did handle it internally, by doing nothing and ignoring everyone.

I follow Ackman and he's been absolutely laser focused on getting her out. To an unhealthy degree, even. I guess he can sleep, finally. Anyways, he revealed a lot during this, and gave 'insider' info that basically Harvard didn't do anything because they didn't want to seem told to do so. That's basically the attitude my 12 year old has.

> That's basically the attitude my 12 year old has.

True, but... for a public institution that leans left to give in to pressure from the right is going to mean the right thinks they can push that institution around with pressure. It's to open the door to a lot more pressure.

Of course, the right way out of this dilemma is to, once it's brought to your attention, ignore the pressure but handle it like you should have handled it, and with public statements of status. "We are aware of the allegations. We have formed an independent committee to investigate. Until that investigation terminates, we have no further statement." And then a public statement when it has terminated. And so on. Then you're doing the right thing, but not responding to pressure.

Bill Ackman is right leaning? Arguably the biggest proponent of Gay's ouster while being one of the biggest donors to Chuck Schumer and the DNC.

It is very confusing to me how this got painted as pressure solely from the right. Ackman seemed like the driving force behind it, and he has mostly donated to democrats: "Since 1998, with few exceptions to select Republicans, Ackman has mainly donated to Democratic election candidates. Ackman has donated more than $600,000 to Democratic campaigns"

https://www.influencewatch.org/person/bill-ackman/#:~:text=2....

do you have any link on that "ackman" affirmation ? First time i hear about that person

https://twitter.com/BillAckman/

I imagine this is partly because he really, really badly wanted to doxx the Harvard undergraduates who signed a letter blaming Israel for their actions so that he could create a blacklist of all those people and ensure they're never hired. Inadvertently proving them correct that expressing those kinds of views is very dangerous to your livelihood. So he took to lashing out at the university directly instead.

They signed a public letter. Making sure other people are aware of their actions is not ‘doxxing’.

It was a joint statement of various student groups at Harvard with no names attached (to protect the people who signed it). He specifically wanted the names of everyone who signed or agreed with it released so they could be harassed or denied jobs.

That's as close to the literal term of doxxing as you can get.

It was signed as "Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee". Membership of the group is not considered a secret.

No, it was signed by the Palestine solidarity committee AND co-signed by 33 other organizations. Why do you think Bill was threatening them and demanding their names? Many individuals were doxxed and more were likely kept safe because it was signed by the org, not individuals.

Membership of the group is not considered a secret, and a name of a group member is not considered doxxing. Not is being exposed for shameful viewpoints a matter of safety.

You cannot have it both ways. Universities get billions in public funding and then turn around using that money to fund political activists masquerading as academics. Disciplines like sociology are now very open about the fact that academics need to be openly activist to advance. It's disingenuous to then complain about political pressure.

Even though I'm liberal and generally vote democratic, and have enjoyed the liberal nature of academia, I think political advocacy by people in power in academia has gone too far and political pressure is probably the most effective way to help guide our universities back to being shining beacons of thought.

And questions like this should be addressed on a national stage because of the specific position that Harvard holds, both historically, now, and financially. It was clear the Board was more than happy to try to paper this over as privately as they could.

Political Pressure is how we got here.

According to Claudine Gay, in accordance with Harvard's policies these are perfectly acceptable on campus:

- "Disgraced former Harvard President Claudine Gay is finally back picking cotton where she belongs"

- "I think the black students should be picking cotton, not studying at Harvard"

Those quotes are also protected under the 1st amendment. Regardless, they're also vile, and the merits of the expression are so utterly vacuous that it has no substance for mind-expanding endeavors that universities claim to be for. Similar to calling for a genocide.

Claudine Gay is a mediocre person who should genuinely be embarrassment for setting back everything she claims to stand for by a decade, if not more.

At a much lower ranked university, I had friend who forgot quotes around a couple of quotations of prior art that made it seem like she copied with citations. She had to spend an extra semester to submit a new thesis.

It is alarming how soft academia and Harvard have been on Claudine Gay.

Are you not more worried by Harvard threatening journalists?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/25/harvard-threat...

Harvard first has to prove the statements are false in a court of law, which is (likely) impossible. It also drags this whole situation out for years, causing a whole lot more irreparable damage.

I haven't followed this closely, but from what I've read her resume was less impressive than previous people in the position. The standard should be exceedingly high to lead the most prestigious school in the country(/world?) and get paid $900K/year.

If I hire unqualified people and pay them high salaries, does it count as bribery?

There’s only one reason she was forced out and it had nothing to do with plagiarism.

Unfortunately, nothing will change until the system that produced this changes too. No doubt she will retain her tenured position.

As she should.

> she should

Why? What work has she done to deserve tenure?

She hasn't written a single book that wasn't field-changing, award-winning, and on the NYT bestseller list. (Of course, the same could be said for me.)

> Of course, the same could be said for me

But you didn't get to be the president of Hardvard, did you?

Not yet, but I hear the position is open!

Hurry up and apply then!

It took me a second to realize you were intentionally using a vacuous truth (any statement is true about all members of an empty set) rather than accidentally inverting "was" as "wasn't".

It's a tough one because a PhD dissertation can be seen as a book.

It's quite apparent from everything that has come to light that she got tenured for the same reason she got to be Harvard president. Merit was not one of the reasons.

The faculty and entire student body of Harvard are more qualified to be president of Harvard than Claudine Gay.

The only reasonable conclusion is she was hired solely for her skin color, which is both discriminatory and racist of Harvard in the first place.

Plagiarists- which Claudine Gay is- should lose their tenure, because their tenure was predicated on them being legitimate scholars, and plagiarists are not legitimate scholars.

It was established that she has a skimpy record, and nearly every one of those contains near-duplication of text without attribution. How could you ever trust an academic after it was exposed that they did that (intentionally)?

It's hard to be an academic but not plagiarizing is rule #1 or #2.

Picking one allegation from the top of the list here [1] (number "6"), it appears that she used similar phrasing to another reference, in order to describe a chart in her own work. But as best I can tell, the charts being described are completely different and based off of different datasets. [2, 3] So what I see in this instance is what looks like similar text matching, not theft of ideas or original research. If I'm wrong about this, I'll happily eat my words. Most of this stuff looks like that, or issues where she cited a reference but didn't include proper citations every time she summarized some fact (which should be fixed, but isn't a catastrophe.)

[1] https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Complaint2... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10780874156200... [3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4121593?seq=12

I absolutely agree that in some situations, text that looks like an exact copy isn't plagiarism. Intent matters!

But don't pick one allegation- consider all of them. When considered in whole, it's seems fairly clear her modus operandi is to 'copy-paste' entire sections of text and then change small numbers of words. And I suspect she had the intent- to do less work to create text that would get published. But I'm not 100% certain and I don't know what mechanism the plagiarism occurred by.

I dojn't think arguing that identical/similar text describing a different analysis is a good line of argument, either- wouldn't text describing charts that were completely different be.... much more different?

You can look at the charts themselves to determine whether they're different. And then if you determine they are, then talking about the slopes (or coefficients) of variables doesn't seem like plagiarism to me.

More generally, "the large numbers of incidents" here is exactly what I'd expect if someone ran a text detector, but didn't do any quality control to see if the result actually represented theft of original research.

I honestly think you are either intentionally or mistakenly ignoring the large swaths of direct copied text, as in entire sentences/paragraphs.

False positives in plagiarism detection is a problem but my inspection of the examples found roughly 3-4 examples of directly copied sentences, usually with just one word changed, from a paper that she explicitly cites elsewhere in the document. Under my understanding (I'm an ex-academic with published papers) this counts as real plagiarism, and since it's repeated throughout multiple works, I think it's safe to conclude she did this intentionally and just thought she wouldn't get caught. I could be wrong.

One of the people she plagiarised concludes that she did, and believes Gay's "work wouldn’t normally have earned tenure in the Ivy League" [1].

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/claudine-gay-and-my-scholarship...

I think the author of that WSJ article has a political motive that is greater than her academic discontent.

Many of the people she plagiarized thought it was "OK" that she did so (not sure why).

People care if you steal their original ideas and/or forget to cite them entirely. They don't care about fragments of a sentence, or whether you cited them on every page. That stuff is more "sloppy and embarrassing" than offensive.

I have to ask at this point- are you a published academic? The reason I ask is that there is specific plagiarism training in most programs.

There are very specific guidelines laid down, it's not about whether the person you copy "cares" or not. All of my training around plagiarism made it quite clear: the research misconduct officer will look at all the examples and exclude the ones that appear to be legitimate mistakes and false positives.

I cannot see these examples as legitimate mistakes or false positives.

Yes. You can type my first and last name into Google to find my publication list and Google Scholar.

I am disappointed by all the people whose understanding of plagiarism is limited to some mechanical set of rules enforced by a University research officer. Academic rules on plagiarism exist for specific reasons, and anyone in this field should be able to articulate those reasons or work them out from first principles. Once you understand why the rules exist, you’ll also understand why we take certain types of misappropriation much more seriously than others, and why in some cases violations can be addressed with a correction.

(It goes without saying that we don’t tell students this. We tell students that if they forget to cite a six-word sentence fragment, they’ll be put in the electric chair and given 20,000 volts.)

Thanks; I'm surprised you have an academic track record and yet defend her plagiarism. To me it's cut and dried: this was direct copying, without attribution, likely done with intent, and it's not just a few words going uncited, it's paragraphs with one or two words changed.

Do you truly think she did not intend to plagiarize or thought that what she wrote was totally OK? I've informally polled my larger academic community and by and large, they think that once the full set of examples was shown, that it rose to the level of "a person analyzing this text with the 'first principles' and 'reasons for plagiarism rules' would conclude it was career-ending.

ALso I'd like to say that I really don't like you saying "understanding of plagiarism is limited to some mechanical set of rules enforced by a University research officer". I had several classes when I was a grad student and we discussed all this in detail, as well as going over these sorts of things with other students and my advisor. We really did put a lot of thought into this, it's clearly not just applying the rules of the integrity officer.

In the real world the bar for “ending the career” of a researcher is very high. And it should be. We as a society spend enormous (often taxpayer funded) resources training researchers. This is why we don’t casually throw careers in the trash over missing citations and correctable minor sentence fragments that can only be discovered by machines. What we do care about is misattribution of substantive ideas, because that undermines the incentives that science relies on. Clearly the former sort of thing is extremely sloppy and should result in corrections and major embarrassment, it’s just not necessarily worth ending careers over. I have been the victim of plagiarism of both kinds, and I can assure you that disciplinary resources in the real world work nothing like the theory you’re taught in grad school. And sometimes that’s a good thing.

> In the real world the bar for “ending the career” of a researcher is very high

FWIW, her career has not been ended, only her presidency at Harvard. She's still a tenured faculty member there, and there's a decent chance she'll end up as an administrator at a different institution someday.

I understand the desire to break down the differences between different types of plagiarism, but when we're talking about the president of a top institution, is it really too much to ask that the individual not have engaged in any of them, dozens of times?

I've concluded the person we are arguing with is either arguing in bad faith, intentionally ignoring the factual details, or has a definition of plagiarism which is not consistent with that of larger academia. As such, I don't think it really makes sense for us to continue to argue (in case he replies), as it's unlikely he will convince us of his definitions, or we will convince him to look at the text copying more closely. Most people I see denying plagiarism appear to be selecting a subset of examples that work best for their argument.

Amusingly, now it's come to light that Bill Ackman (who played a big role in getting Gay out) is married to an MIT researcher who also may have plagiarized text in her thesis. I am curious how that plays out.

I spent some time thinking about my answer here.

First, about 3/4 of the academics that have weighed in on this looked at the text and considered it to be plagiarism (because direct textual copying is misattribution of substantive ideas).

Also, I think you're being a bit condescending- why should we belief that your experience with plagiarism and discipline at your instutition provides a generalized view of how it's dealt with.

Next, her career is NOT ended. She returns to her faculty position with a nearly million dollar salary. my only hope would be that she is made to teach a class "Plagiarism: how not to do it and how not to get caught if you do". Or maybe the board could sue her, and revoke her tenure and remove her job.

As scientist who took pains to be excruciatingly correct in my publication record, only to see less qualified individuals write crap that made people happy go on to great success, I can say that I think I understand the incentives that science relies on (and concluded that I would be far happier as a computer engineer than a biophysical scientist).

Further, saying one thing to students (undergrads) and another thing to Phds and professors is academically dishonest. Not that I woudl do this, but how would you feel if somebody told your students that you applied different rules to university presidents that were more loose than the ones applied to the students?

If I look at that person's profile, are they going to be more noteworthy for their scholarly work or for their strong political opinions?

> are they going to be more noteworthy for their scholarly work or for their strong political opinions

Swain researches the "representation of African Americans in Congress." Gay's work was "on black congressional representation, electoral districting and descriptive representation." Any work on those questions will require voicing politican opinions; the work is deeply political.

Most people interested enough in politics to do political research are likely to also be politically active. However, it would be possible to do political academic research detached from one's personal politics. Similarly, most biblical scholars are religious, but there are notable atheists among them.

You don't need to be politically active to do political research and you don't need to be religious to do religious research. Though, the correlation in both cases is likely high.

Interestingly, she didn't just earn tenure, she did so on a super fast track. She arrived at Stanford in 2000 and was tenured by 2005. [1] That means they put her up for tenure during the 2004-05 academic year. Normally tenure takes about 7 years, and about 50% of Stanford professors who make it to 7 years get tenure. Getting tenure in 6 is a little fast. Getting it in 5 is very uncommon. Getting it in 5 without any monographs (solo authored books) is pretty much unheard of.

My guess is that she had an outside offer (probably Harvard or Yale) and that pressured Stanford to put her up for tenure. I can't imagine an assistant prof with zero books published going to her department after 4 years and asking to be put up for tenure.

1: https://www.harvard.edu/president/biography/

> nothing will change until the system that produced this changes

Students chanting “from the river to the sea” while cheering on a terrorist attack may be the shark jump that prompts a systemic change. (Note: there is a huge difference between advocating for Palestinians and supporting Hamas. There is a huger one between supporting Hamas and supporting the October 7th attacks.)

I don't support censoring anything students say, no matter how objectionable. Someone will always find something objectionable.

Looking in from a European perspective, the congressional hearing blew my mind in several ways.

Calling for the genocide of a demographic is permissible?

When such a thing happens, it's "bullying"? Bullying!? Are you kidding me? Imagine being the target demographic, attending school every day. A mob is outside calling for your death and everybody like you. I would not experience that as a case of "hurt feelings", I'd be terrified. Fearing for my life.

By comparison, this type of speech likely lands you in jail in many countries.

And the inconsistency. These universities are well known for being supremely protective of their favorite minorities. Less favorite minorities though can be threatened to be eradicated just fine? It's an open admission that identity politics is very real.

> Looking in from a European perspective > Bullying!? Are you kidding me?

American public school perspective, here, but death threats were a normal part of the bullying equation growing up. Sure, it was mostly "we're going to kick your ass after school", but there was the occasional "we're going to put you in the hospital or the morgue" and just enough follow-through to make the threats credible.

Calling this bullying isn't inaccurate, the severity of bullying has been downplayed. It isn't just stealing your lunch money and calling you ugly.

Bullying is exactly the correct term for this. You just don't appreciate how evil bullies actually are.

Perhaps it's due to English being my second language, but I equate the situation of a call for genocide as a direct call to violence, or something extremely close to that.

There's examples in other parts of the world where this has led to actual deaths. When you speak those words, you're green-lighting the action. The target now has to hope that nobody is crazy enough to actually do it.

These are life or death matters.

I accept that freedom of speech is more generous in the US, but it still does not add up. If this is mere (extreme) bullying and not disallowed, it should apply to all. Meaning, you can call for the death of anyone, any group, and the consequences are the same: none.

We all know that's not the case, and that's what should be fixed in institutions.

In the US, you have to actually have to directly call for violence for it to be a call to violence and for it not to be protected speech.

That means prefacing something with "I think" or "I believe some violence should happen" is a different statement of expression than "Some violence should happen". In the former, you're expressing an opinion, in the later, you're calling for violence.

"Gay said in her letter she would return to a faculty position "and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do.""

If they can't fire her, they should assign her to teach Academic Integrity 101 every single year until it finally sticks.

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