Harvard University President Accused of Plagiarizing PhD Thesis

If anybody needed confirmation that folks like Monk never cared about plagiarism, one only needs to look at his most recent posts in this thread. Was always transparent what the real motives were.

 

l_boy and lawyer, I just wanted to say that I’ve appreciated your prolonged exchange about this relevant topic. A few small barbs were tossed, but you guys have mostly kept your conversation centered on arguments and reasons, which is an increasingly rare and laudable occurrence.

For my part, I think lawyer rightly focuses on the important distinction between government and social silencing. Indeed protection against the former is rightly sacrosanct, and must be maintained as such in almost all cases.

I also think that l_boy raises a valid point that just because cultural shunning doesn’t run afoul of 1A doesn’t mean that it causes no social harm. Indeed much of our current cannon of knowledge comprises ideas that were taboo in ages past. Your other thread, lawyer, includes a good example, interracial marriage. I think there’s a good chance that a teacher defending that practice in the 1940s would have lost their class. Today this is viewed as an overt injustice, but clearly this wasn’t always so. It seems a certainty that tomorrow’s children will view many of our current taboos as backward.

An important paper came out recently on this subject, perhaps the first to systematically study the social silencing of speech in science. It suggests that censorship today is based on prosocial motives, but this doesn’t mean that the censorship comes without harm. I think this is right, and I would go further to suggest that no idea should be exempt from criticism.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301642120

 

Monk, I think @gator_lawyer has a point that this tweet seems antithetical to your earlier implication that plagiarism is an act deserving of termination. Instead, it comes across as suggesting that the act of searching for plagiarism is the real evil that deserves retribution. So how are we to feel about it?

 

We are certainly in agreement that it can do harm. I simply think that it's neither purely good nor purely bad. There are situations where it is societally beneficial for people to be punished for their beliefs. And there are situations where it is harmful.

I'd put Hooven's situation at Harvard more on the harmful side, which is why I said earlier I'd have taken a different approach with her. Then again, I might not be privy to all the information about what happened in the aftermath of the Fox appearance. We've only gotten Hooven's side of the story.

The beauty of free speech (while we have it) is that we can choose to fight for the ideas that we believe are just, regardless of the social consequences. And certainly, a lot of folks in our history have chosen to stand up for what's right even when it risked personal and professional cost.

 

Now that Dr Gay has resigned her post ..... what are the chances Harvard's next leader is a highly qualified white male with an Anglo-Saxon surname? And if some like that is chosen, how significant is the public backlash?

 

I lean rather against social censorship, because in order to advocate for it on some occasions, we need to who decides when that is the appropriate measure. I do agree that on many measures society would function better if some beliefs were off the table. I think is likely why taboos evolved in virtually all cultures. Of course modern liberals are rarely reverent toward traditional taboos, and I think this is for good reason. We must have a way to evolve our beliefs, and in order to do that, I think we must not levy extreme punishments for epistemic disobedience, as our best way forward will have to come from one of the currently unpopular options.

I really like your point that free speech allows people to risk great deal to defend minority viewpoints. Though some of these canceling stories are pretty heartbreaking. I personally know of one at UF. One of the older biology faculty made a comment that was insensitive to the ears of today’s younger generations. In a faculty meeting, a young faculty member noted that the older professor didn’t mean it that way and how he actually was a good guy. A grad student representative was on hand and later relayed this to the rest of the grad students. Many of the students banded together to ostracize the younger faculty for defending the older faculty’s intentions (not even the words). This had a devastating effect on the younger faculty. He was one of the sweetest and most positive people around before incident, but for 1-2 years afterwards he appeared to be a visibly broken shell of his former self. It was just terrible, and he isn’t even one of those that ended up losing his job.

 

The answer to me is we each make that decision for ourselves. Sometimes, we get it wrong as a society. Sometimes, we get it right. I don't see it going away. And I wouldn't want it to go away entirely. I draw my own lines to the best of my ability, and I expect others in our society do the same. When I think people have drawn the wrong line, I say it. Sometimes, it's unpopular, but I'm fine with going out on a limb. The best way for us to evolve is for people to be willing to speak out when they see wrong. And I certainly respect that you and l_boy are doing that here.

That's unfortunate and doesn't remotely sound warranted. One of the difficulties with young people (in my experience, which is likely more limited than yours) is that they tend to be much more black and white in their thinking. (I'm sure some here would say I can be that way too, and I certainly am on certain topics.) Age and experience make it easier to see shades of gray and make one less reactionary in some respects. Of course, in other respects, it makes one more reactionary and entrenched (while young people might be more open-minded). But I'm sorry to hear that faculty member was treated poorly in that circumstance.

 

Imagine being a Jewish Student at Columbia and in need of advice and this is who got assigned to you. WTF.

 

Still not smooth sailing at Harvard.

Harvard campus hostage posters defaced with antisemitism as terrified Jewish students return to class | Daily Mail Online

 

Harvard's problems run a lot deeper than Gay, she was only in her job 6 months and this hate has been fomenting for years and years.

The Columbia post before yours added by @gator95 just demonstrates the blind spot these "elite" schools have for this issue. Can't imagine how many anti-semites have been installed at these schools as an effective quid pro quo for taking billions of $$ of Qatari money. And while that professor is free to speak her mind, her free speech right doesn't grant her the privilege of advising students. She's simply a despicable human being who, as Ben Sasse has said, is free to show the world what an "abject idiot" she is. And as my mother taught me, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

 

On its surface it doesn’t even bother me that someone would want an end to Israel. I would love an end to about 20 countries around the world, and if I were Palestinian or in an adjacent country that has seen the last 80 years I wouldn’t even remotely be an Israel fan.
It’s the religious undertones that come with most of these zealots. They want Jews gone. And that’s the larger problem in this discussion, Zionism has become synonymous with Judaism. Which is where the real danger is. The every day Jew is being blamed for something someone is doing 6000 miles away, things that in many cases they don’t even agree with.

 

Clearly being Jewish and being Zionist have become fungible in their minds, which is a very dangerous long term problem.

But in the short run I'd save myself those 6,000 miles and relieve her of her post as she is clearly incapable of giving objective career advice to Jewish students, which has the 15th most Jewish students at private universities in the US.

 

Heard they offered the Harvard President job to Obama. He "deferred".. whatever that means.

 

Harvard is being dumb honestly not getting in front of this. All people with published papers should be double checking their work with plagiarism detection to make sure they didn’t miss any citations or paraphrase too poorly. Most people probably wouldn’t have anything to hide and they could just make corrections if the checker picked anything up.

 

My senior thesis at UF, which I won a small award for (cough-humble brag-cough-cough) was something I heavily cited my sources for, since, unlike some of you, I was not alive during the Revolutionary War era. I hope the GOP doesnt come for it. My award is in my sock drawer next to my 9th grade MVP baseball plaque.

Apparently those are the two things my parents respected most since that is among the stuff they gave me when they cleaned out their house in the last move.

Edit: Nevermind I am safe. Not a black woman so no one will be looking at my work.

 

Just more “rules for thee but not for me”. Irony that these instructions would admonish the current doctoral students for what the administrators have done.

 

Your comment very aptly highlights the dilemma of social censorship and its impact on free speech. The story about the teachers at UF is deeply impressive and shows how important it is to find a balance between responsibility for words and creating an environment where open dialogue and development are possible. It's a reminder that we should strive for understanding and empathy, not create an atmosphere of fear. Your observation about the need to evolve our beliefs is very important.