The spirited defense of Claudine Gay seems absolutely suicidal for academia. I get that it sucks when "one of our own" is being taken down by the "bad guys", but it made no sense to rush to her defense (instead of initiating an independent investigation) and even less sense to defend her after the full extent of her plagiarism came out.
Professionals should police their professional standards. No individual is so important that they override the requirements of the guild. I'm big "do your job" guy, and for the good of the industry, she had to be defenestrated for her past academic misconduct. Trying to defend her only debases the entire endeavor.
It's pretty clear that elite colleges are openly reverting back to the clubby model that they tried to break away from (or at least tried to create the image of breaking away from) during the second half of the 20th century. But now, instead of being exclusive finishing schools for the sons of well-to-do white New England families, they are remodeled to be such schools for the children of a new so-called diverse elite.
The thing is that a lot of minorities hate this diverse elite that supposedly represent us. For example, a lot of Asian Americans loathe the Ivy-educated Asian Americans who, after having gotten their prestigious degrees and secured their place among the diverse elite, scold the rest of Asian America (much of it poorer and more racially isolated than your typical Ivy-educated Asian American who gets promoted to spokesperson by outsiders) for trying to rise up in society the main way that's available to them. Social climbing for me, but not for thee. I also have black friends that hate the type of Ivy black people that elite progressives love to elevate, because those black people, despite their purported love and pride in their communities, often end up looking down on the majority of black Americans and behave in ways that make it clear that what they truly want is to be accepted and loved by their elite diverse peers.
Regarding Putin and respecting a peace plan: is there any reason to believe he would honor a deal other than as a stalling technique for his larger vision of Russia empire thatβs so historically β if not religiously β compelling to him?
It seems βself-evidentβ that heβs a completely untrustworthy actor, but is there reason to believe otherwise? Why would Ukraine or her backers ever trust him? How would any argument for a treaty or a peace plan be argued?
The more likely game being played is fragmenting the West with this very question, getting us flirting with the easy out of a peace plan. Even my asking the trust question here comes at a price to solidarity of purpose.
In the fiction world, there wouldn't be much doubt about Gay's plagiarism if she'd performed the same actions in a short story or novel. I'm fascinated by the notion that plagiarism is treated differently in academia. I have professor friends and acquaintances arguing on both sides of the issue.
Agree with David -- you're good at this kind of commentary, Sam. Although I do squint occasionally at what feel like rushed conclusions. Such as this one: "My personal vote would be for the universities to go the UChicago route: be the place where fun goes to die, get rid of the luxury ship accouterments, the sports teams..., the baroque admissions standards, and to simply commit to a hard-and-fast meritocratic principle for admissions. There would be some combination of tests, grades, and essays, and a rigorous focus on academics for matriculated students, and that would be the end of it β and that would lead, I suspect, to respect and a restoration of public confidence in the universities."
The problem with this is what's already happening to higher ed: it's the place for rich kids who can boost their test performance and who have parents with the means and flexibility to support all the extracurriculars...and for a few lower-income prodigies whose intelligence glows in the dark. I know, from having taught in the trenches for two decades, that there are a great many affluent students who come in looking pretty good on paper and who are actually very dull to have in class. Similarly, there are very smart kids who came through poor public school systems and who have some serious gaps in preparation, but who have truly original minds. Nothing gave me more pleasure than watching the transformation in those kids over four years. In fact, it was the reason I never tried to trade up to an elite school, where my instruction and mentorship would have seemed more incidental to my students' actual success.
It's a seductive line -- to simply make everything meritocratic -- but to simply do some cold turkey move like that with admissions would be to indirectly shut much of rural America out of higher education, or at least out of the universities that offer pipelines of influence. The problem is much bigger than higher ed. Rufo and his ilk have been bleeding the public trust of K-12 for years (see my homeschooling piece), assailing other institutions meant to represent traditional scholarship, such as the CDC, and on and on.
There are times when I despair of this ever changing. When I think of the chance that I had -- which could only have come from an excellent public school -- as an enormous stroke of luck. If meritocracy is the measure of college admissions, then it only works to real social benefit if the systems funneling toward higher education are equipped to maximize opportunity and preparation.
Take, for instance, the misguided idea that simply doing away with test scores as a criterion for admission would somehow level the playing field. It did no such thing -- it only meant that the students with disproportionate resources were able to leverage some other factor to their advantage. The solution to this is what no one has the political will to bring to pass: investment in, not divestment from, a robust public education system. Sadly, the trust in such a system has been so thoroughly eroded, as the prolific commentary on my homeschooling piece revealed, that it would take decades to undo the harm that has been done.
I like these roundups.
The spirited defense of Claudine Gay seems absolutely suicidal for academia. I get that it sucks when "one of our own" is being taken down by the "bad guys", but it made no sense to rush to her defense (instead of initiating an independent investigation) and even less sense to defend her after the full extent of her plagiarism came out.
Professionals should police their professional standards. No individual is so important that they override the requirements of the guild. I'm big "do your job" guy, and for the good of the industry, she had to be defenestrated for her past academic misconduct. Trying to defend her only debases the entire endeavor.
It's pretty clear that elite colleges are openly reverting back to the clubby model that they tried to break away from (or at least tried to create the image of breaking away from) during the second half of the 20th century. But now, instead of being exclusive finishing schools for the sons of well-to-do white New England families, they are remodeled to be such schools for the children of a new so-called diverse elite.
The thing is that a lot of minorities hate this diverse elite that supposedly represent us. For example, a lot of Asian Americans loathe the Ivy-educated Asian Americans who, after having gotten their prestigious degrees and secured their place among the diverse elite, scold the rest of Asian America (much of it poorer and more racially isolated than your typical Ivy-educated Asian American who gets promoted to spokesperson by outsiders) for trying to rise up in society the main way that's available to them. Social climbing for me, but not for thee. I also have black friends that hate the type of Ivy black people that elite progressives love to elevate, because those black people, despite their purported love and pride in their communities, often end up looking down on the majority of black Americans and behave in ways that make it clear that what they truly want is to be accepted and loved by their elite diverse peers.
Regarding Putin and respecting a peace plan: is there any reason to believe he would honor a deal other than as a stalling technique for his larger vision of Russia empire thatβs so historically β if not religiously β compelling to him?
It seems βself-evidentβ that heβs a completely untrustworthy actor, but is there reason to believe otherwise? Why would Ukraine or her backers ever trust him? How would any argument for a treaty or a peace plan be argued?
The more likely game being played is fragmenting the West with this very question, getting us flirting with the easy out of a peace plan. Even my asking the trust question here comes at a price to solidarity of purpose.
In the fiction world, there wouldn't be much doubt about Gay's plagiarism if she'd performed the same actions in a short story or novel. I'm fascinated by the notion that plagiarism is treated differently in academia. I have professor friends and acquaintances arguing on both sides of the issue.
Agree with David -- you're good at this kind of commentary, Sam. Although I do squint occasionally at what feel like rushed conclusions. Such as this one: "My personal vote would be for the universities to go the UChicago route: be the place where fun goes to die, get rid of the luxury ship accouterments, the sports teams..., the baroque admissions standards, and to simply commit to a hard-and-fast meritocratic principle for admissions. There would be some combination of tests, grades, and essays, and a rigorous focus on academics for matriculated students, and that would be the end of it β and that would lead, I suspect, to respect and a restoration of public confidence in the universities."
The problem with this is what's already happening to higher ed: it's the place for rich kids who can boost their test performance and who have parents with the means and flexibility to support all the extracurriculars...and for a few lower-income prodigies whose intelligence glows in the dark. I know, from having taught in the trenches for two decades, that there are a great many affluent students who come in looking pretty good on paper and who are actually very dull to have in class. Similarly, there are very smart kids who came through poor public school systems and who have some serious gaps in preparation, but who have truly original minds. Nothing gave me more pleasure than watching the transformation in those kids over four years. In fact, it was the reason I never tried to trade up to an elite school, where my instruction and mentorship would have seemed more incidental to my students' actual success.
It's a seductive line -- to simply make everything meritocratic -- but to simply do some cold turkey move like that with admissions would be to indirectly shut much of rural America out of higher education, or at least out of the universities that offer pipelines of influence. The problem is much bigger than higher ed. Rufo and his ilk have been bleeding the public trust of K-12 for years (see my homeschooling piece), assailing other institutions meant to represent traditional scholarship, such as the CDC, and on and on.
There are times when I despair of this ever changing. When I think of the chance that I had -- which could only have come from an excellent public school -- as an enormous stroke of luck. If meritocracy is the measure of college admissions, then it only works to real social benefit if the systems funneling toward higher education are equipped to maximize opportunity and preparation.
Take, for instance, the misguided idea that simply doing away with test scores as a criterion for admission would somehow level the playing field. It did no such thing -- it only meant that the students with disproportionate resources were able to leverage some other factor to their advantage. The solution to this is what no one has the political will to bring to pass: investment in, not divestment from, a robust public education system. Sadly, the trust in such a system has been so thoroughly eroded, as the prolific commentary on my homeschooling piece revealed, that it would take decades to undo the harm that has been done.
I think the Israel commentary is sadly on point. Good work, thanks for sharing.