Recycling research in DEI – andMad magazine

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s another case alleging research misconduct by a DEI academician:

The chief diversity officer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, LaVar Charleston, who also teaches at the university’s school of education, has a decades-long track record of research misconduct, according to a complaint filed with the university on Wednesday and a Washington Free Beacon analysis. That misconduct includes presenting old studies as new research, which he has done at least five times over the course of his career.

The complaint, which was filed anonymously, implicates eight of Charleston’s publications, many of them coauthored, and accuses him of plagiarizing other scholars as well as duplicating his own work. It comes as the university is already investigating Charleston over a separate complaint filed in January, alleging that a 2014 study by him and his wife—Harvard University’s chief diversity officer, Sherri Ann Charleston—is a facsimile of a study he published in 2012. …

Charleston also appears to have recycled findings and interview responses from his 2010 dissertation, which involved a survey of black computer science students, in four subsequent papers: the 2012 and 2014 studies that were the subject of the previous complaint, as well as two additional studies published in 2016 and 2022.

Each study is framed as a novel survey addressing a gap in the scholarly literature. None cite Charleston’s dissertation or indicate that they are drawing on previously published material.

Plagiarism-detection software has been around since the early years of the 21st century. But I don’t know if and when its use became commonplace in evaluating academic hires or new research by established professors. I also don’t know whether these programs would catch what Charleston is alleged to have done, which is a kind of self-plagiarism.

I do know what it reminds me of, though. When I was a child my brother used to get Mad magazine, which I would peruse, and even in early adulthood I’d occasionally come across it. Thus it was that in 1973 my then-boyfriend (and husband-to-be) happened on an issue that contained what we both considered a clever and funny spoof on academic writing. My boyfriend was a Ph.D. student at the time and so the whole thing struck a responsive chord with both of us, and over the decades we’d sometimes have occasion to remember the piece.

And so, by the magic of the internet, I’ve managed to find it again. You can view it here. You can even read it if you enlarge the graphic. It’s called “Rewriting Your Way to a Ph.D.,” and here’s an excerpt:

It should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of connivance in his soul that breezing through school without ever cracking a book is a cinch if one remembers two simple facts: (1) The first theme you wrote in second grade can be rewritten to fill every assignment you’ll be saddled with later on, merely by adding some appropriate big words and twisting the subject matter around a little! And (2) teachers seldom read the trash turned in by students anyway! All that really counts is filling lots and lots of pages with words, thus “proving” that you’ve emerged with a clear grasp of whatever it is you’re supposed to be grasping.

The writer proceeds to show how it’s done, with several series’ of essays, including a sequence beginning with a second-grader’s report on his summer vacation visit to his uncle’s pig farm and progressing to “A Qualitative Analysis of Swine Vision As It Pertains to Human Behavioral Response in Osborne County, Kansas” by the same author.

Life imitates art.

Once again: on caring about how Jews vote

The New Neo Posted on by

Back in December I wrote a lengthy post on the “Jewish vote” – how much people seem to care about that statistic, and the amount in terms of numbers. I strongly suggest you read that post now; it’s not particularly long but it covers a fair amount of territory.

I noticed in today’s open thread that the subject came up once again, as it so often does.

For example, commenter “Rufus T. Firefly” asks this question in response to commenter “sdferr’s” mention of Israel’s reaction to the Biden administration’s abstention in a Security Council vote on the Gaza War:

Yet, do you predict there will be much change in the voting habits of Jewish Americans this November?

The response from “sdferr” went like this:

It’s not within my ken, rufus — quite apart from my general reluctance to make predictions.

Even so, the way matters between the Bidenettes and Israel are going I won’t be surprised if Jewish voters start to change their preferences in large numbers this election season.

“Rufus T. Firefly” replied:

Unfortunately many people prefer punishing an enemy to embracing a compatriot. I think far too many American Jews still enjoy the two dimensional cartoon of an evil Trump coming for their freedoms over the reality that his administration was one of the most beneficial for the Jewish American cause in U.S. history.

Again, I suggest anyone interested in this topic read my post from this past December. But I also want to call your attention to a poll taken a month ago in New York City, a solidly blue town:

In a poll conducted by Siena College and released on Tuesday, a group of New York Jewish voters were asked about various public policies in the state of New York as well as candidate preferences for the upcoming national elections. The results were surprising – according to the poll, New York Jews prefer Trump at 53 percent and Biden at 44 percent.

Make of it what you will – after all, it’s only one poll. But it was taken before things got even worse in terms of this administration’s attitude towards Israel. I can’t find any other recent polls on the subject.

Like sdferr, I’m reluctant to make predictions. But the poll is very interesting. Of course, as I’ve pointed out many times, the more religious Jews are the more they are likely to vote Republican. For example, in 2020:

Orthodox Jews, however, stand out as a small subgroup (roughly one-in-ten Jewish adults) whose political profile is virtually the reverse of Jews as a whole: 60% of Orthodox Jews describe their political views as conservative, 75% identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP, and 81% approved of Trump’s job performance at the time of the survey.

A majority of all Jews surveyed, including more than half of Democrats, said they considered Trump friendly toward the state of Israel. Yet only about one-third (31%) said he was friendly toward Jews in the United States, and 37% described him as unfriendly toward U.S. Jews; the remainder saw him as neutral. Orthodox Jews, again, were a major exception: 77% said Trump was friendly to Jews in the United States, and nearly all the rest said he was neutral. Just 2% of Orthodox respondents described him as unfriendly to Jewish Americans.

And in October of 2020 came this poll result:

The survey from the community’s Ami Magazine found that a whopping 83 percent of Orthodox Jews said they will vote for Trump, compared to just 13% who said they’d support the Democratic Party’s nominee, Joe Biden. Four percent of respondents are undecided, with just 20 days remaining until the election

The poll also found that 76% of respondents believe the media is unfair to the president, while 14% said they believe that the press is mostly fair to Trump.

I will also reiterate that most Jews in the US live in large blue cities and vote pretty much as other residents of those cities vote. And a great many Jews are ethnic Jews only.

NOTE: I also strongly recommend this previous post of mine.

The Biden administration follows in Obama’s footsteps and abstains in the UN regarding Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s all just propaganda anyway. Votes like this in the UN have no teeth and are just ways to show Israel how little support it has and how much support Hamas has in the international community known as the UN:

The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed its first resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza after the U.S. abstained from the vote on Israel’s war against Hamas.

The final vote was 14 in favor, no votes against and one abstention. After the vote, the council broke into applause.

The resolution calls for an immediate cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and for the immediate release of all hostages.

The vote comes just two days after Russia and China vetoed a resolution from the U.S. that tied a cease-fire to the release of hostages.

Why didn’t the administration veto this more recent resolution? Could it possibly have something to do with the importance of the vote in the state of Michigan in November? (And yes, that’s sarcasm; of course it does.)

This is the sort of ridiculous posturing involved:

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington could not agree with the resolution because it did not condemn Hamas for Oct. 7. But she said they “fully support” other critical objectives in the measure, allowing for an abstention.

“This should be a season of peace,” she said of Ramadan. “This resolution rightly acknowledges that during the month of Ramadan we must recommit to peace.”

“Recommit” to peace with an entity – Hamas – that has zero interest in peace unless it’s the peace that comes with the Islamic domination of the entire region and then hopefully, after that, the world (although actually, the Muslim world itself is rent by bitter and violent divisions).

This was Netanyahu’ response to the US abstention:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he will not send a delegation as planned to Washington after the United States refrained from vetoing a U.N. Security Council proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office, said that Washington’s failure to block the proposal was a “clear retreat” from its previous position, and would hurt war efforts against Hamas, as well as efforts to release over 130 hostages in Gaza captivity. …

The White House denied that the U.S. abstention reflected a change in American policy.

It actually doesn’t represent a change; the administration has given a purposely mixed message ever since Israel began its operations in Gaza. And it continues the policy of the Obama administration in the UN, in which Obama’s parting shot – after the 2016 election of Trump but before Trump had been inaugurated – was to abstain in a Security Council vote about Israel’s settlements. The abstention was seen at the time as unusual and highly significant (I went into this in detail in the post I just linked).

In other news about the war in Gaza, we have this about the ongoing battle in al Shifa Hospital [emphasis mine]:

“Right now, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists are barricading themselves inside Shifa hospital wards. Hamas is destroying Shifa Hospital,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in an English-language video statement. “Hamas is firing from inside the Shifa emergency room and maternity ward and throwing explosive devices from the Shifa burn ward. Terrorists hiding around the hospital fired mortars at our forces, causing extensive damage to the hospital buildings.”

The IDF said the number of confirmed members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad captured by troops at the Gaza City medical center had risen to 500, out of over 800 suspects arrested since the raid began last week.

Hamas has said that at least 13 patients have died during the ongoing IDF raid, alleging that they were deprived of medication or that their ventilators stopped working after Israeli forces cut hospital electricity, The New York Times reported.

International law stipulates that while a medical facility is a protected site in conflict, it loses that status if it is used for military activity. Israel has offered evidence Hamas uses such facilities as cover for terror purposes and says the group plunders humanitarian aid to take supplies for its fighters, depriving the civilian population.

Going to the Times article just linked, I found this headline and subtitle: “Witnesses Describe Fear and Deprivation at Besieged Hospital in Gaza: Several patients have died as a result of the Israeli military assault, the Gazan authorities say. Israel says the operation is targeting Hamas leaders.” The emphasis in the headline – all that many people read – is on the suffering patients at the hospital. The statement that several patients have died as a result of the Israeli assault (rather than as a result of the Hamas occupation of the hospital to use it as a terrorist base) is given pride of place, and is only identified as a statement by “Gazan authorities” rather than adding that these authorities are Hamas. And then, in a sort of “on the one hand and on the other hand” approach, the Times adds that Israel says that Hamas leaders are being targeted in the operation, as though this is just a contention open to debate rather than an obvious fact.

Appeals court in NY eases up ever-so-slightly on Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

The decision went like this:

The Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division agreed to block former President Donald Trump’s $464 million bond if he posts $175 within the next ten days for his New York civil fraud case.

Trump’s lawyers asked the court to lower the bond of pause payment, which was due today.

The decision continued the restrictions on Trump and several others in the company (including family members) from doing business in New York by applying for loans, or serving as officers of any corporation, for varying amounts of time. At this point I can’t imagine why they – or anyone else, for that matter – would want to do business in New York after a persecution such as this.

And perhaps that’s why the judges voted to make the process slightly less Draconian: they probably realize the danger the case presents to investments in NY if people are scared away. It doesn’t really change the basic injustice, however. And $175 million only seems small compared to the original figure. But it’s still an absurd amount in an absurd case that’s right out of the trials in the Alice books and only a few steps away from the Stalinist show trials; the torture here is only mental and financial so far, and the potential punishment isn’t death.

Jonathan Turley has this to say:

Yes, “repellent for many” – but for how many? It should be repellent for all.

ADDENDUM: And let’s not forget the other NY lawfare against Trump, the hush money case that’s due to start next month.

The Jewish holiday of Purim begins tonight: escaping destruction

The New Neo Posted on by

Jewish holidays began at sundown and end at sundown, and Purim is no exception. This year it has special resonance:

It commemorates the (Divinely orchestrated) salvation of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian empire from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.” Literally “lots” in ancient Persian, Purim was thus named since Haman had thrown lots to determine when he would carry out his diabolical scheme, as recorded in the Megillah (book of Esther).

It’s quite a story, which you can read at the link. It contains this extremely interesting part [emphasis mine]:

Haman was hanged, Mordechai was appointed prime minister in his stead, and a new decree was issued, granting the Jews the right to defend themselves against their enemies.

On the 13th of Adar, the Jews mobilized and killed many of their enemies.

There was no International Court of Justice back then, but Jews are still fighting to defend themselves and fighting for their right to do so.

Did this really happen?:

The historical reality of this biblical episode has often been questioned, and the actual origins of the Purim festival, which was already long established by the 2nd century CE, remain unknown.

But whether it happened in Persia at that time and in quite that way, many groups in many times and places have tried to eliminate the Jews. This has happened for millennia, in both the European arena and the Middle East. For the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe, the evidence is both genetic and historical.

Persia is of course modern-day Iran, which remains the source of a great deal of Jew-hatred and supports Islamic terrorist groups in many countries dedicated to killing Jews. But Jews in Persia have a long history:

The history of the Jews in Iran dates back to late biblical times (mid-1st millennium BCE). The biblical books of Chronicles, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, contain references to the life and experiences of Jews in Persia. In the book of Ezra, the Persian kings are credited with permitting and enabling the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple; its reconstruction was carried out “according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia” (Ezra 6:14). …

Jews who migrated to ancient Persia mostly lived in their own communities. The Persian Jewish communities include the ancient (and until the mid-20th century still-extant) communities not only of Iran, but also the Armenian, Georgian, Iraqi, Bukharan, and the Mountain Jewish communities.

Jews had been leaving Iran for a while even before the ayatollahs took over in 1979, but the pace accelerated after that:

According to the first national census taken in 1956, Jewish population in Iran stood at 65,232, but there is no reliable data about migrations in the first half of the 20th century. David Littman puts the total figure of emigrants to Israel in 1948–1978 at 70,000. …

While many Jews in Iran lived peacefully after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Iranian Revolution “radically altered the status of the country’s Jewish community”. In 1979, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a fatwa decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Nevertheless, emigration continued. At the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, 60,000 Jews lived in Iran. However, about 30,000 Jews left within several months of the revolution.

When Shah Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and the new Islamic Regime under Ruhollah Khomeini was brought into power, the Jewish population in Iran began to look for routes out of the country. Although, Ayatollah Khomeini had proclaimed that the rights of Jews were to be protected, the new government would not issue Iranian Jews passports and barred them from leaving the country. The Jewish population began to fear for their lives because many Jewish leaders were killed in the revolution because of their support for Zionism and their disapproval of Jews being considered as second class citizens. Thousands of Iranian Jews began to look for ways in which they could smuggle themselves and their families out of the country. Most Iranian Jews had to leave their homes and possessions in order to leave Iran illegally as selling all of their possessions would alert to the authorities that they were trying to leave the country. Leaving the country was very dangerous as many of the roads out were being watched by the government and, if caught, one could face imprisonment or death.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jewish flight from Iran began in earnest after the May 1979 execution of Habib Elghanian, a philanthropist and leader in Iran’s Jewish community, on false charges of spying for America and Israel. The execution of Albert Danialpour case on 5 June 1980, further encouraged emigration. According to activist Frank Nikbakht, Jews sought to escape the country’s strict sharia laws, which were designed to humiliate and disadvantage the Jewish population.

It’s estimated that in Los Angeles there are now about 100,000 Jews of Iranian descent.

But back to Purim. It has the interesting characteristic of being a holiday on which it is obligatory to become drunk. There has been a great deal of verbiage trying to explain this. Here’s one effort.

Happy Purim!

The Moscow massacre: who are the perpetrators?

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night there was a horrific massacre at the start of a concert in a large venue in Moscow. The fog of war is still operating, but it appears that at least a hundred people were killed and that the death count may go well beyond that, with many more injured. The attack came from masked gunman who shot concert-goers, ignited a fire in which some were also killed, and sparked a stampede (my guess is that some died that way; according to some reports some exit doors were blocked from the outside).

This sort of m.o. bears the signature of Islamic terrorism, which has struck in Russia before. And quite quickly the terror group ISIS-K claimed responsibility:

Within hours ISIS put out a statement of responsibility through its propaganda outlet, Amaq News Agency.

But such is the state of the world today that the immediate response of many people – and this most definitely includes many commenters on blogs on the right – is to reject the idea, despite its having the force of logic. I’ve seen a lot of insistence that the true culprit was the CIA or in particular the Ukranians; the latter claim is from many people in the anti-Ukraine wing of the right. Of course, there’s also that constant culprit who rules the entire world and is responsible for every ill in it: Israel and/or the Jews as a whole. I will assume there are people who think Trump is behind it, although I doubt many think the perp is Putin – whose reputation rests at least in part on keeping Russia safe from this sort of thing.

ISIS-K was so annoyed at having its moment in the sun challenged that it issued another announcement, with photos:

And of course Putin has tried to implicate Ukrainians in some way:

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Saturday suggested that terrorists who killed at least 133 people in Friday night’s attack at a Moscow concert hall were helped by someone based in Ukraine, without providing evidence.

Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the massacre …

Putin said 11 people have been detained in the killings, including the four gunmen. “They tried to hide and moved toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the border,” Putin said in a speech on Russian television Saturday.

“Our military services, our emergency services … our investigators are working on finding out … who gave them transportation, … who gave them weapons,” Putin said…

Ukraine, which has been defending itself from Russia’s full-scale invasion for two years, has repeatedly denied any links to the attackers, with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry labeling Moscow’s accusations as a Kremlin attempt to mobilize Russian citizens against Ukraine and to try to distance the international community from Kyiv.

In his speech, Putin did not blame any specific terrorist group for the massacre.

This is the sort of situation that is tailor-made for confirmation bias and conspiracy theories fostered by previous and current propaganda.

Another fact pointed out and made much of is the idea that the US warned Putin of a threatened attack (perhaps targeting concerts) and he pooh-poohed it. However, that was two weeks prior to the attack itself, and the warning specifically stated that it was for 48 hours, and that period was certainly over by the time of the attack.

Russia says it has apprehended four of the terrorists involved:

The four suspects were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said. They planned to cross the border into Ukraine and “had contacts” there, state news agency Tass said, citing Russia’s FSB.

How did they connect the suspects to the killings? How did they track them? They were described as “foreign nationals,” but their nationalities have not been specified. And Bryansk is just as close to Belarus as it is to Ukraine – perhaps a bit closer, actually.

I think we’ll never get the full story.

Princess Kate and cancer

The New Neo Posted on by

It was revealed yesterday that Catherine, Princess of Wales, is being treated for cancer. She chose to announce the news herself in this video:

The news shocked and saddened many people. Princess Kate is only 42 years old, with three young children. It’s not clear what sort of cancer she has – although it’s abdominal – nor is her prognosis clear, although she seemed to be indicating it’s good. The announcement ended a great deal of social media and MSM (especially in Britain) criticism and speculation about a bunch of theories to explain what was happening during her prolonged absence from public life. That’s probably one of the reasons she made the announcement herself, in a video; a sort of “proof of life” document.

There has been an outpouring of affection and good wishes for a recovery. Kate has been one of the most beloved royals for quite some time. She’s been a model of decorum and style, done her bit to produce three heirs to the throne, and is lovely to look at with a beautiful smile. Despite being very thin, she has always seemed to be the picture of health.

But cancer is no respecter of these things, and living what looks like a charmed royal life doesn’t matter to cancer. As far as being relatively young goes, cancer rates have been increasing in the young for several decades. I’ve written on that topic in the past, and here’s a link to a current article on the subject, which features charts showing the rise between 1990 and 2019 (note that the rise has nothing to do with COVID or COVID shots, having long predated both).

We don’t know why this is happening. But here’s an excerpt from the article:

One review published in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2022 found several dietary factors were associated with early-onset colorectal cancer. Eating a lot of deep-fried and processed foods, foods high in fat, and sugary drinks and desserts was a significant risk factor, as was having a diet low in fiber. Other studies have found higher alcohol consumption is associated with an increased risk of developing cancer early.

Toxins in our environment, such as microplastics, could also be a contributing factor. These tiny particles can be found in everything from food containers to synthetic clothing, before making their way into our bodies and our GI tracts.

Here’s another article on the subject which goes more deeply into certain aspects of the rates from 2010 to 2019:

Gender and race played a role.

Early-onset cancer increased by 4.4% in females and decreased by 5% in males, which the researchers attribute to the rapid rise of breast and uterine cancers.

Cancer rates grew in American Indian or Alaska Native people, Asian or Pacific Islander people, and Hispanic people, while cancer incidence remained the same in White people and declined in Black people.

There is also a connection with increasing obesity. That’s obviously not a factor for Princess Kate, but I wonder whether obesity – or some genetic susceptibility – accounts for the rise in cancer in people of Hispanic background? And because the Hispanic population in the US has also increased, might that be driving a significant amount of the cancer increase?

I hope that Princess Kate will be free now to concentrate on her family and her treatment, and that she’ll experience a full recovery and return to robust health.

Why are some universities reinstating standardized test requirements?

The New Neo Posted on by

Some elite colleges that previously had abandoned admissions requirements to submit standardized test scores are now re-instituting such requirements. This may seem like a return to old-fashioned merit-based admissions. But apparently there’s a different explanation, at least at Yale and perhaps at other universities:

Yet, the meritocracy argument does not appear to have won the day entirely in New Haven. The university buttressed its announcement of the new admissions policy with the claim that “tests can help increase rather than decrease diversity,” and that “inviting students to apply without any test scores can, inadvertently, disadvantage students from low-income, first-generation, and rural backgrounds.” Mandatory test scores, in other words, are not back in because they produce the most qualified student body but because the university now believes that testing in fact promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion, which presumably remain Yale’s highest priorities.

How did Yale’s leadership reach this conclusion? “When admissions officers reviewed applications with no scores,” the university’s statement maintains, “they placed greater weight on other parts of the application. But this shift frequently worked to the disadvantage of applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds.” The university’s faceless admissions bureaucrats may, for example, have failed to consider that applicants from low-income secondary schools have fewer means besides standardized test scores to demonstrate their talent, while more “privileged” students can produce transcripts with honors courses, long lists of unique study and “enrichment” opportunities, and more informative recommendation letters from dedicated teachers in stabler environments.

Seems as though it was the law of unintended consequences that took over when the tests were jettisoned.

NOTE: And while we’re at it, there’s another Harvard professor accused of plagiarism:

Harvard professor Christina Cross is a rising star in the field of critical race studies. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, secured the support of the National Science Foundation, and garnered attention from the New York Times, where she published an influential article title “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home.”

Cross’s 2019 dissertation, “The Color, Class, and Context of Family Structure and Its Association with Children’s Educational Performance,” won a slate of awards, including the American Sociological Association Dissertation Award and the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award, and helped catapult her onto the Harvard faculty.

According to a new complaint filed with Harvard’s office of research integrity, however, Cross’s work is compromised by multiple instances of plagiarism, including “verbatim plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, uncited paraphrasing, and uncited quotations from other sources.”

The Harvard Crimson doesn’t think much of the charges, citing a statement by “plagiarism expert” Jonathan Bailey saying the allegations against Cross are weak. Recently a total of four black female scholars in the race or social justice fields at Harvard, including ex-President Claudine Gay, have been accused of plagiarism. The Crinson takes a “conservatives pounce” approach to the whole thing:

The allegations against Cross mark the fourth in a rapid series of anonymous plagiarism complaints of varying severity lodged against Black women at Harvard amid a growing right-wing attack against diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. …

In an interview, Bailey said he was concerned that the recent spate of allegations represent the “weaponization of plagiarism” to score political points — not to deal with serious concerns of research misconduct.

“It’s using plagiarism allegations, not to address issues of academic or research integrity, but rather to address political or social grievances that a person may have,” Bailey said.