Aaron Sibarium: Did Harvard's Plagiarism Scandal Doom DEI?

Aaron Sibarium discusses the downfall of former Harvard President Claudine Gay on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.

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Aaron Sibarium: Did Harvard's Plagiarism Scandal Doom DEI?

Aaron Sibarium, a staff writer at the Washington Free Beacon, whose work has been widely credited for exposing the plagiarism of former Harvard President Claudine Gay, joins Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions to discuss Gay's downfall, as well as its implications for the Ivy League; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and writers and thinkers of all kinds who can now have their work subjected to AI-powered plagiarism detection.

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sources referenced in this conversation:

"Harvard President Claudine Gay Hit With Six New Charges Of Plagiarism," Washington Free Beacon

"Excerpts From Dr. Claudine Gay's Work," The New York Times

Bill Ackman on X

"Claudine Gay: What Just Happened at Harvard Is Bigger Than Me," The New York Times

Christopher F. Rufo on X

Comments

[Chumby]

This deity will still be worshipped post Gaygate.

[Chumby]

Post gaygiarism

[Agammamon]

HR Gaygar

[SammyKacey]

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[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Gayme over.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Let's hope it did.

[mad.casual]

+1 "Hopefully, yeah."

[sarcasmic]

aye

[Zeb]

DEI -> DIE

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination will not die easily.

As surely as safeyists will still wear masks, no matter how ineffective they are*

In my experience in a hospital ED over the past several years, N 95s CAN be effective if you 1] wear them and 2] do so properly.

[Minadin]

It will die as soon as it starts hurting people in the pocketbook and in their reputations / stature.

Like, we kinda stopped talking about ESG in business and investing when inflation hit 10% and the stock market was looking like crap. Suddenly, people were more interested in performance than in virtue-signaling.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

IOW, you gotta feel the pinch, before you throw out the bitch.

The equity nonsense relies on the best of times; otherwise it gets buried under needs of a greater hierarchy.

[Longtobefree]

And yet, ESG lives on.

[MWAocdoc]

I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that wearing proper masks isn’t effective at reducing inhaled particulates. I and many others have questioned the effectiveness of mask MANDATES and other draconian lockdown interventions. Having said that, there is still little evidence that KN-95 or N-95 masks have ever prevented a single case of COVID-19 transmission. If you mean by “wearing them properly,” having a fit test with your respirator and changing them out frequently during the day, then they MAY reduce viral droplet exposure somewhat. How many of your colleagues got fit-tested and changed out their respirators frequently during the day? How many of the wear their masks over facial hair?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Like most religions, they don't die. Unless all the believers do.

[damikesc]

With "properly" not being "for hours on end in different environments and fitted properly as well"

[Dillinger]

>>diversity, equity, and inclusion

as long as race is a factor racists will factor.

[Agammamon]

No.

Harvard's plagiarism scandal happened *because DEI was already weakening*.

Its a symptom, not a cause, of its decline.

[mad.casual]

Fire her out of a cannon into the sun : point the cannon at the sun and fire her out of it ::: toe-mah-toe.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

I’m sticking to chippers; recall the stink those things brought down on this place a few years ago? Have to say I still appreciate Reason for not buckling down and giving names to Preet.

[Chumby]

Iirc, this place gave up the names. It was about fourteen commenters that had to go get lawyers. What Reason did, against the DoJ wishes, was notify the people first that they were in some trouble.

If any of the affected are still here, they could provide better insight.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Thank you Chumby; I stand corrected.

[Chumby]

I doublechecked and Reason did provide the account info for six (6) users per the subpoena that was issued (per several contemporary news reports).
I was in those comments that day. Crazy stuff.
That was the birth of the wood chipper trope here. They really should have adopted it as their logo.

[Zeb]

And one of the people investigated was investigated for suggesting that someone might end up in hell, which would have been hilarious if it wasn't scary and disturbing.

[Chumby]

After the dust settled, one of the six came back to the comments and shared some of their experience with “the process.”

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

As I like to say: Hilarious in that way we find the German people in 1939 hilarious.

[Zeb]

Well, email addresses. Preet is such a sheepworrier.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

I have a minor disagreement. The plagiarism scandal happened because DEI existed.

Unless of course, what you're saying is that had DEI been at its peak strength, that the plagiarism scandal would have been completely ignored, then I'm 100% with you.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Did Harvard’s Plagiarism Scandal Doom DEI?

If only. However, what I do suspect (and have suspected) will happen is just like ESG, just like Woke, just like PC, just like Defund The Police, we’re going to see an abandonment of the term from the very people who pushed it– which is the core tactic of the far left. When the normal population catches on to what you’re doing, retreat, rebrand, repackage and come back with a new set of complex, opaque ideological terms and deny you ever pushed the prior ideology. You watch, corporate DIE initiatives will become something else.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

I'm gonna venture to guess that is an Alinsky tactic?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Can't say. The only Alinksy tactic I'm aware of is "make your enemy play by his own rules".

I do know that Lenin less specific to what I stated above said, "When you thrust your bayonet, if you hit steel, retreat and attack another day, but if you hit mush, press your attack harder"-- very paraphrased.

[MWAocdoc]

Most of the stuff attributed to Alinsky doesn't appear in any of his writings, or they have been paraphrased out of all recognition. There is also no evidence whatsoever that any of his "Rules" was ever successfully implemented. Like most of the socialist narrative, it was more for self-righteous motivation of the masses than it was a revolutionary play-book.

[Longtobefree]

No.
Marxism will never die.

[Longtobefree]

The names will change.

[Longtobefree]

Some, but not all, of the tactics will change.

[Longtobefree]

But the strategic goal of world domination will never change.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

I guess we are stuck killing them or their proxies every couple of decades.

[MWAocdoc]

They never did have any tactics. It's not hard to win a revolution in places like Russia or China and then retroactively re-brand it as "socialist."

[CE]

Some people are Critical of your Theory.

[RickAbrams]

The Congressional testimony and her plagiarism were cause for Claudine Gay to resign and for Harvard to eradicate Woke DEI. They were two instances which grew from the corrupt and racist DEI theory which has infected much of Harvard. Upon looking at her work, it was not that she used someone else's words here or there, but the entire premise of her work is 100% incompatible with both the Declaration of Independence and the US Construction where enshrine individual inalienable rights as the nation basis. Work DEI holds that the individual countsfor nothing. All that matter is the group to which he is assigned -- Oppressor or Oppressed.If one is label oppressor, like Jews, then you can do not right, and if you're labeled Oppresses like like Hamas, you can do not wrong. Under Woke DEI all evil in the world is the fault of Whites and Jews and thus an minorities who rape, murder men, women, and babies are blameless. It's all the fault of the Oppressors.

This is not a matter of Free speech. It is the take over of the government, business and education by a hostility ideology and the exclusion and/or murder of anyone who does not go along. It is not free speech to direct someone to murder an innocent person. Nor, is it free speech to say "You're fired" to an employee who has done no wrong but does not accept DEI.

[Vernon Depner]

Thank you, ChatGPT.

[CE]

I don't see how DEI was involved in the decision at all.

She failed at the primary job of a university president, to not say something stupid that costs the university millions in donations. I can only imagine they didn't fire her for that alone because Harvard's legal counsel had coached her on what to say.

She also failed at the primary job of an academic, to produce original research without copying someone else or fudging the numbers. Any other university president would have been fired for that alone also. (Stanford fired their president for a much more minor academic violation.)

[n00bdragon]

She's a post turtle. DEI wasn't involved in the decision to fire her, but DEI is the reason she got there. Hopefully people with money are starting to look at where their money is being spent more carefully and wondering whether picking leaders based on demographic check boxes is really going to give them a suitable return on their investment.

[Fats of Fury]

Irony of ironies
Whoever runs the Oscars put in place that to qualify for nominations you have to follow a set of DEI rules.
Instead of demanding that the rules be abolished some Jewish actors are demanding Jews be included "in its list of marginalized/underrepresented groups."

https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/schwimmer-margulies-blast-oscars-diversity-rules-jews/

[Vernon Depner]

Pretty hard to argue that Jews are "underrepresented" in Hollywood.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

As Jon Stewart said, it's a myth that Jews control the media, they only control 85% of it.

[CE]

I'm gonna guess the answer is "nope."

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

Well well well...

Good news: You can get a used EV cheap.

Bad news: It's an EV.

Hertz to sell 20,000 EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

Hertz Global Holdings plans to sell a third of its U.S. electric vehicle fleet and reinvest in gas-powered cars due to weak demand and high repair costs for its battery-powered options.

The sales of 20,000 EVs began last month and will continue over the course of 2024, the rental giant said Thursday in a regulatory filing. Hertz will record a noncash charge in its fourth-quarter results of about $245 million related to incremental net depreciation expense.

The dramatic about-face, after Hertz announced plans in 2021 to buy 100,000 Tesla Inc. vehicles, underscores the waning demand for all-electric cars in the U.S. EV sales growth slowed sharply over the course of 2023, rising just 1.3% in the final quarter as consumers were put off by high costs and interest rates.

“The elevated costs associated with EVs persisted,” Hertz Chief Executive Officer Stephen Scherr said in an interview. “Efforts to wrestle it down proved to be more challenging.”

[Diane Reynolds (Paul. they/them)]

“The elevated costs associated with EVs persisted,” Hertz Chief Executive Officer Stephen Scherr said in an interview. “Efforts to wrestle it down proved to be more challenging.”

FYI, this is a VERY telling statement. My favorite part about EV Youtubers is when they brag about how cheap it is to charge up their car. Then immediately following is a Hyundai EV owner who discovers a lightly damaged battery costs over $60,000 to fix.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That guy is autistic.

And a disaffected clinger. A misfit, contrarian, and malcontent.

He should enjoy his 15 seconds of whatever this is, because life is not going to be kind to him or to his political preferences.

[DesigNate]

You’re really phoning it in these days Artie.

[Fist of Etiquette]

This was a good one.

[AT]

Did Harvard's Plagiarism Scandal Doom DEI?

No.

It'll be shielded by its guardians in the statist Woke Police/Media (including you, Reason). It's no different than when a trans with a manifesto shoots up a school or a homosexual - shocker not shocker - molests small children in a shopping mall bathroom.

The wokes always circle the wagons to protect their sacred cows.

[Bizdevil]

Thanks to Dr. Gay and her searing and insightful unique phraseology, we now add “fueling racial animus” to our uber-intellectual lexicon and realize, as they say (in less erudite circles), “It’s a thing.”

“...Oops, I did it again…” as the pop song goes.

It turns out that very phraseology was coined by Mark Anderson in July 2020 in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, entitled Do economic downturns fuel racial animus?

Really??

So, her wrenching plea of being victimized is yet another plagiarized piece?

How does the song go?

“Oops, I did it again
…got lost in the game
Oh baby, baby
…I'm not that innocent”

Britney Spears

No she's not.

Like many who are given carte blanche to get away with things - spoiled children, entitled aristocrats, coddled "stars" and people who think the ten-foot pole will never touch them because of their perceived protected status - Claudine, Formerly-Known-As-President-Gay, has ruined it for many because she thought she could get away with it - and she almost did. Or maybe she thought rules don't apply to Presidents of Harvard. Who knows, maybe they don't...

Look at how the Harvard Board dithered and (hilariously and) secretly hired a law firm to try to intimidate a "rag" paper (owned by Dow Jones and sibling to WSJ) into silence.

But they did not stay silent. Nor did the Aaron Sibarium.

People must make choices in the face of deceit: cave or confront.

[Twiz123]

End of DEI? We could only be so lucky. This will only light the fire of contempt among DEI supporters and they will double down on it. Also lets stop kidding ourselves...its not DEI...BEI. It doesn't matter if you are watching the news, a tv show, or even a commercial...13% of our country make up 80% of television now. Thats not diversity...thats homogenous...and its exactly what they were aiming for. The city where I live is majority african-american (north of 60%) and per the cities website the city " takes pride in our diversity and inclusion initiatives." Yet the city's workforce is north of 80% african-american. I think the left needs to go take some english for beginners classes as I don't think they know the definition of diversity.