Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Plagiarism and the Bad Faith rightwing attacks on American higher education

In PraegerU history this fictional Bodega
was actually burned down by BLM because,
"George Floyd, a black man who resisted 
arrest and was held under the knee of a
Police Officer, died while in custody."
I'm questioning my education

Is my education who I am now? 
- Pearl Jam (2003)

Heather Digby Parton has a better post about Christoper Rufo and the coordinated rightwing attack on Claudine Gay and the "liberal" media continued willingness and eagerness to adopt the rightwing framing of the issue of Plagiarism.

“It's time that Gaza Ends. The 2 million people who live there, they are clever assassins. They need to be removed from that land. That land needs to be turned into a national park." @MicheleBachmann Dean at @RegentU

Bachmann's call for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza did not earn her even the slightest rebuke from the Corporate Media let alone her former Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives.

The completely disingenuous House "investigation" led by Elise Stefanik continues to pay dividends to the Republican attacks on Education in general and any educator who does not bow down to the nascent Fascist agenda the GOP is rapidly advancing.

Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned.  She's the second of the three women brought up before the Republican Inquisitors on December 5th, former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned before Christmas but Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth has yet to bow down before the rightwing witch hunt.

Say whatever you want about the woeful answers these three gave to the House committee, a public relations nightmare from three people who should already have a baseline pro-level PR game.  But, I have to wonder if the law firm which prepped them wasn't actually paid to undermine their preparation and set them up to be slaughtered.

Former Harvard President Gay came from a. fairly well-to-do background but, that still doesn't mean to Republicans she's nothing more than her black skin and aggressively shaved head.  A scalp they yearned to take.  Gay, of course, received death threats and was called the N-word numerous times by conservatives before wealthy Harvard benefactors like billionaire racist Bill Ackman demanded her resignation, often in violent racist tirades.

The allegations of plagiarism are overwrought.  To the rabid rightwing drones plagiarism means copying and pasting entire sections of text which isn't what Gay did but, in America some people are afforded Zero-Margin for error.   It would be fascinating if Josh Hawley's Yale degree work or Ted Cruz's time at Harvard but, we all know that even if it was shown to be plagiarized, as with Neil Gorsuch unattributed copying, Republicans wouldn't care one whit.  In fact, Republicans get extra credit for undermining every institution they besmirch and for breaking rules others have to follow.

For a long time, Republicans have accused liberals, higher education, and the Dept of Ed of indoctrinating young people.  The truth is when people are educated and exposed to new ideas they more often than not turn away from Reactionary dogma and Republican propaganda.  This angers Republicans to no end.  

Republicans have hated the Department of Education ever since the Federal Government decided to make sure minorities had access to higher education.  What they want is to funnel taxpayer dollars to Fascist fundamentalist schools, but they also want to gain control of what is taught.  The still shot from the PraegerU "lesson" on George Floyd is one of a series of kids cartoons aimed at instilling racist, homophobic, bigoted hatred, and anti-class consciousness in young people.   

Republicans have a long list of enemies; teachers are some of the top targets.  It's a non-stop barrage of marching fascism now.  Giving in and appeasing Republicans is a short and long term losing strategy.  We are on a collision course with whether or not a Nation can remain half free and half MAGA.

Update:

Neri Oxman ❤️Jeffrey Epstein

Remember slimly hedge fund Billionaire Bill Ackman, who demanded Claudine Gay resign over Plagiarism?  Well his wife Neri Oxman is an Epstein client and <drum roll> a Plagiarist.
An analysis by Business Insider found a similar pattern of plagiarism by Ackman's wife Neri Oxman, who became a tenured professor at MIT in 2017.  Oxman plagiarized multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation, Business Insider found, including at least one passage directly lifted from other writers without citation.
Any chance Bill Ackman demands his wife resign from MIT?

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