Claudine Gay and alternative facts
There is so much to say about the Claudine Gay affair, anti-semitism at Harvard, and Harvard’s response to recent student protests that I have opted to say nothing. But over at Café Hayek, libertarian economist Donald Boudreaux asks an interesting question:
How does Claudine Gay’s “my truth” differ from Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts”? It seems to me that these ‘concepts’ share much with each other and that each is equally unwarranted.
Well, here’s one way that Gay and Conway differ. According to Google Advanced Search, the words Claudine and Harvard have appeared together in 19 blog posts since December 11. (For those of you keeping score at home, all of these posts were critical.) The words (Kellyanne) or (Conway and “alternative facts”) has appeared exactly one time – in the piece cited above. Yet it’s difficult to argue that the damage done to the United States by Claudine Gay comes anywhere close to the damage done by Kellyanne Conway and the other enablers of Trump’s attack on truth.
So, is Boudreaux beating up on Gay because she’s a black woman, or because of hostility to elite (liberal) universities, or is he going easy on Kellyanne Conway because she’s a Republican? Just asking for a friend.
P.S.: The only time “alternative facts” appeared on Café Hayek (other than the post cited above) was to slam historian Nancy MacLean, who wrote a book critical of the economist James Buchanan, a famous proponent of limited government. Some of the criticism of MacLean seems plausible (I haven’t followed the debate closely), but it is remarkable that the only time Boudreaux uses the phrase is to criticize people on the liberal side of the aisle. Why, it’s almost as if he thinks liberals are a bigger threat to democracy and liberty than Trump.
None of the examples I’ve seen of “evidence” of Gay’s “plagiarism” rise to the level of misappropriation that I consider to be plagiarism. They consisted of cases where turns of phrase seemed close to those found in references Gay cited but didn’t enclose in quotation marks. None of the examples looked to me like misappropriation of key ideas. Now, there may be examples I haven’t seen, but if the ones I did see are representative, it’s just not significant.
People have claimed that students have been failed or expelled for similar offenses. Since I’ve not seen the documentation that backs those claims, I’ll remain skeptical. I was personally responsible for having a graduate student in our program expelled from my university for plagiarism, but that included copying verbatim four consecutive pages of a review article in a prelim proposal without acknowledgement (as well as several shorter examples). That’s egregious plagiarism, way beyond what Gay did.
Given all we have read in our lives, given this criterion is it not unlikely we have all “plagiarized” … can be held responsible for a turn of a phrase that may have stuck with us down through the years?
The answer is never the answer, what’s interesting is the mystery (Kesey, paraphrased)
@Ten,
I agree. I have authored or co-authored over 100 scientific articles in my published career. Given that volume and the limited lexicon in my field, it would be unsurprising if software discovered some similarity between phrasing in some of my articles and phrases in others that were published before. What matters is claims of originality, not similar turns of phrase.
It’s pretty clear that she was fired for a poor performance before a Congressional committee.
@Jackd,
So a scalp taken by Elise Stefanik.
Yes but it’s pretty clear that Gay used very poor judgment at that hearing. The president of MIT had the presence of mind to object that she had not heard of any such incidents on her campus and didn’t take the bait of the hypothetical.
So my two friends and another being the author take up the case or cause of Claudine Gay.
It did seem to be a bit much that Claudine would be trashed for words the extent of which are questionable at worst. And Eric Kramer is correct in that Claudine should not be taken to task the same as Kellyanne Conway blissful defense of trump. Remembering the drum majorette outfit worn to it’s inauguration . . .
If anyone would know of such plagiaristic violations, I am sure Joel would know what is such. All of this is political Jabberwocky. Meanwhile . . .
What is the kill count up to in the Gaza? Are they beyond 22,000?
Again, this is a shift to something which matters little when compared to what is occurring in the Middle East. Is wiping Palestinians from the face of the earth not enough of an issue to shift the attention to it rather than what one says or has written in the past?
We are not supposed to pay attention to the Gaza and this is one way to divert the attention to the attacks on noncombatants. We are being led to believe plagiarism is more important by domestic and other interests. Where did the pea hidden in the shell game go?
Michael Casey, Associated Press:
Like I said, Bill, she was fired for political reasons.
Jack:
Just some detail.