To say Harvard’s reputation as an elite academic institution has taken a hit is like saying “The View” is a TV show where ignorant harpies spew Leftist talking points and generally make asses of themselves: technically accurate, but wholly insufficient. Whether it’s the university’s tone-deaf response to anti-Israel threats and violence on campus to Claudine “Xerox” Gay’s ever-mounting plagiarism scandal or just having David “I Dohn’t Uze Spel Chek” Hogg as a graduate, Harvard is in need of some serious rehabilitation.
And I, being the solutions-oriented guy I am, am here to help.
With any type of rehabilitation, actual or metaphorical, the first step is setting challenging, yet attainable goals that keep any current shortcomings in mind. If you’re three days out of having knee replacement surgery, you’re not ready to compete in a decathlon. And to be fair and honest, Harvard isn’t ready to be respected institution of higher learning just yet. We have to start with baby steps.
And the first baby step I suggest for Harvard is to scale back its reputation as a premiere university. In fact, I think we should scale it back significantly until such time as Harvard’s reputation has gotten strong enough to reenter the pantheon of Ivy League schools.
That’s right. I’m talking Harvard becoming a community college.
But not just any community college, mind you. The only model that Harvard can possibly excel in right now is that of Greendale Community College from the TV show “Community.” For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Greendale is quite possibly one of the most poorly-run community colleges ever, with classes that even David Hogg could pass (albeit barely). Only the dregs of the dregs of academia attend Greendale.
Which means it’s perfect for Harvard.
And don’t worry. Harvard’s extension college will translate well into our Greendale-ized Harvard University. In fact, I’m thinking maybe the extension should be considered the real Harvard until such time as the Greendale-ized Harvard can be whipped into shape!
There are many other steps towards rehabilitating Harvard’s image, but this is as good a start as they deserve. Plus, you get to have an annual campus-wide paint ball game at the end of the spring semester to look forward to! Now, the Harvard Crimson won’t just be the color of the faces of those who go to school there!
Oh, and by the way…#sixseasonsandamovie
Tag: claudine gay
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
By the time you read this, the Left will still be coping with the resignation of former Harvard President and known copycat Claudine Gay and trying to rewrite the narrative to make her into the victim of a vast right wing conspiracy. By the way, Hillary Clinton, please call your office. That part was predictable.
What wasn’t so predictable was the Left falling all over itself to redefine plagiarism to make it more acceptable. Granted, the Left loves to redefine words with the regularity of a guy who eats a lot of fiber and prunes, so it’s not surprising they would do it here. It’s the sheer fucking stupidity behind it that has me dumbfounded, but not speechless (which is a good thing because if I couldn’t put my thoughts into words, this would be a very short blog).
plagiarism
What the Left thinks it means – a not-so-serious offense where someone wittingly or unwittingly copies the work of another
What it really means – intellectual theft
When I was growing up…errr…going from childhood into adulthood, I was taught copying someone else’s work without attribution was a grave error. I’m talking worse than wearing leisure suits unironically here, kids. I will admit to having done it back when I was young and stupid, but now that I’m old and stupid, I know the error of my ways. By copying someone else’s work and claiming it as your own, you are at best depriving the owner of the original work of recognition.
So, why in the Wide World of Fuck is the Left suddenly okay with plagiarism?
To be fair, they’re not completely okay with it. Just if the wrong people use their stuff. See how Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snyder reacts to Donald Trump supporters using “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as a theme song. Of course, he’s okay with it being used as a theme song for anti-gun activists and Ukrainians, so…yeah.
This isn’t to say he’s not within his rights to dictate who can use his song. Even though I don’t agree with the political reasoning behind his decisions, I can’t object to what he’s doing because it’s his intellectual property, and I’m sure Leftists would agree without question.
Just not for the intellectually consistent reason.
Let’s say someone were to copy an article by Taylor Lorenz and try to pass it off as his or her own. The Left would have a shit fit. Of course, this would never happen because a) you’d have to be dumber than a bag of hammers to do it, and b) Lorenz has the intellectual vigor and rhetorical skill of moldy bread. Copying one of her pieces is grounds for being declared mentally incompetent in 16 states.
That was before Ms. Gay, of course. As of this writing, there have been 40 instances where she has plagiarized someone else’s academic work while writing hers. Most of the academics she’s plagiarized and other academics have defended her, going so far as to say they don’t feel it was plagiarism. Now, this is where shit gets weird. Instead of calling it what it is, Leftists came up with new excuses, ranging from “sloppy attribution” and “sort of more like copying other peoples writings without attribution” to suggesting it’s more commonplace and, thus, not as big of deal as it’s being made out to be. Some went so far as to say the charges were “mostly bogus.“
And if you had “anti-plagiarism is racist” on your 2024 Stupid Shit Leftists Say Bingo card, you have a winner! Because Leftists have to bring race into everything from plagiarism to getting the wrong kind of cage free organic free range cruelty free bananas from Whole Foods, it was only a matter of time before Ms. Gay’s race was brought into it. And it wasn’t just one or two outlets, either. There were a litany of “muh racism” takes from all the predictable sources. Why, it’s almost like they…plagiarized their responses!
Or they share the same brain cell. You know, whichever.
More to the point, though, should the Left’s indifference to plagiarism spread outside the halls of academia, it would have a detrimental effect to any intellectual property. Patent law, copyright law, and even laws surrounding parody would definitely take a hit. As much as I’d like to see 50 porn “parodies” of Barbieheimer (all shot, produced, and released within at a pace that would make Roger Corman look like an overmedicated sloth), I’m not sure this is the direction we should want to go.
And think of the impact to social media sharing sites like YouTube, whose copyright system is more fucked up than Keith Richards as an AA sponsor. Or Keith Richards in general. Any video posted could get taken, renamed, and rebroadcast, including any previously copyrighted material. That in and of itself would impact a certain bay of pirates sailing on the interwebs.
Now, who would be hurt most by this attitude? Maybe…oh, I don’t know…the Leftists in the performing arts community? After all, if plagiarism is fine and should be excused with the lightest of wrist slaps, there’s nothing preventing someone like me from copying a Tyler Perry movie or a Cardi B song and calling it my own.
I mean, aside from me having taste, that is.
This is a situation where the Left’s adherence to social justice comes back to biting them in the collectivist ass. They can’t hold Ms. Gay accountable for what she clearly did because it would look racist and sexist. But in doing so, they’re going to be hurting their financial bottom line sometime in the future because they are undercutting intellectual property rights, which is how many of their prominent donors make their money. Hope it’s worth it.
Meanwhile, Ms. Gay is no longer President of Harvard, but is still employed as…a political science professor. Granted, plagiarism isn’t necessarily a criminal matter, but the fact she only got a demotion speaks volumes about how Harvard and the Left have put not being called racist and sexist above not enabling plagiarizers, in direct defiance of the rules Harvard has for its students. That’s right, kids. College students are now held to a higher intellectual and ethical standards than one of its professors.
At least for now. It’s only a matter of time before Harvard will have to deal with a student who uses the precedent it set with Ms. Gay to argue (and I daresay successfully) there is a double standard between students and faculty and demand plagiarism be allowed across the board with little to no penalty to the offender. And we thought Harvard fucked up its response to anti-Israeli protests on campus!
The Left’s response to Claudine Gay’s frequent plagiarism reveals fundamental flaws that benefit no one. Unless there is protection of intellectual property, we might as well start emulating China. Oh, wait…
Either way, Ms. Gay doesn’t have much to worry about. After all, she may not be President of Harvard anymore, but she’s already built up quite a resume to run for President of the United States.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
It wasn’t that long ago that Harvard was seen as one of the upper echelons of intellectual pursuit. Only the smartest, most well-off students could even breathe the air on campus, and only the best of the best of the best could graduate. Then something happened.
Harvard got stupid.
Nothing drove this point home more than a recent Congressional hearing involving Harvard President Claudine Gay and her inability to articulate the simple concept that wishing death on anybody is bad. Oh, but it gets a lot worse, as we’ll explore later, but it’s worth reviewing the fall from grace and bringing a whole new meaning to the Harvard Crimson.
Harvard
What the Left thinks it means – an excellent university where free speech and activism are embraced
What it really means – a diploma mill for well-heeled Leftists
Although Harvard is in the spotlight for being absolute dipshits, it’s not lost on me the fact higher education in general has gone to hell, and I may not mean figuratively here. Not only has the Left set up camp on campuses (or would that be campusi?), but their influence on academia has created a self-perpetuating hug box/bubble where only the “right” opinions can be heard.
Since the start of the Israel/Gaza conflict, campuses/campusi like Harvard saw tensions rise, as well as the number of anti-Jewish incidents. On the one hand, you have Jewish students and their supporters, and on the other, Leftist freaks who see Israel as the aggressor and as an apartheid state. On a side note, “The Apartheid State: not a good state slogan.
Anyway, this created a razor thin line for school administrators to tread. If they showed even the slightest bit of support for Israel, the Leftists would cause as much chaos as possible at the bare minimum, and given the fiery but mostly peaceful Summer of Love 2020 edition that chaos could be (and probably would be) destructive. If they sided with Gaza, they would run the risk of losing donations from Jewish supporters.
Which means the administration did the stupidest fucking thing they could and caved to the Leftist mob.
If that wasn’t bad enough, President Gay’s response to questions about whether wishing death to Jews was against their policies caused Harvard to lose $1 billion and inspired calls for Gay to resign. More on this debacle later.
I’m not a Harvard graduate, but I think I could have crafted a better response than Gay gave. Let’s see…
Harvard University respects both the importance of free speech and the delicacy of the current situation in Gaza. As President, I cannot in good conscience allow calls for violence against any group on campus, as it is inconsistent with not only the spirit of the freedom of speech, but also the culture of intellectual vigor I strive to foster at Harvard. What happened on my campus is abhorrent and I denounce it fully.
Seriously, was that so fucking hard????
Granted, this would have pissed off campus Leftists, but it would have struck the right tone and avoided a lot of backtracking and “clarifications” from Gay. Besides, if you wanted to disperse a crowd of Leftist protesters, you could always carpet bomb the protest with job applications. Or carpets, if you’re so inclined.
After that shitshow of a Congressional hearing, Gay faced new scrutiny, namely that of her academic accomplishments. Seems she may have plagiarized parts of her 1997 dissertation and other papers she copied…I mean wrote. Of course, Harvard downplayed the severity of the matter, calling it “a few instances of inadequate citation…” which is fancy talk for “yeah, she fucked up, but we can’t really punish her for what she did because it would make Leftists fuck up the campus.” Even some of the people she copied tried to downplay it while acknowledging it was plagiarism.
Even so, the Left went into damage control mode by supporting Gay in her time of self-imposed need, but claiming…get this…rules against plagiarism are racist. And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact Gay is a black woman and, thus, would be covered by the Left’s new rules on plagiarism. It’s just a coincidence…
On the plus side, Gay is qualified to go from substandard President of Harvard to substandard President of the United States, thanks to the Puddin’ Head Joe standard.
So far, Gay still has her job, which speaks volumes to how far Harvard has fallen as an institution of higher learning. At this rate, they might be at best an institution of middling learning, but that reputation is going down faster than a hooker going for a world blow job record working straight commission. Is a diversity hire worth this much trouble? Not only is Gay inept, inconsistent, and a plagiarizer, but her continued presence as anything other than a former Harvard President negatively affects the Harvard brand.
Consider if you will the fact Harvard has a website that not only defines plagiarism and outlines a clear policy, but openly discusses why plagiarism is a bad thing. The fact the President of this university is allowed to violate these standards and gets Leftist support for it would be humorous if it weren’t so disgusting. Throw in Harvard’s tone-deaf response to the anti-Jewish sentiment on campus and we’re looking at the point of no return to turn things around. Harvard, if it weren’t already FUBAR, would be sending Change of Address cards announcing their new address in downtown FUBAR.
Although the financial hit Harvard has taken so far is a start, it’s going to take a lot more to remove the stench from the burning dungheap Claudine Gay and the Left created. To start the healing process, Gay should be fired and replaced with someone who would run the campus competently and apply the rules consistently across the board. I would volunteer for the job, but I don’t want it. Although it would be fun to make Leftist heads explode when I apply the rules to them, I have more important shit to do.
You know, like making a bag of microwave popcorn without it burning.