Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, lists himself in Harvard 1962 alumni report; says ‘awards’ include eight life sentences.–Boston Globe, May 23, 2012
Show your colors! Ted’s crimson prison garb.
Ted Kaczynski Keeps in Touch with Harvard ’62 Classmates
Category Archives for Higher Education
When Faculty Speak for Themselves: Words that Will Live in Ignominy
Presenting a new feature on Call Me “Miss”!
“When Faculty Speak for Themselves: Words that Will Live in Ignominy” will be an occasional feature, soon with its own page, that will let academics speak for themselves. To be fair, Miss will provide proper context for all quotations, as well as links to the source. Let’s get started!
Today’s ignominiologue is our old friend Laurie Essig. Professor Essig is a faculty member at Middlebury College and blogs regularly for The Chronicle of Higher Education, from which this gem was mined:
There is a constant struggle between the fact that full citizenship in the U.S. is granted to those who are married (with over 2,000 federal rights and privileges) even as the majority of Americans are unmarried (and yet still, no doubt, mostly living in familial relationships and in need of those rights and privileges for their own loved ones).
As a single woman I feel an urgent need to know what I am lacking, citizenship-wise. True, I do not have a boyfriend, girlfriend, or transfriend, but I always thought that was a social/emotional deficit, not a reason to question the 14th Amendment.
Do as I Say, While I Do What I Want: Hypocrisy in the Land of Caps, Gowns, and Headdresses, Part I
This charming portrait of Elizabeth Warren has a place of honor in her Cambridge wigwam.
Faithful readers of CMM know one topic that gives Miss endless delight—and blog fodder—is the double standards college and university faculty use, usually to benchmark their worth against the drones who do staff work on their campuses, but sometimes simply when the Great Spirit moves them. The news brings such a bumper crop of stories that I must share them with you in “Do As I Say, While I Do What I Want,” Parts I and II.
Part I starts with the reigning queen of the academic double standard, Massachusetts’ own Professor-Politician Elizabeth Herring Warren Mann. Professor Warren/Mrs. Mann/Princess Ticklefeather has been much in the public eye lately as the most recent victim of recovered oppression syndrome (ROS) when it was revealed that she is (or maybe not) .03% Cherokee.* Like her noble ancestors the blond, blue-eyed redskin has endured the bows and arrows of prejudice simply because of her complexion. So it is not surprising to learn that she gratefully took a puff from the Affirmative Action peace pipe offered by the Great White Fathers at Harvard Law School, where, surprisingly, she was hired to teach rather than make rain.
Click here for a look at Professor Warren's students responding to her claims of minority status.
We all know that Elizabeth Warren is Heap Big Hypocrite. But what of the GWF’s at the Law School, whose contributions to the defense of affirmative action policies, not to mention the substance of such policies, at colleges and universities across this great albeit stolen land of ours have been instrumental in shaping the landscape of higher education for decades? The magnitude of hypocrisy achieved by these academics is beyond astonishing. While the rest of the academy struggles mightily first to qualify minority students to join the professoriate, then to hire faculty of color, who understandably come at a premium many institutions can ill afford, the good folks at Harvard decide that Princess Paleface qualifies as an “affirmative action” hire. Voila! I can hear them now, “Faculty of color? Elizabeth is kind of pinkish, when she remembers her blusher.” No muss. No fuss. No minorities.
I wonder what the Great White Fathers will think when they get wind of Professor Warren’s plans for casino gambling on Brattle Street. Who knows? Maybe they’ll do the right thing and vote for Scott Brown.
No longer able to live the white man’s lie at Harvard, Princess Paleface makes tracks for the Charles River, where her blood brothers will aid in her escape.
*Professor Warren’s ROS took a turn for the worse when she discovered that she is simultaneously suffering from ROS Type II, Recovered Oppressors Syndrome.
College Presidents Do Good: The Higher Ed Version of “Man Bites Dog”
It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s only fair that Miss takes note. Thanks to a mention in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Presidents’ Pledge came to my attention, and I could not be more impressed with what I learned.
Some 28 college and university presidents (current and retired) have agreed to donate a portion of their income to charities that fight poverty at home and abroad:
The Presidents’ Pledge Against Global Poverty is an initiative of current and former college and university presidents who are leaders in the fight against extreme global poverty.
These higher education leaders annually pledge five percent or more of their personal income to organizations that address the causes or effects of poverty in their communities and in countries across the globe.
Each president who participates in The Presidents’ Pledge makes this commitment as a tangible way to serve the public good, to inspire greater giving and resolve, and to spark action that alleviates global poverty.
Presidents’ Pledge participants give directly to organizations of their choosing. At least half of individual contributions are given to fund international projects; up to half of giving may be designated for anti-poverty causes in the U.S.
The presidents who have signed on to the pledge represent a broad spectrum of higher education; some are from elite institutions, others from more humble campuses. Thanks to my long career I know several of these individuals personally; and I recognize the names of many more, because over the years they have been true leaders in a field where leadership is all too often found wanting.
I confess that when I read the Presidents’ Pledge I felt the stirrings of admiration for college presidents, a feeling that has taken a beating in my emotional repertoire over the past few years. What’s important–and what gets me all misty-eyed–is that this group of academic CEOs are walking the walk on a path they are always asking others to travel. Any president will tell you that raising money for her institution is the most important thing she does. And due to the sorry state of financing in higher education today, she’s right.
One of the drivers of ferocious tuition bills, however, has been the bloated compensation packages college and university presidents and vice presidents demand–using of course the specious argument that they’d be worth that and more “in the private sector.” Uh-huh.
So it warms the heart to see some in this privileged cohort giving back. It’s a wonderful example to set for students and alums.
Double-Dipping Duo: The Denouement
Late under indictment for felony, Professors Julie Jacko and Francois Sainfort have concluded their four-year flirtation with possible hard time by waving the victory flag.
The assistant attorney general for Georgia accepted a guilty plea from Professor Sainfort on a single count, in exchange for dropping charges against his wife Julie and the third member of their little crime family, Julie’s brother Robert. The Professor “pleaded guilty on Monday to making false statements related to his simultaneous, full-time employment,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Professor Jacko faints in relief as hubby Francois fills her in on the plea deal.
You may be asking yourself how, if Professor Sainfort pleaded guilty, this outcome could be viewed as a victory. Well, because the blot on the reputations of the two professors is pretty hard to see: they appear to be keeping their jobs-for-life at the University of Minnesota (you know, the full-time positions they started collecting paychecks for while still picking up same for same at Georgia Tech); Julie’s dodged the bullet entirely, and, courtesy of “Georgia’s First Offender Act[,] Sainfort’s guilty plea [will] be dismissed if he successfully completes five years of probation,” according to the Twin Cities Star Tribune. Soiled reputation notwithstanding, Sainfort’s real victory comes where it counts most to him and his greedy wife: the pocketbook.
Let Greg Lohmeier, Georgia’s assistant attorney general, tell the rest of the story, again courtesy of the Star Tribune:
“This was, always, a policy violation,” Lohmeier said. “The question became, OK, how is this a criminal case? That was one of the things we struggled with.”
Georgia Tech has agreed to accept the amount being ordered in restitution [$43,578] as settlement of any remaining claims, said a university spokesman.
Sainfort also had “a viable claim” against Georgia Tech for about $40,000 in unpaid vacation leave — close to the amount ordered in restitution, which was based on what he owed for improperly billing travel expenses, Lohmeier said. “Given the amounts involved,” he said, “we just called it a wash.”
Gotta love those hard-working professors and their enablers. Sainfort gets to apply his contested “vacation pay” towards his “restitution” to Georgia Tech.
The Sainfort-Jacko family is celebrating their victory by building a charming new folly on their lawn.
I do not believe there is any truth to the rumor that Sainfort and Jacko are contemplating suing the University of Minnesota for vacation pay earned while they were pulling down two (make that four) paychecks. But perhaps they should do just that. Afterall, when you are working full time on two campuses approximately 1200 miles apart, you don’t have time to take vacation. So you should be compensated, n’est-ce pas?
Academic Bombast: A Little Bit of Cis and That
Academics can be full of surprises. Just when you are about to write off the lot of them as pompous and often criminally inclined boors whose bloated prose only a Judith Butler could love, they redeem themselves with a bit of self-aware mockery.
Wags at the University of Chicago have come up with nifty computer program that will write an entire scholarly essay for you.
University of Chicago Professor Lewis explains the sentence generator.
Fun, isn’t it? Until you remember the tens of thousands of tenured faculty whose jobs-for-life are predicated on that argot. Try not to lose your lunch.
For those of you yet to get the hang of the University of Chicago’s sentence-generator, read the passage below:
The trans policy committee is sorry to announce that Kate Bornstein is sick and is not able to make her performance of Men Women and the Rest of Us tonight at 7pm in the [gym]. We are working to reschedule Kate’s performance, and meanwhile are arranging for a Gender Speak Out in the faculty lounge…from 7-9. In this space, we hope to center lived experience of gender oppression at [Liberal Arts College USA]. Cisgender people (those who are comfortable with the gender societally aligned with the sex they were assigned at birth), are welcome and encouraged to attend. It may be beneficial to have a passing familiarity with transphobia and cissexism.
The most famous cisters of all.
Is it genuine? By that I mean did I search the announcements on the Liberal Arts College USA calendar until I hit pay dirt, or did I take a little help from the sentence generator?
OCR Establishes College Admissions Standards for Fourth Graders
I have resolutely stayed out of the government-is-too-big-for-its-britches debate that is raging during the hot stove run-up to the 2012 election. Public higher education is so overly administered that there is nothing really new to add to this conversation. But a recent ruling by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) concerning the University of Utah’s admissions policies has changed my mind.
From The Salt Lake Times on-line edition:
The University of Utah is revising its admissions policy for some older students in the wake of a civil-rights complaint filed by a learning-disabled applicant who was denied admission because he read and wrote at only a fourth-grade level.
You read that right. That is, if you read at a level above the fourth grade. The OCR found in favor of an applicant to UU whose reading and writing skills had not reached the middle-school level. The Times story continues:
the OCR last year required the U. to revise its admissions policies to “reflect legitimate criteria for student qualifications that do not discriminate on the basis of disability.” The agreement also requires the U. to train its personnel in the policies and submit those training materials for OCR approval.
The university complied by spelling out the courses completed and GPA earned an applicant must achieve in order to gain admission. And by admitting an individual it had determined could not meet the demands of a post-secondary curriculum. The applicant, it turns out, did not enroll. He didn’t even sue, although the OCR said he could. What he lacked in reading and writing ability he made up for in common sense. Forget college–the OCR should hire him.
Applicants boning up for the OCR "Send a Fourth Grader to College" program.
What larger purpose was served here? How was an individual’s rights or the public’s interest protected by forcing the University of Utah to state the obvious: you cannot succeed in college if you do not possess a modicum of literacy.
The consequences, though, are easy to see: 1) more work for school-bus chasing lawyers; 2) more paper for university administrators to push; 3) more employment opportunities at the OCR, where somebody–presumably with a better-than-fourth-grade reading level–is going to pore over those “training materials.”
Higher education is not a “right.” It is an opportunity. One to be cherished, honored even. And the best way to do that is by providing open access to it for men and women whose intellectual capacities can sustain reading and understanding polysyllabic words, compound-complex sentences, and dense paragraphs. In other words, the average collegiate text on the benefits of diversity.
Diversity for Me but Not for Thee: Crystal Dixon, the University of Toledo, and the Hierarchy Civil Rights
It all started way back in 2008, when a self-described “middle-aged, overweight white guy with graying facial hair” wrote an op-ed that played fast and loose with the truth about health care benefits at the University of Toledo.
Michael Miller, editor-in-chief of the Toledo Free Press, fresh from a town hall meeting sponsored by Equality Ohio and Equality Toledo, was righteously indignant over what he heard from its participants:
The frequent denial of health care benefits leads to horror stories. According to the panelists, UT has offered domestic partner benefits since then-president Dan Johnson signed them into effect. The Medical University of Ohio did not offer those benefits. When the institutions merged, UT employees retained the domestic-partner benefits, but MUO employees were not offered them. So, people working for the same employer do not have access to the same benefits.
Michael Miller. From his self-description, I'd know him anywhere.
Quelle horreur! Those homophobic academics! How dare they! How dare they combine gigantic organizations with two sets of HR policies, union contracts and insurance plans to be sorted out and fail to put gay rights at the top of their to-do list! Never mind that none of the benefits affecting all employees (including the black and disabled, whose pain Miller tells us he also feels) were initially changed when the two institutions joined forces. UT employees kept their benefits, MUO kept theirs. Policy, procedure, contractual obligations be damned: put those domestic partners at the front of the line!
A few days later, the Free Press publishes a letter in response to Miller’s column from one Crystal Dixon, who identified herself as a “Black woman who happens to be an alumnus of the University of Toledo’s Graduate School, an employee and business owner.” Her letter is a passionate articulation of “God’s divine order” as it relates to gays. How could she possibly know this? Eh. Another sheltered individual afraid of something she knows nothing of, I thought. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, I thought.
But when she stopped talking theology and began writing about university policy, she most definitely did know her stuff:
The reference to the alleged benefits disparity at the University of Toledo was rather misleading. When the University of Toledo and former Medical University of Ohio merged, both entities had multiple contracts for different benefit plans at substantially different employee cost sharing levels. To suggest that homosexual employees on one campus are being denied benefits avoids the fact that ALL employees across the two campuses, regardless of their sexual orientation, have different benefit plans. The university is working diligently to address this issue in a reasonable and cost-efficient manner, for all employees, not just one segment.
Naturally, a firestorm ensued. Because the editor-in-chief of the Free Press misrepresented the facts about UT employee benefits, you ask? Don’t be silly. Because Ms. Dixon—who wrote her letter to the editor as a private citizen—was at the time the associate vice president of human resources at UT. After she was suspended but before she was fired, the president of the university Lloyd Jacobs also wrote the Free Press:
Although I recognize it is common knowledge that Crystal Dixon is associate vice president for Human Resources at the University of Toledo, her comments do not accord with the values of the University of Toledo. It is necessary, therefore, for me to repudiate much of her writing.
Flash forward to today. Fired from the University, Ms. Dixon today holds a prestigious, high-level position in her field, based, no doubt on her experience and past performance at UT, where, “her work reviews from [her boss] Logie had always been positive and praised her in the area of diversity.”
Crystal Dixon
The University of Toledo was within its rights when it fired its head human resources administrator in 2008 after she wrote a newspaper column in which she said that gay people do not need the protection of civil rights laws, a federal judge ruled this week.
In his ruling, Judge David A. Katz found that the nature of the official’s position meant that she did not have First Amendment protections from being punished for expressing her views in a public forum. The “plaintiff’s interest in making a comment of public concern is clearly outweighed by the university’s interest as her employer in carrying out its own objectives,” Judge Katz wrote.
As a former apologist for a small liberal arts college who did her share of mucking the barn after the door had been left open, the company woman in me is cheering “Right On!” to the judge’s opinion.
But that cheer dies on my lips as I read further on in Judge Katz’s memorandum:
Plaintiff claims that her termination impedes diversity. She claims that accepting Defendants’ employer interest arguments would prevent any conservative Christians from holding managerial positions at the University of Toledo. Plaintiff’s claim is far too broad in two important ways. First, Defendants’ arguments only restrict those who cannot hold their tongues about their beliefs (or fail to submit their beliefs anonymously). Plus, the position would likewise restrict liberal atheists as well.
In other words, says the judge, if you hold an unpopular view, keep your mouth shut or your employer will get you. The bile rising in my throat evidences the bitter vindication of knowing I’d been right all long. If you are a conservative (but not a “liberal atheist”) check your opinions at the door if you want to work in higher ed. Listen to your colleagues spew their views, but keep yours to yourself. It’s kinda like “don’t-ask-don’t-tell,” except that you get told even if you don’t tell.
Judge Katz’s opinion puts the imprimatur of the law on the hypocrisy endemic in higher education. Consider his chilling statement: “Defendants’ arguments only restrict those who cannot hold their tongues about their beliefs (or fail to submit their beliefs anonymously).” Now substitute “sexual preference” for “beliefs.” Appalling, isn’t it.
I’m guessing in the wake of the judge’s ruling, the University will revise its answer to one or more of the questions on its Questions, Answers, and Facts page about “diversity”:
Q: Does having too much diversity weaken an organization?
A: No. While diversity is inevitable, it implies inclusiveness. Having diversity should not ostracize individuals or groups. The rationale for diversity is to provide opportunities where many perspectives and talents can be appreciated and utilized. True diversity is not about hiding differences. It is about capitalizing on them in order to make for a more productive and desirable work environment.
That part about “not hiding differences” is totally outside the parameters of Judge Katz’s sententia about keeping one’s mouth shut.
In the wake of Judge Katz's decision, the Office of Diversity at UT is busily silk-screening tee-shirts to distribute at the big rally for tolerance and inclusion.
Hands-On Professor Handed His Sentence: Drago’s on Probation
If only Drago had kept that finger to himself, his feminist credentials would still be intact.
Scholar Known for His Studies of Women in the Work Force Is Convicted of Sexual Abuse
By Robin Wilson
Robert W. Drago—a prominent scholar of issues affecting women in the work force, including academe—was convicted of misdemeanor sexual abuse of a minor last week in Superior Court of Washington, D.C.
We last read about Randy Robert back in September, 2011; his once live-in love the lithe Laurie Bonjo had blown a gasket when her daughter reported that Drago, then Director of the prestigious and proudly feminist Institute for Women’s Policy Research, had attempted to cop a feel or two. Or maybe three. Who knows? The seventeen-year-old did not talk to the press. Her mother did.
For the fleeting pleasure of feeling up a teenager, Drago’s been sentenced to eighteen months’ probation. According to the Chronicle, he’s also been given the life sentence of being listed in the National Sex Offender Registry. I almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
Leadership in Action: President Farahi Blames His Staff
Not yet 10:00 a.m., and already I have had my laugh of the day. From NJ.com:
While the governing board at Kean University has launched an investigation about false claims on his resume, university president Dawood Farahi has acknowledged for the first time that some mistakes were made.
In a recent interview, Farahi said even though there were some errors listed on past resumes, he was not responsible. Farahi said the inaccuracies, including claims that he had been acting academic dean at Avila College in Missouri and that he published “over 50 technical articles in major publications,” were made by staff members at Kean who helped prepare his resume for routine accreditation reviews at the university in 1994, 2001 and 2008.
Farahi said the claim about the 50 articles probably originated when a Kean employee condensed his resume and misinterpreted the list of titles, some of which were submitted but never published in academic journals. (NJ.com)
One thing I have learned as a lifelong member of the academy–you just can’t trust those pesky staff. They may come and go, turnover likely in the fourteen years or so since the first “inaccuracy” was added to President Farahi’s cv, but their propensity for messing with the boss’s resume just won’t go away.
Such malicious staff apparently even plagued President Farahi at his previous institution, according to the head of Kean’s faculty union, who points to “questionable claims in Farahi’s early resumes.” Far be it for me to side with a union shill, but in this case, I am more than willing to make an exception.
In the end, though, I suppose Farahi’s passing the buck is simply behavior presidential. Our commander-in-chief, after all, sees nothing wrong with heaping blame for the manifold disasters of his presidency on his predecessor. With that example of president leadership, what’s wrong with a university kingpin throwing a few staff to the wolves? It’s not as if they had tenure.
NOTE to readers: For more on doctored resumes in higher ed, see Alexander Kemos.
