I think the messenger is at least somewhat important

Ohio State, as much as we give them grief, is an actual institution and generally can be expected to follow large scale norms. I'm not a Mark Felt expert, but one would think he was a credible adult (albeit with an ax to grind).

Rufo is a poo-flinger that solely exists in the public eye to fight the culture wars and "own the libs". Alex Jones exists to sell fake supplements and stir up conspiracy theories. There is a reason we don't immediately give them the benefit of the doubt, and I would strenuously object to people who are shocked that we (at least initially) hold this person's statement as suspect.

Looking back to the famous Blind Man's Laptop Shop case, I think you can initially be forgiven for thinking that Rudy was a crank with a fantastical story. This is the guy, when confronted with an election case defeat, shouts "I have proof, you ain't seen nothing yet!". Why would you believe him when he said a local repair shop had the laptop of a famous person? Well sonovabitch, it was true. WHAT it meant was up for debate, but the fact that the laptop was there was true.

This is why there are positions of trust - if a fireman says my house is on fire, I believe him. If a raging drunk says my house is on fire, I'm going to be skeptical.

I think your article points out two important addtional stages:

1. If the information has been verified as true, it doesn't matter if it came from Satan himself - truth should be objective. You committed plagiarism or you didn't. It doesn't matter if the reporter is a student, a colleague, or a guy who spends his entire waking hours trying to bring you down. To deny this is to be partisan.

2. It should be ENTIRELY fair to ask that we expand such light shining to not just the foes of the reporter. Look back at "Hillary's Email Server" - rather than deny that, let's offer to expand such punitive searches to every politican. To only limit to one's political foes is, you guessed it - partisan.

I agree with your #1 and #2 wholeheartedly.

I feel like some people are struggling with #1 in particular.

Is part of the struggle with number 1 the fact #2 will not

happen?

Saw an old Politico article online today and it appears very liklely Justice Gorsuch plagiarized in at least one article he wrote (i dont remember if they alleged more than one). I doubt Chris Rufo was upset with Gorsuch.

Take the example of Bill Ackman who was very outspoken toward the students who wrote letters supporting Hamas after 10/7 which is certainly his right and as I write back then I dont even disagree with his right to do that. Students took an action and should be willing to accept the consequences if they believe in what they did.

He set his focus on the the Harvard President after she testified before Congress. Again this is his right and is consistent with his views post 10/7. Having achieved his goal there has not turned his focus on the Harvard Board which for supporting the President.

Who didnt he go after for anti-semitic postings? Elon Mush who Ackan actually defended for antisemitic postings on X. OF course I am sure the fact he is an investor in X and likely other Musk companies is not why he views his statements differently.

The bigger problem for Musk may be at home as his outspoken view on plagiarism caused others to review his wife's dissertation and it appears she also has some problems.

I guess I find folks' reflexive defense of misconduct

based on a friend/foe analysis of the accused and accuser offputting.

I haven't read the Politico article, but it seems Justice Gorsuch's work was scrutinized during the nomination process, and I assume the usual players made the usual noise about it. In other words, the misconduct was given attention by people with a partisan axe to grind, and dismissed by people on Gorsuch's side, and the chips fell where they did accordingly.

As for Ackman, I find it kind of funny that he's being portrayed as some kind of right-wing nut - from my read of him, that's not accurate at all, but again the friend/foe thinking means he has to be coded as right wing because he (a) criticized pro-Palestine protestors and (b) talked about Claudine Gay's plagiarism.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying about Elon Musk. He's a weirdo who owns a social media platform and a rocket company. He gets tons of criticism from lots of people. Not sure Ackman's voice adds much to that chorus of boos.

For your last sentence, I think it was Ackman's wife (not Musk's, and up to now a non-participant in this episode) who was scrutinized by Business Insider for her dissertation. It appears she has owned the mistakes she has been able to verify, apologized (a distinction with Prof. Gay, I believe), and sought corrections. She's no longer in academia, and owns her own company. I guess she could fire herself, but that seems unlikely.

I would not support her for president of Harvard.

Do you think the scrutiny of Ackman's wife because of Ackman's actions is motivated by ill intent? If so, should the alleged plagiarism be ignored, discounted, or otherwise diminished?

Again, I say let the chips fall where they may. I don't get the personal investment people have with uber-rich, privileged and powerful people they don't know.

But the chips didn't fall where they may.

That's my problem with it. It's a separate issue than "Was this plagiarism". There were people who were more interested in achieving a specified outcome (getting Gay removed), and were going to move whatever levers they could to make that happen. Take a look at Rufo's recent Q&A with Politico, which demonstrates that point.

As I've said elsewhere, it can be simultaneously true that Gay is a plagiarist and that the circumstances surrounding how that was discovered/publicized/adjudicated represent other relevant issues (that may actually be more important than this one specific instance of academic dishonesty).

I have no specific interest in Claudine Gay. I do have a specific interest when political activists try to insert themselves into the functioning of universities based on their preferred ideology (and yes, that goes "both ways"). Maybe we can agree that in the grand scheme, having people like Christopher Rufo running around is a net negative. Arguably a more significant net negative than whether or not Claudine Gay is a plagiarist.

Click here for link at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/03/christophe

I agree with you and while I try to avoid this phrase Both

sides do it. I will admit that while i try not to do that myself I am sure there have been times where i have fallen into the trap. I made a book recommendation above and one of the recurring themes is the Evangelical Church doing just that due to the tribalization / politicization of the church.

Sorry if I implied Ackman was some right wing nut because I did not intend to. For very obvious personal reasons the response to 10/7 is something he deeply cares about. The point I was attempting to make is while he feels very comfortable calling out the students and the University Presidents he was more than happy to defend Musk over tweets like the following

“Soros reminds me of Magneto,” comparing billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros to the Jewish supervillain from Marvel’s X-Men series

Musk posted “You have said the actual truth” to a person on X who had promoted the conspiracy theory that Jewish communities “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.

Of course there are a number of other posts where he traffic's in anti-semtic tropes but for some reason Ackman does not feel the same way toward Musk as he does toward the Presidents who testified.

I did mean Ackman's wife and I would say yes it is ill intent because it was done for no reason other than to strike back at Ackman. I have never been in academics but I suspect there are a lot of people reviewing papers this weekend trying to see if they have potential problems.

Agree with your last statement. Makes not one bit of difference in my life if the Harvard President is demoted. As the father of a HS senior going through the admissions process right now I will say American Universites are not my favorite thing in the world right now.

I will say as a general principle I think the attack on anti-woke / anti-CRT attack educationover the past few years is not a positive development for our society but that is a different conversation.