The Jason Arday scandal

[Ilikesundays]

To think that Cambridge University’s reputation has been shot to pieces by the revelations about ex-professor Jason Arday?

Talk about passive aggressive.

This is an absolutely mad position to take. So you're saying that if someone suggests a person is racist, the onus is on that person to admit it rather than on you to explain why you believe them to be racist. And when they refuse to go along with it and break down and admit they're racist, you declare it a stalemate.

"If she floats she's a witch, if she sinks she's innocent!"

Awful attitude.

Yeah, we do know why. I'm not going to admit that I'm racist because I'm not racist.

This is one of the more bizarre interactions I've ever had on here, and I've had a few.

This is how these conversations go:

”x” was sexist. No it wasn’t. Yes it was. No it wasn’t. Yes it was etc.

I can highlight x or y comment but the other poster won’t acknowledge it so what’s the point?

I wish I could say your posts are in any way and outlier but they’re not.

Because otherwise you look like a mad poster wildly accusing other posters of being racist for no reason?

I mean, if you're happy looking like that then that's on you I guess.

What he appears to have said is that they should say upfront they are going with quotas to correct an imbalance. The poor SATS results may be because of poverty or lack of good teaching in black neighbourhoods. Instead they have interviews where they score on "personality" and this is where Asian students fell down because they were classified as "robots" or "geeks."

Serious question as I really don't know the answer, but if you were asked to justify the assertion that "... Increasing representation of poc in tertiary education is a valid goal ...", what evidence would you point to?

I assume you'd point to evidence from ONS or similar that poc students are under-represented in tertiary education in the UK, but i don't know.

What is the evidence?

That’s right, all these weird people in the world madly accusing people of racism.
It’s all very perplexing.

They score on personal skills, athletic skills and extra curricular activities as well as academic achievement.

Are you suggesting that Harvard is incorrect to not only focus on academic achievement when it recruits its students? That a desire for a more well-rounded applicant is merely in order to meet quotas?

Cofnas said that in a 'meritocracy' then only 0.7% of students would be black. But that is making the assertion that a student who performs well on the exams is somehow more valuable to Harvard than a student who also has outside interests and skills. It also makes the assumption that a student who is the most academic would be the only good professor, where presumably some professors with personal skills would be a benefit as it's an institution that educates as well as just churns out research.

If you’re interested, research it for yourself.

"Back in the day you sat in a library with a notebook or 10 and wrote your dissertation from those notes. I used to write the dewy code numbers up my arms , collect books, read, make notes, write the reference (Harvard) onto index cards and get into a right knot with footnotes, ibid, citations and all that. Then I typed it myself using windows 98, checking as I went.

If I wanted to go online I started dial up and got a coffee whilst I waited. Nowadays, the temptation to paste, use AI etc must be enormous."

Yes! We used to have to physically go to the shelf, pull out the journal from the box file, slot pound coins into the photocopier, photocopy relevant pages, then take it back to the shelf.

I used to copy quotes and passages from text books/journals, so that I was absolutely sure of what the original said and that I had paraphrased and not plagiarised. I would also cut up my notes and reorder them when I was forming my essay.

The internet was incredibly slow and dropped out regularly. You went to the library and hoped that somebody hadn't taken the last copy of the vital textbook.

I wonder if students today even realise that when they Google something, the first result they get is an AI summary which has scraped sources (legitimate and spurious) and conflated them into a passage.

I saw a Facebook article earlier today about a lady who 'turned down the offer of a double hand transplant because one hand was black and the other hand was from a man, and she wanted small white hands'. Luckily, I knew that transplants don't get offered in that way, looked at the source and thought it looked dodgy, then looked up the lady. She received her double hand transplant a while ago and is doing well.

People need to be more critical in their thinking.

"Of the allegations about what JA might have done wrong which are factual? Which are rumours? Which are opinions? Which are lies? Which are disinformation? Which are motivated by racism or hubris or revenge? Who is going to check each one and how will their opinion on it be checked?"

https://spectator.com/article/fact-check-the-many-claims-of-jason-arday/

It's probably just everyone being mean and jealous, but there isn't a huge queue of institutions or individuals ready to back his claims.

There appeared to be many Asian students who felt they were discriminated against because of their racial characteristics. Enough to go to the Supreme Court.

@Lougle I saw a Facebook article earlier today about a lady who 'turned down the offer of a double hand transplant because one hand was black and the other hand was from a man, and she wanted small white hands'. Luckily, I knew that transplants don't get offered in that way, looked at the source and thought it looked dodgy, then looked up the lady. She received her double hand transplant a while ago and is doing well.

Ah, thanks for that, I'd scrolled past the story but didn't click, I didn't realise it was made-up rage-bait as I have no idea about how transplants are offered. Feel sorry for that woman who is being used for clicks.

Archive version

https://archive.ph/Gcd6f

Sure, but that doesn't make scoring students on personal skills and athleticism criteria an action purely designed to meet race quotas.

I mean, judging them on their athleticism is probably designed to fill their sports teams, but that's a different matter.

Cofnas was actually quoting the 0.7% from Harvard evidence to the Supreme Court about Asian discrimination. Go and check again.

Why does nobody take seriously claims of discrimination by Asian students?

This whole exchange is a classic example of people treating accusations of racism as worse than racism.

Perhaps those who have had it suggested to them on here that their comments smack of racism should take a moment or two to consider what they have said and why it comes across that way, rather than make a kneejerk denial.

Yes, I know. I've discussed how his analysis regarding this stat was poor much earlier in the thread.

The Supreme Court ruled that there was racial discrimination in Harvard admissions due to them using race as a factor. The allegation about personal skills being used to mark down Asian students wasn't part of that.

I have considered it, and given that the poster has flat out refused to provide any instance of apparent racism by me, I am confident that that which was asserted without evidence, can easily be dismissed without a shred of worry on my part.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is the only hospital in the UK to offer hand and upper limb transplantation. They have in their FAQ:

"Yes. The patient will be asked to specify the characteristics of a limb (gender, size, age, skin colour) that they feel would be suitable for them. The patient will not be able to see the donor limb prior to transplant but it will match the criteria that they specified. A patient may not however exclude limbs based on characteristics other than the physical characteristics of the donor (for example their religious beliefs or occupation, etc)."

https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/services/hand-transplant/faqs/

Nobody would expect a woman to be happy with the hands of a man (or vice versa) or a person to be happy with obviously different skin tone to them, etc. The psychological impact of having someone else's hands in enough to be getting on with, without such an obvious reminder.

I also feel sorry for the lady.

Showing my ignorance, what is different about the archive version?