In the academy, a "forthcoming" publication normally has a precise definition: the manuscript has been completed and accepted by the press, and is in the publication process. Because academic presses sometimes are slow in publishing books, the process can sometimes take 15 or 18 months until the book finally appears.
This case already has featured one highly unusual definition of "forthcoming"--that of Group of 88 statement author Wahneema Lubiano, who has listed two books as "forthcoming" . . . since 1997. Now, another of the anti-lacrosse faculty appears to have adopted Lubiano's flexible definition.
Kerry Haynie recently distinguished himself when he attacked UPI--which, he admitted, he hadn't read. Last October, he sent Steve Baldwin a nasty e-mail after Baldwin criticized the Group of 88. And, when asked why he signed the "clarifying" letter, Haynie refused to give an explanation, responding instead, "Get a freaking life! Quote me."
Haynie came to Duke from Rutgers. Here's a line from his Rutgers website: "Professor Haynie's next book, Stepping Stones or Stumbling Blocks? Campaign Finance Reform and Minority Group Representation is under contract with Stanford University Press and is forthcoming in 2003."
By 2005, having been hired by Duke as a tenured associate professor on the basis of his Rutgers record, Haynie was no longer listing the book as forthcoming: "He is currently completing a book on campaign finance reform and minority group representation to be published by Stanford University Press." His CV listed the book as "under contract." Here's a line from Haynie's current Duke website: "K. Haynie (with Kathlen [sic] A. Bratton), Stepping Stones or Stumbling Blocks? Campaign Finance Reform and Minority Group Representation (forthcoming 2007), Stanford University Press." (Co-author Bratton--whose name Haynie's website misspells--only lists the book as "under contract.") And here's a line from this morning's Stanford University Press website (which "only list books that are currently in print or forthcoming") after searches done for "Haynie" and "Stepping Stones or Stumbling Blocks?": "No books matched your query." There's no doubt a contract for the book exists. Yet Haynie has been quite . . . flexible . . . over a four-year period, in publicly asserting that the book was actually completed. On another matter, a strong review for UPI from Thomas Sowell.
156 comments:
One is tempted to mention Green Acres...different spelling, same snake oil for sale...Mr. Haney/Mr. Haynie. The level of maturity expressed in the analogy is rather fitting. How does one review a book without reading it?
Maybe Wahneema is writing special Dukie Cliff Notes, photocopied 88 times or so, plus an extra couple for President Brodhead? For her - (and Haynie, apparently) - that would come as close to publishing as ever. As good as it gets.
Thomas Sowell hits the mark in his review better than anyone - (except the authors.) It's not just his writing, which is clear and lucid: it's his perspective that makes his review so binding. It's a big-picture view that many other reviewers have missed - (especially those who take their tests, not having read the assignment.)
K.C.,
We are dealing with fraud, pure and simple. If someone with a "forthcoming" book cannot even correctly spell the name of his co-author, then something is rotten in Denmark (or at least Durham).
Duke faculty members (writing anonymously, of course) would taunt me with "Don't you wish you were good enough to be on the Duke faculty?" and stuff like that. Well, I will say that although Frostburg State University does have higher standards where THAT sort of faculty fraud is attempted.
Oh, by the way, at FSU (what I call the True FSU) we are not to engage in things like grade retaliation, and we are not permitted to openly call our students racists or to call for their castration. Granted, FSU is not elite like Duke, so maybe the people at Duke are so damned intelligent (not to mention morally superior to faculty members everywhere else) that such rules do not apply to them.
Oh, and our English faculty members actually can spell correctly, unlike the sainted Houston Baker, who now graces the Vanderbilt campus after having cut his swath through Duke. If people like Baker and Haynie are "stars" of "elite" higher education -- as their universities claim -- you can have it. I will be quite happy at the lower-tier places where at least people have their feet on the ground.
Is Lubiano a Communist?
bill anderson said...
If people like Baker and Haynie are "stars" of "elite" higher education -- as their universities claim -- you can have it. I will be quite happy at the lower-tier places where at least people have their feet on the ground.
As I have stated elsewhere, the current problems with American higher education fit the old maxim: "A fish rots from the head."
Haynie's appointment at Duke was somewhat problematic. Do some digging. You will find some interesting stories there. It was only because the Provost pushed big time for the hire that it materialized.
You reap what you sow Peter.
Is Haynie, like Lubiano, another affirmative action hire?
The triumph of "diversity" over actual merit.
To Bill at 6:55: I am a Duke grad and I agree with your assessment of "lower-tier" schools (as "grounded"). Duke has a serious "Ivy" inferiority compex and has consciously endeavored over the last 20 years to morph itself into a legitimate Ivy wannabe.
Part of its strategy has been to fall all over itself to appear "progressive" and committed to the far-left, PC academic playbook that seemed to work for the Ivies. In this sense, the likes of Baker and Haynie (or pick your 88er) are not "stars"; instead, they are merely symbols. They are valued for what Duke hopes others will see in them...props in a Duke play that could be titled "See How Much We Care".
In many respects, Duke's strategy has been successful. It has steadily moved up in the N&WR rankings over the years, where "peer" review is an important component. What peer school would dare to question the scholarship of Baker or Haynie, or Duke's irrationally aggressive "special" hire policy. Duke gets brownie points for hiring and coddling the likes of Baker and Haynie, and Duke "pedigreeists", many of whom disagree with Duke's policies, hold their noses and go along to get along. Besides, isn't it the rankings that really matter?
Duke could care less about the quality of these symbolic hires or the quality of their scholarship. That is not how they are valued.
All of that said, when my kids begin thinking about where to go to college, I will be very happy for them to have the "FSUs" of the world on their short list!
KC, did you find out this stuff about Haynie yourself? Or did you get it from the Chronicle board, where students started pointing it out the day before yesterday.
Not all of the 88 were academic lightweights or frauds, but enough were that it makes sense for anyone under attack from a PC-ist professor to at least check the attacker's scholarly record; if it's bad enough they can counterattack with "What are you doing at this university anyway?" I think the only reason this tactic hasn't been used before is that noone realised just how big a fraud the Angry Studies are. That cat is now out of the bag.
I think one of your great services to the decent and sane in academia is that you've given them a new weapon: The "academic profile."
I have an art collection to rival Haynie and Lubiano's books. It consists of 4x6 wall placards saying, "Mona Lisa, Leonardo DaVinci, currently on loan to the The Louvre" and "The Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh, currently on loan to the Modern Museum of Art".
Here's hoping that many of the Angry Studies intellectuals will soon find themselves no longer "under contract" and that pending job searches and CV revisions are "forthcoming".
I would have let this one slide if I were KC. Even though I'm sure it's factually correct, (KC's exemplary record speaks for itself,) it seems too much like a retaliation for Haynie's recent criticism of this blog.
On the grand scale, this is truly a minor issue, and nothing like Lubiano's complete fabrications. apologists will no doubt use the "is that the best you've got?" defense for this one.
Robert M. Pirsig's book "Lila" speaks to the meaning of morals and values. He makes the point that institutional growth is a dynamic process, with layered growth similar, if you will, to dynamic geologic strata. The newer layers build on the foundation of the old, but given the dynamic nature of growth, the newer elements sometimes conflict with or are directly opposed to the older elements. Most contibutors to this blog are trained in the old school and are of the older generation, where logic, reasoned thought, careful scholarship, and civility are valued. In the new generation, raised in a TV age, the values are much more related to personality and celebrity. A smart, snappy answer is applauded. "In your face" is a dominant theme of sports and entertainment. Here is the bad news: Many of the newer faculty that we see throughout the university system are in fact the heavyweight intellectuals of their cultural generation. They are recognized by their peers as scholars and experts. They have not been exposed to, or have chosen to ignore (dead white men) the values of the older system. In many cases, these values have been actively edited out of textbooks and classroom discussions. The battle lines are being drawn. There will be no reconciliation, we are not talking about simple colleagial disagreement. The professoriat cannot afford to sit on the sidelines as passive observers.
As I recall, “Durham in Wonderland” actually began with the Duke faculty, and specifically with the dramatic intervention of large number of its members by means of a newspaper proclamation. When the blog began to appear, the first strategy of the Duke faculty seriously involved with the rape hoax was to ignore the blog. For most, to be fair, this probably reflected a real as opposed to a contrived ignorance. But that period could not long last. The blog quickly captured a wide readership and became the subject of considerable comment in many places, including the Durham area and among the Duke student body. The faculty’s next semi-official posture was one or intellectual and moral scorn. The blog was noisy, but it didn’t have to be taken seriously. Its administrator was a right-wing kook and ideologue, and many of its participants were vile racist pigs and/or troglodyte Republicans with defective spell-check functions on their computers. The first charge was wholly without merit. Since there were literally thousands of postings over the weeks, there indeed inevitably were some that were offensive in form or content or both, enough in any event, that no serious Duke intellectual need take any more notice of “Durham in Wonderland” than she would of the graffiti on the wall of a gas station bathroom. Hence the hauteur with which various faculty (Lubiano and Baker setting the pattern) refused to engage with, or even be civil to, people associated with the blog, damning them to the outer darkness of their email filters.
That has been the basic faculty attitude ever since, though its inadequacy was tacitly acknowledged in the amazing revisionist essay by Cathy Davison published early in the New Year. The Olympian silent treatment was not proving entirely effective. Her op-ed tried, quite literally, to change the subject. She gave a profoundly false reconstruction of the context in which the infamous “88” document had been written, as well as of the content of the document itself. It is worth remembering where the phrase “hooligan bloggers” had come from. It was constructed in parallel with Mr. Nifong’s assertion that that the lacrosse team members were “hooligans”. Cathy Davison is a woman for whom I had had a good deal of intellectual respect. I remain at a loss to explain her extraordinary rationalization of an initiative which any faculty member, anywhere, ought to know was improper. Hers is an essay that leaves me in a real quandary. That is, is it worse if she actually believes what she said, or if she knows what she said was baloney? But I digress.
Whatever were the faculty attitudes toward K.C. Johnson’s blog, they are quite irrelevant now that the book “Until Proven Innocent” has appeared. This is a substantial book. Though journalistic in its style, it is scholarly in its substance, consequential in its historical dimension, and utterly convincing in its demonstration of the corrupt or mistaken forces that might well have brought to its completion the serious injustice to which their actions were leading. Incidentally, and along the way, the book draws attention to various statements by various Duke faculty members that leave the reader uncertain whether to be shocked more by the vacuity of the ideas or by the barbarism and incomprehensibility of their mode of expression. This book is being read and cited widely, not merely in comparison with the endlessly nascent scholarly tomes of Professors Lubiano and Haynie--that would be too easy--but even in comparison with a few others that have actually been published. This is now the indispensable published source on its subject—the Great Duke Rape Hoax. If you want to have credibility on this subject, you have to deal with “Until Proven Innocent”. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with it. Hate it if you wish. Refute it if you can. But for heaven’s sake READ IT. What kind of a college professor is it that refuses to read a book out of pure, blind prejudice—prejudice meaning “pre-judgment”, or arriving at a conclusion in advance of considering any evidence? The answer seems to be “A Duke professor”.
One of the alternative meanings for "Forthcoming" is "open, candid, frank and honest." Their publications are neither. 'Nuf said? One Bill Anderson or one KC Johnson is worth a thousand of those ignorant four-flushers that seem to populate the Ivies (and now Duke).
This morning I revised my resume. It now has a section entitled "Publications" and there is the following entry:
"Inman, with Whanameanie Lubeano (frothcoming) and Kerrie Hayknee (frothcoming), A Grand Unification Theory: Explaining the Function of the Universe through the Eyes of the Blind, but mostly Dumb (forthcoming and fifthleaving)
Kgun5 said...
"it seems too much like a retaliation for Haynie's recent criticism of this blog."
It could be seen that way. Or it could be seen as documenting the pattern that an unusually large fraction of his critics are academic lightwieghts and frauds. To the extent that the use their authority as professors to buttress their arguments, a close examination of their credentials is appropriate and fair.
"On the grand scale, this is truly a minor issue"
You must be in the humanities.
I've seen metallurgists bounced out of graduate programs for less.
I think KC's replies are completely justified. He deals with facts, and these others are name-calling and tossing out innuendos and jibes in response. I think he's picking up the rock and letting the cockroaches scramble when the light of day hits them.
I'm a Duke alum (and have posted before) with 2 high school-aged boys. They're not applying to Duke unless Brodhead's gone, and I'm also thankful they'll both be engineers. The profs in the "real" departments are still decent and rational. If I had a kid that wanted to major in some of these "pretend" majors, though, I'd pull the plug in a big hurry. I'm not spending $40,000/year for what amounts to idiotic indoctrination. I believe college needs to train you to think, but not to swallow propaganda that you're not allowed to rationally question.
kgun5: I've often wondered myself if reviewing the CV's of the G88 is wise as well. But with regard to Haynie, a review of his CV may be appropriate given his letter.
His criticism of Johnson's and Taylor's review of the Coleman Committee report was wholly without foundation; Haynie himself acknowledged in his letter that he did not review any source material, i.e., the blog, UPI, published articles, etc. before commenting on Johnson's and Taylor's review of the report. Moreover, as Johnson pointed out in the blog, Haynie created from whole cloth false representations and attributed them to Johnson and Taylor. This case is polarizing; any letter in the Chronicle, from either side, draws intense scrutiny. Regardless, Haynie proceeded to fire a missive without being informed and without having the facts to support his position. Such an action invites scrutiny of his CV as he is a professor and therefore, it is assumed, has at least minimal research and writing skills. That he could not foresee that he would be criticized for not completing research belies his position as a tenured professor at an elite university. Or, perhaps, reveals a level of ego that does not seem to be in short supply among the G88.
It is heartening to read articles suggesting some colleges are setting up policy rules for students to file faculty complaints. However, some faculty members feel, “The potential for abuse—especially of junior faculty— is great. The policy invents a new way for politically motivated students of the Horowitzian genus, who are small in number but highly motivated, to engage in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against liberals and progressives.”
“The new rules state that if a student files a complaint, the department chair (or academic dean, if the chair is the subject of the complaint) would conduct a fact-finding investigation within 30 days, try to work out an agreement with everyone involved, and issue a formal finding and recommendation.
If either party appeals, the chief academic officer would then serve as chair of an appeals committee, which would have as additional members the chief student affairs officer, two elected faculty members, and one elected student. In considering appeals, the panel would have a “particular focus on whether the conduct in question is protected by academic freedom.”
The professors are whining even though, “Any disciplinary action against a professor would be covered by the terms of the faculty union’s contract.”
Reform is going to be difficult with this majority mindset. It looks nearly impossible to work through this maze,and yet,if a professor was charged more than once,it would be more difficult to dismiss the charges,in my opinion. If you have time to read more, you will see one of the "Teachers for Democracy" projects was to help Ward Churchill keep his position. All the liberal heavy-hitters are there, but it didn’t work. Maybe there is hope? Sorry KC that the article came from CUNY.
Academic Freedom at CUNY
http://www.teachersfordemocracy.org/?q=node/34
Kerry Haynie
The N&O is already back full-force to using their Duke source stable.
Last evening, I was skimming the print edition of their Metro section and Kerry Haynie was used as one of their "go to" people to analyze the Durham election results.
I'm going to see if it's still up on their website.
The N&O's hot go-to-guy.
Prof Haynie has it covered!
Having attended 2 of the Big 3 Ivies and Duke, I have observed the beneficiaries and the finished products of affirmative action . The product(beneficiary of lowered standards) typically resembles a number of the group of 88-----angry,dogmatic, combative,aggressive under-achievers. They know it is gender, color, or p.c. political ideology, not talent or accomplishments, that got them on Duke's faculty ,and their best defense for these undeserved "gifts" is to be as offensive and intolerant to honest analysis as possible.The students are aware of these matters,as well.As an author of 5 books published by major publishers, I salute the brilliant scholarship of the distinguished author and professor ( and fellow Harvard grad) K. C. Johnson. Take a bow, sir!!Family of Duke grads.
To Bill Anderson, I always enjoy your posts here and will point out that it doesn't matter HOW "elite" a school is. What matters is what the student gets out of it. I went to a small college for undergrad work and had a professor who was MUCH, MUCH better than any I got going to an "elite" school for my graduate work. PLUS, I applied myself. Your students, I am sure, are equally blessed.
cmf
The attacks on KC as racist and/or uncollegial are sure to follow very soon. There is no valid explanation or excuse for Haynie to print complete falsehoods on his CV, so the only thing to attack is the messenger.
Just when you thought Duke faculty couldn't make themselves look any more stupid....
kgun - I disagree - it is an incredibly relevant point - because it demonstrates the double standards that universities such as Duke applies to members of so-called under-represented groups in tenure and promotion decisions. Most Department heads or, as in Haynie's case, Associate Department heads, are very well published, and don't have works forthcoming for 4 years on with out a very specific explanation - i.e., a new significant breakthrough or phenomena required it. And deny it all you want, don't think for one minute that the vast majority of over 140 IQ professors at these institutions are deeply aware of the double standard, and in many ways resent it, but good luck getting them to talk about it. KC is a treasure for doing so....
Thomas Sowell's review of UPI has been in numerous publications, unlike so many of the previous reviewers, whose critiques appeared in perhaps only one.
Jewish World Review
National Review Online
Townhall
.......and I'm sure there are others, as Sowell's work is prolific. Very good publicity for UPI.
And I see that Liestoppers has found yet another location where Sowell is found.
Quite excellent.
My deep regret is that this brilliant and steadfast man was not listed as one of the champions of this cause. As he so eloquently stated, this is a cause for justice everywhere.
I like the word champion so much better than "hero". That word is overused and pedestrian.
Moreover, some of the people who were so generously given that worn-out appellation have now shown themselves to be mendacious players....who have quickly returned to the corrupt Duke and Durham regime.
Thomas Sowell: A true champion
OT
The latest Duke Chronicle discussion about Brodhead's apology pretty explicitly lays out the current "line" of defense:
(1) Assume anyone who criticizes Brodhead, criticizes the G**, or says anything else you don't like is a follower of KC Johnson.
(2) KC Johnson has been "deconstructed," therefore anything he or his (presumed) followers say is politically motivated, and therefore the details of arguments need not be addessed.
It doesn't seem to be going over real well.
I agree with Ralph who posted at 8:52. Not being part of academia, I assume that professors are honest about their credentials including publishing activities. What a fool I have been. I know people lie on their resumes. A decade ago, it was probably a lot easier to stretch the truth b/c the Internet wasn't equipped to make researching individuals so easy. I think it is nothing less than fraud to present a work as forthcoming for a decade. Duke and probably a lot of other universities need to clean house and some professors need to clean up their credentials.
If they will lie about things like publishing a book, what else will they lie about?
"Duke could [not] care less about the quality of these symbolic hires or the quality of their scholarship. That is not how they are valued.
"All of that said, when my kids begin thinking about where to go to college, I will be very happy for them to have the "FSUs" of the world on their short list!"
10/12/07 8:37 AM
You, sir, are a genius. Indeed, Duke, or any other elite institution, gains nothing from pandering to minorities. It's all BS.
What do you think Duke would do if the Ivies abandoned Angry Studies and affirmative action?
I'll tell you: the Ivies' reputation would skyrocket, Duke's would take a nosedive. Then the Trustees would demand that Duke follow suit.
I can only dream of such scenarios.
kgun5@9:21 AM on Haynie's "flexibility":
On the grand scale, this is truly a minor issue, and nothing like Lubiano's complete fabrications. apologists will no doubt use the "is that the best you've got?" defense for this one.
A small matter, yes. Haynie is a small man. He is also busted. That's not a small matter for one's academic reputation, and "is that the best you got?' sounds an awful lot like the Black Knight's "it's merely a flesh wound."
To 8:16am
Haynie's appointment at Duke was somewhat problematic. Do some digging.
Last week I suggested that it was only a matter of time before the silent faculty, the ones who know where the bodies are buried, will begin to provide information.
We are going to hear more than we ever imagined. Knife fight in the concentration camp isn't quite the metaphor but it will be just as bloody.
More OT
I responded to Kashibatha thusly:
------------
Kashibatha said:
a recent paper, by Prof. Charles Piot in the journal Transforming Anthropology, deconstructing the Taylor and Johnson narrative - see
http://fds.duke.edu/db?attachment-17--1263-view-347.
Quoting from Piot's paper,
"the ad in question was neither about the lacrosse players nor about the party they hosted in spring 2006."
Yet we know that the letter soliciting Piot's signiture on the Listening Statement began as follows:
"African & African-American Studies is placing an ad in The Chronicle about the lacrosse team incident."
[see http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/09/lubianos-cover-e-mail.html]
Regardless of what you think of Johnson's "narrative," on this point the facts and evidence he collected demonstrate that Piot is a bald-faced liar.
I will use that knowledge to adjust the weight I give to Piot's other words.
Missteps turn up the heat on Durham city manager
Never did these folk think their own warts would be exposed, when they signed that statement. Most of them appear to be keeping their heads down and hoping this will go away. How can Duke be supporting this schloarship?
The American market has spoken.
There are too many extremist professors writing too many books that are chasing after too few customers.
Bankruptcy is the usual solution unless university alumni send in those donations which are turned into paychecks for extremist professors who then try and write more books.
Round and round we go.
When will the IRS put an end to this merry-go-round of madness?
::
GP
I'm not in an academic position. I've worked for years in business management and most of my positions have involved hiring employees.
If, as KC points out, there is a recognized definition of the term "forthcoming" as it relates to publications, and that, being generous, any publication listed in a given year as forthcoming would be expected to be published within 2 years, how is what Lubiano and Haynie are doing not equivalent to someone who pads his resume by claiming to have done work that has not actually been done?
Were I to have hired someone on the basis of believing a body of work to have been accomplished (for example, someone claims to be on track to receive an MBA or a technical certificate within the next year) and later discovered that it had not, it could be grounds for termination for that employee.
I recognize that tenure within academia gives faculty members a wide latitude to engage in behavior that would not be tolerated in business. Were I to refer to one of my customers in writing as being related to a "farm animal" I'm quite confident I would be looking for a new job as soon as my employer could throw my butt into the street, free speech notwithstanding. But I fail to see there is anything beneficial in allowing professors to identify a publication as "forthcoming" for over 4 years if the established standard is less than 2 years. One might infer that, in fact, there is no established standard.
If such efforts to claim credit for work not performed are not proscribed, what is to prevent more and more faculty to begin listing publications they have no intention to complete as "forthcoming" for a few years and then, after receiving whatever perks might accrue from such activity (promotion, tenure, transfer to another college, research grant) simply let them drift away and be forgotten?
Are we to believe that academia, willing to give Lubiano and Haynie a pass, would certainly rise up and begin denouncing were, say 10%, of all professors to engage in similar activity? Or would it take 50% or 75% to reach critical mass.
People like Lubiano and Haynie should be scorned by their peers for their actions. Instead they are held up by many as representatives of an "elite institution of higher learning."
It appears to me that Nifong and the DPD aren't the only ones guilty of running a hoax in Durham.
How can Duke still be considered in the Ivy League with frauds like Haynie? His statement "Get a freaking life! Quote me" ilustrates how superficial his education is. I will never send my kid to Duke since I see who the teachers are. What left-wing conspiracy this race/gender/class policy is.
Hi KC,
You said "There's no doubt a contract for the book exists." Is this true? These academicians have lost so much credibility, I don't believe anything they claim anymore.
In all honesty, I thought you were going to have to issue a retraction of you posting on Haynie, because his response in the Chronicle was so inane I thought it had to be an imposter.
This steady trickle of really foolish comments from Duke faculty has got to be damaging to the Schools rep. Is nobody minding the ship at Duke?
As another of your readers has said, it is just not possible to be cynical enough in this whole fiasco.
-RD
KC regarding your own scholarship...when are you going to tell the faithful followers that you nominated your own book for the award you want us all to think so much of, and that the awards committee had to select from the few, the very few (amazon says just one other, but that couldn't be right, maybe 5 others?) that were published about the US Congress in 2006? Not a field that provokes a lot of scholarly publications in a single year. And for those few, very few that were published in 2006, only a few of those other authors submitted their own books for this award. So KC, who was--or better yet--how many were your competition for this prize you indicate is such an accomplishment and cause for our applause? [Time to put down the applause sign, by the way. Let's hear about your own self-promotion while you continue your peculiar obsessions with Duke faculty.
And also...it seems you cannot extricate yourself from this blog. You cannot make your own self go away and get on with another project. Hmmm...wonder what that is about?
One of the truly striking features of this saga has been, almost from the beginning, the near absence of well thought out defenses of Nifong, the DPD, and even the Gang of 88.
Of course, that project was handicapped by being burdened with consistently awful facts - there being no crime committed and all - but even so, those trying to take the other side on this issue have struggled to even reach coherence.
Part of the reason is simple laziness, I suppose. However, I believe that a deeper reason is that so many people in the world of PC are paralyzed in their thinking processes by fear of being caught out on the wrong side of the gender/race mob. That sort of mental paralysis does not lead to good argument-making skills.
The ruling elites in G. Britain in the late 1930s were as well trained in the art of expressing political ideas in the English idiom as any as ever lived. Yet, if one goes back and reads their speeches and commentary about the on-coming German Reich, it is, with few exceptions, oddly stunted and lame. It was as if they did not feel free to express their true thoughts - which were haunted by fear of what another war would mean - and so they struggled to make sense out of their positions with so much having been left un-said.
Nifong, Brodhead, and many others had so much to hide, so many puzzle pieces they could not share, that making a normal, coherent argument was beyond them, even if they were accustomed to doing that sort of thing in other circumstances. It seems to me.
DUKE is NOT an Ivy league school, they just play one on TV....
Professor Haman, I presume?
I thought Nifong was the only one who would hang on his own scaffold, the only Haman-type, but the 88 (and their enablers) keep on building and building and building, as if they expected someone else to be hung on their word, on their claims, on their charges.
Not only is this - Haynie's - a good example of a modern-day version of the Book of Esther (oh, that dreaded Hebrew book!) it's a fair representation of a lynch-era noose. That is: trial-by-gossip, innuendo and lies. A lynching.
Figuratively speaking, (of course,) it will be satisfying to watch as these workmen and women continue to build the steps to the platform. Figuratively speaking.
Just building and building, hammering and nailing.
One thing DIW posters all appear to agree upon: justice, rule-of-law and Constitutional rights are of paramount value in our system of law. Perhaps "Professor Haman" doesn't agree.
One more nail for the steps to the platform. Mordecai already knows the ending to this story. Some continue - as Lane Williamson said - to be fools.
KC,
You should do a fact check. There are at least 4 blatantly wrong assertions in your post. Nope, I'm not going to point them out to you. Perhaps Haynie or Duke's legal counsel will.
To the 1.34:
Perhaps they will. In the meantime, I rather doubt that a post devoting most of its space to quoting from Duke, Rutgers, and Stanford websites is on particularly shaky grounds.
Wow--couple of posters at 12:20 and 1:34 that should listen to Haynie and get a life. More squealing stuck pigs--name calling and innuendos, not facts.
All that sour grape juice dripping all over your desk will ruin your keyboards! Don't say I didn't warn you!
KC,
You should do a fact check. There are hundreds, if not thousands, and perhaps even MILLIONS of blatantly wrong assertions in your post.
I guess I told you...
"Not being part of academia, I assume that professors are honest about their credentials including publishing activities. What a fool I have been. "
In the sciences and engineering it's still a pretty reasonable assumption. It's part of the culture of those fields that catching someone else out is considered both good scholarship and good sport. Though that may not be as true as it once was, I've been in industry for a while....
"Are we to believe that academia, willing to give Lubiano and Haynie a pass, would certainly rise up and begin denouncing were, say 10%, of all professors to engage in similar activity? Or would it take 50% or 75% to reach critical mass."
It isn't everyone who's allowed to do these things. You have to be either a political extremist willing to make a scene at the drop of a hat, a member of a designated minority group, or a spousal hire of someone influential. That is, you have to be someone it's politically costly to denounce.
I've been over at JinC and Liestoppers catching up...I'm amazed. Truly amazed. Now that the lacrosse team can't be blamed for all the sex/gender/race problems in today's world, "they" have decided it's all KC's fault! KC is causing all the problems! No one on the Duke faculty ever did anything wrong, but that horrible KC has really caused a lot of problems.
They're truly pathetic.
Lawbeat Comments on D-I-W
This an entertaining article (with caveats)The writer calls KC a citizen journalist?
Mostly good comments, with one very good reply. I didn’t leave a comment,but if I did,it would be to counter the idea there is
a need to keep MSM providers alive. If he means actual newspapers,I have not subscribed to a newspaper since my bird died.
The Carnegie Legal Reporting Program@Newhouse
Lawbeat Comments
Durham-in-Wonderland eulogy (with caveats)
Excerpts:
"As Durham-in-Wonderland heads over the horizon, let's take the opportunity to ponder what its existence meant to legal reporting."
"Because of his energy (relentlessness, really) and talent, Johnson proves that citizen journalism can in fact be journalism as we dinosaurs would define it."
"The elite appeal of a blog like this can never, in other words, replace traditional storytelling journalism."
http://newhouse-web.syr.edu/legal/blog_comments.cfm?blogpost=424
KC, KC, KC
Why do you continue to dignify the drive-by flamers' comments by addressing their attacking points?
They have little or no respect for hard facts or anyone's opinions other then their own so whatever you say to them will not matter.
When you have supposedly learned professors critiquing your book without ever having read it, what makes you think they will pay attention to what you say in your responses to them?
My pre-school grandchildren exhibit a higher level of comprehension than these people display with their inane postings.
Enjoy your hiatus from blogging. The 88 and their erstwhile supporters will still be here singing the same old tune when you get back from Israel.
L.J. in Florida
The poor 88-ers. They had just enough valium left in their medicine cabinets to make it until October 1st when -they thought - DiW would shut down permanently.
Surprise, surprise. Their dirty little secrets are still coming out and they are panicked.
How else to explain such comments as: "You're wrong but I'm not going to tell you why you're wrong and maybe you'll be sued! Na-na, na-na, na-na."
If I had tried that approach in my 5th grade debates I never would have made it to the 6th grade. I am loving their ineptness and lack of talent.
anonymous (as always)@10/12 12:20 PM:
KC regarding your own scholarship...when are you going to tell the faithful followers that you nominated your own book for the award you want us all to think so much of...
Only a fool assumes that everyone else is a fool.
Are you not aware that within 21 minutes of KC announcing his receipt of the Hardeman prize ("Reflections on the Civil Suit" thread, 10-08 11:00 AM), one of his "faithful followers" (inman@10/08 11:21 AM, same thread) had already posted the direct link to the D. B. Hardeman Prize page, on which are clearly posted the rules for self-or-publisher submissions for award consideration?
Do you really think KC's faithful followers would not be intrigued enough by his latest accomplishment to check out the prize for themselves, especially following his use of it as a stunning put-down of the "KC has no academic credibility" moron who had commented earlier (anonymous@10/08 10:08 AM)? And you come along, 4 days later, with your idiotic "revelation"?
And do you really think that the commenters on this blog are unaware that competitions for numerous awards are based on self-submissions? (Show me a Cannes Film Festival winner and I'll show the studo/production company that submitted the film for competition). What does the process of submission have to do with winning the prize, i.e., with the merits of the work itself? Who cares about the size of the competition pool? (How many submissions did Al Gore beat out for the Nobel Peace Prize?) If KC's book wasn't a worthy entry, it could not have won the prize. Lots of prizes are not awarded every year for lack of qualified submissions. The committee who selected the Hardeman Prize winner did not have to award it to KC. But they did, and he joins a distinguished list of Congresional history scholars who've won it.
My guess is, like Haynie, you haven't read the prize-winning book, and therefore have no more idea of its merits than Haynie does of UPI's. Astonishingly dumb. Are you another Duke faculty perhaps? I'm not so astonished.
Get a life. People make spelling errors. They make grammatical errors, too. All one has to do is glance at this blog on any given day. EUWWWWW.
And guess what? I have a colleague who thought his/her book was going to be published by a particular press. The press advertised the book, so it was correctly "forthcoming." For whatever reason, it did not come forth. My colleague was not incorrect to have noted it as forthcoming. When the book finally came forth, it was from another press. And several years later. So what? It was published and it is useful.
I really don't think that the old geezers were better academics than today's professors. I just think some of you can't stand the fact that the work is different. And sometimes, differently better!
At a place like Frostburg, it's sorta hard to tell who's publishing, because some departments don't even list that sort of information. What little was listed made me think I'd stick with Duke if I wanted scholarship.
Just for the record:
I'm quite sure Cambridge nominated the book; I, however, did not. I've always assumed that it was the responsibility of the press to nominate books for academic awards, and it's my sense that committees don't take self-nominated books that seriously (for good reason). It is common practice in the academy for publishers to nominate books--I assume that 12.20 is not an academic.
Anyhow, to answer the question of "when are you going to tell the faithful followers that you nominated your own book for the award," the answer is never, because I didn't nominate my own book for the award.
I have a colleague who thought his/her book was going to be published by a particular press. The press advertised the book, so it was correctly "forthcoming." For whatever reason, it did not come forth. My colleague was not incorrect to have noted it as forthcoming. When the book finally came forth, it was from another press. And several years later. So what? It was published and it is useful.
---------------------------------
But isn't it a bit odd that this misfortune repeatedly befalls books supposedly written by Duke A&AAS professors?
And at least your colleague's book did eventually get published, which is more than can be said for the works of Lubiano and Haynie. Still, there's always next year, I suppose.
Thanks for the clarification, KC--not that it matters. Heck, if I'd written the book, I'm nominate myself. If you don't believe in yourself, why should you expect others to?
On a related topic--the argument that "I once knew someone who once had a book that wasn't published for a long time" is the dumbest defense of Haynie I've seen yet.
I have really enjoyed this blog and UPI; the service to the criminal justice system (my personal interest which brought me to this blog) by both is immeasurable. I'm continually impressed by you, KC, and how you remain so calm and thick-skinned with each new attack against you both professionally and sometimes, quite unfortunately, personally. No matter which arrow your detractors pull from their quiver you are always able to respond with cogent and factually supported argument. That you are not completely exhausted from your experience in Wonderland is amazing. As an aside, I find it very telling that those who disagree with you seemingly waited until your "semi-hiatus" and move overseas for their latest round of attacks.
Re: Debrah said...
Missteps turn up the heat on Durham city manager
.....Baker's inexperience has been blamed for what some say has been his mismanagement of several high-profile issues in the past 18 months:
< He oversees a Police Department that has been criticized widely for mistakes that allowed the Duke lacrosse case to move forward. Those mistakes appear to be coming home to roost; on Oct. 5, the exonerated lacrosse players filed their long-anticipated federal civil rights lawsuit, naming the city and 10 members of the Police Department among the defendants. Regardless of the outcome, the suit will be costly to defend.
< The city was reprimanded by the state last year for failing to report many homes in which high levels of lead were found in drinking water. The state fined the city and imposed a probation period that requires increased lead testing.
< The city's yard-waste facility, which had operated for more than two years without a state permit, caught fire last year and burned for two weeks. Several staff members were docked pay and moved to different departments for their role in the fiasco.
< Most recently, Baker has taken heat for waiting until the city had less than 80 days' supply of water left to enact mandatory conservation measures. Raleigh, by contrast, took similar steps more than a month earlier and has about 120 days' supply.
Bell said he and other city leaders might have thought twice about hiring Baker had they anticipated the rocky road ahead.
"Now, could we have predicted the lacrosse case was going to happen?" Bell asked. "Could anyone have predicted some of these other things? No. If we could have, we would have had pause [about hiring Baker]."
Unfair judgment
Baker thinks it's unfair to judge his performance on just a few incidents.
________________
Bwahaha! Just a few incidents! Baker had no experience as a city manager and is clearly out of his depth, so they only gave him a 3% raise, instead of a 5% raise. Poor baby. Well, it could have been worse, I guess:
"Given where we were, we hired the best person for the job at the time among the applicants we had," Bell said.
In Lubiano and Haynie's final exams, the students should just bring one bluebook each, print their names on the front cover, and write on page one:
"Answers to Your Final," by [insert student's name], Forthcoming, Fall of 2009.
JLS says....,
re: anon 3:37
1. I agree on the spelling issue. My view is that one criticizes spelling when one lacks ideas to counter the ideas of one's opponent.
2. As far as your colleague, I bet they at some point removed their book from forthcoming on their vitae when that particular press for whatever reason changed its mind. The likely had to do that to submit it to other presses to see if they want to publish it. That is not the issue with the Duke frauds. They are falsely claiming credentials to get a job or promotion at Duke.
3. I am quite surprised that Duke of all places puts up with this kind of fraud. My employer like Duke has a medical school. We are unusually careful about new hires here including getting undergrad and graduate transcripts of new hires. It is a bit of a pain in economics, but I came to accept this set of rules because we sure don't want a pretend cardiologist to be hired.
I was well treated at Duke hospital one time years ago, but if I lived in Durham now, I think I might well head the other way from the new Richard Brodhead Duke for medical treatment. Who knows how many personnel have forthcoming credentials? This is yet another insidious way the Brodhead era is undermining Duke.
Why on earth is there ANY discussion about what the G88 ad was about? Lubiano wrote they wanted to take out an ad about the "lacrosse case."
That's a smoking gun, folks. There should be no discussion about this. If they try to tell you they wanted to bring attention to bigger issues they are full of $hit. That's the bottom line.
cmf
Do students at Duke customarily address the professors there as "Dr.", followed by the professor's last name?
This was the custom when I was at school, regardless of what the professor's phd happened to be in.
Just curious.
Breaking news from the Chronicle:
Pressler files suit against University
By: from staff reports
Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: News
Last update: 10/12/07 at 4:04 PM EST
Former men's lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler has filed suit against the University, officials confirmed Friday afternoon.
The suit is related to Pressler's settlement with the University, reached last spring. Neither Pressler nor his lawyer could be reached immediately for comment. A Duke official said in a statement that the claim is baseless.
"Mr. Pressler, aided by his attorney, reached a fair and final financial agreement with Duke University in the spring of 2007," University Counsel Pam Bernard said. "We are disappointed that he is now trying to undo that agreement with an unfounded claim against Duke. We will address the matter through the legal process and insist on honoring our existing agreement."
Pressler was asked to resign during fallout from the lacrosse case in spring 2006. A financial settlement was reached with the University in March 2007, but the terms have not been made public.
Breaking News on at the Chronicle
Former men's lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler has filed suit against the University, officials confirmed Friday afternoon.
The suit is related to Pressler's settlement with the University, reached last spring. Neither Pressler nor his lawyer could be reached immediately for comment. A Duke official said in a statement that the claim is baseless.
"Mr. Pressler, aided by his attorney, reached a fair and final financial agreement with Duke University in the spring of 2007," University Counsel Pam Bernard said. "We are disappointed that he is now trying to undo that agreement with an unfounded claim against Duke. We will address the matter through the legal process and insist on honoring our existing agreement."
**** without seeing the complaint, I'm assuming that the suit alleges that Duke violated the terms of the settlement agreement. but any agreement would have provided a remedy, i.e., notice to the party alleged to have violated the agreement, before a suit could be filed.
Pressler was asked to resign during fallout from the lacrosse case in spring 2006. A financial settlement was reached with the University in March 2007, but the terms have not been made public.
JLS said:
"I am quite surprised that Duke of all places puts up with this kind of fraud. My employer like Duke has a medical school. We are unusually careful about new hires here..."
I'd be willing to bet that:
(1) Duke Medical's employment standards are equally stringent as your employer's.
(2) If your employer has a department Womens' Studies, African American Studies, and/or Cultural Anthropology, their standards are as lax as those of the equivalent departments at Duke.
Kathleen Bratton of LSU doesn't list the book as forthcoming on her CV.
Traveler (10/12/07 12:23pm ) gave the URL to the Carnegie Legal Reporting Program's blog post Durham-in-Wonderland eulogy from 10/6/07. It's a mainstream legal journalist's mostly favorable review of our host's efforts at this blog.
You know, Ralph Phelan, There are a lot of places where Women's Studies has very stringent standards. You've got your head where the sun don't shine about that kind of program...
4:18: It seems to vary regionally. On the West Coast, "Dr." is often used, while on the East Coast, "Professor" is more standard in my experience. I sometimes got called "Professor" when I taught as a grad student, simply because I was in the front of the classroom.
KC's book & prize: My experience is that one's editor also asks the author which, if any prizes, a book might eligible...
3:56,
Why, pray tell, is it a "dumb" defense? It's simply noting that he might not be lying. I guess that's a problem for you.
As for books taking a long time to be published, if you ask many academics, they will tell you that presses can take a VERY long time to get books out. The process takes a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG time.
Why can we assume scientists are honest about their credentials, Ralph? Not like the're honest about all of their experiments, etc., as we see from reports on scientific fraud that appear regularly.
Oh, I see. It's ok to cook the books on your experiement, as long as you are correct in listing your publication...
I find it unfortunate that the entire Duke Faculty has become synonymous with the Group of 88 to some of the posters here. I just don't think it's intelligent.
inman @9:49 AM: bloody good job, you even have the main requirement in the Angry Studies type title, the ":".
LOL
austin - well written.
Ralph Phelan said...
More OT
I responded to Kashibatha thusly:
------------
Kashibatha said:
a recent paper, by Prof. Charles Piot in the journal Transforming Anthropology, deconstructing the Taylor and Johnson narrative - see
http://fds.duke.edu/db?attachment-17--1263-view-347.
Mr. Phelan, can you make that last part a link? When I tried it, nothing came up.
To the 4.41:
"My experience is that one's editor also asks the author which, if any prizes, a book might eligible..."
Since you don't identify yourself, it's hard to tell how normal your "experience" was.
In any event, your "experience" (such as it might have been) was not mine; and, indeed, it would have been odd, to put it mildly, for an editor as experienced in the field as Lew Bateman to have come to me for advice on whether and to what prizes the book might be submitted.
Anon (as always)@ 10/12,
Excellent job.
The thing about KC Johnson's "faithful followers" is that they have done the homework. They have read the legal pleadings, the arrest record, the news articles, other blogs, transcripts of lectures, statements, ads, "clarifying statements"--all the many sources painstakingly linked to DIW. The "faithful followers" have watched the news shows, the live feed of proceedings as available, etc. Also, the "faithful followers" come to the blog with some expertise themselves and have linked the comment section to many other relevant items. Due diligence here has been thorough. And the reason the very diverse "faithful followers" ARE so faithful is because KC Johnson has been so steady in his writing, so true to the many details found in the massive amount of evidence connected to this case, and so well reasoned in his analysis.
12:20, 1:34, and Truthhurts 001, you may have some luck elsewhere with your attacks on KC Johnson, but the "faithful followers" have a pretty sophisticated understanding of what happened in Durham based on numerous sources. Do you?
Observer
"Why can we assume scientists are honest about their credentials, Ralph? Not like the're honest about all of their experiments, etc., as we see from reports on scientific fraud that appear regularly."
Scientists are by no means perfect, but fraud is still rare enough to be considered news. The main thing they've got going for them is a vicious streak that values zinging a competitor over preserving "collegiality."
"There are a lot of places where Women's Studies has very stringent standards."
Name three.
4:07
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hey 5:24...
I was being FACETIOUS!
(Was it not obvious???)
anonymous@10/12 4:53 PM
I find it unfortunate that the entire Duke Faculty has become synonymous with the Group of 88 to some of the posters here. I just don't think it's intelligent.
It's pretty obvious that with their "listening statement" the G88 intended for everyone to assume that they were synonymous with the Duke faculty. And if the rest of the Duke faculty isn't going to distance itself from the statement, we can assume they either a) agree with it, or b) they are too gutless, or clueless, to speak out.
Recognizing that several faculty have spoken against the PC madness at Duke, including some who've posted comments on this blog, I salute their courage, thank them for speaking out, and, obviously exclude them from the preceding paragraph.
For the rest, I find myself strangely in agreement with 4:53 PM re the Duke faculty: I just don't think it's intelligent, either.
rp @ 5:28 PM
You beat me to it. And I'd have been willing to settle for Anon @ 4:36 PM to name even ONE that has "stringent" standards.
When I think of stringent standards in academia, I'm inclined toward the scholarship as practiced in ... say Mathematics, Chemistry or Physics ... at Cal Tech or MIT.
How stringent do you have to be to argue that every problem experienced by women is caused by white men? And the really big problems are caused by white men who come from privileged backgrounds. And the really, really big problems are caused by white men who come from privileged backgrounds AND play sports that emphasize their privileged backgrounds such as lacrosse.
Face it, 4:36, nothing that has "Studies" in the department title has anything to do with stringent.
Coach Pressler has filed suit against Duke alleging that the University continued to speak ill of him post settlement.
My translation: Many have noticed that the book, "Until Proven Innocent" is so overwhelmingly convincing that anyone who reads it gets very, very angry at Duke. It is turning out to be something like Excaliber - a sword that vanquishes all resistance. This means that everyone with a hoax related claim can now be expected to proceed to hack away at Duke, which appears to be virtually defenseless in this matter.
This is the book Haynie did not trouble himself to read before spouting off about this case.
If Duke was in a defensible position, I cannot imagine someone in Presslers situation taking them on.
It is beginning to dawn on me that many of Duke's tenured faculty are simply not very intelligent. The reason they do not make reasoned arguments with consistent facts is they do not know how to do so. They do not support their opinions with facts because they have so little practice at it. Not part of the job description, looks like.
Surely, Duke must have some faculty members with the intellectual ability to argue coherently from facts. Where are they? Is there some sort of selection process whereby the intelligent do not speak or write? Too bad.
Just my two cents on the "forthcoming" issue:
KC's definition of what forthcoming means is the same one I would use: accepted for publication and in press, usually with a reasonably certain date of publication. To be truly forthcoming, one should be able to show the editor's communication confirming acceptance and a final draft of whatever the work is.
Just having a contract for a book is insufficient to be "forthcoming." A paper with a strong promise of publication but that is not yet final and still under review is not "forthcoming." I would normally list such things as "Research in progress."
12:20 PM
Is it possible any G88 or their racist sycophants could deconstruct something other than a white male?
Oh.
5:28
1) Iraq
2) Iran
3) North Korea
12:20
Retract your claws. You are way too catty with your jealous comments. Could you be little WahWah? Don't try to put down KC. You're in exactly the wrong company to do that.
Take a reality pill and go write a book (not just an announcement of a forthcoming one).
anonymous said...
I find it unfortunate that the entire Duke Faculty has become synonymous with the Group of 88 to some of the posters here. I just don't think it's intelligent.
10/12/07 4:53 PM
We look forward to the day when the entire Duke Faculty looks a lot more like the Group of 3: Baldwin, Guftavson, and Weintraub
JLS says...,
re: Ralph Phelan
I'd be willing to bet that:
(1) Duke Medical's employment standards are equally stringent as your employer's.
(2) If your employer has a department Womens' Studies, African American Studies, and/or Cultural Anthropology, their standards are as lax as those of the equivalent departments at Duke.
1. I agree one MIGHT expect Duke to be more careful about its medical personnel. But then again do you want to bet your health that they are? I know risk averse people like say may wife would not bet her health, if she knew of any of this and lived in the area. Another worry is that my employer is not the brand name that Duke is. Duke may be living off and using up that brand name much like the NY Times has been doing with their brand reputation. Avis tries harder but sometimes Hertz gets sloppy too.
2. As I said, I am in economics and we have to get official transcrips for undergrad and graduate school. Thus I bet that every department here must. It is really standard proceedure for most organizations to have the same hiring paper work for all positions. So I bet the humanities departments have the same rules. I am not sure what would happen here if one was discovered to have inflated one vitae with a forthcoming book that was not published when promised.
Anonymous said...
There are a lot of places where Women's Studies has very stringent standards.
Absolutely true. It is essential to get the dogma word perfect and to understand that scepticism is a capital offence.
Anonymous @4:46 PM said...
Why can we assume scientists are honest about their credentials, Ralph? Not like the're honest about all of their experiments, etc., as we see from reports on scientific fraud that appear regularly.
Oh, I see. It's ok to cook the books on your experiement, as long as you are correct in listing your publication...
No, it's not OK.
The frauds, as you state, tend to be caught. We are only now starting to undertake processes of scrutiny with the [insert ideology here] studies crew and, unfortunately, many of them seem to come up short.
Obviously, only the most untutored individual would be unaware that these great intellects cited above haven't yet delivered their learned tomes because they have taken very important sabbaticals in order to "conduct listening tours", "commune with the people",
"fight the good fight", "take back the night",etc., etc., etc....
KC,
How normal my experience is...I don't know. I believe that at least some press publicity forms ask precisely which prizes a book might well be nominated for in the same way they ask which periodicals should receive the book for review. I do know in speaking with a colleague a couple of months ago, the subject arose. S/he had been asked by her/his press about which prizes her/his book should be nominated for. I've also served on article and book prize committees (where the number of books we had to read were apparently rather larger than the number the prize committee had to read to award your book a prize...) and I don't think we knew who originated the nomination. A book arrives from a press. We're not necessarily informed in the cover letter that the author asked that the book be nominated.
My field? I'm in liberal arts, KC. Even if you did have my name, you still wouldn't be able to measure how common my experience is. And, I have no intentions of identifying myself by name on your blog. I don't trust many of the people who post here to leave me in peace, just because I disagree with them.
To the 3.40:
Again, since you don't identify yourself, it's difficult to comment intelligently on your "experience."
As chair of one book prize committee and a member of two others in the last five years, we generally knew when a book was self-nominated. But I'm glad to hear from your "experience" that authors can sometimes self-nominate without the committee learning of the fact.
To the frightened 3:40 -
I get it. Very funny. By referring to your friend as a s/he you are really stretching a feeble argument. The White ... err ... Blue Devils on this board are so dangerous and devious you cannot provide ANY information about your colleague because he/she needs to remain in some kind of Academic Witness Protection Program or face the dreaded "confrontational" e-mail from some nefarious character on this board. Crocodile fears.
__________________
While you are here, though, 3:40, please learn something you can take back to the nest. In making one of your Gang of 88 arguments, try following this model:
(a) MAIN PROPOSITION
1. Supporting fact
--Citation
2. Supporting fact
--Citation
3. Supporting fact
--Citation
etc....
[NOTE: A supporting fact has to be TRUE and not just gossip-based speculation. Also, a citation must be to a published work or reliable source, not one that is made up or "forthcoming."]
________________
Upon sober reflection, I realize that my use of the phrase "the nest" above was not collegial, and, based upon this realization, I hereby withdraw same to be replaced with "your colleagues," even though "the nest" fits better with the "Crocodile fears" theme of my post. BOO! Gregory
I don't trust many of the people who post here to leave me in peace, just because I disagree with them.
What's your definition of "leave me in peace"?
Do you feel your peace has been violated if you receive disagreeable emails?
Or are you suggesting that you would feel physically threatened?
Truthhurts001,
Sorry about that. It is obvious.
Observer
KC, I suspect you'd find it difficult to comment intelligently on my experience even if I identified myself. Nothing I know about you tells me you could, although I suspect you'd assume you could.
Hello, KC,
It's difficult to comment intelligently on your experience and you've identified yourself. How did you know if a book was "self-nominated"? And what do you mean by this? Is "self-nominating" the provision of information about prizes to a press? Do you assume the press knows better than the author for which prizes a particular book is best suited?
How did you know from your vast experience on prize committees which books were self nominated? Were you informed in writing?
Just wondering...
3:40/3:47/KC:
How did the first post tell you that authors could self nominate? Is that what you consider provision of information to a press?
Is it also self nomination when authors provide presses with information about where to send review copies?
You're so snippy KC that I'm assuming your boxers are in a twist. Your experience isn't global and you aren't the best there is, so live with it.
Is Duke a public state school?
5:54,
I would not want to receive disagreeable e-mails, indeed, e-mails of any kind from people who post here.
I'm not physically frightened of them because I figure most of them are old[er] codgers and codgerettes. But they are so nasty that I don't want anything to do with them.
Dear 5:54,
I publish often enough with well-regarded presses that I probably don't need your writing lesson, ta very much. Given the viciousness I have observed on this blog, I would no more provide my name or the names of my colleagues than I would sprout wings and fly.
I know what I do for a living and I know my credentials. I have better things to do than claim to be something I'm not. My dad's an attorney, so I'm overly careful with things like that. I just love it when people here claim that I--and other people w/whom they disagree aren't academics, are stupid, don't know what we're talking about...makes me snicker.
8:14, I should think most state schools are public...but Duke isn't.
Dear KC,
Book manuscripts can be completed. And then revised at the behest of the publisher. This is not abnormal.
You're searching for targets, yeh?
Our fearful academic poster insults KC's commentors using "age-ist" pejoratives. Telling.
Said poster has a persecution complex, yet denies having a martyr complex. Please keep contributing, we'd love to learn more.
To 9:11
Yes, there are many potential explanations for being "forthcoming" forever. Now, all Duke has to do for the instances that KC cited is to investigate and release the findings. I'm sure that all of those nice professorial authors have legitimate excuses, that there are no problems, and the announcement will be forthcoming shortly in a clarifying statement ...
7:35 AM
The G88 and their sycophants are incapable of intelligent comment.
9:55---I'm not fearful. I just don't want maniacs like you bothering me. It's different.
10:11--Duke doesn't have to do anything about forthcoming books. What's your problem? KC isn't Duke's boss.
Some of you go on and on about publishing, but it appears that you haven't a clue how publishing works. Learn rather than exhibiting your ignorance.
By the way, I don't consider a book to be forthcoming until after pressboard approval and contract signed....and still a book may not come out.
To the 10:03
I don't understand the connection between your comment and that of the 7:35, where no mention was made of the G88 and their sycophants. Pls. clarify.
911 writes:
Book manuscripts can be completed. And then revised at the behest of the publisher. This is not abnormal.
Correct, but it's also not quite ethical to list such a book as "forthcoming" when it has not been FINALLY approved for publication. As long as the revision window is still open, the book or article is not, as I understand the term, "forthcoming."
Forthcoming suggests it is, as KC noted, "in press" - meaning the final copy has been accepted and that the author has nothing more to do other than, possibly, copyedit the galley proofs.
If I had any manuscript that I did not have "final acceptance" on, I would not list it as forthcoming. In fact, as a result of this conversation, I double checked my own CV and ended up moving one item out of "forthcoming" and back to "research in progress" because I realized it didn't fit what I considered the correct understanding of "forthcoming."
One other comment: having done plenty of hiring in my career, if a job candidate had a piece listed as "forthcoming" and I/we though that piece was reasonably central to our decision to interview or hire, we'd make damn sure with the candidate what he or she meant by "forthcoming." If there was any doubt, and it really mattered, we might well check with the publisher or the journal. That said, it's rare that one item like that is going to make that big a difference in a hiring situation. A candidate at any level who had several "forthcoming" items might raise some suspicions.
Forthcoming items matter more at tenure time. Tenure and promotion committees would expect the candidate and the department to detail what was meant by "forthcoming" before deciding how to count such a publication.
I can think of one case at my place where a tenure candidate literally was asked to produce a contract showing an accepted book project before the committee would vote. Interestingly, the candidate produced it, was granted tenure (remember, the research expectations here are not like those at school like Duke), but the book has yet to be published. This, btw, was 13 years ago. I'm pretty sure that everyone on that committee who voted for the candidate now wishes they could change their vote. The problem with tenure is that it's too much like marriage without possibility of divorce.
The good news is that, to my knowledge, the faculty member does not list that book as "forthcoming." If that person does, it would indeed be fraudulent.
To anonymous at 5:09:
I wasn't able to open Piot article either. AMac gave me this info last night at The Chronicle's site, and I'm providing it just in case you've not yet been able to read the article.
Here is one way to access Prof. Piot's 9-page essay. Go to Prof. Piot's home page:
http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/CA/charles.piot
Directly under "Representative Publications" is:
1. C. Piot. "KC's World." Transforming Anthropology vol. 15 no. 2 (2007): 158-166.
[PDF]
Right-click or shift-click on "[PDF]" and save the 9-page PDF to your hard drive.
TruthHurts001 said...
Hey 5:24...
I was being FACETIOUS!
(Was it not obvious???)
It was to me. :-)
Anonymous @8:38 AM said...
I know what I do for a living and I know my credentials. I have better things to do than claim to be something I'm not. My dad's an attorney, so I'm overly careful with things like that. I just love it when people here claim that I--and other people w/whom they disagree aren't academics, are stupid, don't know what we're talking about...makes me snicker.
What's that old saw about falls and pride?
In a stunning example of dishonesty, Anon at 7:38 says:
You're so snippy KC that I'm assuming your boxers are in a twist. Your experience isn't global and you aren't the best there is, so live with it.
Oh, I am sure that KC knows that he is not the best, but we can be sure that Anon at 7:38 is a long way down the pole.
Well having quickly skimmed the Piot article, I will make one observation: it seems clear that the G88 did indeed receive hateful and threatening email. And anyone who did that should indeed be condemned in the strongest possible terms. To blame KC for that, however, would also be over the line.
That noted, Piot's continued insistence that the LS was not about the lacrosse incident does indeed seem to fly in the face of the email evidence to the contrary.
Email evidence is good for the goose and the gander.
anonymous@10/13 9:55 AM got her drift:
Our fearful academic poster insults KC's commentors using "age-ist" pejoratives. Telling.
Said poster has a persecution complex, yet denies having a martyr complex. Please keep contributing, we'd love to learn more.
If you want to see a "mind" turn to drool, follow the above-referenced thread of her comments: 10/12 4:41 pm; 10/13 3:40 AM; 7:04 Am; 7:35 AM; 7:38 AM; 8:34 AM; 8:38 AM; 9:11 AM; 10:20 AM. "And my daddy's a lawyer..." sheesh.
12:19, How is that an example of dishonesty, stunning or otherwise? It it simply a comment you don't like?
Steve Horwitz, I know someone who had a contract whose book was advertised and then not published. Was it unethical to list a book under contract and advertised as forthcoming as forthcoming? NOOOOOOOOOOO
To 147:
No that's not unethical IF the book was accepted for publication in its final form and the author had every reason to believe it would be published. Nothing in your scenario contradicts anything I said.
What makes you think I would think otherwise?
SH: The way your earlier post read...that's what made me think that.
BTW, are you planning on naming the person your department tenured on a forthcoming book thirteen years ago? I ask, because this kind of "outing" appears de riguer for DiW...
I think of "forthcoming" as post-pressboard approval and contract and "in press" as exactly that...copy-edited manuscript in hand.
10:33
I would hope there is no connection between 7:35 and 10:03. And no, it has nothing to do with book prizes. I find the phrase "comment intelligently" interesting. That is my observation. If you're not part of the G88, I also hope you don't mind my paraphrasing and giving you the earned due credit.
It's ironic in that Prof. Johnson has been trashed by the G88 with comments that defy intelligence and logic. Yet Prof. Johnson has engaged these troubled souls with dialogue wholly supported by facts.
For example, read the Piot article. Piot contends that the LS was not in response to the Lacrosse Incident. However, read Lubiano's email in which she stated the LS was. What logical conclusion can you make of Piot's claim and the original Lubiano email? Secondly, Piot implies Prof. Johnson has targeted Black professors. Again, Piot defies both intelligence & logic. Prof. Johnson clearly didn't discriminate as he went after the entire group of 88 and their sycophants. Does Piot believe dividing and triangulating will expose some hidden myth (no, not truth)?
Let's hope Piot isn't going after any prize other than a preaching to the choir award.
Thanks
204 asks:
BTW, are you planning on naming the person your department tenured on a forthcoming book thirteen years ago? I ask, because this kind of "outing" appears de riguer for DiW...
It might help if you stopped "essentializing" DIW, as if everyone who participates here thinks the same way. Contrary to what the critics say, there's diversity of opinion among the regulars (as there is among the G88, I would quickly remind said regulars).
And no I will not name said person, nor was said person "in my department." Doing so would be unprofessional on my part, especially since the information I presented is not in the public domain.
I also find troubling your implication that what KC has done in his discussions of the Duke faculty is a form of "outing." Normally "outing" involves making PRIVATE information public, hence bringing it "out."
Whatever I think of the accuracy of KC's interpretations of the work and actions of the Duke faculty, it is not "outing" someone to provide links to publicly available publications or comments by that person, as is most of what KC has done.
And in my case, said person is a close friend of mine and whatever I think of the circumstances of his/her tenure, naming him/her would would be both unprofessional and hurtful to someone I care about.
Sure looks like some of these Duke professors have their Ward Churchill issues, not to the degree our former Colorado colleague had, but they still have some substantial problems. In that vein, when does bad scholarship reach the point of fraudulent scholarship? I have come to believe that bad scholarship is fraudulent when the scholar is aware that it is bad. Is bad scholarship also fraudulent when the scholar should reasonably know it is bad?
For example, Professor Piot's claim that the "Listening ad" was not meant to reference the falsified rape is obviously bad scholarship. There was a complete failure to research and a complete failure by Professor Piot to assess what evidence he had available. In my mind, the professor was obviously perpetrating fraudulent scholarship. I would reassess my position if Professor Piot provided an amended paper detailing how Professor Lubiano's e-mail does not eviscerate his position. I would also hope that a scholar in the position occupied by Professor Piot would indicate how he may be personally involved in his scholarship. For example, if Professor Piot was a signatory to the "Clarifying Statement," or took part in the Shut up and Teach event, and he did not make that conflict of interest clear in his work, then that would also appear to me to be, not fraudulent scholarship, but certainly biased and untrustworthy scholarship.
It is good to see open debate on subjects like this.
Anon at 400:
There are problems with Piot's analysis but to put his errors in the same ballpark as Churchill's various frauds is way overdone. Plagiarism and lying about one's background are in another league than not reading the evidence well. Bad scholarship is not fraud.
Like feminist arguments that viewing pornography is a form of rape, all comparisons like this do is make the *worse* offense seem less bad, rather than making the lesser one seem worse. Just point out Piot's weak arguments and evidence and let them speak for themselves.
To Steven Horwitz:
Like KC's posts, I frequently find myself nodding in agreement with yours.
Hey, SH, I wasn't essentializing DiW (btw, great Women's Studies word; I see you're really with it...). I was simply noting what the Blogmeister does. Why did you assume I was doing anything else? I sure hope that's not how you do research and jump to conclusions!!!
Steve Horwitz
To out means, among other things, "to expose intentially." That's what KC did. I wasn't misusing the word/expression. You simply had a limited understanding of its meaning. Now you know more.
Great that you've got such high standards you won't expose your friend's tenure w/o book status. D'you really think it's so great when KC does it here?
3:25
You planning to admit that you erred when you claimed that what Kc Johnson was doing was not outing? Or are you going Kc on us and letting stand misrepresentations/false assertions? Take a look at definitions of to out.
10/13 5:25 PM: Hey, SH, I wasn't essentializing DiW (btw, great Women's Studies word; I see you're really with it...)
Word's been around since 1893, but always good to stay hip 'n happenin' with the sisters.
You referred to "DiW" not "KC," so it seemed logical that you meant the entire blog, not just its owner. Are you normally that vague with your references?
steven Horwitz said to the 2:04...
It might help if you stopped "essentializing" DIW, as if everyone who participates here thinks the same way. Contrary to what the critics say, there's diversity of opinion among the regulars (as there is among the G88, I would quickly remind said regulars).
There is diversity of opinion among the Duke 88ists, but as the outcry grows for an outside investigation, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the 88ists would support Prof. Horwitz to lead it. He's an understanding guy.
Fraudulent scholarship is a subset of the universe of bad scholarship. OTOH, bad scholarship can be fraudulent or just bad. We cannot, at this point, objectively determine the intentions of Professor Piot. Did he know of the existence of the Lubiano e-mail at the time he wrote and/or published his article? If so, then he intended to write and/or publish fraudulent scholarship. Did he know it existed at one time, but forgot what it said by the time he wrote and/or published? In that case, it is only bad scholarship. Likewise, if he did not know of the existence of the Lubiano e-mail at the time he published and/or wrote his article, then it is just bad scholarship. He should have at least talked to the advertisement's author /Professor Lubiano/ before writing. In either circumstance, I would suggest that Professor Piot should resolve this issue with a correction of his scholarship. I would expect nothing less from others, or indeed myself. If I knew my publication contained false information, I would be duty bound to correct it, otherwise I am perpetuating an academic fraud. Akademos and Athena would not be pleased.
JLS says...,
" I bet the humanities departments have the same rules. "
We have seen that at Duke there are certain groups of people to whom the usual rules do not apply. The Ward Churchill affair showed us the same was true at the University of Colorado. Do you know from evidence that the same is not true of your institution?
Steve Horwitz said:
"Plagiarism and lying about one's background are in another league than not reading the evidence well. Bad scholarship is not fraud."
Piot recieved an email starting "African & African-American Studies is placing an ad in The Chronicle about the lacrosse team incident." He agreed to sign that ad.
Piot wrote "the ad in question was neither about the lacrosse players nor about the party they hosted in spring 2006."
That is a bald-faced lie, and an insuoltingly stupid one. That is fraud. In a sane academy that should destroy his reputation for ever.
But it won't.
To Ralph Phelan--
Thanks for stating the obvious.
Sometimes one needs to break free from this tiresome collegiality and just state the truth.
After all, the Lacrosse Hoax is not a faculty party.
Debrah,
"After all, the Lacrosse Hoax is not a faculty party."
Sure it is. Invitations went out to those who signed the ad (and to some who didn't.)
Nifong started it, of course, with a communal celebration of Springtime - a lynching - and invited the whole nation to attend. MSM, the NBPP, NAACP, the Dee Pee Dee, President Brodhead, a couple of judges and nearly the entire City of Duhh attended.
Lubiano had her own party. They all drank bitter wine and listened to depressing music.
Naturally, Crystal Gayle Mangum wasn't invited to any of the parties: she was just the mock-up.
Anon at 533 says:
Great that you've got such high standards you won't expose your friend's tenure w/o book status. D'you really think it's so great when KC does it here?
I have no problem at all with KC or anyone else commenting on publicly available CVs or published works of faculty at Duke or anywhere else. Being a scholar should mean being willing to expose your work to public discussion.
Have I agreed with all of KC's interpretations of that work or all of his reasons for talking about specific faculty members? No, and I've said so. If you doubt that, just look at the comments below yours where several regulars take me to task for having the temerity to suggest that members of the G88 aren't as awful as one might think.
For Ralph and Debrah - 802 asks the right questions. If the answers go one way, Piot's a liar. If they go another, he's just a bad scholar.
I guess I should take comfort in the fact that I'm being criticized by the 88's defenders and their worst critics. That either means I'm insane or I'm more reasonable than either. Your call. :)
9;05, Steve Horowitz, I'm still waiting for you to say you were wrong about the meaning of "to out," ie, that it wasn't as limited as you claimed. And then hectored...
BTW, when I criticize you, it's neither as a defender of the 88 signees nor as their critics. It's simply that I don't think your comments are always well thought through. Like the rabid dog attack over "to out."
9:15
If "outing" is using a person's own words, CVs and the like, then yes, KC "outed" some professors, and some ugly things appeared. Shining a light down a sewer, what would one expect to see?
Note this, however: their retaliatory attempts to "out" KC were almost always lies and distortions, innuendo and rumor, easily dismissed and disproven. I guess this is the mark of the "new academia."
You need to pick another target other than professor Horwitz: I have noticed that when the shit doesn't stick to KC, posters such as yourself start throwing it at other posters.
Leave Horwitz alone.
Anonymous said...
To out means, among other things, "to expose intentially."
-------------------------------------
And what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Yes, Steven, the defenders of the 88 badger you over momentous questions such as the meaning of "to out" or the etymology of "essentializing". The critics of the 88 hound you over such trite and niggling matters as the punishment for the 88 or how to rescue the American academy. So, yes, you're right there in the middle.
btw, I think mac's analogy of the Listening Ad as a faculty party has promise. :)
RRH
Kerry Haynie and Wahneema Lubiano seem unable to rise even to the level of Ward Churchill. At least he published, even if it was fraudulent. Haynie and Lubiano aren't even capable of fraudulent scholarship.
rr hamilton,
I think you'd better reread the posts. Nowhere was SHorowitz badgered. Someone disagreed with him after he had dumped on them. Badgering? I'd've said legitimate self defense.
But, since you agree with Mr. Horowitz, it's "badgering." You really are a piece of work.
And, get it through your head--is it so difficult to understand--that disagreeing with Horowitz or Johnson is not the same as agreeing with the people who signed the listening statement. I don't think you're stupid, so I assume you deliberately misunderstand.
11:17 OOOOOOOOOhhhhh! I'm so scared. Leave Horowitz alone. Leave Johnson alone. Right. Don't dispute what the boys say.
To the spelling Nazi at 11:36, I'd assume the word is "intentionally."
12:26
Very good argument.
As good as any the 88 are capable of making. Do you need a hug now that you've crossed the finish line?
Mac, As good as any of the 88 is capable of making?
GN
To Anon at 9:15:
Who is Steve HorOwitz? The always insightful Steve Horwitz comments here; but I'm unaware of any commentary from a "Steve Horowitz".
Thank you 132. :)
And no one needs to lay off me - I'm a big boy and perfectly capable of defending myself. I have not been "badgered," only challenged, which is how this whole blog comments thing works.
And I will NOT admit error about my use of the word "out". I wrote:
Normally "outing" involves making PRIVATE information public, hence bringing it "out."
My quick look at the Urbandictionary.com indicates that a common slang usage of "out" in this context is:
To reveal confidential, true, personal information about someone against their will and without their permission.
Hence, I stand by my usage. And I also stand by my claim that KC has not "outed" the Duke faculty when he has used their publicly available information as fodder for discussion. He might have been unfair in his interpretations of their work, or wrong in his judgment about them, but that is not "outing." They were already "out," and more power to those of them who made their work available to be read by the general public.
Steven Horwitz,
On Halloween, do you become Steven Horrorwitz?
(Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)
There once was a professor with no curls in the middle of his forehead.
When he was good, he was very very good, but when he was bad, he was Horwitz. :)
SH, re: 8:02's question
"Did he know it existed at one time,"
As a signatory he can be presumed to be a recipient of the cover letter, so the answer is a definite "yes."
" but forgot what it said by the time he wrote and/or published? In that case, it is only bad scholarship."
(1) The only way to conclude Piot is not dishonest is to conclude he is sufficiently far gone into dementia as to no longer be qualified for academic work.
(2) As "Tortmeister" showed in one of the Duke Chronicle comment threads, even without the Lubiano cover letter, the claim that the "Listening Statement" wasn't about the LAX case is an insultingly obvious lie - one that if they were aat all serious about their jobs the editors of "Transforming Anthropology" should have caught.
Conclusions:
[A] Piot's scholarship is completely undependable.
[B] Articles published in "Transforming Anthropology" should be given the weight of an unreviewed manuscript rather than the weight of a peer-reviewed publication.
[C] Any person or institution that uses publications in "Transforming Anthropology" as indicating academic credentials is engaged in academic malpractice.
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