“Survivors” Demand Firing Of Kavanaugh Supporter

By Professor Doom



      I don’t mean to keep coming back to Kavanaugh, but the whole affair is just so bizarre I find it fascinating. Until the Supreme Court nomination, I (and I suspect 99% of the country) had no idea who this guy was, and then came the most epic smear this country has ever seen, with witnesses coming out of the woodwork making the most outrageous accusations, accusations of activities several decades ago, making them all that much more outrageous because activity like “being in charge of a rape gang” really isn’t the kind of thing that stays completely silent for so long.


       Granted, no evidence was ever provided, every “corroborating” witness said they saw no such activity, and multiple accusers recanted their bizarre testimony, leaving only one witness willing to go publicly (and then only after recanting her claim of being afraid of flying, among numerous other agreed-upon-by-all-parties lies). Her public testimony was, of course, non-credible.


       Despite the blatantly unfounded smear, wide swaths of this country, particularly in our institutions of higher education, actually buy into the claims, not merely casually discarding our rule of law and rather important “innocent until found guilty” (not that there was enough to even charge Kavanaugh) concept, but to the point that students actually feel stress and fear at being exposed to the guy. It was enough to get him fired from lecturing on law, no less, an odd thing to do to a Supreme Court justice.


         Not only is Kavanaugh being attacked for these smears, but people who don’t believe the smears also are under fire:


Now ‘survivors’ at Georgia Tech demand Angel Cabrera be fired for supporting Kavanaugh




      The word “survivors” goes in quotes because these students were never victimized by Kavanaugh, and, like most everyone else, had no idea who he was until the big smear. Nevertheless, they’re claiming victimhood status, and asking for a “supporter” to be fired. What, pray tell, did this guy do?


His support of the hiring of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at GMU as a visiting law professor.




     These students have been manipulated into harming themselves, denying themselves the chance to hear a Supreme Court Justice’s thoughts on the law. Such lunacy boggles the imagination.


recently revived allegations against Kavanaugh highlighted in a new book prompted its members to reignite their agitation, despite the fact that the claims have been denied by Kavanaugh’s alleged victim.




     The above referenced smear came out in the NYT. They did publish a retraction a few days later, but far more people see the smear than the retraction. I really don’t understand why the people bearing false witness like this aren’t facing severe punishment, and, more importantly why whatever is putting people up to printing such lies (hi DNC!) isn’t being investigated in detail. This coordinated smear campaign has been going on far too long, with far too many well-documented false allegations, for a “legitimate” news organization like the NYT to publish another smear without making basic effort to see if perhaps this time the smear is valid.


     Despite the clear fake smear, the useful idiots students are adamant that Kavanaugh must be punished:


“Students at GT and GMU don’t think Kavanaugh’s elevation to SCOTUS means that the allegations made against him should have been overlooked when Angel Cabrera hired him to teach at GMU, either @Mason4Survivors,” the group tweeted on Sept. 26.




      The allegations against him weren’t overlooked, kids, they were investigated and found to be largely untrue, and what little couldn’t be shown as false was utterly unsubstantiated. Why has nobody told the students that it’s a bad idea to destroy a person strictly based on allegations of behavior in high school 30 years prior?


       The “survivors” protesting this are hurting themselves even further, incidentally. Several are publicly identified as being traumatized by the possibility of Kavanaugh being on campus.


      Imagine you’re an employer, and get an application from Mary Sue from Georgia tech. If you’ve heard about this lunacy at Gtech, you might well type in her name and see if she was involved in it. Knowing that she’s the kind of person who knows and believes a person could/should be destroyed simply by an allegation…what are the chances you’ll take the extreme risk of hiring her?


      For the student’s sake, why not teach about the whole “rule of law” thing I referenced earlier, before this got out of hand? The school paper, instead of publishing smears, could run a full page on how so many of the claims are not merely unconfirmed, but dis-confirmed, with witnesses denying the events ever happened?


      One commenter reinforces why being manipulated into hate via unsubstantiated claims is a horrible thing:


So NO ONE has substantiated ANYTHING Kavanaugh has been accused of not even the people cited as witnesses by the accusers and he is guilty? I accuse ALL Gtech students of being child molesters so they MUST be put in prison because I accuse them. 




     Now, if the above commenter had a compliant media willing to broadcast his accusations over and over and over again, willing to blindly accept any other accusations by anyone else under any circumstances and broadcast those as well, I strongly suspect the students would acquire a new appreciation for the rule of law.


      For some reason, it only works that way for people targeted on the Right. We probably should ask questions about why that happens so consistently, but in the meantime, Georgia Tech could do themselves and their students some good by getting the students to go back to studying, instead of being terrified by a legacy media whose days are clearly numbered.



www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Student Government: We Shouldn’t Have To Provide A Dr.’s Note

By Professor Doom



     I always had conflicting thoughts about how I deal with my students. On the one hand, they’re adults…I don’t like forcing adults to do things like handing in homework. On the other, I know the best way to learn a skill is to practice the skill, and homework forces them to do the requisite practice…but I’m still conflicted. They’re adults, they should know better.


       Similarly, I have reservations about enforcing attendance of classes. Yes, they’re better off listening to what I have to say than not, but I still understand I’m dealing with adults. If they miss a class, I should trust their reasons.



“I had stuff to do. Can you give me a makeup test?”



--student’s explanation for why he missed a test. It was a court hearing. I let it slide and gave him one, since was a pretty good student.




     It’s one thing to miss class, that’s no skin off my nose. But when a student asks for a make-up, that’s a different matter. I’d say about 90% of my “problem students” involve make ups. Usually, it involves cheating, but these kinds of students are often the types who go to admin to complain. Sometimes it’s both, such as a med school student who gave me an utterly ridiculous lie about why he missed the test. For the make-up, I changed three test questions—he’d fail the test if he couldn’t do them. He complained to admin that it wasn’t fair that he didn’t take the same test as everyone else (he could do the unchanged questions just fine, since one of his friends gave him a copy of the test, you see….).


      Because make-ups are such a problem, I generally don’t do them, instead writing in my syllabus that students can drop their lowest test score—with a missed test taken as the lowest.  This is fine until you get a student who misses multiple tests…these are often failing students, and thus also the kind of students who regularly complain to admin.


     Another anecdote. A student missed the first test, but pressed me so hard I gave him a makeup, which he failed. He missed the second test, I gave him another break, he again failed. He actually attended the third test, still failed. For the fourth test of the semester, he again missed the test. He e-mails me half an hour before the test, saying he’s been sick and hasn’t been able to prepare.


     He shows up in my office a half hour after I give the test. He seems fine to me, but asks to take a makeup. I decline, pointing out how at this point in the semester I just don’t have time for it (keep in mind, it’s the last week of the semester, I have many, many, tests to grade, as well as dealing with actual students who are more worth what little time I have, asking for help). Besides, he can drop his lowest test score, so missing this one test won’t count against him.


     He takes the final, fails that too.


     A week after the semester ends, I see he’s complained to admin about me. So, I have to get dressed and justify my actions. I provide e-mail communications showing I announced the date and time of the 4^th test, both over a month in advance, and a week before the test.


       He says he was sick, under a doctor’s care, and didn’t even know he could make up a formula sheet for the test. I point out how my e-mails clearly indicated the students could bring a formula sheet.


       I point out how university policy says a student needs a doctor’s note for a medical excuse to be accepted. The student has no such note.


       Admin has no idea what to do.


       I point out how university policy explicitly says the instructor of the course does not have to provide a makeup if the student does not provide more than 24 hours notice that he can’t attend the test. I show admin how the student’s notice was given half an hour before the test.


      Admin still has no idea what to do.


      I point out that the student was in no position to pass the course, and again university policy regarding “late assignments” indicate the instructor only needs to address this when the student is otherwise passing the course.


      Admin still has no idea what to do.


     After over an hour of my trying not to waste time on this, I end up making him a makeup test, being very careful to make sure it’s extremely similar to the test everyone else had to take. He fails, of course.


      I’m not a jerk, but bottom line I know even adults can lie, and I really only have so much time to spend on students like this. I’m also no doctor, and can’t judge a person’s health…so asking for that doctor’s note, independent evidence that the student isn’t being deceptive, while a bit obnoxious, strikes me as reasonable, at least for students claiming to be sick.


      The student government at University of Washington disagrees:


Student government leaders demand faculty stop asking for doctor’s notes after missed tests




      Gee, I only ask for it when the student wants something from me (i.e., a makeup test). I’m hardly alone:



The rule notes that, while professors are permitted to offer make-up exams to students who miss them due to medical issues, “thousands of students” are “asked by faculty to provide documentation from a medical professional” confirming their medical excuse.



        Why is this a problem for students? It’s a long explanation:

The resolution states that the policy pressures students into “engaging in a costly, and potentially risk, patient-provider relationship without necessarily having an immediate medical need.”

“[I]n most cases of short-term illness, providers must rely on students’ descriptions of their symptoms – sometimes after the illness has already passed leaving the provider with little to no basis for evaluation,” the resolution holds, also adding that students who seek medical notes from doctors are “pressured into ensuring that they describe their symptoms in such a way that medical providers are guaranteed to provide them with a medical excuse note.”

…The resolution also holds that the school’s student health center is “booked to and over capacity,” leading to the possibility that “students who want to procure medical excuse notes” are “inadvertently decreasing access for students…who require care and need to be seen.”

--emphasis added

     To summarize, and emphasized part is key: because campus policy requires a doctor’s note as an excuse for a makeup, students faking illness are flooding the health center, cutting into medical access for the actually sick students. And this is considered a legitimate reason to stop asking for documentation.


     I just can’t make this stuff up.



www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

10,000 Word Article on Student Debt Cancellation Misses The Best Reason: Fraud

By Professor Doom



     I’ve been hearing people seriously talk about cancelling student loan debt for at least a decade, probably more. Granted, almost everyone who’s for it has student debt, and most everyone against it doesn’t have student debt, so I appreciate conflict of interest here…but this is ad hominem, there are valid reasons both for and against it.


      (Disclosure: I never had student debt; this is not a boast, as I went to college in an era where even graduate school tuition was under $1,000 a semester, where any kid with a lawnmower or gardening tools could make $200 a week if he was willing to work hard…those days are long over. I am, of course, pro-cancellation, at the risk of getting ahead of myself.)


      A recent article, a very long article, has many good pieces of information on it…but misses a really important, damning, argument against forcing people to pay their student loans. Let’s look at some highlights:


With the U.S. student debt fiasco now approaching $1.6 trillion and 45 million borrowers,




     The above figures are fair enough, although both are miscounted by around 10%: quirks in the accounting rules allow for many loans to not actually count while the students are in school (this also allows for about a quarter of students to not even know they have loans…how this high a percentage doesn’t raise suspicions of fraud is beyond me).


     In any event, the article is mostly pro-cancellation because the inevitability of it: most borrowers are fundamentally incapable of every paying it back. The article neglects to ask how that could be (again, one should suspect fraud here, see also the housing crash of 2008).


     After much searching, I was able to find a few sensible voices in the wilderness…




     Alas, he didn’t find me, which is saddening.

Taking a broader approach to this looming decision, the major themes of this essay are:

·   Weak Arguments against Debt Cancellation from the ‘Right’

·   Weak Arguments for Debt Cancellation and ‘Free’ College from the ‘Left’

     I won’t waste time addressing the weak arguments one way or the other, but it’s high time I address the main, primary, argument for cancellation:


      Most of higher education is fraudulently sold. From “You’ll earn a million more dollars if you earn any degree” to “You must learn all 23 gender names to do well in our Progressive Society,” too much of higher ed has been fraudulently misrepresented.


     By definition, if a college graduate can’t earn enough from his degree to pay back the loan on his degree, he has a case for fraud. Trouble is, so many graduates fit that description that it’s not economically viable to go case-by-case, it’ll simply be cheaper to have a student debt jubilee, cancelling it all.


      Somehow this huge, deep article, never addresses the fraud aspect. In every other contract, if one party commits fraud and doesn’t uphold his end of the agreement (in this case, provide an education), then other party is not legally obligated to uphold his end, either (in this case, pay back the loan for the education).


       Of course this forgiveness should come with an important string attached: no more student loans, at least none provided by the Federal government. If private banks want to engage in such things, that’s their right…but the government should no leeway in enforcing such loans, which should again be clearable via bankruptcy (like most every other loan).


Locally funded Community Colleges now attract far more students than even a generation ago.




     I should note the author doesn’t work in higher ed, and so is utterly unaware of the immense fraud (or of accreditations role in same). Similarly, he’s unaware of the breathtaking corruption of many community college systems, and so often pushes them as a “cheaper” alternative. I suppose they are, in much the same way as “vaping” is safer than smoking tobacco, and cheaper if you use bootleg cartridges! (In no way should this be taken as a recommendation for vaping, and regular readers of my blog know how extensively and thoroughly I’ve documented the fraud of community college.)


     From a cursory overview, it would seem that the government and non-profit sectors have issued at least as much or possibly more false marketing to keep students trapped in debt than their much smaller for-profit college counterparts, who brought in only $16 billion of the $649 billion annual haul for U.S. colleges and universities. In other words, the too-pure-for-profit schools reap fully 97.5% of the total college and university income stream.





      The above is perhaps the most useful side-tidbit on the whole massive piece. The government shrieks and points at “for profit” schools for stealing the student loan money, scrutinizing them to a high degree…but only 2.5% of higher ed’s revenue comes from those types of schools. 


       I assure the gentle reader that our state universities/community colleges get the lion’s share of the remaining 97.5% of revenue…and almost no scrutiny whatsoever about where that money is going.


To that extent, it was also odd to see so many “libertarian” critics of centralized banking line up with Wall Street for wanting to keep soaking students with interest payments on loans that banks largely pulled from thin air.





     I really wish this guy had found me. I certainly lean Libertarian (acknowledging several critical failings, while appreciating it lacks the mass-murderous track record of prevailing political philosophies).


      Anyway, I’m libertarian, and I would assure him that libertarian beliefs absolutely allow “fraud” as a legitimate reason not to honor a contract. And I reiterate: there are wide swaths of fraud in our higher education system, and not merely in the for-profit sector.


      Another fun tidbit:



Total U.S. college revenue was a staggering $649 billion for the Fall 2016 to Spring 2017 school year, up 14.5% from two years prior. Over four-fifths of that income stream comes from government, institutional and private student loans and grants ($253 billion per PDF page 9), plus direct subsidies for state-run colleges and local community colleges (about $300 billion in FY 2018, ignoring the $11 billion overlap from state grants).




       The gentle reader should keep the above in mind: our higher education system was raking in over 7% more each year in the years above—that’s the most recent data, but there’s little reason the trend line has reverse much in the last year or two. And yet with every slight downturn, the “leaders” of higher ed shriek how they’re running out of money.


      They’re spending that extra money, the state schools anyway, with wild abandon.


      This is a massive article, but I’ve hit the highlights above. Bottom line, however, what people need to know about student loan debt forgiveness is pretty simple:


      We should do it because higher education fraudulently provided “education” in exchange for that loan money.


      I’m sure there are exceptions, plenty of them, even, but in this case widespread forgiveness is just the most efficient way to do it. Shut down the Federal student loan scam as well, and it’s all good. Don’t do that shut down, and it’s all bad.


       You don’t need 10,000 words for that.



www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Academics Hounded Out Of Jobs For Transgender Wrongthink

By Professor Doom



     The culture of fear on many of our campuses comes from many factors. One of the greatest is faculty who speak out are “deplatformed” in the old school way: terminated. The rise of social media has made this worse, as now faculty find themselves under attack for things they say off campus, on a web page or even a personal text. Once blasted out of academic life, they’re pretty much silenced, unless they happen to have a huge following (but surviving long enough to get such a following is pretty difficult).


Meet the academics hunted down and hounded out of jobs for having the 'wrong' thoughts




     Granted, academics aren’t stupid, generally, so we know speaking anything resembling truth can get us into trouble. Thing is, we can’t help ourselves sometime:


When Kathleen Stock pressed “send” on a blog about the gender recognition act last summer she knew she was pressing a detonator.




      The detonator in this case was daring to suggest that perhaps, maybe, allowing males to instantly self-identify as females might cause problems. Why is there such a rush for males to do this, anyway?


…claim all the consequent privileges: access to women-only changing rooms, or being allowed to appear on women-only shortlists or sports teams.



      What, “privileges”? But I thought the folks running our campuses believed males and females were equal in all ways, so they can’t…I’m joking we all know such privileges exist, especially when it comes to “shortlists” for hiring in those plum administrative positions.

     So, she posts a comment on how something’s a little fishy about how the new “women” around, and how their feelings might not be sincere. “The mob” arrives in short order:



The fight soon came her way: students brandishing a placard reading “Transphobia now in STOCK at Sussex”, a condemnation from the students’ union refusing to tolerate “hate” on campus, attempts to have her fired and a stream of abuse online.



     It’s so weird, I just don’t understand where these mobs come from. When I speak privately with people, they invariably say that, yeah, some males are abusing the system. And yet these mobs appear, filled with kids who can’t even conceive of such a possibility (even as numerous “women’s” sporting events are now dominated by males identifying as females…a poor female got her skull fractured fighting a trans, we really need to reconsider limits on this “acceptance”).


     I’m hardly alone in observing this phenomenon:


As soon as she published her own opinion – questioning the validity of self-identification – she began being contacted by colleagues who told her they agreed but dared not say so publicly for fear of ruining their careers.




     The academic named above has been forming a list of other academics silenced for speaking out. The system of secret testimony and vague evidence leading to career-ending “convictions” is insidiously large:


Time and again, academics who come under suspicion say they are forbidden from discussing their case with anyone but close family. A lecturer who was kept waiting weeks to find out what the complaint was against her discovered it came from a student she had never knowingly spoken to, let alone taught. It accused her of retweeting ‘gender-critical material” meaning she might ‘misgender” trans students or be biased in marking…


    

      So, she may have retweeted something, and it’s game over. Like a said, there’s a culture of fear on campus now.


       The academic offers a theory as to why this is happening:


Universities are usually the places where such questions get chewed over, before being acted on by policy makers. That process is grinding to a halt, she thinks, because universities have to act as businesses and there is cut-throat competition to attract students and the fees they contribute.




       It’s not a bad thesis, but I’ve advanced the idea that our campuses are being taken over by edu-fascists, who merge the interests of the administrative (i.e., money-grubbing) and ideological (i.e., Progressive) factions on campus. She correctly the identifies the administrative interests above, and also mentions the ideologues:


Becoming a Diversity Champion by putting staff through gender-awareness courses is a plus: “Universities love it because it makes them look really ‘inclusive’, which is a buzz word everywhere.”




     Honest there are two groups here, but we should take no comfort in the idea that competition between these forces will help education. Education is not on the agenda for either, and, even more devastating, the ideologues will eventually push out the businessmen, leading to a converged school which will bankrupt itself rather than ease up on the ideology (hi Oberlin college! It still remains to be seen just how many millions they’ll pay for encouraging racist riots).


     Despite the trouble she’s gotten into, she still insists on saying obvious things, things which can cause “the mob” to appear:


“In some university campuses we have posters in women’s toilets which say that if someone comes in to the bathroom who is a gender you don’t expect, or who looks like they are using the wrong bathroom trust them, not you [ie not your own instinct]. 




     Indeed, don’t trust your own eyeballs, don’t trust your own feelings. Instead, trust your leaders, who tell you men are women, debt is wealth, and that freedom is slavery. It’s worked out so well in the past, after all…not that history is taught so much anymore—cuts into the time spend discussing all the genders we have now:


…a BBC film featuring children aged 9-12 and made to support the personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum in schools claimed there could be more than 100 “gender identities”. Facebook currently lists more than 70, including two-spirit person, polygender, intersex man, genderqueer and cis.




      It really is one thing for a handful of academics to discuss some bizarre topic in a room on campus, quite another for it to be broadcast on television, and enforced as an unarguable truth in our schools.


       Much as the early global warming hysteria was fueled by the fact that there were no published scientific papers disputing it (and the inconvenient truth was that such papers existed in great quantity, but that journals were greatly discouraged from publishing them), we have the same thing happening here. “Everyone says” there are a hundred genders…but that’s because all the voices saying otherwise have been silenced.


       And that culture of fear on campus? It’s spreading…



www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

U Iowa Officials Might Be Personally Liable For Discrimination

By Professor Doom



      One thing which perhaps drives me the most nuts about the corruption in our higher education system (and to a similar extent in our corporate system) is how when the corruption is found out, the people, the actual human beings, who are responsible for the corruption get away free, while the institution pays some sort of fine. This is even more infuriating when the institution is supported to a large extent by tax dollars (and do note that almost all institutions of higher education are supported to a large extent by tax dollars).


       When one considers just how much these guys rake in, and how often they get glorious golden parachutes when they leave even under the most vile of clouds of disrepute, it only gets more angering.


       But, finally, it’s possible actual people will start paying the price for “institutional” crimes:


Court holds University of Iowa officials personally liable for discriminating against Christian club



     Well over a year ago, students at a Christian student organization found themselves being targeted by the administration at a state university. They complained, but naturally the administrators denied everything. The students took the university to court…where the students won gloriously, with the judge finding blatant discrimination against them.


     University’s selective enforcement against religious groups ‘incredibly baffling’




     The judge might have found the enforcement baffling, but the gentle reader, or anyone who’s been following the endless screams of the Left (or the DNC) knows it to be par for the course, as progressive beliefs are nothing if not hypocritical. So, Trump asking about corruption in a phone call is a horrible crime…while the actual corrupt crime being committed so that a son gets millions in taxpayer-funded kickbacks means nothing. I could go on quite some time with this, of course.


     …denied officials qualified immunity…



      The above legal expression is huge: the “leaders” at the school can’t simply hide behind “it’s policy” any more than Concentration camp guards could hide behind “I was following orders.” Finally, the penalties for their bigoted, intolerant behavior will not longer simply fall on the school…the ideologues running the place, at least here, might one day wake up in their palaces to find that they don’t own the palace any more.


       About frickin’ time.

Vice President for Student Life...Coordinator for Student Organization Development...and Associate Dean of Student Organizations...will be held personally liable for violating the “clearly established right to free speech” 






     Look at those titles! As always, I point out how the admin on our campuses have ridiculously splendiferous titles, well over twice as long as their name. And this time around…those titles won’t protect them from their wrongdoing.


        About frickin’ time, I say again.


     The Poo-Bah himself as well as the “Student Misconduct and Title IX investigator” might also find themselves on the proper side of the damages, but it remains to be seen to what excent (as, admittedly, for the ones I’ve named above).


      Maybe they’ll all slip away, it’s very possible as these edu-fascists get to use endless university money to defend themselves from the consequences of their activities. That the taxpayer pays both the prosecution and the defense doesn’t please me much, but…still. That actual human beings might pay the price instead of suffering taxpayers is a very big change.


     Key to the reason for this ruling was the incredible bias of the “leaders” on campus. The Christian groups were targeted, banned from campus, because they refused to have openly (note: openly) gay students as their club officers.


     The reasoning, of course, was the school prohibits restricting anything based on sexual orientation and race and whatnot. Fair enough, perhaps, although “freedom of association” is a thing we should respect.


     Meanwhile, the pro-LGBTQ groups were not targeted for mandating their officers be part of the LGBTQ community, or for the “black engineers” club for restricting membership to black engineering majors. Baffling, indeed.


     What has the judge so furious here that is the university was warned time and again to stop with the bias, was instructed specifically on how to behave.


      Of course, my own experience in higher ed has taught me how  impossible it is to get the “leaders” to act with integrity—by their own definitions, everything they do is so “woke” that they won’t change, even with a court order:


…I told you what to do and you did the exact opposite of that?


     The lashing from the judge was considerable:


…the University of Iowa may not selectively go after students based on what they think…unless you’re going to do it evenly, equally.



     The poor judge apparently doesn’t understand that Progressives really do want to be the thought police, with a heavy does of “rules for thee but not for me.” While, no, I don’t think this ruling will influence the edu-fascists running many of our other campuses, but it sets a precedent that not only will those campuses be destroyed, the tax plunderers who are truly responsible for the destruction might, someday, pay the price as well.


…the judge mocked the universities claim…



    It really is funny when these leaders/clowns get to a real court and find the “explanations” that cowed faculty accept just don’t fly at all in a courtroom. The gentle reader should understand: those personal protections were not removed lightly, the administrators involved really, really, angered the judge with their offensively bigoted behavior.


     A few snippets from the comments section:


Any settlement should require the termination of these three administrators. This discrimination will stop only when administrators realize their jobs are on the line if they perpetrate it.



     Another thing that drives me nuts is how when admin get fired for their indiscretions, it takes no effort for them to land another plum position in higher ed. I doubt these types of settlements will change that, alas.


How do you go about quantifying the damages for this sort of constitutional violation? The group was prevented from meeting, participating in the life of the campus, and expressing their views. What sort of price tag do you attach to that?




      The above, unfortunately, is the problem. Much as deplatforming of the small independent voices happens without notice, and with such minimal financial impact that a lawsuit wouldn’t be worthwhile, when these arrogant-as-heck individuals finally have to pay damages, what would it be? $20, maybe? 


     And yet the damage this sort of behavior does to our students is immeasurable, even if not necessarily financial. Without a firm ruling, Christians will get the idea not to come to campus, and the ideologues already there will see the “penalty” for their behavior is inconsequential even with a court order against it. I hope the judge keeps that in mind.




www.professorconfess.blogspot.com



 

ICE Catches Hundreds of Fake Students At Fake University

By Professor Doom



     I sometimes wonder at sheer size of the fraud in our higher education system. I can think of no other business which can immediately attract hundreds of students, even when the business explicitly states it is a fraud.


      But a fake university can do this, no problem:


ICE arrests 90 illegal immigrants in a sting operation using a fake university



--It’s more like 250 students total.




      This isn’t even the first time this sort of thing has happened, I just usually don’t mention it because it’s not about the student loan scam directly. The student loan scam indirectly makes these fake universities so easy to run because it’s allowed such a high level of fraud that the whole world knows the U.S. has a severe fraud problem in higher ed.


       Consider the marketing strategy of this fake university:


The fake university told the students they could be enrolled in their school to get into the United States on student visas and then never attend the school as part of a “pay to stay” scam. 




       It’s amazing how the news story here is the ICE arrest, but I see so much more. Our higher education system has such a reputation for fraud that the above sounded plausible, not just to one fool (easy enough) but to hundreds of them. 


       That said, I appreciate the efficiency of ICE; instead of guarding the border, they just put up an ad and reel them in:


Only 10% of the 250 students caught in the sting had to be deported by Customs and Border Protection. The remaining 80% self-deported after being caught.




      While getting these fake students out of the country is something…what’s to stop them from just getting into a different fake school? It’s not like ICE has a monopoly on opening up fake schools, after all.


       What about the other 10%?


The remaining 10% have their status tied up as they contest their deportation to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, claiming the situation is entrapment.




     Good luck with that. Seeing as the school was pretty up front about being fake, I’m not sure “entrapment” is going to fly, since not every lawful citizen will simply leave his country just to join a fake school (part of the definition of entrapment is getting a lawful citizen to do something he would not ordinarily do).


       In addition to the clear evidence of how thorough the fraud in higher education is that “we’re a fake school, come sign up” can catch hundreds of fake students, there’s another aspect to the story that the media seems to not see:

Several celebrities and Democratic politicians have decried the situation, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The New York congresswoman claimed ICE should be abolished, a proposal she has suggested before.

Actress Alyssa Milano also posted a tear-filled video expressing her outrage with the situation.

   

      Yeah, whatever. The whole “NPC” meme is how these people never seem to be able to change their script. On the face of it this story is about fake students coming to a fake school to get “student visas,” and these chuckleheads stick to the script of protecting all illegal immigrants, always, for all time. Just once I’d like a report to ask them is there is any activity an illegal immigrant can engage in which they would consider deplorable…I suspect they’d condone bloody murder, at least of U.S. citizens.




lizabeth Warren

✔ @ewarren

This is cruel and appalling. These students simply dreamed of getting the high-quality higher education America can offer. ICE deceived and entrapped them, just to deport them.

     No Pocahontas, the university was very up front about being a fraud. 


      I just wish instead of creating fake schools, our government would put a bit more interest in shutting down fake schools, but I understand always that our rulers will only go after low hanging fruit.


Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Helms defended the operation, saying, "Their true intent could not be clearer. While 'enrolled' at the University, one hundred percent of the foreign citizen students never spent a single second in a classroom. If it were truly about obtaining an education, the University would not have been able to attract anyone, because it had no teachers, classes, or educational services."




     Wait…not having a classroom makes a place a fake school? But what of all the 100% online schools? I’d love to hear this guy’s definition of “teachers” and “classes,” because I’ve seen many fake teachers and fake classes as well which would pass no definition of a legitimate college education.




President Trump has tried to push stronger immigration policies since taking office but has not come close to deporting as many illegal immigrants as President Barack Obama.




     It’s queer how the above little detail never seems to make the news, instead we all get endless rants about how bad it is that Trump is doing it. Obama did more of it…but that was OK. Much like the endless “Trump puts babies in cages” garbage ignores that it was an Obama policy (and a good one since it cut down on child rape), most people just don’t know the whole story.


      So while all most folks will get from this story is how “Orange Man Entrapped Students With Fake University,” I insist the real news here is how our higher education system is so degraded that a fake university advertising itself as fake had no problem at all getting hundreds of students…it probably would have taken in more fake students, but it’s competing with other fake schools, or at least schools which also allow fake students. 


      The other real part of the story is the wide swaths of our own government support the fraud in our higher education system.


      But yeah, all the news outlets are saying is that ICE caught some students in a sting, without really understanding how and why this kind of sting is so successful.




www.professorconfess.blogspot.com