The Unbearable Mediocrity of the Ivy League

By Patricia McCarthy December 7, 2023

“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”

―G.K. Chesterton

There is a YouTube video (begin at 56 sec.) making the rounds that brings together six people from various walks of life and education.  They range from a young high school graduate who is a Marine to a Ph.D.  They are interviewed briefly and asked to guess the I.Q. of the others and to guess where they themselves would fall on the I.Q. spectrum.  The woman with the Ph.D., of course, assumes she is the brightest.  They all assume that the Marine has the lowest I.Q.  This is not how it turns out.  The Ph.D. actually scores the lowest on the I.Q. test............The presidents of these three universities, and probably Columbia, Brown, and NYU as well, do not think they did anything wrong.  As Andrea Widburg wrote here on Tuesday, their “obvious [personal] antisemitism” exposed the rot at the heart of academia.  “The three women are very clear that merely calling for Jews to be exterminated really isn’t harassment unless they’re actually getting killed in real time.”  Yeah, that’ll work!..............

“In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.”—Thomas Sowell............To Read More...

Universities Contextualize Calls for Genocide of Jews - Joseph Klein - Excuses – and silence – in the face of evil.  Slaughter in cold blood. Beheadings of babies. Torture. Rape as a weapon of war. All were part of Hamas’s genocidal attacks against Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023. This rampage, which took more Jewish lives in one day than on any other day since the Holocaust, should shock the conscience of any person who has a conscience. But what we see too often instead is a disgusting display of excuses, moral equivalence, and indifference in response to the gruesome violence that Jews, including so many defenseless women and girls, suffered on October 7^th................

University professors, it’s time to make a decision - December 7, 2023 By Peter Olsson - In the recent tumultuous times, college and university professors face extraordinary tests of their ethical, moral, and professional integrity.  Professors of history, philosophy, political science, and the social and psychological sciences are particularly on the spot, morally and ethically.  Professors appropriately support and encourage lively debate and lawful protests by students who do so out of thoughtful concern.  But at other times, less than mature rebellion or flagrant illegal violation of legal authority occurs in student and faculty behavior.  Professors and their deans and faculty leaders face difficult roles as mentors and academic or personal role models..............

My Take - I think this last piece was entirely too mild.  Like this next one better.  Here's the real story.  They're arrogant, corrupt, incompetent, not very bright, and clearly have a moral compass that has no idea which way is north.  Academia is nothing short of a destructive left wing pit of vipers.  And these "ladies" demonstrate that so effectively.  How's that?  RK

How Harvard’s President Gay has failed - December 7, 2023 By Barry J. Shere - In testimony before Congress, Harvard president Claudine Gay said, “I’ve sought to confront hate while preserving free expression.” She added “This is difficult work. I know I have not always gotten it right.”  I do not see any indication that Gay has “confronted” hate, which I would like to see her define, and I wonder if she would preserve the free expression of a Ku Klux Klan protest in Harvard Yard. President Gay does not seem to understand her role. It’s not her job to preserve free expression. The Constitution of the United States does that (well, okay, under normal administrations that enforce the laws of America faithfully). Gay’s job is to: 

1. ) educate Harvard students with, among other things, historical facts, enabling them to reach informed, wise conclusions on their own; and 
2. ) support and preserve the values of her institution. Clearly, she is incompetent on both counts...............

'Enough Is Enough': New Plan Introduced to Tax University Endowments-  Katie Pavlich  -  Arizona Republican Congressman Eli Crane has introduced legislation to tax massive endowments held by the country's elitist academic institutions as their leaders repeatedly fail to offer moral clarity on a variety of issues.  Taking to Twitter, Crane announced the filing in response to the presidents of Penn, Harvard and MIT refusing to fully condemn calls for genocide against Jewish students on campus. A number of lawmakers are onboard. .........Untaxed university endowments have long been questioned for a change in status. 

"With assets totaling $411 billion, the nation's college and university endowments are larger than the annual gross domestic product of Belgium. That's enough money to run the federal government for nearly 50 days. Harvard alone has $35 billion. They pay their managers like rock stars, and, as a group, they've been growing at a double-digit rate by making riskier investments," Bloomberg reported in 2008. "Their ostensible purpose, providing for the financial needs of their institutions, gets a sliver of the total each year, about 4.6% of assets. And they're tax-exempt to boot."............

Sick: Columbia U. Hosts Pro-Hamas Event - Alana Mastrangelo Columbia University’s School of Social Work proceeded with its “teach in” on the so-called “significance” of the October 7 terror attacks against Israel by Hamas, despite claiming that the event had been canceled. “Another smoldering heap of a university,” reacted X/Twitter user and internet personality Aviva Klompas, sharing a video footage from the “teach in.”  “Columbia University stated that a planned student event to celebrate the October 7 ‘Palestinian Counteroffensive’ would not be permitted to take place,” Klompas added. “Yet here they are calling murder, rape, torture and kidnapping ‘great feats’ inside the @ColumbiaSSW building.” .   ................

 

Rabbi Resigns from Harvard Antisemitism Committee After Claudine Gay Testimony - Joel B. Pollak - 7 Dec 2023 -  Rabbi David Wolpe, a highly respected Jewish leader from Southern California who is currently a visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School, resigned Thursday from Harvard’s antisemitism committee in the wake of president Claudine Gay’s testimony.  Gay had announced the formation of the committee just six weeks ago, in the wake of outrage among students, alumni, donors, and the general public about Harvard’s equivocation in the face of the horrific Hamas terror attack against Israel on October 7............