Bros, I really can't make it up anymore.
Come for the headline, stay for the community note.
Yo journalists, you ever feel tired of running the "pouncing Republicans" bit? Is this why you collect a paycheck: To write the same boring thing over and over?
The downfall of Harvard's president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education.
"Plagiarism and antisemitism isn't the problem, and noticing it is racist!"
Our journalist class is out here stumping for plagiarism to try to hold the party line.
Imagine replacing "plagiarism" with another crime:
- "The downfall of Harvard's president has elevated the threat of unearthing fraud... as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education."
- "The downfall of Harvard's president has elevated the threat of unearthing lying... as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education."
- "The downfall of Harvard's president has elevated the threat of unearthing sexual assault... as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education."
MAYBE DON'T PLAGIARIZE??
The plagiarism allegations came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. Her detractors charged that Gay — who has a Ph.D. in government, was a professor at Harvard and Stanford and headed Harvard's largest division before being promoted — got the top job in large part because she is a Black woman.
She has published a total of 11 papers, less than some of her peers publish in a year, in her entire career. At least half of them are alleged to contain content she stole without attribution.
It is quite clear that Harvard hired her for her ancestry and anatomy.
Then the Associated Press, I kid you not, attacked conservative activist Chris Rufo by trying to compare him to white settlers massacring Native Americans:
Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who helped orchestrate the effort, celebrated her departure as a win in his campaign against elite institutions of higher education. On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote "SCALPED," as if Gay was a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.
I. CAN'T. MAKE. IT. UP.
Let's follow the logic:
- Rufo used "Scalped," a word that's been in common usage for centuries to refer to being swindled or beating an opponent, but this is actually a white supremacist dogwhistle.
- And this dogwhistle, which [checks notes] refers to the barbaric practice of natives carving the skin off their enemies' skulls while they were still alive, was [checks notes again] actually an invention of white people.
Ladies and gents, we sometimes get criticized here at Not the Bee because we have some strong opinions. But we're telling you what we believe. You can agree or disagree with that and it's fine with us. We'll present the news and give you our perspective, domestic extremists that we are, and we trust you to make an informed decision.
But this is the ASSOCIATED PRESS, an international non-profit news agency that was formed with the goal of forming a global objective news service not beholden to one owner or ideology!
And this is the "objective" stuff they run??
UPDATE: HAVE I MENTIONED YOU REALLY CAN'T MAKE IT UP???
Skip the circus and just read Not the Bee, frens.
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