A professor admits she faked her racial identity

[fourhats]

Jessica Krug has resigned from her tenured position.

[TreadingLife]

Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

And, of course, this was interesting considering the latest turn in the conversation:

Actress Mindy Kaling's brother, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, has written about why he faked being Black to get into medical school, which he eventually dropped out of. Chokal-Ingam says he benefited from affirmative action in admissions decisions but, to his surprise, faced discrimination in other areas of his life while he faked being Black.

His story is pretty interesting.

The story he tells in the 2015 NY Post article is pretty interesting. He dropped out of the med school that he scammed his way into and went to business school instead. Inspired by that education, he wrote a book about his scam so he could profit from it rather than be punished.

Now he's peddling Coronavirus conspiracy peddling Coronavirus conspiracy theories.

Pretty enterprising, if not admirable. I won't be using his counsel.

Wow, here's a strong case of mental illness. "Look at me, look at me!  There's no deep end that's too deep for me!"

[mahagonny]

This thread started with opinions of a single transgressor but understandably evolved into a discussion of diversity and its discontents.

Diversity as enunciated is nothing more than an income redistribution scheme, from reasonably well off whites, especially males, to reasonably well off non whites. One can be for this or against it, but as practiced, the promotion policy is opaque.

To fix this, it would suffice to determine binding quotas for all jobs in proportion to a group's share of the population. Virtually all institutions require quality hires, and these won't be forthcoming from women and minorities for lack of past training. Hence, we make the quotas tradable: A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Interesting!
Some jobs would never get staffed. Imagine someone saying 'I'll sell you my gig teaching freshman chemistry, one to two sections, that's if they fill, because they can be canceled at the last minute. Pay is $2200 per course.' The person who is unable to sell the job will then blow it off once the semester begins.

[bacardiandlime]

A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Could you clarify? If she's qualified, why was she rejected? Academic hiring pools usually contain dozens of people who are qualified. Should they all get paid for NOT getting a job?

[Caracal]

I am a feminist.

I have worked on diversity initiatives.

I try my best to be a good citizen and strive to treat all my students equally.

I turned down a job in my dream city and left a FT job that I didn't like very well to support my wife's career.

I know very little about my family history, almost nothing past my grandfathers on either side of the family.  I suspect the great-great-neanderthals on my father's side were pretty bad people, and probably bigots, but my grandfather and father were extremely decent men and not bigots.  It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that these poor dirt farmers and kiln builders (father's side) and the New York intellectuals (mother's side) in the remote past of my genetic-line owned slaves----but we have no proof one way or the other.

Sadly, however, I must pay for the sins of my fathers because white males have had the advantage for so long----or maybe I should say, I should humbly accept the possibility that I will pay for the sins my ancestors, even though I am not the one who committed the sins which led to this particular cultural conundrum, because that's only fair.

1. As a historian, I always am perplexed when people think they ought to feel guilt or pride over the actions of their ancestors. My very strong impression is that this view is largely confined to white people-I see it in some white liberals as well as sons of Confederate veterans types. It just feels like a weird impulse to me. Why in the world would I feel guilty about the actions of people I didn't know?

2. I also don't like the idea that obviously slaveholders must have been terrible people. It misses the way in which evil systems and institutions operate. There were plenty of monsters wandering around in human form in the United States before 1865, but there weren't enough of them to keep millions of enslaved people in captivity. For that, you needed lots of people who weren't particularly cruel or sadistic, but weren't interested in asking a lot of questions about the systems that they had grown up with and that benefited them. Enslaved people were very quick to make these distinctions between the truly awful people and the ones who just were part of the system. I think about those relatively "ordinary" people a lot when I teach about slavery. They knew who the monsters were, everyone did. They tsked-tsked about the terrible things they did to enslaved people in private, but it never occurred to them that there anything to be done and they tried to avoid coming face to face with the terrible cruelty of the entire institution. To some extent, many of us are like that.

3. I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

4. As far as being "punished," are you really? As we've talked about, there aren't enough people of underrepresented groups being hired in most academic disciplines to be making it significantly harder for you to get a job. So, what exactly is the punishment? To the extent that sometimes an institution might give some weight to the background of another candidate is that really a "punishment?" Would you think of it as a punishment if a job went to a person with more experience teaching at a SLAC, or who studied some area that a committee thought was more interesting or trendier?People can assert all they want that there are all these jobs where white people aren't considered, but I don't see the evidence for it. 

[Caracal]

A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Could you clarify? If she's qualified, why was she rejected? Academic hiring pools usually contain dozens of people who are qualified. Should they all get paid for NOT getting a job?

'

Exactly. I'm qualified for lots of positions I'm very unlikely to get. That's true of most positions vaguely in my subfield. If you gave me the job, I could do it adequately, at least. You wouldn't have parades of students beating down the chair's door to complain about me and I'd probably manage to meet my publication requirements. That doesn't mean I deserve the job. The department gets to decide which qualified candidate would best meet their needs.

[mahagonny]

I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

There are people who want Wahoo to feel guilty, and there are white people who enable and encourage them to be OK with the fact that they want Wahoo to feel guilty. This is the mania that has taken over.

[Caracal]

I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

There are people who want Wahoo to feel guilty, and there are white people who enable and encourage them to be OK with the fact that they want Wahoo to feel guilty. This is the mania that has taken over.

I've heard very little of that. I suspect you aren't listening very well.

[Hegemony]

I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place. Similarly, I remember the days when Black people were allowed to be sharecroppers or farm workers or train porters or maids, and not much else — a very few professionals, who served only other Black people. Not much chance to save much to pass on to future generations. The thousand rules and laws and practices of bigotry that held Black people back from accumulating wealth and passing it down the generations, and frustrated ambition and squandered talent — I'd like us all to be aware of the structures that perpetuated those things, and of the ways our current society is still very much shaped by them. If some people want to feel guilty, they can do that — but not if they think guilt will take care of the problem. Continued vigilance and action is what is needed, not performative emotion.

[marshwiggle]

I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place.

How do you explain the similar standard of living in other countries (such as in Europe) where there was no legacy of slavery, and where the population has always been fairly racially homogenous? If white people in the US have only succeeded at the expense of others, countries which have never been ethnically diverse should have a significantly lower standard of living than white Americans.

[Hibush]

I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place. Similarly, I remember the days when Black people were allowed to be sharecroppers or farm workers or train porters or maids, and not much else — a very few professionals, who served only other Black people. Not much chance to save much to pass on to future generations. The thousand rules and laws and practices of bigotry that held Black people back from accumulating wealth and passing it down the generations, and frustrated ambition and squandered talent — I'd like us all to be aware of the structures that perpetuated those things, and of the ways our current society is still very much shaped by them. If some people want to feel guilty, they can do that — but not if they think guilt will take care of the problem. Continued vigilance and action is what is needed, not performative emotion.

Many faculty are immigrants, and have no historic debt or benefit. However, European immigrants in particular have many of the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

[Wahoo Redux]

I am a feminist.

I have worked on diversity initiatives.

I try my best to be a good citizen and strive to treat all my students equally.

I turned down a job in my dream city and left a FT job that I didn't like very well to support my wife's career.

I know very little about my family history, almost nothing past my grandfathers on either side of the family.  I suspect the great-great-neanderthals on my father's side were pretty bad people, and probably bigots, but my grandfather and father were extremely decent men and not bigots.  It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that these poor dirt farmers and kiln builders (father's side) and the New York intellectuals (mother's side) in the remote past of my genetic-line owned slaves----but we have no proof one way or the other.

Sadly, however, I must pay for the sins of my fathers because white males have had the advantage for so long----or maybe I should say, I should humbly accept the possibility that I will pay for the sins my ancestors, even though I am not the one who committed the sins which led to this particular cultural conundrum, because that's only fair.

1. As a historian, I always am perplexed when people think they ought to feel guilt or pride over the actions of their ancestors. My very strong impression is that this view is largely confined to white people-I see it in some white liberals as well as sons of Confederate veterans types. It just feels like a weird impulse to me. Why in the world would I feel guilty about the actions of people I didn't know?

2. I also don't like the idea that obviously slaveholders must have been terrible people. It misses the way in which evil systems and institutions operate. There were plenty of monsters wandering around in human form in the United States before 1865, but there weren't enough of them to keep millions of enslaved people in captivity. For that, you needed lots of people who weren't particularly cruel or sadistic, but weren't interested in asking a lot of questions about the systems that they had grown up with and that benefited them. Enslaved people were very quick to make these distinctions between the truly awful people and the ones who just were part of the system. I think about those relatively "ordinary" people a lot when I teach about slavery. They knew who the monsters were, everyone did. They tsked-tsked about the terrible things they did to enslaved people in private, but it never occurred to them that there anything to be done and they tried to avoid coming face to face with the terrible cruelty of the entire institution. To some extent, many of us are like that.

3. I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

4. As far as being "punished," are you really? As we've talked about, there aren't enough people of underrepresented groups being hired in most academic disciplines to be making it significantly harder for you to get a job. So, what exactly is the punishment? To the extent that sometimes an institution might give some weight to the background of another candidate is that really a "punishment?" Would you think of it as a punishment if a job went to a person with more experience teaching at a SLAC, or who studied some area that a committee thought was more interesting or trendier?People can assert all they want that there are all these jobs where white people aren't considered, but I don't see the evidence for it.

Interesting commentary.  But I think you missed my point, my friend, which was largely sarcasm.  My point was actually why should I feel guilt or feel that I, no matter how minimally, have to correct the sins of the past?

1. & 2. I feel neither guilt nor pride about my ancestors, about whom I know very little.  What I do know of my father's side is that they were probably pretty "terrible people" in the general sense of the term----you know, A-holes, regardless of their slave owning status.  Also regardless, I suspect they had a great deal of racial animus, so while they may not have been any more or less "evil" than their peers, they were members of the zeitgeist which created the racial dynamic we are still dealing with today.  My point is, why is that my fault?

3.  I have to disagree with you there. I think we---most certainly academics---acknowledge the past and the effect it has on the present: the famous Faulkner quote from his Noble prize acceptance comes to mind: "The past is not dead.  It is not even past." We love that quote.  You, perhaps, don't blame people such as myself for the past, but plenty do. 

Like my friend Hegemony says shortly after this:

I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries.

And:

Continued vigilance and action is what is needed, not performative emotion.

Maybe not a denotative definition of "guilt" as we understand it----but I am certainly being told I need to change my attitude.

Thank you, Hegemony, I am very well aware, and have even posted before, about my acceptance of the concept of white privilege.  I've been told about it for years and am very well aware of how it operates.  For what it is worth, I've taught Frederick Douglas, Toni Morrison, a host of AA poets, August Wilson, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as well as the movie Fruitvale Station all in an attempt to diversify the curriculum and include many voices.

So please, spare the lecture.  We are all educated people and know these things.

My point is actually...

4) I disagree.  People are very cavalier about the job market when this subject comes up.  They are not dismissive or cavalier about academic careers in any other context.  But when the concept of "reverse discrimination," as problematic as that term is, comes up, suddenly it is a minority of jobs that are vanishing (among a minority of job openings).  To be an academic this day and age is not like getting a job in the finance sector; there are a finite number of jobs and these are hyper-competitive; being in history you should know this.  What I have seen is exactly the opposite of what you assert above.   

I have to teach class in about 10 minutes but I will come back and use my own "lived experience" as examples.  As well as the article written by a very questionable man with a very famous sister.

[Wahoo Redux]

Administratively, 'twould be easier with a white male tax whose proceeds are transferred to all non-white males, but the consequences are completely equivalent or can be made so. :-)

Do you mean like a progressive income tax, so that higher income means higher rate of taxation, and on the other end, income so low it isn't even taxed gets you earned income credit? Starting to sound familiar isn't it.

No. There'd be an auction market for the work rights.

What if anybody could sell their classes?  I teach 5/5.  Only two of my current classes are interesting to me.  Could I sell the other 3?

[Wahoo Redux]

See:

https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1753.0

[marshwiggle]

Many faculty are immigrants, and have no historic debt or benefit. However, European immigrants in particular have many of the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

So exactly how much difference is there in the standard of living of "European" immigrant faculty and non-European immigrant faculty? If the one group gets lots of benefits and the other gets none, then the difference should be pretty stark.