How Colleges Produce Socialists

How Colleges Produce Socialists - WSJ
When your first brush with adulthood involves endless consumption and no cost, it gives you the wrong idea of how the world works.

What’s behind the craze for socialism among young people? The New York Times, focusing on the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York membership surge, offers the conventional view: that it is fueled predominantly by “frustration with the economy” and the desire for a social safety net. The same report notes that the DSA member base has become younger and more white-collar, with its greatest appeal to college-educated urban dwellers.

Why college students? The usual assumption is that professors are indoctrinating students, but that’s too simple. The campus itself is a powerful factor.

When students arrive in college, they encounter a vague sense of freedom. What they often do not realize is how controlled their campus experience is. Universities operate as a closed economy: centrally administered, collectively resourced, carefully controlled by administrators who hope their plans aid retention efforts.

Over the past several decades, the college campus has morphed into a comprehensive residential and lifestyle provider. Beginning in the 1990s, when colleges started competing more aggressively for larger enrollment numbers, investing in student life became a way to recruit students. Expanded student unions, more-comfortable residence halls, larger recreation centers, campus programming offices and improved dining choices became the norm.

By the early 2000s, colleges faced an “amenities arms race.” Rec centers were revamped with climbing walls and lazy rivers; dorms gave way to apartment lofts with expansive lounges; campus coffee bars were established with national brands.

The upgrading of amenities wasn’t only a matter of physical adjustments. Administrators, aware that nonacademic factors can influence educational outcomes, sought to provide full-scale support not only to ensure graduation (tutoring and writing centers) but also personal growth (wellness and DEI programming). Specialized administrative units and support services grew quickly, outpacing academic departments. Critics have argued that this growing array of services contributes to rising college costs and an emphasis on comforts and conveniences rather than educational value.

This transformation has been especially pronounced at America’s wealthiest and most selective colleges and universities. At elite institutions, students enter a nearly self-contained community. They ride campus buses without paying a fare. They enter expansive recreation centers without a membership card. They attend concerts, meet career coaches, reserve study rooms, download software, join student organizations, and participate in countless campus activities without ever reaching for a wallet.

None of these services are free. Their costs are embedded in tuition and fees, endowment income, donor support and government funding. Yet, because students rarely confront a price at the point of use, they experience consumption without consequence or even comparison.

The dining hall is a perfect example: The student’s economic background is invisible as everyone eats from the same options available in the food court. There is no price signal, and a student who eats three plates of pasta and a bowl of soft-serve ice cream has the same meal plan as one who has a salad and a glass of water.

Students’ insulation from costs and price signals has important consequences. As Friedrich Hayek emphasized, prices communicate information and make trade-offs visible. They reveal scarcity and coordinate countless individual decisions across society. When prices are bundled or obscured, consumers—in this case students—encounter fewer day-to-day reminders of opportunity costs or the economic realities that accompany virtually every decision in ordinary life. All-inclusive services inevitably cultivate different economic habits than an environment in which individuals routinely weigh costs, compare alternatives, and make purchasing decisions.

For many 18-year-olds, college is the first large institution they experience independently from their families. Spending four formative years in a community where hundreds of services are collectively financed and individually consumed can shape assumptions about how institutions function and how resources should be allocated. As institutional economist Douglass North argued, institutions shape the “rules of the game” by influencing the mental models people use to interpret the world. Four years in a planned and bundled environment can leave a lasting impression of what is normal, which graduates carry over into the “real world.”

The question isn’t whether universities should provide such services. It is how living in such an environment shapes a generation’s understanding of markets, institutions and economic expectations.

If transportation is universally available without fares on campus, it may seem natural to ask why urban transportation doesn’t function similarly. If counseling services and mindfulness programs are readily available in college, paid time off for mental health may seem like a reasonable expectation in the workplace. If fitness centers, technology services, entertainment options and countless other amenities appear to operate without cost, comprehensive public provision elsewhere may seem practical.

When the costs of collectively provided goods are invisible, the investments required to sustain them are easy to overlook. The result is an environment where consumption is highly visible while production and financing remain in the background.

That helps explain why politicians advocating expansive government programs often find receptive audiences among younger, college-educated voters. A cohort raised on all-you-can-eat meal plans, campus shuttles and bundled student services may be evaluating public policy through the only economic model they have ever personally experienced. Viewed through that lens, it becomes easier to understand why proposals such as city-run grocery stores and fare-free public transit have gained traction among younger voters, including those who supported New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

A greater willingness to rely on government intervention in economic affairs isn’t confined to the political left. Today’s political leaders increasingly look first to large institutions to coordinate solutions. Whether the proposal involves government-supported family benefits, universal child care, industrial policy, subsidized housing or publicly funded college, the common thread is confidence that centralized institutions can effectively organize resources on behalf of citizens.

Vice President JD Vance has openly criticized laissez-faire capitalism and in one recent interview emphasized access, meaning and belonging in language that echoes themes often heard on elite college campuses. According to Mr. Vance, people should aim to find their purpose and a sense of contribution that extends beyond economic efficiency. He scoffs at the idea of earning a living in a cubicle.

That emphasis on community and institutional belonging raises an interesting question about where such assumptions are cultivated. At Yale Law School, where Mr. Vance studied from 2010 through 2013 with practically a full ride, students occupied one of the most architecturally distinguished academic environments in the country. The Sterling Law Building was designed to evoke England’s historic Inns of Court, complete with soaring stone archways, stained-glass windows, carved oak interiors, tranquil courtyards, and communal spaces intended to foster scholarly community. Students had access to the Lillian Goldman Law Library, one of the world’s premier collections, along with an on-site dining hall, Café Law, plus student lounges, meditation spaces and the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, a recreation complex spanning more than a dozen acres with swimming pools, squash courts, basketball courts, climbing facilities, fitness studios and hundreds of pieces of exercise equipment. Most of these amenities were simply part of campus life.

It’s worth considering whether elite campus environments normalize an organizational model that many of today’s millennial political leaders seek to replicate through public policy.

Mr. Mamdani’s undergraduate experience at Maine’s Bowdoin College (2010-14) is another example. Bowdoin consistently ranks among the nation’s finest residential colleges, with dining services that receive national recognition for quality and variety. Every student is issued a MacBook Pro, iPad and Apple Pencil, making cutting-edge technology an assumed component of the educational experience rather than a personal purchasing decision. The Bowdoin Outing Club, one of the oldest collegiate outdoor programs in the country, organizes more than 150 trips each year, providing equipment, transportation, guides, and leadership training at little or no additional cost to participants. Students ski at the college’s Nordic center, skate at the Sidney J. Watson Arena, and borrow outdoor equipment from an extensive gear library. They even stay in a college-owned cabin along the Appalachian Trail.

The point isn’t that either Mr. Vance or Mr. Mamdani supports particular policies because of the amenities he experienced in college. It is that these environments may foster a blinkered way of thinking about institutions, social provision and what constitutes a normal standard of living.

Given these arrangements, is it any wonder that many graduates experience sticker shock on entering adult life? Grocery bills, utility payments, security deposits, transportation, internet service, gym memberships and countless other expenses suddenly become explicit rather than bundled. What many describe as an “affordability crisis” may partly reflect the shock of moving from a bundled institutional economy for which someone else usually pays to an unbundled market economy in which one has to earn his own keep. That makes adulthood feel less like independence and more like an abrupt transition into a harsh world of trade-offs.

The irony is striking. America’s leading universities devote enormous effort to preparing graduates for participation in a dynamic market economy, yet daily campus life is one of the least market-oriented environments in the world.

This doesn’t mean students inevitably leave campus embracing socialist politics. But institutions teach lessons beyond their formal curriculum. If we want to understand why a generation increasingly looks to large organizations to solve complex social problems, we should spend less time scrutinizing classroom lectures and more time examining the economic environment students inhabit every day. The most influential economics lesson many students receive may come from the institutional design of the university. Before blaming the professors, consider the campus.

Links - 1st September 2026 (1 - Euthanasia in Canada)

M.A. Rothman | Facebook - "𝐊𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐈 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐖𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏 𝐌𝐈𝐃-𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍
Kelsi Sheren — a Canadian veteran and one of the loudest critics of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program — sat with 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘰𝘥 and walked through what the press is not telling you about “𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩.”
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟏: 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤. A woman went in for euthanasia. “𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘳.” They started the procedure. Halfway through she woke up screaming “𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦. 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦.” 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐝. Court ruled the doctor did nothing wrong.
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟐: 𝐊𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐮, 𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟐𝟔, 𝐎𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨. Approved for MAID by a Dr. Tepper at “𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘥𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦” (a Canadian euthanasia clinic) at age 𝟐𝟐. His diagnosis: 𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞-𝟏 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧. He had untreated mental-health issues and active substance use. “𝘏𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱. 𝘏𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘈𝘐𝘋.” His mother went to the media. The doctor backed off — because 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚 𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐚 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤. “𝐖𝐡𝐲? 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠”.
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟑: 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚’𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 — 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐭𝐨 “𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞.” The 2023 Ahmed parliamentary report proposed euthanizing down to age 12. 𝐈𝐟 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐢𝐬 “𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐦𝐚,” 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬?
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫∗𝐠-𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐫. 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐙𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐭 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝. The head of Critical Care and Anesthesiology at Emory ran post-mortem autopsies on over 200 lethal-injection patients. 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟖𝟎% 𝐡𝐚𝐝 “𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐬” — 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡. The drugs cause “𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘢 — 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘯.” 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐟𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫. Canada quietly stopped allowing MAID patients to be considered for organ donation — UNTIL recently. Now it’s the 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 they have. “𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳?” 𝐁𝐂 — 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 — 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚. 𝐂𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝-𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝: 𝐚 “𝐝𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝” 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥. Increase the morphine. The patient sleeps. Breathing slows. They pass naturally, comfortably, with their family there. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥? Because 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃. Delta Hospice Society lost $20M+ in funding because Angelina Ireland — a former palliative patient who got better and runs the facility — said no on religious grounds.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃’𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐬𝐭-𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬: Quebec, Ontario, BC. “𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘥-𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘷𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺. 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘦 70+.” A $𝟏.𝟐𝟕𝟑 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 “𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬” 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝟐𝟎 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 — per a single government estimate Sheren cited — if you swap healthcare for the cheaper option.
𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐧𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬. 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞."

Canada risks 'suicide contagion' if MAID approved for mental illness | National Post - "People with mental illnesses are already dying assisted deaths in Canada “under the guise of flimsy medical excuses” and others will “doctor shop until death” if euthanasia is allowed for psychiatric suffering alone, MPs and senators were told this week.  “I and other colleagues are experiencing this: People are clearly getting MAID for reasons that are frankly illegal,” psychiatrist Dr. John Maher told a special joint parliamentary committee weighing Canada’s readiness to extend assisted death to those whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder. Maher, who specializes in treating severe mental illness, also warned Canada risks a “suicide contagion” effect if medical assistance in dying (MAID) becomes seen as a legitimate option for mental suffering. He pointed to the Werther Effect, a phenomenon that refers to a rise in suicides after publicized reports of celebrity deaths by suicide. Rates of suicide in jurisdictions that have legalized doctor-assisted death “have risen much faster after it was legalized than before,” he said.  “Suicide contagion is a well-proven reality. Don’t pretend that it won’t happen in Canada,” he said. The committee has heard conflicting testimony over the safety of expanding MAID eligibility to those with mental illness alone, including over whether, or how, a mental disorder could be considered incurable.  Maher, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, works with specialized teams that treat the most severe mental illnesses.  “For the last 23 years I’ve treated patients that other psychiatrists told me could not get better and they get better,” he told the committee.  “Suffering can always be reduced…. There is absolutely no such thing as ‘everything has been tried,'” he said...  “People need lifeguards, not someone to push you under,” he said.  Maher rejected the argument by MAID proponents that a request for assisted death is well thought out while true suicides are impulsive.  “Decades of suicide research put the lie to this: 80 per cent of suicide attempters thoughtfully plan their suicides,” he said.  “MAID is suicide par excellence, like having a wedding planner to make it all as easy as possible, even with same-day service.” At times, requests for MAID are made urgently: In 2023, 54 requests for same day assessments and provision (less than 24 hours) were reported in Ontario, and 154 provisions occurred the day after the MAID request, according to Ontario data.  Conservative MP Andrew Lawton asked Maher, “When you describe mental health as already qualifying people in the eyes of some assessors and providers for MAID, you’re describing criminal misconduct, are you not?”  “I absolutely am,” Maher responded. He said he had a patient with schizophrenia who was approved for MAID based on a treatable skin condition and a sore ankle from not cooperating with physiotherapy for a broken ankle. “That is what’s happening. These are already happening,” he said.  Maher told the committee he tried reporting his concerns with a doctor to a provincial college and was told “until the patient is dead there is no malpractice.”  “My teams are pulling their hair out over people planning to refuse medications so they can get get MAID who would have healed, recovered,” he said.  “I had a patient today (with) schizophrenia very, very cavalierly say if he didn’t get a job and a girlfriend he’s going to get MAID.”"

Canada told mentally ill must be euthanized lest they kill themselves - "Jocelyn Downie, a leading MAID activist since 2004, warned that if the federal government keeps excluding mentally ill Canadians from accessing assisted suicide, the result will be more mentally ill Canadians dying by suicide... The argument is not a new one. In fact, it’s been at the core of the Canadian assisted suicide regime since the beginning... In 2021, she co-authored a paper which argued that suicidal ideation should not disqualify patients from wanting to seek a doctor-assisted death. It argued that suicidality may not even be evidence of mental illness at all."
Why even bother with suicide prevention? Just send everyone who wants to kill himself for MAiD

Families of Canadians who received MAID talk of rushed assessment, not being told of decision: study - "Rushed, incomplete assessments, families kept in the dark, loved ones driven to choose MAID because of unbearable suffering. A new study adds to growing evidence that Canadian families’ experiences with doctor-assisted death are deeply mixed, with some describing the experience as raw, traumatic and surreal — including sometimes oddly “cheerful” providers... In 2021, 61-year-old Alan Nichols, who had a history of depression, was euthanized over the objections of his family and nurse practitioner soon after being hospitalized for a psychiatric episode. The sole condition listed in his MAID application was hearing loss... “Canada is now noted as the fastest growing assisted dying program in the world,” the U of Alberta research team wrote... in some cases the decision for MAID was driven by... feared loss of autonomy, and having to rely on others for daily tasks like bathing or toileting, or the possibility of moving into a nursing home... Some MAID deaths were driven by insufficient home care — “they come when they come but not when you need it,” one family member said — or drawn-out waits to see specialists. “My mom needed psychiatric help,” reads one transcribed interview. “My mom was a victim of a broken healthcare system. My mom had been trying to see specialists for months and months and months (for a brain injury)…. It got to the point she lost all hope. “And so my mom ended her life because of desperation, not anything to do with dignity.” “Although many participants experienced respectful, caring and compassionate interactions with healthcare professionals involved in the MAID process, others did not, adding to already stressful and intense emotions,” the researchers wrote in BMC Palliative Care. Some families described hasty assessments done over Zoom, without deep discussions about alternatives and supports families could offer to help, and “what felt like a rapid assessment-to-provision timeline, which contributed to concerns that MAID may have occurred prematurely.” Canada’s law requires two assessors to agree a person is eligible for MAID. But some families said the second assessor seemed to simply “rubber stamp” the first assessor’s decision. Concerned were raised about the accuracy of assessments, including whether mental health issues were fully addressed. A two-page list compiled by one family of their father’s history of depression, suicidality, personality traits and other suspected mental illnesses was largely ignored... Some participants described dispassionate care and a “cold, uncaring, unempathetic” MAID provider. “Booking our MAID date was like booking a dinner reservation. So, it’s just all very, very, very impersonal.” What one family found most off-putting was that the MAID provider seemed strangely “cheerful about it.”... “MAID policy is often framed as purely about autonomy. But health care has never treated autonomy as absolute,” said Dr. Ramona Coelho, a family physician and member of the Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner’s MAID death review committee. “Most families are not asking for veto power,” she said. “They are asking to share information, to be involved and to know that all safeguards and care options were meaningfully considered.”"
This doesn't stop euthanasia supporters from claiming all of them want to die and they are all suffering from terminal diseases, and only religious extremists oppose euthanasia

Alberta to ban doctors from offering euthanasia before a patient asks — unlike rest of Canada - "Alberta doctors will be explicitly banned from raising assisted death with a patient without the person first bringing it up... Some critics argue that it’s “mind boggling” that, across Canada, medical assistance in dying (MAID) is being presented as a care option. The fear is that initiating a discussion about MAID risks unduly influencing someone to choose it, given doctor-patient power dynamics... That fits with most jurisdictions in the world with legalized euthanasia: The suggestion must come from the person... Ontario family physician Dr. Ramona Coelho said she has witnessed patients being approved for MAID quickly, “without a deep dive of their suffering” or discussions around possible solutions to reduce the suffering... Coelho, who cares for people with complex conditions such as disabilities, mental health issues and chronic pain, said patients have told her they’ve been offered MAID repeatedly, by different people, “and sometimes felt pressured to book MAID assessments.” While it’s not the majority of doctors in MAID practice, it raises patient safety issues, she said. “While these conversations are often framed as compassionate, we have to consider the risks, particularly the risk of discrimination,” Coelho later said in an email. Doctors, like anyone else, can hold both conscious and unconscious biases, she added. “This means certain groups — such as people with disabilities, older adults, racialized communities and women — may be more likely to have MAID raised to them based on assumptions about their quality of life, and discrimination,” Coelho said. “The suggestion that MAID should be put on the table for anyone who might qualify runs counter to the core duty of physicians to respect the standard of care,” said Trudo Lemmens, a University of Toronto professor in health law and policy. “In standard medical practice, physicians must not offer a therapy that comes with significant risks, if other less intrusive means to help the person are available,” he said. “It’s mind boggling that MAID would have to be offered as some form of universal therapy for chronic illness,” Lemmens added. “Imagine what that will mean if suffering from a mental illness is a basis for MAID.” Would a person who has had recurrent cycles of depression be offered MAID at some point, he asked. “It’s perfectly reasonable and in line with suicide prevention if health-care providers are prohibited from bringing up MAID,” Lemmens said."
The pro-euthanasia people are going to be very upset

Andrew Lawton on X - "Psychiatrist promoting expansion of MAID to people with mental illness says depression or an eating disorder could qualify someone for assisted death."
From Mona Gupta
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again

B.C. woman claims she was offered MAID in Vancouver hospital before other treatments - "A B.C. senior is speaking out after a simple trip to an emergency department last year, she says, took an unsettling turn.  For 83-year-old Miriam Lancaster, the experience started as she was getting out of bed one morning.  “I put my foot on the floor and had such excruciating and unusual pain that I called out,” said Lancaster. Paramedics rushed Lancaster to Vancouver General Hospital, but when she arrived, she claims the initial treatment offered to her by a young doctor came as a shock.  “The admitting staff in the ER had whistled me into a bed, and she was the first medical person questioning me, and that’s where it all started,” said Lancaster.  She says the doctor began asking about medical assistance in dying (MAID)...   Lancaster, who declined MAID, says doctors later identified the pain as a fractured sacrum — a bone in the base of the spine which is treated through bed rest...  the Alberta provincial government introduced a new bill to implement safeguards around MAID and provide new frameworks to protect vulnerable individuals.  Lancaster says the same legislation should be considered in B.C.  “Hospitals should review their policy and not be so hasty to offer MAID,” she said...   A 2025 Statistics Canada report on MAID found B.C. was among the provinces with the most MAID provisions"

B.C. woman offered assisted suicide for fractured hip bone : r/ilovebcsub - "The Supreme Court determining that the 'right to life' in the charter meant the right to death was peak stupidity. Time to clean house."

Kari Bundy - Health Activist | Facebook - "🚨 An 84-year-old Canadian woman says she was offered medical assistance in dying (MAiD) almost immediately after arriving at Vancouver General Hospital, before any doctor had asked about her symptoms or attempted a diagnosis. The patient, who asked to be identified only as Miriam, described the experience in a recent interview with Amanda Achtman, founder of the Dying to Meet You Project.  Last year she woke up in severe pain and was unable to get out of bed.  Her daughter called an ambulance, and Miriam was taken to the hospital for evaluation. According to Miriam, a young doctor came to her bedside and, in her words, "the very first words out of her mouth [were]: 'We would like to offer you MAiD.'"  Miriam said she was stunned. "That was the last thing on my mind! I just wanted to find out why I was in pain! I did not want to die!" She had not requested assisted dying, discussed it with anyone, or been told she had a terminal condition.  After a month in the hospital, Miriam recovered fully.  She has since traveled to Cuba, Mexico, and Guatemala, describing her recovery as "amazing" and saying there was "no need for MAiD to even be suggested." The account has renewed debate over how MAiD, Canada's government-regulated euthanasia and assisted suicide program, is presented to patients, especially older adults in acute distress.  Critics cite reports of unsolicited offers and argue the system sometimes positions assisted death as an early option rather than a last resort.  Supporters say MAiD provides compassionate choice for those suffering intolerably. Conservative MP Garnett Genuis has introduced Bill C-260, the Preventing Coercion of Persons Not Seeking Medical Assistance in Dying Act.  The private member's bill would amend the Criminal Code to prohibit certain individuals, particularly those in positions of authority outside direct clinical care, from initiating discussions about MAiD with people who have not expressly requested the conversation. Miriam's story, shared through Achtman's advocacy work, joins other similar accounts that have surfaced in recent months.  It raises questions about safeguards, informed consent, and whether fiscal pressures in the healthcare system influence how end-of-life options are presented. Cases like this highlight the ongoing tension in Canada between expanding access to MAiD and protecting vulnerable patients from undue influence.  As the program continues to evolve, stories from patients and families are prompting calls for clearer boundaries in medical practice. What are your thoughts on unsolicited MAiD offers in acute care settings?"

Alberta seeks to set limits on use of medically assisted dying - "Alberta has proposed a bill that would limit the use of medically assisted dying - also known as voluntary euthanasia - in the Canadian province solely to end-of-life circumstances... Alberta is the first jurisdiction in Canada to independently propose limits to the practice.  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, said during a news conference on Wednesday that Maid should only be an option for those with no hope of recovery... The proposed seeks to prohibit doctors from unilaterally raising Maid with patients and banning its public advertising in healthcare facilities. It would also enshrine conscience protections for healthcare professionals and institutions."
This is why left wingers hate Alberta so much. Best quote: "Being alive is a terminal illness"
Left wingers usually defend euthanasia claiming that it's only for those who are going to die already. I guess the cognitive dissonance to claim that in response to this article was too much, even for them

Canada: Man gets next-day assisted death after alcohol-related falls - "A Canadian man who was hospitalised due to repeated alcohol-related falls had his life ended by assisted dying the day after having virtual eligibility assessments, despite no clinical investigations and no terminal diagnosis.   An official report by the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee (MDRC) highlighted that the man, known as Mr A, had previously been found ineligible to end his life under Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide regime because he did not have a “grievous and irremediable condition”.   The report states that Mr A developed covid approximately a month after his prior assisted death assessment, but was showing “no significant impact to his function or ability to live independently”. During this period, Mr A was suffering from alcohol use disorder.   Just over a month later, Mr A was admitted to the hospital due to what the attending practitioner referred to as falls that were “precipitated by alcohol use and decreased oral intake of other fluids”. Shortly afterwards, he was voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric unit in a care institution; following a psychiatric assessment, this status became an involuntary admission.   During his psychiatric admission, Mr A experienced a functional decline and repeatedly expressed a wish to die, expressing significant pain in his upper arm.   Mr A asked to be provided with state assistance in ending his own life. He received two virtual eligibility assessments by phone, one after the other, which the inpatient treatment team was not made aware of, and was found to be eligible due to a presumptive diagnosis of complications following covid and possible heart failure, though no additional clinical investigations took place.   Immediately following the assessments, Mr A was transferred to a hospital, where he was found to have a dislocated shoulder, which was subsequently stabilised.  The next day, Mr A was discharged from the hospital and ended his life with the assistance of the state...   According to the report, most members of the MDRC agreed that the short turnaround time between Mr A’s virtual eligibility assessments and an assisted death “did not promote a quality approach” to assisted dying. They argued that a short timeline like this does not allow for adequate investigation of an individual’s conditions or collaboration with a treatment team, evidenced by the fact Mr A’s treatment team were not aware of his over-the-phone assessments. They also argued that this does not allow for alternative care options to be offered."
Clearly, upper arm pain is a terminal disease

Shocking report exposes terrifying reality of assisted suicide in Canada - "In one shocking case, a woman in her 80s, only referred to as Mrs. B, had her life ended under the country’s euthanasia program despite withdrawing her request — when her husband and caregiver requested it again on her behalf.  The woman, who suffered from chronic complications following coronary artery bypass graft surgery, was receiving palliative care support at home when she told her family that she wanted to end her life through the MAiD program.  She then informed her assessor that she “wanted to withdraw her request, citing personal and religious values and beliefs,” according to the report. Her spouse then requested another euthanasia assessment, which deemed Mrs. B eligible despite her expressed desire to opt for palliative care instead.  A third assessor confirmed the second assessor’s approval, and Mrs. B received MAiD the same day. MAiD was passed in 2016 and originally required a 10-day waiting period between a request for assisted suicide and the act of euthanasia. This requirement was removed in 2021 by Canada’s parliament for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” despite concerns that patients would opt for same-day suicides because it was quicker than accessing high-quality palliative care...   Critics have held up Mrs. B’s case as evidence that patients are being given same-day euthanasia because it is easier for doctors to arrange than end-of-life care, and families are taking it due to caregiver burnout.   Mrs. B was granted same-day euthanasia, despite her first assisted suicide practitioner having “concerns regarding the necessity for ‘urgency’ and… the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e., due to caregiver burnout),” the MDRC’s report stated. “The focus [in this case] should have been on ensuring adequate palliative care and support for Mrs. B and her spouse. Hospice and palliative care teams should have been urgently re-engaged, given the severity of the situation,” Dr. Ramona Coelho of the MDRC said.  It is the latest troubling incident under Canada’s euthanasia program, which many say is targeting so-called “burdensome” groups such as the elderly and disabled.  The policy was described as “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s,” by Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia in 2022."
Clearly, euthanising her was the right decision, because she had been brainwashed by religious extremists into withdrawing her MAiD request!

200+ Ontario residents were approved for assisted suicide on the same or next day in 2023 - "Assisted suicide became even easier to get after Liberals passed Bill C-7, which got rid of a mandatory 10-day reflection time before someone could have themselves killed by euthanasia.  A report has highlighted just how prevalent euthanasia has become in Canada’s largest province of Ontario, noting that, of the thousands who died from assisted suicide, some 200 died from the procedure after getting same-day or next-day approval.  The 2024 report from the “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) Death Review Committee (MDRC) of Ontario noted how, in 2023, a total of 219 Ontarians were asked to die by euthanasia and then were given quick approval, under what is known as Track 1.  Track 1 rules stipulate that a person has to have a reasonably foreseeable death.  Of the quick assisted suicide approvals, 30 percent of them chose to die the same day, records show.   Highlighted was a case of a man, known as Mr. C, in his 70s with cancer. He asked for assisted suicide, and five days later, he was placed in the hospital.  While in the hospital, his condition worsened to the point that he could not speak clearly. The person who was the assisted suicide practitioner tried to “vigorously rouse” him to get him to consent to being killed. This was after holding his sedation for 45 minutes.  He was killed later that day.  According to some members of the MDRC, not giving the man sedation for 45 minutes was “insufficient time for medication clearance.”  There are many cases like Mr. C in Ontario, according to the report. Assisted suicide became even easier to get after Bill C-7 came to light, which got rid of a mandatory 10-day reflection time before someone could die by euthanasia...   Euthanasia is now the sixth-highest cause of death in Canada, after it was not listed in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.  In 2021, the federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expanded euthanasia from killing “terminally ill” patients to allowing the “chronically ill” to qualify after the passage of Bill C-7. Since then, the government has sought to include those suffering solely from mental illness."

Links - 31st August 2026 (2 - Jason Arday)

Thread by @WingsScotland on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This purported "debunking" of the media's "attacks" on Jason Arday by the uber-woke Byline Times is worth examining as an illustration of how the far left fabricates witch-hunts as a smokescreen when it gets caught out.
The article is 3600 words long, and most of it is in fact a character assassination of some of the people who exposed Arday's lies. The first 500 words are pure fact-free messenger-shooting in which donating money to the Free Speech Union is presented as proof of racism.I have no idea if Nathan Cofnas is a racist or not, or whether his theories are correct or not. If he WAS a racist, it still wouldn't change any of the facts about Jason Arday. That isn't how facts work. They are true regardless of who says them. We know that this is true [that Cambridge ""grabbed a random black person" and abandoned academic standards in pursuit of diversity"]. Arday met none of the usual criteria for someone in his position and his work is doggerel and gibberish.The plagiarism allegations are proven beyond even the tiniest shred of doubt. LJMU simply covered them up out of the same misguided DEI impulses that led Cambridge to hire him in the first place. These are excuses, not refutations.As previously noted, the number of articles is wholly unremarkable for an unfolding story of multiple significance spread across numerous outlets. No "disputed or unproven claims" are identified by Byline Times. The "claims" are facts.We're then treated to a lengthy diatribe of whataboutery. Notably, it does not include a single link to a media source highlighting Arday's phantom book. I'd never even heard of that aspect of the story until the Byline Times piece. WHERE was this "double standard" applied?Then we're told that the claims Arday fabricated his amazing marathon feats are false. But the fact that some newspapers "reported on" the challenge does not prove the challenge was actually carried out.Here is the extent, for example, of the Times HES "reporting" on the challenge. Manifestly, it does not constitute proof that any of these marathons were subsequently actually run.Similarly, the Richmond Times article merely SAYS Arday completed the challenge, offering not a single scrap of evidence. It is fair to say that the local press, even in 2010, did not have the resources to bother fact-checking a nice feelgood story.
This part is just nuts.
"Did you raise £5m for these charities?"
"£5m is a small proportion of their income."
"Um, that isn't what I asked."
"Other people also raise money for charities."
"Uh... okay?"
"SEE? RACISM!"
IS it clear [that Arday played professional football]? Let's look at those links: The first is a tweet from an unhinged race-baiter, quoting an unnamed person, saying Arday played for two clubs. The second is a university publishing an unevidenced semantic correction. It's not exactly conclusive proof. "Semi-professional", incidentally, is a term with no specifically-defined meaning in a football context. Waltham & Hersham FC are listed as "semi-professional" on Wikipedia, Lewisham Borough FC aren't. It basically means nothing.
This is some truly desperate straw-clutching semantic misdirection. The idea that "an informal community initiative supporting black mothers" would only be interested in kids at seven-year intervals is just embarrassing. He can only have meant the TV show. Here, Byline Times simply asserts that accounts "effectively" (WEASEL WORDS ALERT!) backing Arday's story are "credible" and those disputing it are, by implication, not.  The word "schoolmates" is used in scarequotes implying something sinister which is never outlined. The plagiarism allegations are not even remotely "unproven". They are extensively and comprehensively documented. The rest of this section is merely handwaving distraction and excuses.
Then there's a sharp swerve back into character assassinations of some of the people who'd exposed Arday, as if being reported to - and investigated by - the police for asking questions about someone's dodgy claims is so self-evidently a hate crime that no more need be said.Hundreds and hundreds more words of smears and character assassinations follow, in which Jason Arday isn't even mentioned, based solely on the premise that right-wing beliefs are intrinsically and obviously evil.On and on it goes. Jason Arday is long forgotten now, merely an incidental tool being used as a springboard from which to attack the right, just like Cambridge used him as a tool for woke virtue-signalling... No evidence is provided for the claim that Cofnas' claims have been "debunked". It's merely asserted as a fact. I have no idea whether they have or not.And finally, we hear from all the people smeared in the piece pointing out that Byline Times' allegations against them are bollocks.  (And once again, there is no "presumption" in the plagiarism allegations. They have been comprehensively proven. LJMU whitewashed them.)
There is not a single refutation in the entire 3,600 words of any reporting about Jason Arday, save for the fact that IF he played for Waltham & Hersham FC (an unproven claim from an anonymous source), they are indeed a semi-pro football club, at least according to Wikipedia.
tl;dr - Byline Times is a joke. If that's the best its Head Of Investigations can do, he's as big a fraud as Arday was."

Meme - Wings Over Scotland @WingsScotland: "I don't think this bit is SUPPOSED to be hilarious, I think that's accidental."
"Unanswered Questions. Cambridge University has questions to answer. As Byline Times documented last month, it took no action after repeated internal safeguarding complaints about James Orr and his involvement with right-wing extremist groups. Asked repeatedly to comment on the extensive findings of this publication's six-month investigation, Cambridge University's press office merely stated: "Byline Times has sent the university a slew of unsubstantiated allegations, wilful mischaracterisations, and falsehoods, which we strongly reject. The volume of misleading claims and conjecture means we are unable to engage with the approach as a legitimate media enquiry.""
Charles Steadman @CharlesSteadman: "Wow, sounds like Cambridge university press office are substantially more competent than the rest of the organisation..."

The carrion-eaters - "Of course, everything the carrion-eaters said about Arday was true. Since his death, some of the people who think they’re on his side have tried to rewrite history. He was really just an ordinary academic, hounded to death by the right-wing media, because they couldn’t accept that a black man might deserve a professorship at Cambridge. Or, in the more condescending version, he was the hapless victim of all the smug white liberals, who kept promoting him way above his abilities to burnish their diversity quotas. No: this is an insult. He was brilliant at what he did. He blagged his way through the world with nothing but brio and good looks. One of the great British chancers, a wide boy from a council estate who managed to insinuate himself into one of the most prestigious universities in the world. He conned them all; all it took was some South London street smarts and he had them eating right out of his hand. He could ramble about Australian soap operas and convince everyone they were listening to a genius. They were! But now, in death, you want to shrink him down again. Domesticate him, turn him into another passive victim, distinguished by nothing more than the colour of his skin. It’s also completely true that the press had every right to report on this. It’s news. Cambridge is a major institution, it takes government grants, it represents the country; of course we have a right to know if it’s giving out professorships to lovable rogues with a totally invented backstory. Arday was advising the government on the school curriculum; people in that kind of position need to be held to public scrutiny. But is that really all you were doing? Admit it: you were having fun. Everyone was enjoying it... The Daily Mail quoted some of his frantic excuses, and then reported that ‘he asked that we attribute the quotes to ‘a source close to Professor Arday.’’ Cue much hooting, and I suppose it does sound nuts if you don’t know, but the British press has a longstanding tradition where a public figure can choose to speak their mind freely and be quoted as a ‘friend of’ or a ‘source close to’ themselves. If you ever read something like ‘a friend of the beleaguered minister said that ‘she’s doing her best and everyone needs to fuck off and leave her alone,’’ you can be pretty sure those words are from the minister herself. The journo gets a nice unfiltered quote, the source gets to keep some dignity, everyone wins. But they didn’t extend this courtesy to Arday. Instead, they published the fact that he’d asked for it. You could break trust with the man; it didn’t matter. No need to play nice, keep him on as a potential source; they knew they were going in for the kill, and when it was done there would be no more need for any further quotes from Professor Jason Arday... Right now, on the other side of the Atlantic, a lot of different people are upset for a lot of different reasons because AOC went on the news to say that ‘woke 1 was crazy.’ The issue was another DSA type called Francesca Hong, whose old tweets had resurfaced: she’d railed against Thanksgiving as a celebration of colonialism, ‘the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women.’ Back in 2020, this was a totally normal thing to say; now you sound like a maniac. The word folks is already gender-neutral. It does not need an x. But that’s not why woke 1 was crazy... What made woke 1 crazy wasn’t the content of the beliefs but their social function, which was to let you feel good about doing the thing they just did to Jason Arday. Look, this minor celebrity chef has some old tweets where he spelled folks without the x... It is genuinely deranged, in this situation, to start ginning up a moral panic over academic standards. We’re in November 1918 and you’re trying to have a Prussian infantryman whipped for not shining his boots. It’s over; the academy is a literate institution marooned in a postliterate world, governed and staffed by people who no longer have anything to do with whatever way of being these places were once built to protect. They’re all form-fillers, generating excellence in predictable increments. They don’t know how to read. Which is how an institution like Cambridge could hire a man like Jason Arday, who left a grammatical error in the title of his dissertation. Not because he was black, and not because of his purported disability, but because there was probably no one on the hiring committee who had actually bothered to read his work. Just check his citation numbers. Why not have a professor who, by his own account, takes an hour to read a single page of text? In a fully literate institution that would be disqualifying. Not everyone has to be an academic; it has nothing to do with your worth as a human being, but maybe, in light of your disability, this particular line of work isn’t for you. In the postliterate university it’s no impediment at all. Welcome; you’ll fit right in... Arday’s colleagues were clearly in awe of him. The world is full of illiterates, but only one of them became one of the youngest professors in Cambridge’s history."
Of course, harassing someone who used a word the left considered out of fashion was totally the same as demanding accountability from someone who lied, plagiarised, set the police, lawyers and institutions on critics, defrauded his students and gave false hope to parents of autistic children
Would a similar white non "autistic" candidate have been hired like Arday was? Just because you don't go on about all of universities' problems doesn't mean the problem you do identify is not a problem

Thread by @eugyppius1 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This is the dumbest fucking part. "When a famous white man errs", those errors are systemically ascribed to his entire demographic by left-prog movement. "When a famous black man [errs]“ it is always individual. In postwar liberalism, whites succeed as individuals and sin as a group; blacks succeed as a group and sin as individuals. On Arday specifically: The most standard take on the right is that Arday's failings represent the foolishness not of black men in general (aside from unreasonably high self-regard, Arday has few stereotypical black male attributes), but of the DEI system in particular. Which they do."
Thread by @BlitzGeburt on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This was not just "some academic plagiarized in his PHD and work" (even that would be very bad), it's he did that, lied about a bunch of other stuff publicly (in a ridiculous way), had full institutional backing even after the accusations first became public because of his race.Institutional backing from both his university and media running cover for him and the system he represented.  Is there even any similar case of a fraudulent white academic who made public claims similar to running 9 marathons with a broken legs? 30 marathons in 35 days? etc."

la scapigliata on X - "There's an explosion of DARVO happening, from the DEI and British establishment ecosystem that enabled Jason Arday. The grift is up, for all of them, and they think that using such a manipulative and abusive tactic to enact interpersonal violence against people who have had enough of the lies, grifting and state control in the name of untenable ideologies rooted in falsehoods and desire for domination of others, will give them back the control of society they once had."

Rhys Laverty on X - "Only one per cent of professors in UK universities are black, making each appointment hugely significant."
"What on earth is this second sentence doing in a news article?"

Max Klinger on X - "On Arday, it’s worth remembering: The left have spent over a decade trying to destroy people’s lives, get them censored and fired for disagreeing with their cultish dogma. They’ve succeeded, often. They simultaneously mocked and vilified anyone who pointed out this Maoist scumbaggery, said cancel culture was a myth, and so on. The media massively supported them in all of this, granting woke ideologies and ideologues huge, gushing coverage and celebrating both endlessly, while smearing those who pushed back as being racist, as far right, as white supremacist, and all the rest.  Now the same exact people are turning around and calling legitimate media scrutiny of one the woke left’s most high profile and public representatives a ‘lynching’ and an ‘assassination’, etc.   It’s just absolutely, 100% transparent, morally and intellectually inconsistent bollocks. Whipped up to help them further their agenda and deflect attention from the actual issue here, namely their own domination of, and bastardisation of, our university system."

Mousumi Bakshi on X - "NEW Students of Jason Arday address a vigil, telling a crowd “Racism did this” “For many of us, Cambridge was once imagined as an arrival..we believed in the university..that we might belong” “Jason’s death & the cruelty & smear around him reminds us that for many, we do not”"
Titus Techera on X - "The martyrology of Arday is well underway. We should stop this. All the evidence that he was a fraud, that he harassed people & threw cops & lawyers at the few journalists asking questions is available. All of his published works, including the fake memoir -- everything is available, if anyone gives a damn! Stop this lie"

Richard Hanania on X - "They tell us that Jason Arday was fragile and couldn't handle being in the public spotlight. This is true. But the academics at Cambridge are the people who made him famous and brought scrutiny to his work. They should be ashamed of themselves."
UbermanXXI_too on X - "Eh? He has a history of appearing in various media. I am an example of someone who does not like the spotlight. JA is not."
What they mean is he loved positive attention but couldn't stand negative attention so those who praised him were good and noble but those who exposed his lies are cruel and evil and the moral thing to do when he was alive was just to praise him and not to talk about his lies

Razib Khan on X - "the attempt to reinvent jason arday as an honest and rigorous scholar brought down by racist right-wing publications like the new york times and the guardian is one of the most brazen attempts at the 'shaggy defense' i've ever seen..."
Titus Techera on X - "Suddenly, all the corrupt elites who enabled this Arday moron to think his magical realism is really magical -- they're out there doing a kind of riff on Nietzsche: Truth is Deadly! We must have lies instead! I think the truth matters & some willingness to tell the truth about public affairs, especially when it's unpleasant, is essential for our way of life. We cannot compromise here. Education is the core of our regime. We must tell elite institutions promoting censorship, harassment of dissenters, & incredible self-dealing as saving lives or commemorating the victims of our mis- dis- & mal-information to stop lying to our faces!"

Will Kinney on X - "One thing that is I think a real impediment to understanding in cases like this is that very smart people often lack an accurate theory of mind for very stupid people. They simply cannot imagine that somebody like Arday, who found a button he could push to get attention, would continue pushing that button without any awareness of what the inevitable consequences would be, because he apparently lacked the intellectual capacity to entertain the hypothetical of "what's going to happen when somebody starts to question this?" You saw that in the interviews he did: he was genuinely surprised that someone would check if his story was true, because no one ever had. I also found it noticeable in his lectures, which were full of weird malapropisms: he literally had no idea what the words he was using meant. That audiences sat through those alarming word salads and continued to reward him for it is pathological, and a testament to how powerful social manias can be among educated people eager to prove their innate goodness.   This blindness among the very smart to the minds of the extremely stupid, especially among sociologists, finds its way into all kinds of bad policy making. You won't set good policy for policing if you don't understand how somebody with really low IQ and poor impulse control is going to think and behave. You won't get why winning the lottery ruins people's lives, because you don't understand that giving a really stupid person a huge amount of money in a lump sum is like giving a child a loaded handgun. (Apply this to universal basic income and see what you come up with.) You don't get why a homeless guy, given a nice apartment for free, would immediately trash it or burn it down. You don't get why admitting people to college who don't have the innate intellectual capacity for college work is going to cause them serious harm. Some people just have very low intellectual capacity, and you can't fix it."
judyk113 on X - "A misleadingly selective account of Arday as a naive button pusher who got used.He was a consummate, skilled fraudster who worked hard at not just copying & pasting others’ (copyright) work but manipulated it to publish & get qualifications to leap from post to higher status post"

So the Arday furore was founded on racism, was it? Nonsense - "In late 2018, I saw what authentic Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in our elite academic institutions looks like. For the previous 10 years, Glasgow University had been developing a carefully-constructed programme to provide opportunities for children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to access their world-class medical degree course... “They were all still expected to meet the very stringent academic standards required to study medicine at Glasgow.”...  Underpinning the entire project was a duty of psychological and emotional care towards the young participants. The university had gone to great lengths to ensure that they were all properly equipped to handle the academic and emotional challenges that come with studying for a medical degree. This was done cautiously and sensitively through building relationships with local schools. There were mentoring schemes to ensure each student had the best possible chance to maintain their studies and obtain their degrees. Crucially, Glasgow University only went public with the success of their programme (and cautiously so) when they felt confident that it was sufficiently robust to serve future generations of young people. They avoided the temptation for flag-waving, sloganeering and media blitzes. Glasgow University’s care for these young people stands in contrast to the way that Cambridge University exploited Jason Arday, the young academic who died in tragic circumstances last week.  It’s become clear that Cambridge bent their own rules to an absurd extent to appoint Mr Arday to its highest academic station. It stands accused of having done so to massage its own sense of esteem and to increase its own academic cache.   This insulted thousands of young academics across the UK who had toiled honestly for their degrees and had their research robustly peer-reviewed. Worse than this though, was that Cambridge was undermining the prospects of under-graduates by making them guinea pigs in this exercise in self-glorification by placing their academic dreams in the hands of a man who was ill-qualified to be in such an elevated position. To describe the justified anger arising from this as somehow "racist" is dishonest and irresponsible.  Of all the columns and commentary I’ve read questioning how we arrived at this situation there has been no racism. Indeed the overwhelming bulk of it has been reasonably expressed concern about the apparatus that had permitted such an absurd situation to develop.   Some have suggested that other academics found guilty of plagiarising had been spared the scrutiny of Mr Arday’s work. Cambridge University and its marketing department though, had craved media exposure for its progressive appointment of Mr Arday. It must have occurred to some on their academic appointments board that his garlanded CV and some of his more unlikely-sounding achievements would attract future scrutiny, even as they were pushing him in front of the cameras and microphones. Did none of them consider for a moment that this might disintegrate in contact with the real world? Or was their commitment to inclusion and diversity so shallow that they simply didn’t consider the future wellbeing of their young star? Did it not occur to them that an intervention may be required to prevent the delusion careering out of control? Or was it simply a case of "so long as we’re alright, that’s all that matters"?   A depressingly predictable narrative has emerged following Jason Arday's death. This claims that he was only subject to such intense media scrutiny because he was black. Perhaps they’ve not been aware of what’s been happening in Scotland in recent years. Ask the poet, Jenny Lindsay, who lost her home and her career for her sex-realist views what a personal and professional hounding looks like. Likewise, Fiona Macdonald the trade union activist. The Labour MP, Joani Reid endured an appalling and vindictive campaign of extreme misogyny and sex-shaming in the wake of her husband’s arrest on suspicion of spying for China. These three women did nothing wrong. How many of those now indulging in race-baiting after Mr Arday's death expressed any sympathy for them? How many actively participated in humiliating them?   Some of those now hurling accusations of racism gleefully celebrated the murder of Ann Widdecombe in the vilest terms imaginable. As they’d done with the murder of the American political activist, Charlie Kirk. Earlier this year, they hounded a man suffering from Tourette's because he had an unfortunate episode at a cinema awards night.  The scrutiny of Mr Arday’s increasingly questionable CV and Cambridge University’s elevation of him was legitimate public-interest journalism that proceeded across both right-wing and left-wing publications. The university had enlisted the media’s participation in conferring academic sainthood on him and most were happy to indulge them.  There’s a cost to flinging around false accusations of racism. It reinforces the motives of real racists and diminishes the gravity of real racism.  Some of those who gleefully participated in brutal houndings of honest individuals whom they disagreed with on gender or faith, portray themselves as fiercely anti-racist. I wonder though, how deep their anti-racism runs."

Steven Pinker on X - "If you're an academic (and can prove it with an ORCID), consider signing a petition protesting the University of Ghent's suspension of a postdoc for exposing academic misconduct, a blatant violation of academic freedom (as always, regardless of your agreement with all of the whistleblower's views).  http://johnarmstrongmaths.com/openletters/letter.php?campaign=cofnas  https://johnarmstrongmaths.com/openletters/le"

Black Lives Matter - London | Facebook - "The disgusting eugenicist Nathan Cofnas who led a campaign against Jason Arday has been suspended by Ghent University in Belgium. The repellent creep is whining aplenty about being 'victimised', is he fc. Hateful rancid yt supremacist."
I was surprised all of the comments were hateful, then I remembered what group it was. Of course, harassment is only wrong if it threatens the left wing agenda.
Naturally, people were blaming Jews, Zionists and Israel

Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui on X - "This is the man the British media took their tip on Jason Arday from. The man who helped spread the fake beheaded babies story that manufactured consent for genocide. Forget looking into this white/Jewish Zionist man’s background to see if he was a reliable source of information, they basically handed him the torch to lead the media lynching crusade."
No surprise the woke hate white people, Jews and "Zionists".

RogSat on X - "The Byline Times' hagiographic defence of Jason Arday boils down to: (a) exaggerated fundraising claims don’t matter because the charities involved were big; (b) he sometimes spoke before 11, therefore claims that he didn’t speak until 11 are vindicated; and (c) evidence that Arday did *something* is proof that everything he subsequently said about it was true - even where his own accounts contradict one another. This is how mythical heroes are made."

Class clowns: the triumph of inanity over academia

Class clowns: the triumph of inanity over academia | The Spectator

Daniel Defoe observed that plague victims “never perceiv’d that they were infected” until they discovered the “tokens” on their skin. By that point, “nothing could follow but certain Death”.

Something similar might be said of Britain’s universities. In recent days, the Jason Arday affair has captured the world’s attention because of its absurdity. But the humiliation of Cambridge is not an early sign of infection. It is just a particularly visible bubo.

At one level, Arday’s fall reveals how, even in the most elite universities, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) dogma has warped intellectual standards to the point of madness. Yet a deeper examination reveals poor Jason to be merely a poster boy for the increasingly fetid system that is British higher education.

Take the London School of Economics (LSE), which has produced 21 Nobel Prize winners, was ranked number one in the UK by the Times Good University Guide last year and is internationally acclaimed for its teaching on economics, finance and politics. However, all first-year students must now take LSE100, the university’s “flagship interdisciplinary course.” Students may choose to study one of three modest questions: “How can we transform our climate futures?”; “How can we control AI?”; or “How can we create a fair society?” One student described the course as “famous for being a massive waste of time”. What is lost in academic discipline is made up for in ideological indoctrination.

LSE students who opt to study “How can we create a fair society?” discover a course description asserting: “As the expanding billionaire class increasingly dominates political systems, while gender and ethnicity gaps widen, the question of how to reach a fairer world is both urgent and contentious.” Even stranger than the courses are the people who teach them. Among them is Dr. Alex Frankovitch, whose PhD thesis was entitled “Fucking and Being Fucked: Towards a Sexual Ethics of Sex on Drugs.” One student recalls asking Frankovitch about Warren Buffett, only to discover that they (to use Dr Frankovitch’s preferred pronoun) had never heard of him.

Dr. Carolina Are is, according to LSE’s website, a “digital criminologist… researcher-activist and content creator” who won a Sexual Freedom Award in 2019. She gives lectures on reducing “online harms” and “how we can control AI.” When not contemplating man’s struggle against machine, she is a pole-dancer and instructor. The website linked to her university profile contains her showreel and invites visitors to “learn a pole dance choreography, pole tricks, floorwork or twerk with me via Zoom!” Sadly, Friedrich Hayek, the father of modern free-market economics, did not offer similar services when he taught at LSE.

Are is entitled to do what she wants in her free time. But what sets alarm bells ringing about her academic standing is that pole-dancing seems to be not just an outlet for relaxation, but the focal point of her research.

One of her most recent papers is called “Sexy jail” and performative transparency: Evaluating shadowbanning notifications and appeals in Instagram’s Account Status amongst pole dancing content creators”. It examines the treatment of pole dancers, “a demographic greatly affected by algorithmic precarity in the creator economy,” and concludes that Instagram’s system has been “ineffective and discriminatory.” An important finding, no doubt, but is such material what LSE students signed up for? One student complains of having to be careful not to use any technical language in submitted work due to Dr. Are’s lack of expertise.

When asked how students should put together a presentation for the course, to be assessed for their final grade, Dr. Are allegedly answered: “I really hate when a white man gives the presentation… It’s just so boring.” An LSE spokesperson said Dr. Are “has a relevant PhD and is qualified to teach on the course” and that she denies making the “boring” comment.

It would be comforting to dismiss all this as an eccentricity peculiar to the LSE. But so many universities across the country are wasting student time in much the same way. At Exeter, you can study for an MA and PhD in magic and occult science. At Liverpool, you can pay £6,850 a year to do an MA in “The Beatles, heritage and culture”. At Falmouth, students can undertake a BA in “Esports & Livestreaming” at the university’s “renowned Games Academy.”

Students of global sustainable development have previously had the chance to enroll in a “surviving the apocalypse” module at Warwick. Given the growing instability of the world, that may sound potentially useful. Yet the syllabus suggests projects on “mushrooms and zombies” and insists the course has a “subtle (?) but unmasked convenor neurodiversity (ADHD) guiding its set-up and delivery”. I’m not sure I’m sufficiently neurodiverse to understand what that means.

Students on all these courses are eligible for undergraduate or postgraduate loans. It’s impossible to know what percentage of that financial support will ever be repaid to the taxpayer.

And it’s not as if prudent students can escape the madness by pursuing more conventional subjects. Those studying English and comparative literary studies at Warwick, for instance, can pick up 15 credits by studying a module on “Queering the Literary Landscape: LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture in the Contemporary World”. Even a math degree offers no refuge. Students at Edinburgh might be surprised to learn that the school of mathematics is committed to “decolonizing”. The faculty claims that “the history of mathematics typically centers cisgendered, straight, white European men” and recommends that students should take implicit bias tests.

Madness in the lecture theater is just the more visible by-product of a much longer production line. Before students can study zombies, pole dancing and astrology, academics must first turn these subjects into recognized fields of research.

Earlier this year, a team of five researchers published a paper on “Decolonizing the sciences: Enhancing the experience of staff and students from racially minoritized ethnic groups using LEGO® Serious Play®.” This work was the culmination of a study across three northern English universities in which 50 adult students, researchers, academics and professional staff were asked to build Lego models representing their experiences of racial inequality, institutional barriers and decolonization. Participants constructed walls, ladders and bridges out of Lego as metaphors for racism. Somehow this childish activity now constitutes academic research.

There’s more. A researcher at Rose Bruford College, in southeast London, is investigating “the lack of career development support for established drag performers.” The project is intended to contribute “to drag studies as a growing academic field, addressing a current lack of attention about how to sustain this historically working class and popular performance form.”

Meanwhile, at Bath Spa, a senior lecturer in organizational behavior and leadership has received a grant to investigate “cognitive and emotional costs of identity regulation among ethnically diverse early career professionals”. The project bemoans that “professions in the UK often promote values like competence, meritocracy and individual achievement, reflecting white and western norms.”

At least that’s privately funded. The government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has just shelled out for a project at the University of Essex entitled “Towards a queer communism: Past, present and future horizons of liberation.”

None of this is new, of course. Frivolous and absurd studies have been pouring out of higher education institutions since at least the 1970s. In 2012, Robert J. Wallis of Richmond University published a paper analyzing people’s experiences jumping on a life-size inflatable Stonehenge, concluding that “bouncing on the artwork-cum-plaything provided an immediate sensory and visceral experience which was meaningful in relation to the real Stonehenge.” This somehow gazumped Spinal Tap for Stonehenge silliness.

The difference today is that the rot appears to have spread throughout academia, from top to bottom. Even respected journals aren’t safe. I was surprised to find an article in Shakespeare Quarterly “refusing to celebrate” the quatercentenary of the publication of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. The author reasoned that we should not be “dedicating our energies, at a time of international emergency, to the production of ever more scholarship on a 400-year-old book.” If this is really his view, we have to wonder what he is doing in the English department of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge.

The author goes on to blame the Folio for climate change, arguing that Henry and Emily’s Folger Shakespeare Library collection “was built from the money he made working for the Standard Oil Company and its later derivatives, which became the progenitors of ExxonMobil.” He then asks us to reflect “on the extent to which modern cultural dispensations float on an often unacknowledged reservoir of fossil fuels.” Drill, baby, drill.

Professor Jason Scott-Warren, who wrote the article, is the director of the Cambridge Centre for Material Texts. He supervises graduates on English and European Renaissance literature and has been arrested several times for his environmental protest actions.

Sane students complain that, even in more prestigious universities, it is nigh-on impossible to find a normal supervisor for a dissertation, so preoccupied is everyone with queering, decolonizing or sticking themselves to motorway bridges. It’s a lot easier to condemn Shakespeare for causing climate change than it is to properly analyze his work.

We will never really know what is going on in lecture theaters and supervisions. The University and College Union has long objected to unannounced lesson observation to assess an academic’s competence and most students don’t complain. But in the pointless courses, the insane modules and the absurd journal articles, we can see the symptoms of a morbid university disease in this country.

Faculties and academics have all broadly been left to their own devices for decades. The Office for Students doesn’t regularly inspect what is happening inside university classes. Even after the introduction of the revised Teaching Excellence Framework, starting next year, no one will ask if academia is providing any valuable insight or skills.

Student finance has guaranteed cash flow for many institutions which, judging by the quality of their offering, should have gone under. But the sickness is terminal for some. This month, after years of difficulty, the University of Kent completed its merger with Greenwich. Greenwich’s vice-chancellor is CEO of the new “super university” – a triumph for the former polytechnic.

It would be easy to rue the decline of a formerly prestigious institution. But a brief glance at how academics at Kent have spent their time and resources tells a different story. Why did they fund a study into “what drives sex toy popularity” in 2023? Why is one of the senior lecturers in 18th century studies currently supervising a project on queer readings of fan fiction and the “omegaverse?”

It’s not all decay. Many universities still have healthy organs, uncorrupted by ideological inanity. Researchers at Kent, for instance, were responsible for developing the retinal-imaging technology now used in many hospitals, as well as genome sequencing parrots to understand beak and feather disease. Yet while scientists slave away, their peers in Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology are busy publishing research about “racial and economic disparities in coastal access and engagement.”

Academia lacks a proper incentive structure. There is no higher authority to differentiate the value of curing cancer compared with producing yet another autoethnography. Trusts like Wellcome, and our own government, are happy to hand out grants for the latter without pausing to ask what it’s all for.

If your life’s great passion is the study of bouncy castles, pole dancing or writing essays on autoethnography, there ought to be nothing to stop you from working at Toys R Us, a gentleman’s club or the Guardian. But these people have all chosen to pursue academia. They are attracted to the status it confers. This was the world in which Jason Arday thrived. His colleagues at Cambridge were carrying out research on how fairy tales can break the gender binary in playgrounds or writing “a self-portrait of an artist who teaches.” Is it really surprising that his error-ridden thesis didn’t stand out against this backdrop?