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Are Universities Increasingly Liars and Con Artists?
The civic institutions that are at the core of our society are weakening, with negative consequences for both our comity and economy. Church attendance is down, the Ten Commandments are viewed by some as archaic, and membership in service organizations like Rotary and Kiwanis is stagnating. The set of moral imperatives that provide the glue that allows our nation to work so well, for elections to be honest, business contracts effective, and political disagreements civil, is weakening. Moral relativism is in the ascendancy, moral absolutes are declining. Our political leaders seem increasingly and excessively partisan, harsh, uncharitable and uncivil. I think one consequence of the moral decline is that universities increasingly lie and cheat, both their customers (students) and the general public. It is arguable too that universities are a partial cause of the moral decay, but I will leave that question for another day.
We have learned that the University of Oklahoma lied for about 20 years regarding the proportion of its alumni contributing to the university, used in determining the U.S. News college rankings. The motive was clearly to overstate the school’s reputation—to mislead the public. Lying to enhance rankings is not confined to Oklahoma: Temple University systematically lied for years to enhance its business school’s ranking, and I recall that when I ran the Top Colleges rankings for Forbes, a very distinguished liberal arts college, Claremont McKenna, lied in data provided to the U.S. Department of Education, trying to improve its already excellent rankings.
The consequences of lying are relatively trivial in these cases. What can U.S. News or Forbes do? Nothing really, except to exclude the schools from future rankings for some time period (which both have done). Does the broader higher education community care? No, judging from its actions. Like the NCAA with regards to the University of North Carolina phantom course scandal, absolutely nothing has been done to further hurt and embarrass the transgressors. Have the accrediting agencies put schools on probation for “lying and deception?” Has the American Council of Education condemned this inappropriate behavior? No. Lying and cheating, at least in moderation, is seemingly accepted and arguably even tacitly encouraged. University boards of trustees are usually clueless, since they are shielded from unpleasant facts, and totally ineffective in stemming moral transgressions, even sometimes, such as in the case of the University of Texas a few years ago, even possibly shielding top officials known to be behaving unethically.
But the lying and deceptive practices are far more pervasive than merely cheating to enhance magazine rankings. Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness have a new book, Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, that argues universities engage in a variety of highly deceptive marketing and other practices that are, to put it conservatively, morally untenable. Colleges entice students to attend implying that it is a relatively risk-free path to a prosperous life, which it is not. Do the colleges tell you up front what their dropout rate is, or point out a large percent of freshmen don’t make it into the sophomore year? Do they point out that a significant portion of their graduates is underemployed? Do they tell us about the risks as well as the rewards? Besides Brennan and Magness, see my own new book, Restoring the Promise, just out from the Independent Institute.
Let us take at random a very typical American public school, Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Does that school warn students that nearly half (46%) those entering full time do not graduate in six years? Do they tell them that a large majority of students take out loans, averaging $26,000, but that nearly half of the borrowers have not paid a penny back on that debt within three years of graduation? Do they tell them that the median annual earnings 10 years after leaving Bowling Green of those getting federal assistance is barely $40,000, only slightly more than the median earnings of male workers over 25 years old with high school diplomas? (All data are from the College Scorecard of the U.S. Department of Education or the Census Bureau) Colleges need to be brutally honest, serving society rather than their narrow parochial interests. Perhaps penalties for collegiate moral transgressions need to rise.
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Warwick’s non-rape rape scandal
Students have had their lives turned upside down over sick private jokes.
The Warwick University rape-chat scandal first came to light a year ago. Since then, students have been tried, suspended and reinstated; there have been campus protests, a social-media campaign, an independent review, public apologies, a lawsuit issued against the university, ongoing national news coverage, angry Guardian columns, and a BBC documentary.
It is easy to forget, among all the heat generated, that this is a campus rape scandal that does not involve accusations of either rape or sexual assault. There is no dispute about whether or not sex was consensual: no sexual encounter of any description ever took place. The year-long saga that has engulfed Warwick has been entirely about words.
To start at the beginning: a group of male undergraduates created a private Facebook group chat and used it to trade increasingly vile comments about what they would like to do to their female flatmates and fellow students. The group chat is also said to have included ‘racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and ableist language, as well as claims of paedophilic activity’. It was inevitable that, before long, the private exchange would be made public.
The conversation reads like a competition between overgrown adolescents to see who can be the most provocative and disgusting. Statements such as, ‘sometimes it’s fun to just go wild and rape 100 girls’, are intended to be offensive and, probably, humorous. Indeed, when the group chat was first covered in the media, it was portrayed as ‘rape jokes’. Whether or not we find the line funny, it is clearly not meant to be taken seriously. There is no credible suggestion that the author has ever raped, or planned to rape, one girl, let alone 100.
The comments referring to specific women are equally outrageous. ‘Rape her in the street while everybody watches’, urges one contributor. His friend adds: ‘Rape the whole flat to teach them all a lesson.’ This is an obnoxious, horrible exchange. No one wants to be discussed in such a way. However, although entirely void of humour, it’s still hard to take these comments seriously. Yet they have been, and continue to be, taken very seriously indeed.
The targeted women, angry and aggrieved, described themselves as being the victims of ‘violent’ sexual taunts and claimed the chat had left them feeling unsafe. This is, perhaps, an understandable initial response. But no one at the university challenged this interpretation. No one took the group to one side to reprimand the men and reassure the women. As a result, this view of the women as traumatised and vulnerable was allowed to set the tone for subsequent events.
An internal investigation followed, described as ‘horrendous’ and ‘traumatic’ by one of the women involved. It was led by Warwick’s head of press and media relations, lending weight to claims that the university was most concerned about its image. However traumatic the investigation was for the women, the upshot was that 11 male students were temporarily suspended, with six being banned from campus for periods ranging from one year to life. Once tuition fees and living expenses already paid – as well as the time and cost of starting a degree elsewhere – are taken into account, this is a very severe punishment for an idiotic private exchange.
Two of the male students subject to a 10-year ban appealed and had their punishment reduced to one year. The women argued this left them fearful of seeing the men on campus. Again, rather than the women being reassured that even if they did meet the men concerned they were in no physical danger and would survive the encounter, the off-campus chorus backed the view that the women would be traumatised. In response to student protests, public outrage and a social-media campaign called #ShameOnYouWarwick, the university announced that the two male students would not be returning.
Last week, an independent review criticised Warwick’s handling of the scandal and recommended reforms to improve its handling of sexual violence and misconduct. In turn, the university’s vice-chancellor issued an apology to the women concerned, two of whom are currently suing the university for discrimination and negligence. One woman has spoken out after an administrative mix-up meant she ended up sitting next to a man involved in the case in her final exam. So, this non-rape rape scandal looks set to run and run.
Two assumptions, reinforced by universities, have driven this case forward. The first is that words are violence, meaning there is little difference between having been subject to a sexual assault and having been spoken of in a sexually graphic way. The sexual taunts the women read about themselves were clearly interpreted as ‘violent’ in a way that would inevitably induce trauma from which they would never recover. This blurring of words and actions trivialises the experiences of women who have been raped.
The second assumption is that the university has a duty of care to look after students and keep them not just physically safe, but also protected from words, even words intended only for a private audience. One of the women involved in the case and now suing the university has said: ‘I think that if you are a girl or if you’re a minority, if you’ve been through past traumas, knowing that your university is going to care for you is really important. I think right now Warwick haven’t proven their ability to do that.’ But students are young adults and universities are not in loco parentis. Universities cannot protect people from hearing – or reading – things they may find offensive.
It’s hard not to agree with the conclusion drawn by the independent review into the Warwick scandal: that there had been ‘a profoundly unsatisfactory outcome for almost every single person involved’. The incident, such as it was, should have been dealt with in a couple of hours. Instead, the punishment for the men involved far exceeds the idiocy of engaging in vile online oneupmanship. The university is still making headlines for all the wrong reasons. And the women targeted have come to believe they were victims of some heinous crime that will define not just their time as students, but also the rest of their lives.
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'Bad science': Australian studies found to be unreliable, compromised
Hundreds of scientific research papers published by Australian scientists have been found to be unreliable or compromised, fuelling calls for a national science watchdog.
For the first time, a team of science writers behind Retraction Watch has put together a database of compromised scientific research in Australia.
Over the past two decades, 247 scientific research papers - some associated with the country's most reputable universities - have been found to be compromised.
The database reveals the scale of scientific misconduct in Australia, although senior scientists claim it is just the tip of the iceberg.
"The public should be concerned. Almost 250 [papers], that’s a number that many people would find unconscionably high," said Professor Simon Gandevia, deputy director of Neuroscience Research Australia. "The public should be aware the bulk of medical research in Australia is paid for by the taxpayer. You are paying for this."
Among the cases is a researcher at the University of New South Wales, who designed a drug to treat skin cancer that was trialled on humans. Although an investigation by the university made no findings of error, a research paper about the drug was retracted due to concerns about the accuracy of some of the scientific data behind it.
Five other papers, which the same scientist was involved in, have also been retracted, the last being voluntary.
In 2017, researchers at the University of Melbourne had to retract a study on a possible treatment for motor neurone disease after it was discovered the work made false claims based on inadvertently duplicated images. The research was severely compromised and the paper was withdrawn.
In May this year, research on wind turbines by scientists at the University of Tasmania was retracted from the Energy Science and Engineering journal due to issues with the peer review process - the independent scientific assessment of the study's accuracy. "The retraction has been agreed ... due to evidence indicating the peer review of the paper was compromised," the journal said.
In 2016, a former University of Queensland professor pleaded guilty to 17 fraud-related charges relating to Parkinson's disease research.
The scale of the problem strengthens the case for the government to establish a "bad science" watchdog, Professor Gandevia said.
Countries, including the USA, have a government agency charged with investigating scientists.
Professor David Vaux, deputy director of the Melbourne-based Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, said he has seen dozens of cases of possible scientific misconduct.
"Researchers are under tremendous pressure, and falsifying data is the easy way out," he said. "In Australia, universities and institutes self regulate, so they’re able to cover it up, and they rarely resist this temptation. "When I raise this, I worry people will say you cannot trust scientists and that would be a disaster. There is a lot of good science.
"The problem is the Australian model of self regulation, which is a problem because of conflicts of interest. Australian researchers are no better or worse than those from other countries, but unlike other countries, Australia does not have a national office to handle these concerns."
Professor Vaux said it was extremely difficult to get a journal to retract a paper, and many more problematic papers go unretracted, meaning the 247 retractions were "just the tip of the iceberg".
Professor Gandevia and Professor Vaux have been campaigning to establish an Australian Office of Research Integrity – essentially a bad science watchdog, empowered to investigate academics. They took the proposal to Health Minister Greg Hunt 18 months ago, and believed he was supportive.
But the proposal has stalled, which the professors attribute to strong opposition from Universities Australia.
Catriona Jackson, chief executive of Universities Australia, strongly denied suggestions the institutions did not invite scrutiny, and pointed to a new Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research which has been put in place.
"We are not opposed to an office of research integrity, but note that a number of other mechanisms for monitoring research integrity and quality are in place," she said in a statement.
"Researchers must comply with [the] new code or face strong sanctions including repercussions for their employment at an institution, loss of public funding, and even the potential for criminal procedures in cases of very serious breaches."
The response to retractions from universities varies widely.
After being contacted by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald about scientific research papers which had been retracted, the University of New England and Griffith University both launched investigations.
The University of Tasmania said it "does not disclose details of matters concerning individual students or staff members".
The University of NSW said no findings of misconduct had been made against the professor with six retracted papers. "In each case and when considered together, where errors were identified by the panels, they were found to be unintentional and not affecting scientific conclusions in published papers," a spokeswoman said.
The University of Melbourne said it received a formal complaint about the paper that was later retracted, and conducted its own investigation. Disciplinary action was taken against the academics involved, a spokesman said.
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