The Pushkin Prize for Egregiously Deceptive Self-Promotion

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin, and the Emmy goes too, and the Oscar goes to and the People's Choice Award goes.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: To Thank you to the Academy for this incredible recognition.

00:00:36
Speaker 3: I'm so honored. I'm so honored.

00:00:39
Speaker 4: Everybody want to know what I would do if I didn't win.

00:00:47
Speaker 5: I guess we'll never know.

00:00:53
Speaker 6: Everybody gets a prize in modern America, actors, writers, musicians. But you know who doesn't get a fancy prize the hard working administrators of America's elite colleges and universities. For years, I've observed this oversight with what can only be described as dismay, until I decided, damn it, if this country wasn't gonna honor the beleaguered giants of the Ivy League, then I would. My name is Malcolm Blackwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. In this episode, we are pleased to inaugurate the first annual Revisionist History Higher Education Award in honor of our company's namesake. We're gonna call them the Pushkin Prizes. Folks. These prizes are super prestigious. You can't see this because this is audio but we have little gold statuettes of Alexander Pushkin himself. You're gonna walk into the lobby of your favorite eighteenth century ivy colored marble granite University Administration building and they are in a glass case. Below the tiffany chandelier is going to be a Pushkin. That is, if you're lucky. I promise that over the next few years, the giants of American academia will be graced with a Pushkin statuette in recognition of one stupendous achievement or another. And in this episode, we begin our awards program with the mac Daddy of Pushkin Prizes, the George Santos Memorial Pushkin Prize for egregiously Deceptive Self Promotion.

00:02:54
Speaker 7: My parents came to this country in search of the American dream. Today I live that American dream, only in this country, only in this country. And the little boy born in a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City, become a United States Congressman at thirty four. It's a story of survival, of tenacity, of grit, as we like to call it.

00:03:25
Speaker 6: Actually, it's not a story of survival, tenacity and grit as we like to call it the story of George Santos, Congressman from Long Island, is the story of someone who made up basically everything on his resume. And it is that shamelessness that we seek to reward with the first of the coveted Pushkin Prizes.

00:03:46
Speaker 7: Good morning, Chabatsalom too, everybody. Thank you for being here, Thank you for having me. We're no stranger to persecution. My grandfather fleeing Ukraine in nineteen twenties to Belgium.

00:03:57
Speaker 6: Turns out he's not Jewish. Santos said his mom was a nine to eleven survivor. Turns out she wasn't even in New York City during nine to eleven. He said he worked at Goldman Sachs. It turns out he never set foot in Golden Sex. And then there was this tallest of tall tales, which I love so much.

00:04:18
Speaker 4: Hey, you know what's funny, George. You go right to the heart here of me. Sid and Bernie.

00:04:23
Speaker 6: This is Santos on a local New York radio show Sid and Friends in the Morning during his first congressional run in twenty twenty, and the host Sid Rosenberg starts talking about sports.

00:04:35
Speaker 4: At the very end of your biography, It says in his spare time, George Anthony enjoys volleyball and tennis.

00:04:44
Speaker 6: Rosenberg says, that's funny because both his daughter and his co host daughter are avid volleyball and tennis players. Then Santo's response, you know, it's funny.

00:04:54
Speaker 8: I actually went to school on a volleyball scholarship.

00:04:58
Speaker 6: I did what I did.

00:04:59
Speaker 8: Yeah, when I was in Beruke, we were the number one volleyball.

00:05:03
Speaker 4: Did you graduate from barok? Did you graduate from them?

00:05:05
Speaker 5: Yeah?

00:05:06
Speaker 4: So did I did?

00:05:06
Speaker 8: I did so?

00:05:07
Speaker 4: Did I?

00:05:07
Speaker 8: Oh? Very cool cho great institutions. But it's funny that we went to play against Harvard Yale and we play them. We were champions across the entire Northeast corridor. Every school that came up against us, they were shaking at the time. And it's funny. I was the smallest guy and I'm six two. We had on our block, on our on our on our block alone, there were six seven sixty eight. These guys weren't jumping, they were just stretching their arms up. We were, we were and all of us could have been playing basketball, but we chose volleyball because it was easier. So it was a great time I look, I sacrificed both my knees and got very nice knee replacements. Knee replacements from Assa's playing volleyball. That's how serious I took the game.

00:05:54
Speaker 4: Well, that's how serious you're taking politics as well. Remember this name, folks, George Santos out in the third district.

00:05:59
Speaker 6: This is, to my mind, the gold standard George Santos fabrication, a wedding cake of prevarication. The Washington posted a breakdown to the tape, and here's what they found. Let's start with the smallest lies and work backwards. Brooke didn't beat Yale at volleyball because Yale doesn't have a varsity volleyball team. Santels later said he played the position of striker. Volleyball teams don't have strikers. That suck. Nor did Santos have a volleyball scholarship at Baruque because Baruq doesn't give out volleyball scholarships, and at six', two he would not have been the shortest player in the team even if he had been on the, team but he. Wasn't he never played volleyball At, baruk maybe because he never Attended baruk at, all which means his needs are perfectly, fine unless that, is he blew them out playing some other imaginary. Sport that's seven lies in a. Row and if you listen to the, tape it's clear that he made up the whole string on the. Fly the man is an. Icon and with our First Pushkin, prize we ask What american college came closest in the past year to this lofty. Standard believe, me they were many, nominees all of them. Worthy envelope, please and the winner Is Columbia.

00:07:23
Speaker 2: University the big beginning when you heard when you, SAID i want to Investigate columbia's rise to number, two did, you in the back of your mind think there might be something questionable going?

00:07:40
Speaker 5: On, yes not even, no not in the back of my. Mind at the front of my, mind.

00:07:43
Speaker 6: You're listening to a math professor At columbia Named Michael, thaddius fifties long. HAIR i went to see him in his office on The columbia, campus full of books and, strange captivating jottings on the. Wall my father was a. MATHEMATICIAN i have great affection for the. Species if you Google, thadius you'll find papers that begin with things like we discuss sympletic cutting For hamiltonian actions of Non abelian compact. Groups by using a degeneration based on The vinburg, monoid we give in good cases a global quotient description of a surgery construction introduced By woodward n mind, ranking and show it can be interpreted in algebra geometric. TERMS i have no idea what that, means But Michael thaddius, does which is to say that when it comes to numbers and statistics and, things he's someone to take very. Seriously so one, day not long, ago he hears something that doesn't seem.

00:08:40
Speaker 5: Right SO i saw That columbia had risen to number. TWO i think in, fact this was even mentioned by our own dean at a faculty. MEETING i think that's HOW i found out about.

00:08:50
Speaker 6: It the dean announces to, EVERYONE i have amazing. News columbia has just risen to number two in THE Us News college, rankings just a hair Behind. Princeton everyone basks in the glow of the school's extraordinary, achievement because you know what a HIGH Us news rankings, means more alumni, dollars more, prestige more, applications more excitement and desire from neurotic upper middle class suburban. Parents for anyone With Ivy league, dreams it's the holy. GRAIL i, mean if you have a kid in high school and your kids, Said, MOM i just got Into, columbia you will be over the. Moon and why would you be over the Moon Because columbia is number two in THE Us news. Rankings so The dean makes for big, announcement But Michael, thaddeus the numbers, guy isn't buying.

00:09:41
Speaker 5: It and that just piqued my. Curiosity two is pretty high. Ranking you, Know in, particular we were tied With harvard AND, mit which are institutions that objectively have certain big advantages over. Us they have much larger, endowments they have much more space than we. Do AND i just you, Know i've also over the, Years i've taken a greater and, greater perhaps almost obsessive interest in facts and figures about the. UNIVERSITY i look at a lot of websites where the numbers, appear AND i just, wondered how Could columbia have performed so well on this ranking as to be tied with institutions that have these objective advantages over. It how do the numbers break?

00:10:20
Speaker 6: Down columbia started in these rankings at, eighteenth then began a, steady dramatic climb Past, Cornell, washington Uw, Rice, Vanderbilt, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Duke, Caltech Penn Johns, Hopkins university Of, Chicago, Yale. Stanford in the past five years, alone they've gone from fifth to third to, second shooting like a shiny asteroid past their glittering. Peers i'm a.

00:10:56
Speaker 4: Runner you.

00:10:56
Speaker 6: Know in the running, world the tell for whether someone is doping is in an unexpected. Improvement you, know when the twenty seven year old miler suddenly lops three seconds off their personal. BEST i see you, say.

00:11:14
Speaker 5: Sudden improvement is the tell sudden out of context.

00:11:18
Speaker 6: Improvement oh. My the first Thing thadius did after the faculty meeting is by a subscription to THE Us news. Rankings he downloaded the Data columbia submitted for his, application and his eye falls on class. Size columbia reported TO Us news that eighty two point five percent of its classes had less than twenty. Students thaddius looked at that number and, thought.

00:11:47
Speaker 5: Huh anyone who was taught here AS i have for the last twenty five, years knows that our class sizes are not particularly small for an elite, university and that they have been steadily. Growing i'm teaching, calculus OR i have just finished teaching a calculus course that had about seventy six, students and that's typical for a course of that. NATURE Us news said that what was it? AGAIN i think eighty two point five percent of all classes enrolled below twenty, students and that just did not square with my experience at.

00:12:21
Speaker 6: All so he decided to fact Check columbia's. Claim he went to the university's class catalog and pulled out the data on all thirty thousand of the school's.

00:12:31
Speaker 5: CLASSES i took THE html code of those, pages downloaded the source, code concatenated all the. Files THEN i used a text, Editor emacs to edit the resulting gigantic file in such a way THAT i turned it into a database comma separated database with the course, names, numbers, enrollments and THEN i opened it up In.

00:12:55
Speaker 6: Excel he analyzed the, data double checked his, math and realized his pokey feeling was.

00:13:02
Speaker 5: JUSTIFIED i was able to arrive at an estimate it was more like sixty two to sixty eight, percent a far cry from eighty three.

00:13:10
Speaker 6: Percent now he's getting. Suspicious he picks another. Number THE Us news rankings penalizes the school if it has too many part time. Faculty columbia TOLD Us news that it only had one hundred and thirty seven part, timers but that has found that the school also had to report the statistic to The department Of.

00:13:30
Speaker 5: Education the number reporter of the government was over one, thousand AND i think that that's the more accurate number to, me this is a really important figure that the balance between full time and part time faculty is a crucial matter for the future of intellectual life and the future Of american. Universities if we just casualize our, faculty we switched to the sort of gig economy model where most people are working contingentally at part. Time that's going to be disastrous for the quality of. Education it's going to be disastrous for the quality of intellectual. Life and so we need to have, honest reliable figures about. This and yet we have these two figures From columbia that differ by a factor of.

00:14:11
Speaker 6: Eight he kept, GOING Us news wants to know what percentage of your faculty has a terminal degree in their. Field, basically do they have a PhD or. Not columbia reported the highest terminal degree number of any college in the entire, country ninety nine point five, percent WHICH Us news rounded up to one hundred. Percent that's. Everyone So thadius goes through the faculty directory and looks to see if there's anyone teaching At columbia who only has a bachelor's degree and finds dozens and dozens of faculty with no more than A ba to their.

00:14:44
Speaker 5: Name and that was enough that there was no way that the percentage could have been ninety nine point.

00:14:49
Speaker 6: Five columbia says it's student faculty ratio is six to. One it's. Not it's more like eleven to. One on and on.

00:14:58
Speaker 5: Every single figure that WHERE i could check it, INDEPENDENTLY i found a significant discrepancy between what was reported TO Us news and WHAT i could confirm.

00:15:08
Speaker 6: Elsewhere then he sat down and wrote up a massive analysis of his findings, charts, graphs computer, analyzes pages upon. Pages he puts it up on his faculty web, page and there it sits for weeks and weeks, until for some strange, reason someone posts a link To thaddeus's manifesto on the message board of the running Website let's run dot. Com if you are unfamiliar with the message boards Of Let's, run here are some typical. Threads two he runs crazy four to twenty three anchor leg FOR Nc, state but still not enough for d mr. Or at twenty, SEVEN i finally realized every tattoo anyone has is for attracting a mate Or Rip, spencer the official dog of The Boston, marathon has. Died now how DO i know about? This Because Let's run is one of my favorite. WEBSITES i am one of those people dutifully reading The Let's run message. Boards SO i see a link and click on. It because you know HOW i feel about THE us news. Rankings i'm obsessed with. Them i've lost track of how many revisionist history episodes have been devoted to testifying to their. STUPIDITY i don't understand why college administrators care so much about, them why parents and their college bound teenagers go nuts about. Them when law schools and medical schools began dropping out of THE us, RANKINGS i walked around the streets Of New york pounding on my chest LIKE i was personally. Responsible do you see What i'm? SAYING i was the target audience for The thaddeus Expose.

00:16:46
Speaker 5: AGAIN i salute. You you were serre of the tipping, point AS i, SAID i, mean but when you started tweeting about, it that was when the rest of the world started to take. Notice So i'm grateful for.

00:16:56
Speaker 6: That, oh the first nice thing anyone has ever said about My. Twitter so the story goes. Everywhere colombia goes into a defensive, crouch and THE Us news reanalyzes the situation and Downgrades columbia back to. Eighteen, oh how the mighty have. FALLEN i know what you're. Thinking The Pushkin prize is a highly prestigious. Award those statuettes are. Coveted so how can we be sure That columbia meets the elevated standard set by our Namesake George? Santos very good. Question please join me as we break it. Down to my, mind there are three Criteria columbia needs to meet to rise To santos level. Deception the first is. Gratuitousness that's the power of The santos bit about his volleyball career At. Baruk this was a lie fundamentally different from his claims to Being, jewish working At Golden sachs and running a charity for unwanted. Pets SORRY i left that one out. Before those were all lies that helped his case with the voters Of Long. ISLAND A jewish investment banker who loves domestic animals is pretty much The Long island equivalent Of George. Clooney but no one was going to vote for him because he blew out two knees battling as the shortest man on The barut volleyball. Squad he had them A Jewish Goldman sachs and abandoned. Kittens the volleyball lie was pure gilding the, lily and that's what makes it so. Heroic santos lied when it wasn't even in his interest to. Lie now Does columbia meet this? Standard was their deception? Gratuitous in order to answer this, QUESTION i turned To Revisionist history's resident data, Scientist Lauren. Lavelle, Lauren Lauren, Lauren, Hey, malcolm we ride. Again some of you may Remember lauren from The Project dillard episdisode Of Revision's. HISTORY a group of undergraduates that read college hacked their way into THE Us news, algorithm which gave them a computer model that can test any hypothesis about a school's. Rankings SO i Asked, lauren who studied statistics At, read to use the model to figure out how a historically black college could rise in THE Us news. Rankings you may recall her. Answer it was the best way for a college full of black students to rise in THE Us news rankings was to let in lots of white.

00:19:40
Speaker 4: Students AND i.

00:19:42
Speaker 3: Can't emphasize enough that this model was built by undergraduate students for a class. Project they did a great, job and this model works. Amazingly you, know it wasn't some super prestigious data scientists getting paid millions of dollars to do this for some super prestigious university like it's.

00:20:02
Speaker 6: Students in other, words the barriers to manipulation are. Low, Yes SO i said To, lauren let's use the Trusted read college model to get at this question of. GRATUITOUSNESS i send her a list of questions starting with tell me which Of columbia's whoppers mattered the, most and her conclusion was a.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: Shocker the thing that really making the biggest difference is the faculty resources. Category so for faculty, resources we have our class, size our percent of our faculty that are full time and our student to faculty.

00:20:35
Speaker 6: RATIO Us news grades all universities on a scale of zero to one, hundred So princeton at number one is one. Hundred columbia is a close second at ninety. Six according To lauren's, analysis fiddling with just those three variables Gave columbia an eight point. Boost and the reason that's unexpected is because faculty resources only count for a tiny amount in the OVERALL Us news ranking. Algorithm you tinker with those, variables you get a massive.

00:21:07
Speaker 3: Payoff exactly when you change just one or two of, them, again it's only like a one or two, Point but when you put all three of them, together it's the synergies between these variables that create these big. Jumps, wait so on.

00:21:22
Speaker 6: Apausitives, yeah this is really interesting because this supports the notion that this was not an accidental happening At. Columbia this suggests there was some significant thought behind, this because what you told me is something that's not. Intuitive. RIGHT i would have thought that you could identify one whiz bank that would have given us a massive. Payoff we wouldn't have had to do anything. Else but what you're saying is, no You, actually it's an unexpected area gives you a huge. Payoff and also if you want to get a twelve point, swing you have to tinker with a lot of.

00:21:57
Speaker 3: Variables, absolutely, Absolutely.

00:21:59
Speaker 6: And there's there's some kind of thing greater than the some of its parts that's that work here that you could only stumble on if you went behind the scenes and sort of tried to figure out a murky black box that is us.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: News, yes that is exactly What i'm. Saying so can we do screen share on? Here is that a? Thing CAN i show you my?

00:22:19
Speaker 6: Code can? You can you tilt your camera to just show me the thing IN i? See, oh oh it's on your? Screen can you screen share an? Emo, Lauren i'm fifty nine years. OLD i barely know how to work a. Computer, sorry this went on for a. Bit this is what happens when a data scientist tries to communicate with a boomer over. Zoom lauren laps into geek mode for like twenty, minutes talking about unexpected. Nonlinearities her point was that the way to climb the rankings is not. Obvious it's a laundry list of nips and tucks that an unexpected combination give you a. Facelift if you tried to do it just by eyeballing the criteria THAT Us news makes, public you'd fail to go back to the POINT i was, saying to my, mind this argues powerfully for some kind of premeditation on the part Of. COLUMBIA i, mean we have no idea what they, did so it is all in the realm of. Speculation but they basically manufactured a twelve point. Swing and it's very hard to imagine how you could manufacture a twelve point swing by the seat of your, pants because it's not.

00:23:34
Speaker 3: INTUITIVE i, agree there's probably some dirty play happening, Somewhere.

00:23:41
Speaker 6: Lauren they hired someone like, you that's what they. Did somewhere out, there there is some brainy twenty six year old with blood on their.

00:23:50
Speaker 3: HANDS i, mean, maybe to.

00:23:55
Speaker 6: Be, CLEAR i don't know that they hired someone Like lauren to coordinate. This but here's the crucial fact that Puts columbia In George santo's. Territory lots Of columbia's inventions don't have much of a, payoff, like for, instance their most spectacular nonsense of all The Big kahuna concerns something called instructional resources the more money you spend on, teaching the MORE Us news rewards. You and the number Of columbia claim to spend on teaching was hilariously, large just over three billion. Dollars that he has spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out just where that preposterous number came, from before he realized they just added in the one point two billion they spend every year on patient care At columbia's medical. Center they're pretending that the person getting an Appendect toby is a, student which is completely and utterly. Bananas now what difference did this particular outrageous bit Of shenanigan.

00:24:58
Speaker 3: Make let's, SEE i have a graph. Somewhere, Okay So columbia reported that it spends about three billion dollars on an. Instruction this is for fiscal year twenty twenty, two and it's consolidated financial. Statements they report for instruction and educational administration about two billion. Dollars.

00:25:23
Speaker 6: Oh the reason we know this is a lie is that on its official financial, statements which are audited by actual, professionals the school doesn't pull the same.

00:25:32
Speaker 3: Stunt so that's a billion dollars extra that they're reporting TO. Us news, basically and when that works out on a per student, basis you, know it's a lot of money that they're kind, of you, feel playing around with Their.

00:25:49
Speaker 6: Are you telling me long that a billion dollars is a lot of money in your?

00:25:52
Speaker 3: Book, yeah imagine, That like this number that's so large the human brain literally can't even. Understand. Imagine and yet when we drop that three billion down to two billion, dollars we're still only seeing like a three point drop in the, score two or three. Points so from about ninety six to about a ninety four or ninety three three.

00:26:21
Speaker 6: Points that's. It if they were only going to cheat by inflating their student instructional expenditures by a, billion they only get a three point jump. Exactly, okay, right it's good to.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: Know which sounds, crazy, Right like that's a lot of money to not really make a big difference in your. Score.

00:26:42
Speaker 6: Yeah so if you're the president Of columbia AND i come to you AND i say we can drop an imaginary billion into this and we're only getting three, points you're, Saying, okay But i'm. Not it's not floating your.

00:26:54
Speaker 3: Boat, yeah it doesn't seem like a very high return. Rate you know What i'm, saying it's.

00:26:59
Speaker 6: Gratuitous it's just Like George santos And baruke volleyball in. Retrospect that was their, error wasn't. It they shouldn't have done the bill. Done the billion dollar thing was so obvious to At, regis and it gave them such a small. Payoff, yeah why if you're trying to get away with some, shenanigans would.

00:27:19
Speaker 3: You it's a ridiculous, overstatement like it's more than it's larger than the corresponding figures For, Harvard, yale And princeton. COMBINED i, know, Bananas like it's so.

00:27:35
Speaker 6: Bananas here's my you know what my interpretation. Is so there's like some dude man or woman is charged with coming up with a strategy and that that's the one they do. Last so it's like it's It's monday morning at three. Am they got a hand in their proposal for hacking THE Us. News by nine, am they've been up for forty eight. Hours they've done all the hard, stuff and they're, like f let's just throw it an extra bill on this they why.

00:28:04
Speaker 3: Not throw in a few extra?

00:28:06
Speaker 6: Zeros the bar set By George santos was very. High The Pushkin prize committee Believes columbia met it okay criteria number. Two the second thing our, Namesake George santos teaches us is that you have to show as little remorse as. Possible when the furer over his lies was at its, peak he was.

00:28:35
Speaker 7: UNRUFFLED i don't understand where these allegations come. From, Oh George santels lives in a fantasy world or whatever it is that they're trying to elude, there because it's just people who know me know that that's just not the.

00:28:48
Speaker 6: Case people who know, me which is, hilarious, right because the whole reason there was a controversy Over George santos is that he wouldn't tell us who he. Was at some, point some enterprising journalists counted seven different names That santos has used over the years For Pushkin prize. Consideration we need that kind of. Morselessness let me give you WHAT i think is a relevant. Counterexample it Concerns Temple university's Online Business. School the story goes the dean of the b school, there a man Named Mosha, pori was upset about his school's LOW Us news, ranking so he sends several of his underlings To, washington D. C to complain to THE Us news rankings, team and in the course of that, MEETING Us news let slip that they don't actually check any of the data that schools send. Them so the underlings report this back To, mosha And mosha's, like, GREAT i guess there's no state troopers on this stretch of the university Prestige. Highway so he hires a data. Scientist they figure out that what really matters for online business schools is what percentage of the school's incoming class has taken THE. Gmat In temple's, case it's something like nineteen. Percent So mosha changes that number to one hundred, percent And Vola temple's Online business school faults to number one in THE Us News online B school. Rankings now you hear that story and you say to, yourself why Wasn't mosha up for a pushkin? Price and believe, me we thought long and hard about his. NOMINATION i, Mean mosha was convicted of fraud and sentenced to fourteen. Months he committed a.

00:30:32
Speaker 9: Crime the charges Against parat were not just simply that he DEFRAUDED Us News, rankings but that he defrauded applicants to the, school students at the, school and, donors all of whom look at the rankings and making their decision about where to direct their.

00:30:52
Speaker 6: Money That's Jennifer, williams who was in THE Us attorney's office In philadelphia at the time of The temple.

00:30:59
Speaker 9: Case and in, fact the, scheme as charged in the, indictment was very. Successful not only did the rankings improve, dramatically but the enrollment went way up and the total amount of tuition That temple was able to get due to the increased enrollment was almost forty million dollars over the course of several. Years so that is the goal of the. Fraud that's what made this a.

00:31:20
Speaker 6: Crime so why Doesn't temple get The Sentos award, because and this is, crucial the school has too much Remorse when word leaks out About moshess. Shedanigans the school hires a big name outside law, Firm Jones day to. Investigate the university pays out millions of dollars in damages to the students who enrolled thinking they were getting a degree from the number one rank school in the. Country it Was temple who turned In mosha to the. Authorities this is not How columbia behaved at. All thaddeus releases his report On february twenty, eighth twenty twenty, two And columbia responds with a press release from the school's provost On june, thirtieth months. Later i'm. Quoting columbia has long conducted what we believe to be a thorough process for gathering and reporting institutional, data but we are now closely reviewing our processes in light of the questions. Raised the ongoing review is a matter of. Integrity we will take no shortcuts in getting it. Right temple, hired one of the world's biggest law. Firms colombia launched a.

00:32:40
Speaker 5: Review the approach has been just to say as little as, possible try to attract as little, attention and wait for the storm to blow.

00:32:48
Speaker 6: Over you're saying that no member of the administration has reached out to you since you published that.

00:32:52
Speaker 5: Article Good. God, no, wait that's. Nuts that's. Nuts i'm glad you think. SO i asked the question at a faculty. Meeting did the review That columbia conducted explore the question of intent about whether you know these falsehoods were provided? Intentionally did anyone know that they were? False and if so, who and the answer, was, well, no our review did not look into that. Question so it's clear to me that the review was not seriously intended to get to the bottom of the. Matter was not a review.

00:33:24
Speaker 6: Because The santos criteria are so. RIGOROUS i REALIZED i needed to take further steps to see If columbia's remorselessness remained in. Place, FIRST i waited to see whether they would update The june thirtieth press. RELEASE i, waited waited six months, past so THEN i DECIDED i needed to contact them. DIRECTLY i sent an, email asked for an interview with the. Provost, waited, waited, waited until finally someone in the media relations department emailed me back with a link to the press release Of june. Thirtieth we are not commenting beyond the statements issued, BELOW i was. Told SO i respond BECAUSE i don't want some blogger down the line SAYING i rush to judgment on the remorselessness. Criteria are you? SURE i write. BACK i talk About Michael, THADDEUS i tell him About lauren and her computer. MODEL i tell him About Jennifer williams talking about The temple. Case are you? Sure for the university not to comment under these, circumstances, will from your, perspective be. Problematic don't you THINK a week, PASSES i get an email, Back we're working on. IT a month. Passes finally get another, email essentially restating the original press. RELEASE i print out the statement and run around the office holding it. HIGH i can't believe. It we have met the formal standard for. Remorselessness one last part of. Me you have to be reckless to win A pushkin. Prize your lines have to put you in potential jeopardy if if you want to win one of our coveted gold. Statuettes we have, gratuitousness we have, Remorselessness but do we have? Recklessness we? Do and to say, HOW i need to be serious for a. SECOND i actually Love. COLUMBIA i think it's an extraordinary place full of extraordinary. PEOPLE i can't tell you how many Times i've sat in the office of some professor At columbia and had the world opened up for. ME i Love, columbia even THOUGH i Know columbia will never Be princeton Or. Harvard they're never going to have fifty billion dollars in the, bank and without fifty billion dollars in the. Bank it's awfully hard to climb to the top of THE Us news. Rankings but The president Of columbia ought to be able to stand up and, say we are the pre eminent institution of learning in the greatest city in the, world and if we have lots of part time, faculty it's because we are drawing on the resources of amazing people who spend their working days On broadway Or Madison avenue Or Wall. Street and if our classes are, large it just means that every student has the privilege of rubbing shoulders with lots of other curious and willing. Students and by the, way if you are someone who believes at the best measure of a university's intellectual vitality is how much money it has in the, bank or what percentage of its faculty have, PhDs or how many students are in its, classes Then columbia is probably going to be wasted on. You The president Of columbia ought to be able to stand up and explain to the world What columbia is and what it stands. For but he didn't do, that and his school got consumed with succeeding at a rankings game that is morally and intellectually bankrupt some jackass in The columbia. Administration AND i have no idea who it, was BUT i hope they are found out and made to do one thousand hours of community service teaching arithmetic to some first. Grader that jackass decided to cook the. Books and now what do we have a school that has broken the most fundamental of promises.

00:37:20
Speaker 4: To its own.

00:37:21
Speaker 6: Community let me quote to you from The Columbia University code Of, conduct The Ethical. Standard columbia holds its own students to, falsification, forgery or misrepresentation of information to any university official in order to gain an unfair academic advantage in coursework or lab work on any, application, petition or documents submitted to the university is. Prohibited this, includes but is not limited, to falsifying information on a, resume fabrication of credentials or academic, records misrepresenting one's own, research and providing false or misleading. Information ladies and, GENTLEMEN i give you the winner of The Pushkin prize for, gratuitous, remorseless and recklessly deceptive self. Promotion this episode Of Revisionist history was produced By Kiara powell With Leemingestou Ben Adafh haffrey And Jacob. Smith original scoring By Luis, skara fact checking By Kishelle williams And Tolly. Emlin our showrunner Is Peter, clowney mastering By Flaon, williams engineering By Nina, lawrence and special things To columbia's Own Michael, fatius who not only did the research that inspired this, episode but also made a joke WHEN i was talking to him that inspired name of our first Ever Santos Memorial. Prize there's a PostScript to this. Story On june, sixth two days before this episode, Aired Columbia university made an announcement they were dropping out of THE Us News undergraduate, rankings becoming the FIRST Ivy league school to abandon THE Us news methodology that did so much to make THE Ivy league THE Ivy. League the press, release like so many of the press releases issued By columbia over the course of this, controversy read like it was dictated by a room of ten thousand dollars an hour attorneys on a zoom call from Midtown. Manhattan in a, Statement columbia said that in response to the allegations of, cheating it had, quote conducted an exhaustive internal, review and where errors were, confirmed is shoot public corrections and made changes to the collection methodologies that led to the. INACCURACIES i got an email From Michael thaddeus almost. Immediately this is completely, untrue he. Wrote columbia has never corrected the false information it, provided probably over many, years TO Us news about class sizes or about proportion of full time. Faculty for. Example what it did was admit in a general way to quote, outdated end or incorrect methodologies and acknowledged that quote class sized data was previously reported incorrectly, unquote but it never corrected the false, figures nor has it even specified which figures were false or for how.

00:40:54
Speaker 8: Long end of.

00:40:56
Speaker 6: Quote oh and by the, way the school's, provost whose office is responsible for its submissions TO Us, news suddenly announced that she was resigning after an unusually short term. Office we may have to do a follow, up don't you Think if you're listening To revision's history on pushkim, plus you already know the pleasure of hearing our shows early and without. Ads if you're not part of, pushkimplus my, friends you're missing. Out our season's really heating. Up you will not regret. This get our new episodes two weeks, early and listen to every episode of this your favorite, show ad free