49 Comments

GB is a troll who just spams. Ban him please.

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DEI is toxic.

Thanks for exposing this.

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I get so steamed thinking of the salaries these DEI promotors get compared to those of nurses, police, firefighters, janitors, and truck drivers make!

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No wonder universities are always in deficit! Dismantle all distorted DEI and fire them all to save money and students from neo-Marxist ideology brainwashing.

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was this written by college students?

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Is all of the nonsense we're dealing with (weaponized migrations, DEI, FED Debt, dishonest media, education deterioration, unjust wars, broken healthcare system, etc.) all part of the one world government plan? They are clearly destroying nearly all American institutions on purpose by not hiring based on merit, but is it all coordinated and part of some Marxist, authoritarian program?

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what's "weaponized migrations"? do you think "dishonest media" is a new thing? Do you thing federal debt is a new thing? what "unjust wars" are you talking about, and how do "unjust" wars differ from "just" wars? Please, tell us more about Marxism. Also, please tell us more about "the one world government plan."

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6dEdited

Please request all records and communications related to hiring policies and criteria within the Dept of Humanities, and, specifically the Dept of History, at Ohio State over the past few years. I was told directly by someone in that department how they hired new history faculty two years ago. First, the hiring committee made it very clear, albeit perhaps via indirect, vague language, that all new hires would be black. This is referred to euphemistically as “cluster hiring”. The actual meaning appears to be that only members of certain groups, or, in this case one group, will be hired, so there is no point in doing more than going through the motions with anyone else.

The hiring committee still created a fairly long list of serious candidates, but were only picking black candidates from that list. It was a clear threshold requirement. This person told me they (singular - I’m being vague in order help disguise the person who told me these things) considered one candidate, a white woman, clearly the most impressive. Her focus - something about indigenous ecological movements in Africa - even fit the bill. But she had no chance. This person (who is a mainstream Democrat) said that the first candidate actually chosen was very impressive and likely would’ve been on any of short list based on merit. They said the second candidate chosen was also reasonably impressive, but never would’ve been close to being chosen without that threshold criterion. They said the third candidate chosen was a real reach, and someone who would’ve ranked way down the list of (well over a hundred) finalists. They described the hiring process as “cringy and gross”.

Because I didn’t want to get into a disagreement, I kept my response focused on how unfair that hiring process was to, all others aside, the three candidates hired. The first may well have been qualified for the job, based solely on merit, or at least would’ve likely soon gotten a similarly coveted offer elsewhere. The second candidate was probably qualified to be hired somewhere, but is surely aware it was not a coincidence he or she was one of three black and only black candidates hired at the same time. The third candidate must know on some level he or she is not up to snuff, even compared with the other two cluster hires. And the merit of the first candidate is likely to be questioned regardless of how impressive he or she actually is. All are stamped and in some ways implicated by the bogus means by which they were hired. That’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to their peers in the department. Or the students they teach. And it’s obviously not fair to the, in some cases dozens of more qualified applicants, struggling to find jobs as full-time, tenure track faculty, who may be realizing their hard work has been scorned and their dreams foreclosed, based on inherited, immutable, but superficial and irrelevant identity traits.

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What's the "Dept of Humanities"? You don't know much about higher education, do you? 😂

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Thanks for showing everyone how shallow and petty you are. When someone ignores a detailed and substantive comment, and, instead,

decides to try to mock one description which could’ve been better phrased, but which in no way invalidates the meaning and import of what’s described, that person is outing himself as nothing more than a troll. Get lost.

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Cut off ALL federal funding to WOKE-WEAPONIZED ACADEMIA until the return to their core mission, education, not indoctrination.

Ready…BEGIN!

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Please,tell us more about academia. You seem both smart and informed.

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What a huge waste of millions on nonsensical programs. Reform can’t come soon enough to stop the pilfering of tax dollars doled out to DEI recipients and their cohorts. No wonder we are broke. 🤬🤬🤬

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who are the broke "we"?

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Our country. Who did you think ?

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Direct payments are only the tip of the destructive iceberg. Sub optimum faculties based on DEI selection criteria are the real damage.

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what's "sub optimum" faculty? what would optimum faculty be?

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I completely support efforts to shine a light on spending but must comment on the poor logic of the authors of this piece.

They conflate things OSU decides (DEI salaries and staffing) with things OSU does not (what projects agencies fund).

Things OSU decides - a proper focus

OSU administrators decide whether to DEI staff and how much to pay them. Those administrators should be able to defend and justify their decisions

Things OSU does not decide - not a proper focus (of an article about OSU)

The authors list "While the list goes on and on, these are a few examples of federal funds run amok at OSU:". They then list grants funded by the National Science Foundation (2), US Department of Agriculture (1), and the National Institutes of Health (1).

Three points:

1. OSU does not decide whether or not these projects get funded. That point does not mean we should not investigate these projects and shed light on what the investigators study. We should indeed. However, this piece is about OSU, not the federal funding agencies. If the authors want to shed light on federally funded grants, Open The Books authors should direct their criticism at the federal agencies that awarded the grants;

2. The authors report nothing about the content of the grants - absent details, readers lack the information they need to judge for themselves whether the objects of study exemplify federal spending that "run(s) amok"; (failing to report details is misinformation by omission)

3. In at least one case, the authors did no research to learn what the grants fund

How do I know that these "researchers" failed to actually undertake even a modicum of research? Because I am the Principal Investigator of the last grant they list (“Vaccine Hesitancy: Exploring the Role of Temporal and Cross-country Variation in Covid Rules, Vaccine Media Coverage, and Public Health Policy Consistency”).

The "researchers" did not reach out to me to learn about the grant, what we are doing, why our aims are important for US citizens, or our methods. Not once.

That is lazy reporting. It reflects badly on the "Open The Books" organization because it reveals that their "researchers" fail to follow basic principles of sound investigative research. Their failure diminishes their article's impact because it raises justified doubts about the care and practices of the authors.

Shame on you.

Contact me if you want details on what our project actually does. You might be surprised.

Dean Lillard

Professor, OSU

Principal Investigator NIH-funded project "Vaccine Hesitancy: Exploring the Role of Temporal and Cross-country Variation in Covid Rules, Vaccine Media Coverage, and Public Health Policy Consistency”

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Rather than resort to punting, ie "contact me," why don't you provide us a capsule summary of what you are doing, why your aims are important, et al? Lots of taxpayers reading this - we all want to know why our hard-earned monies are being thus spent.

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"Lots of taxpayers reading this "

😂

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A good point.

Our study is trying to understand factors that determines what people do when a new vaccine becomes available. All vaccines have some criterion that determines either who is eligible to get the vaccine or the age at which research suggests it to be most efficient to administer the vaccine. For example, the human papillomavirus vaccine is effective in reducing infections in young women. (see https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/safety-effectiveness.html). The vaccine is more effective when administered to pre-menstrual girls. However, a substantial fraction of parents choose to either not get or they delay getting their daughters vaccinated.

We observe this type of behavior across many types of vaccine or for supplements that improve health such as fluoride that impart substantial benefits with low health risks.

The existing public health literature takes a very crude approach to understanding people's vaccination behavior. The literature largely focuses on "vaccine hesitancy." In most studies, researchers survey individuals - often in samples that are not nationally representative - to ask whether survey respondents intend to get a vaccine that is about to be released or, for vaccines already available, if they have not gotten vaccinated. Those studies typically use crude indicators that take on one of two values - vaccinated/intend be vaccinated (0) and unvaccinated/do not intent to get vaccinated (1). Such crude outcome measures have two limitations. First, they focus only on hesitancy. Second, even when studying vaccine hesitancy, existing studies use data that fail to measures the full range of variation in behavior.

Our project uses the latter observation as our starting point. People differ greatly in their attitudes towards vaccination. There are people so eager to be vaccinated that they will go out of their way and spend substantial amounts to get vaccinated before they are eligible. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who delay getting vaccination long past the age science suggests to be efficient or people who outright refuse to be vaccinated.

To understand the full range of behavior, we will take advantage of the substantial variation in availability of and access to the recent COVID vaccines for different demographic groups. Using data from fifteen countries, we develop a measure to capture the full range of actual vaccination behaviors.

We will then investigate and understand what drives acceptance and rejection of vaccines. We will use samples of respondents to longitudinal surveys - samples that are nationally representative of the general population. Because we have repeated observations on individuals over many years, we can tap into a rich set of data (individual, contextual, and policy) to explain both vaccine eagerness and hesitation. The factors include vaccine availability, the influence of public health authority statements, news articles, incentives, individual family situations, education and attitudes, etc.

Our aim is to understand the general factors that determine people's attitudes and behavior - about the COVID vaccine in particular and, hopefully, about vaccines in general.

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Thank you. It would be helpful if you could amend your summary with further comments re benefits (what understanding these factors will accomplish; what actions would/will result from such understanding; who benefits from these actions, directly and indirectly), plus: Why should these efforts be publicly funded, rather than privately funded?

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DEI is food stamps and welfare for the low iqqers

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so you're flying high on DEI then

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Lol. Not I. I don’t qualify. No shame in you needing a helping hand DEI fake job and degree though.

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Robby Starbuck, I hope, becomes aware of this. Leftists are always generous with other people’s money.

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I often wonder if all that DEI money could be used to fix the grade schools in low-income areas by hiring exceptional teachers (pay them well of course), strengthening the school systems, offering after school programs that help both students (academic and athletic activities) and parents (skill training and parenting), providing quality lunches, and closely monitoring progress, it might actually produce tangible outcomes in giving everyone a real chance to succeed.

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Oh my sides, the idiocy! 😂

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Hi!

From my experience during the active covid time frame, it was the women, for the most part, who behaved like "untamed animals."

They bought into the madness and nonsense and came on the attack.

Never had any issues with the males.

Did they receive their influence and fake education from the DEI crowd and more?

What happened to critical thinking?

NOT taught in the dumb down school system.

Thank you!

Lise from Maine (former licensed clinician).

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you had your "clinician" license revoked?

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Hi!

NO!

I left my clinical position because of "managed care," which is really rationing, so I didn't renew my license.

I then entered the financial world and love it.

Thank you!

Lise from Maine (former licensed clinician).

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The problem isn't "DEI." The problem remains the individual educated and hired to learn and implement it. Put the light on DEI, outlaw it at the state level, and the roaches simply scatter into our parts of the University and drop their poop there.

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It's NOT an either/or situation.

How about both issues?

Thank you!

Lise from Maine (former licensed clinician).

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Lisa, eliminate the ants if you want to eliminate the ant hill. Kick the hill and the ants regroup even spread.

Similarily, our pharma industry treats symptoms, not diseases.

There's waaaaaay too much conversation and focus on ant hills and symptoms.

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you need to work on your metaphors

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