This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Which one of the following criteria applies to Abbott and which independent reliable sources confirm this?
"Academics meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable. Academics meeting none of these conditions may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria. The merits of an article on the academic will depend largely on the extent to which it is verifiable."
My concern is that the way the article is currently written assumes Abbot merits an article because of his contributions as a geophysicist, which I challenge. He is evidently competent, and has been widely published and cited, but this is not enough to merit an article. Oceanflynn ( talk) 00:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
+ "The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources." I would think that a large number of citations is prima facie evidence of significance. Maybe this idea should be discussed for this person and in general. Kdammers ( talk) 18:31, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Is it too soon to tell?
The content of the RS coverage included here [1] [2] [3] focuses entirely on his involvement in a free speech and academic freedom controversy at the University of Chicago and more recently at MIT. From October 13 to October 15, 2020, Abbot posted a series of videos—since removed—in which he expressed his opposition to affirmative action on his YouTube channel. After receiving complaints about the videos, Robert J. Zimmer, the President of the University of Chicago defended the right to share "opinions and scholarship that provoke spirited debate and disagreement" in his November 29, 2020 "Statement on Faculty, Free Expression, and Diversity", which reiterated the Chicago Principles. [4] In their August 12, 2021 opinion piece published in Newsweek, [5] Abbot and co-author Marinovic, "drew an analogy between today's climate on campus and Germany of the 1930s and warned of what happened when an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and what it did to free thought." [6] In their October 20, 2021 article, The New York Times wrote that MIT had "reversed course" on September 30, 2021, and disinvited Abbot, who had been named in August as the 2021 lecturer in the annual public outreach John H. Carlson lecture series in the Lorenz Center at MIT. While an MIT professor continued to respect Abbot's scientific work, he said that Abbot had the right to draw "analogies to genocide" in his Newsweek opinion piece, but it was "inflammatory and stifles the very respectful discourse we need". [6]
References
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
Oceanflynn ( talk) 00:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Please discuss at the talk-page, and refrain from WP:SYNTH. TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:01, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Dorian Abbot is a scientist who has opposed aspects of affirmative action.
Back in August, Abbot and a colleague criticized affirmative action and other ways to give candidates for admission or employment a leg up on the basis of their ethnic or racial identity in Newsweek.TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:18, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
citing a Newsweek editorial in which he argued against aspects of affirmative action.
he argued for prioritizing equal opportunity over equality of outcome.May I know which of the sources support this line? In controversial op-eds like these, we need to either quote the op-ed or summarize the op-ed from high-quality sources. We cannot interpret the op-ed.
life, career, and work.Which I plan to incorporate in my next edit.
who cares. If you believe the added content to be a misrepresentation of the letter, please edit than revert. It goes without saying that if Abbot has responded, a summary of the response shall be added too. TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:29, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
There is currently an EDITWAR going on regarding the inclusion in this article of two topics.
The first topic is MIT's rationale for cancelling Prof Abbot's Carlson Lecture. The question is whether to add the following text:
MIT justified the cancellation by explaining that the John Carlson Lecture is "not a standard scientific talk" but rather a special lecture to highlight a "role model" who can "inspire young people to consider careers in STEM", and they worried that the debate over Abbot's "manner of presenting" his views on diversity was "overshadowing the purpose and spirit of the Carlson Lecture", so they replaced Prof Abbot's Carlson Lecture with an invitation to give a departmental seminar "directly to MIT faculty and students". [1]
The second topic is whether to mention Prof Abbot's Nazism reference. As mentioned in Inside Higher Ed. [2], in his Newsweek Op/Ed Prof Abbot "did liken academic wokeism to Nazism, saying, 'Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from.'" The question is whether to add to this wikipedia article's discussion of the Newsweek Op/Ed that the author "likened academic wokeism to Nazism".
I have twice tried to insert mention of these points, editing the article like this. Both times David Eppstein has reverted my edits. He gives justification in the page history, and I don't doubt that he's editing in good faith, but in my assessment he is violating the Neutral point of view guidelines with these reverts.
Input from a third party would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Student92093 ( talk • contribs)
References
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
They advocated a regime based on “Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone”. They argued that scrapping legacy (family) and athletic admission advantages - which favour white men - would do more for diversity than enforced inclusion.(The Sydney Morning Herald, [1])
Newsweek published a column (...) that called for revamping affirmative action and equity programs. They also supported doing away with legacy admissions — which gives preferred admission to the children of alumni — and athletic scholarships. Both programs disproportionately benefit white well-to-do students. In the last three sentences of that column, the professors drew an analogy between today’s climate on campus and Germany of the 1930s and warned of what happened when an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and what it did to free thought.(NYT, [2])
Robert P. George, director of Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, invited him to give the speech there on Thursday, the same day as the canceled lecture.(NYT)
Over 8000 people signed up for the virtual event, a huge turnout that Abbot acknowledges was driven largely by anger at his MIT cancellation rather than demand to hear about the potential for life on other planets.(SMH, [3]).
The American Council for Trustees and Alumni recognized Abbot as a 2021 Hero of Intellectual Freedom(Newsweek, [4])
MIT’s decision is not just another in a long series of campus controversies, then. It sets a precedent that will, unless it is forcefully resisted, pose a serious threat to the maintenance of a free society.(Atlantic, [5])
In a letter to MIT, the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group formed earlier this year to promote free expression on college campuses, said the episode represented an “egregious violation of the principles of academic freedom and an abnegation of MIT’s own stated commitment to freedom of thought”.(Sydney Morning Herald, [6])
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Which one of the following criteria applies to Abbott and which independent reliable sources confirm this?
"Academics meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable. Academics meeting none of these conditions may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria. The merits of an article on the academic will depend largely on the extent to which it is verifiable."
My concern is that the way the article is currently written assumes Abbot merits an article because of his contributions as a geophysicist, which I challenge. He is evidently competent, and has been widely published and cited, but this is not enough to merit an article. Oceanflynn ( talk) 00:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
+ "The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources." I would think that a large number of citations is prima facie evidence of significance. Maybe this idea should be discussed for this person and in general. Kdammers ( talk) 18:31, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Is it too soon to tell?
The content of the RS coverage included here [1] [2] [3] focuses entirely on his involvement in a free speech and academic freedom controversy at the University of Chicago and more recently at MIT. From October 13 to October 15, 2020, Abbot posted a series of videos—since removed—in which he expressed his opposition to affirmative action on his YouTube channel. After receiving complaints about the videos, Robert J. Zimmer, the President of the University of Chicago defended the right to share "opinions and scholarship that provoke spirited debate and disagreement" in his November 29, 2020 "Statement on Faculty, Free Expression, and Diversity", which reiterated the Chicago Principles. [4] In their August 12, 2021 opinion piece published in Newsweek, [5] Abbot and co-author Marinovic, "drew an analogy between today's climate on campus and Germany of the 1930s and warned of what happened when an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and what it did to free thought." [6] In their October 20, 2021 article, The New York Times wrote that MIT had "reversed course" on September 30, 2021, and disinvited Abbot, who had been named in August as the 2021 lecturer in the annual public outreach John H. Carlson lecture series in the Lorenz Center at MIT. While an MIT professor continued to respect Abbot's scientific work, he said that Abbot had the right to draw "analogies to genocide" in his Newsweek opinion piece, but it was "inflammatory and stifles the very respectful discourse we need". [6]
References
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
Oceanflynn ( talk) 00:19, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Please discuss at the talk-page, and refrain from WP:SYNTH. TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:01, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Dorian Abbot is a scientist who has opposed aspects of affirmative action.
Back in August, Abbot and a colleague criticized affirmative action and other ways to give candidates for admission or employment a leg up on the basis of their ethnic or racial identity in Newsweek.TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:18, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
citing a Newsweek editorial in which he argued against aspects of affirmative action.
he argued for prioritizing equal opportunity over equality of outcome.May I know which of the sources support this line? In controversial op-eds like these, we need to either quote the op-ed or summarize the op-ed from high-quality sources. We cannot interpret the op-ed.
life, career, and work.Which I plan to incorporate in my next edit.
who cares. If you believe the added content to be a misrepresentation of the letter, please edit than revert. It goes without saying that if Abbot has responded, a summary of the response shall be added too. TrangaBellam ( talk) 07:29, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
There is currently an EDITWAR going on regarding the inclusion in this article of two topics.
The first topic is MIT's rationale for cancelling Prof Abbot's Carlson Lecture. The question is whether to add the following text:
MIT justified the cancellation by explaining that the John Carlson Lecture is "not a standard scientific talk" but rather a special lecture to highlight a "role model" who can "inspire young people to consider careers in STEM", and they worried that the debate over Abbot's "manner of presenting" his views on diversity was "overshadowing the purpose and spirit of the Carlson Lecture", so they replaced Prof Abbot's Carlson Lecture with an invitation to give a departmental seminar "directly to MIT faculty and students". [1]
The second topic is whether to mention Prof Abbot's Nazism reference. As mentioned in Inside Higher Ed. [2], in his Newsweek Op/Ed Prof Abbot "did liken academic wokeism to Nazism, saying, 'Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from.'" The question is whether to add to this wikipedia article's discussion of the Newsweek Op/Ed that the author "likened academic wokeism to Nazism".
I have twice tried to insert mention of these points, editing the article like this. Both times David Eppstein has reverted my edits. He gives justification in the page history, and I don't doubt that he's editing in good faith, but in my assessment he is violating the Neutral point of view guidelines with these reverts.
Input from a third party would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Student92093 ( talk • contribs)
References
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
They advocated a regime based on “Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone”. They argued that scrapping legacy (family) and athletic admission advantages - which favour white men - would do more for diversity than enforced inclusion.(The Sydney Morning Herald, [1])
Newsweek published a column (...) that called for revamping affirmative action and equity programs. They also supported doing away with legacy admissions — which gives preferred admission to the children of alumni — and athletic scholarships. Both programs disproportionately benefit white well-to-do students. In the last three sentences of that column, the professors drew an analogy between today’s climate on campus and Germany of the 1930s and warned of what happened when an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and what it did to free thought.(NYT, [2])
Robert P. George, director of Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, invited him to give the speech there on Thursday, the same day as the canceled lecture.(NYT)
Over 8000 people signed up for the virtual event, a huge turnout that Abbot acknowledges was driven largely by anger at his MIT cancellation rather than demand to hear about the potential for life on other planets.(SMH, [3]).
The American Council for Trustees and Alumni recognized Abbot as a 2021 Hero of Intellectual Freedom(Newsweek, [4])
MIT’s decision is not just another in a long series of campus controversies, then. It sets a precedent that will, unless it is forcefully resisted, pose a serious threat to the maintenance of a free society.(Atlantic, [5])
In a letter to MIT, the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group formed earlier this year to promote free expression on college campuses, said the episode represented an “egregious violation of the principles of academic freedom and an abnegation of MIT’s own stated commitment to freedom of thought”.(Sydney Morning Herald, [6])