Speaker 1: Pushkin, and the Emmy goes too, and the Oscar goes
Speaker 1: to and the People's Choice Award goes.
Speaker 2: To Thank you to the Academy for this incredible recognition.
Speaker 3: I'm so honored. I'm so honored.
Speaker 4: Everybody want to know what I would do if I
Speaker 4: didn't win.
Speaker 5: I guess we'll never know.
Speaker 6: Everybody gets a prize in modern America, actors, writers, musicians.
Speaker 6: But you know who doesn't get a fancy prize the
Speaker 6: hard working administrators of America's elite colleges and universities. For years,
Speaker 6: I've observed this oversight with what can only be described
Speaker 6: as dismay, until I decided, damn it, if this country
Speaker 6: wasn't gonna honor the beleaguered giants of the Ivy League,
Speaker 6: then I would. My name is Malcolm Blackwell. You're listening
Speaker 6: to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood.
Speaker 6: In this episode, we are pleased to inaugurate the first
Speaker 6: annual Revisionist History Higher Education Award in honor of our
Speaker 6: company's namesake. We're gonna call them the Pushkin Prizes. Folks.
Speaker 6: These prizes are super prestigious. You can't see this because
Speaker 6: this is audio but we have little gold statuettes of
Speaker 6: Alexander Pushkin himself. You're gonna walk into the lobby of
Speaker 6: your favorite eighteenth century ivy colored marble granite University Administration
Speaker 6: building and they are in a glass case. Below the
Speaker 6: tiffany chandelier is going to be a Pushkin. That is,
Speaker 6: if you're lucky. I promise that over the next few years,
Speaker 6: the giants of American academia will be graced with a
Speaker 6: Pushkin statuette in recognition of one stupendous achievement or another.
Speaker 6: And in this episode, we begin our awards program with
Speaker 6: the mac Daddy of Pushkin Prizes, the George Santos Memorial
Speaker 6: Pushkin Prize for egregiously Deceptive Self Promotion.
Speaker 7: My parents came to this country in search of the
Speaker 7: American dream. Today I live that American dream, only in
Speaker 7: this country, only in this country. And the little boy
Speaker 7: born in a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens in
Speaker 7: New York City, become a United States Congressman at thirty four.
Speaker 7: It's a story of survival, of tenacity, of grit, as
Speaker 7: we like to call it.
Speaker 6: Actually, it's not a story of survival, tenacity and grit
Speaker 6: as we like to call it the story of George Santos,
Speaker 6: Congressman from Long Island, is the story of someone who
Speaker 6: made up basically everything on his resume. And it is
Speaker 6: that shamelessness that we seek to reward with the first
Speaker 6: of the coveted Pushkin Prizes.
Speaker 7: Good morning, Chabatsalom too, everybody. Thank you for being here,
Speaker 7: Thank you for having me. We're no stranger to persecution.
Speaker 7: My grandfather fleeing Ukraine in nineteen twenties to Belgium.
Speaker 6: Turns out he's not Jewish. Santos said his mom was
Speaker 6: a nine to eleven survivor. Turns out she wasn't even
Speaker 6: in New York City during nine to eleven. He said
Speaker 6: he worked at Goldman Sachs. It turns out he never
Speaker 6: set foot in Golden Sex. And then there was this
Speaker 6: tallest of tall tales, which I love so much.
Speaker 4: Hey, you know what's funny, George. You go right to
Speaker 4: the heart here of me. Sid and Bernie.
Speaker 6: This is Santos on a local New York radio show
Speaker 6: Sid and Friends in the Morning during his first congressional
Speaker 6: run in twenty twenty, and the host Sid Rosenberg starts
Speaker 6: talking about sports.
Speaker 4: At the very end of your biography, It says in
Speaker 4: his spare time, George Anthony enjoys volleyball and tennis.
Speaker 6: Rosenberg says, that's funny because both his daughter and his
Speaker 6: co host daughter are avid volleyball and tennis players. Then
Speaker 6: Santo's response, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 8: I actually went to school on a volleyball scholarship.
Speaker 6: I did what I did.
Speaker 8: Yeah, when I was in Beruke, we were the number
Speaker 8: one volleyball.
Speaker 4: Did you graduate from barok? Did you graduate from them?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So did I did?
Speaker 8: I did so?
Speaker 4: Did I?
Speaker 8: Oh? Very cool cho great institutions. But it's funny that
Speaker 8: we went to play against Harvard Yale and we play them.
Speaker 8: We were champions across the entire Northeast corridor. Every school
Speaker 8: that came up against us, they were shaking at the time.
Speaker 8: And it's funny. I was the smallest guy and I'm
Speaker 8: six two. We had on our block, on our on
Speaker 8: our on our block alone, there were six seven sixty eight.
Speaker 8: These guys weren't jumping, they were just stretching their arms up.
Speaker 8: We were, we were and all of us could have
Speaker 8: been playing basketball, but we chose volleyball because it was easier.
Speaker 8: So it was a great time I look, I sacrificed
Speaker 8: both my knees and got very nice knee replacements. Knee
Speaker 8: replacements from Assa's playing volleyball. That's how serious I took
Speaker 8: the game.
Speaker 4: Well, that's how serious you're taking politics as well. Remember
Speaker 4: this name, folks, George Santos out in the third district.
Speaker 6: This is, to my mind, the gold standard George Santos fabrication,
Speaker 6: a wedding cake of prevarication. The Washington posted a breakdown
Speaker 6: to the tape, and here's what they found. Let's start
Speaker 6: with the smallest lies and work backwards. Brooke didn't beat
Speaker 6: Yale at volleyball because Yale doesn't have a varsity volleyball team.
Speaker 6: Santels later said he played the position of striker. Volleyball
Speaker 6: teams don't have strikers. That suck. Nor did Santos have
Speaker 6: a volleyball scholarship at Baruque because Baruq doesn't give out
Speaker 6: volleyball scholarships, and at six', two he would not have
Speaker 6: been the shortest player in the team even if he
Speaker 6: had been on the, team but he. Wasn't he never
Speaker 6: played volleyball At, baruk maybe because he never Attended baruk at,
Speaker 6: all which means his needs are perfectly, fine unless that,
Speaker 6: is he blew them out playing some other imaginary. Sport
Speaker 6: that's seven lies in a. Row and if you listen
Speaker 6: to the, tape it's clear that he made up the
Speaker 6: whole string on the. Fly the man is an. Icon
Speaker 6: and with our First Pushkin, prize we ask What american
Speaker 6: college came closest in the past year to this lofty.
Speaker 6: Standard believe, me they were many, nominees all of them.
Speaker 6: Worthy envelope, please and the winner Is Columbia.
Speaker 2: University the big beginning when you heard when you, SAID
Speaker 2: i want to Investigate columbia's rise to number, two did,
Speaker 2: you in the back of your mind think there might
Speaker 2: be something questionable going?
Speaker 5: On, yes not even, no not in the back of my.
Speaker 5: Mind at the front of my, mind.
Speaker 6: You're listening to a math professor At columbia Named Michael,
Speaker 6: thaddius fifties long. HAIR i went to see him in
Speaker 6: his office on The columbia, campus full of books and,
Speaker 6: strange captivating jottings on the. Wall my father was a.
Speaker 6: MATHEMATICIAN i have great affection for the. Species if you Google,
Speaker 6: thadius you'll find papers that begin with things like we
Speaker 6: discuss sympletic cutting For hamiltonian actions of Non abelian compact.
Speaker 6: Groups by using a degeneration based on The vinburg, monoid
Speaker 6: we give in good cases a global quotient description of
Speaker 6: a surgery construction introduced By woodward n mind, ranking and
Speaker 6: show it can be interpreted in algebra geometric. TERMS i
Speaker 6: have no idea what that, means But Michael thaddius, does
Speaker 6: which is to say that when it comes to numbers
Speaker 6: and statistics and, things he's someone to take very. Seriously
Speaker 6: so one, day not long, ago he hears something that
Speaker 6: doesn't seem.
Speaker 5: Right SO i saw That columbia had risen to number.
Speaker 5: TWO i think in, fact this was even mentioned by
Speaker 5: our own dean at a faculty. MEETING i think that's
Speaker 5: HOW i found out about.
Speaker 6: It the dean announces to, EVERYONE i have amazing. News
Speaker 6: columbia has just risen to number two in THE Us
Speaker 6: News college, rankings just a hair Behind. Princeton everyone basks
Speaker 6: in the glow of the school's extraordinary, achievement because you
Speaker 6: know what a HIGH Us news rankings, means more alumni,
Speaker 6: dollars more, prestige more, applications more excitement and desire from
Speaker 6: neurotic upper middle class suburban. Parents for anyone With Ivy league,
Speaker 6: dreams it's the holy. GRAIL i, mean if you have
Speaker 6: a kid in high school and your kids, Said, MOM
Speaker 6: i just got Into, columbia you will be over the.
Speaker 6: Moon and why would you be over the Moon Because
Speaker 6: columbia is number two in THE Us news. Rankings so
Speaker 6: The dean makes for big, announcement But Michael, thaddeus the numbers,
Speaker 6: guy isn't buying.
Speaker 5: It and that just piqued my. Curiosity two is pretty high.
Speaker 5: Ranking you, Know in, particular we were tied With harvard AND,
Speaker 5: mit which are institutions that objectively have certain big advantages over.
Speaker 5: Us they have much larger, endowments they have much more
Speaker 5: space than we. Do AND i just you, Know i've
Speaker 5: also over the, Years i've taken a greater and, greater
Speaker 5: perhaps almost obsessive interest in facts and figures about the.
Speaker 5: UNIVERSITY i look at a lot of websites where the numbers,
Speaker 5: appear AND i just, wondered how Could columbia have performed
Speaker 5: so well on this ranking as to be tied with
Speaker 5: institutions that have these objective advantages over. It how do
Speaker 5: the numbers break?
Speaker 6: Down columbia started in these rankings at, eighteenth then began a,
Speaker 6: steady dramatic climb Past, Cornell, washington Uw, Rice, Vanderbilt, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Duke,
Speaker 6: Caltech Penn Johns, Hopkins university Of, Chicago, Yale. Stanford in
Speaker 6: the past five years, alone they've gone from fifth to
Speaker 6: third to, second shooting like a shiny asteroid past their glittering.
Speaker 6: Peers i'm a.
Speaker 4: Runner you.
Speaker 6: Know in the running, world the tell for whether someone
Speaker 6: is doping is in an unexpected. Improvement you, know when
Speaker 6: the twenty seven year old miler suddenly lops three seconds
Speaker 6: off their personal. BEST i see you, say.
Speaker 5: Sudden improvement is the tell sudden out of context.
Speaker 6: Improvement oh. My the first Thing thadius did after the
Speaker 6: faculty meeting is by a subscription to THE Us news.
Speaker 6: Rankings he downloaded the Data columbia submitted for his, application
Speaker 6: and his eye falls on class. Size columbia reported TO
Speaker 6: Us news that eighty two point five percent of its
Speaker 6: classes had less than twenty. Students thaddius looked at that
Speaker 6: number and, thought.
Speaker 5: Huh anyone who was taught here AS i have for
Speaker 5: the last twenty five, years knows that our class sizes
Speaker 5: are not particularly small for an elite, university and that
Speaker 5: they have been steadily. Growing i'm teaching, calculus OR i
Speaker 5: have just finished teaching a calculus course that had about
Speaker 5: seventy six, students and that's typical for a course of that.
Speaker 5: NATURE Us news said that what was it? AGAIN i
Speaker 5: think eighty two point five percent of all classes enrolled
Speaker 5: below twenty, students and that just did not square with
Speaker 5: my experience at.
Speaker 6: All so he decided to fact Check columbia's. Claim he
Speaker 6: went to the university's class catalog and pulled out the
Speaker 6: data on all thirty thousand of the school's.
Speaker 5: CLASSES i took THE html code of those, pages downloaded
Speaker 5: the source, code concatenated all the. Files THEN i used
Speaker 5: a text, Editor emacs to edit the resulting gigantic file
Speaker 5: in such a way THAT i turned it into a
Speaker 5: database comma separated database with the course, names, numbers, enrollments
Speaker 5: and THEN i opened it up In.
Speaker 6: Excel he analyzed the, data double checked his, math and
Speaker 6: realized his pokey feeling was.
Speaker 5: JUSTIFIED i was able to arrive at an estimate it
Speaker 5: was more like sixty two to sixty eight, percent a
Speaker 5: far cry from eighty three.
Speaker 6: Percent now he's getting. Suspicious he picks another. Number THE
Speaker 6: Us news rankings penalizes the school if it has too
Speaker 6: many part time. Faculty columbia TOLD Us news that it
Speaker 6: only had one hundred and thirty seven part, timers but
Speaker 6: that has found that the school also had to report
Speaker 6: the statistic to The department Of.
Speaker 5: Education the number reporter of the government was over one,
Speaker 5: thousand AND i think that that's the more accurate number to,
Speaker 5: me this is a really important figure that the balance
Speaker 5: between full time and part time faculty is a crucial
Speaker 5: matter for the future of intellectual life and the future
Speaker 5: Of american. Universities if we just casualize our, faculty we
Speaker 5: switched to the sort of gig economy model where most
Speaker 5: people are working contingentally at part. Time that's going to
Speaker 5: be disastrous for the quality of. Education it's going to
Speaker 5: be disastrous for the quality of intellectual. Life and so
Speaker 5: we need to have, honest reliable figures about. This and
Speaker 5: yet we have these two figures From columbia that differ
Speaker 5: by a factor of.
Speaker 6: Eight he kept, GOING Us news wants to know what
Speaker 6: percentage of your faculty has a terminal degree in their. Field,
Speaker 6: basically do they have a PhD or. Not columbia reported
Speaker 6: the highest terminal degree number of any college in the entire,
Speaker 6: country ninety nine point five, percent WHICH Us news rounded
Speaker 6: up to one hundred. Percent that's. Everyone So thadius goes
Speaker 6: through the faculty directory and looks to see if there's
Speaker 6: anyone teaching At columbia who only has a bachelor's degree
Speaker 6: and finds dozens and dozens of faculty with no more
Speaker 6: than A ba to their.
Speaker 5: Name and that was enough that there was no way
Speaker 5: that the percentage could have been ninety nine point.
Speaker 6: Five columbia says it's student faculty ratio is six to.
Speaker 6: One it's. Not it's more like eleven to. One on
Speaker 6: and on.
Speaker 5: Every single figure that WHERE i could check it, INDEPENDENTLY
Speaker 5: i found a significant discrepancy between what was reported TO
Speaker 5: Us news and WHAT i could confirm.
Speaker 6: Elsewhere then he sat down and wrote up a massive
Speaker 6: analysis of his findings, charts, graphs computer, analyzes pages upon.
Speaker 6: Pages he puts it up on his faculty web, page
Speaker 6: and there it sits for weeks and weeks, until for
Speaker 6: some strange, reason someone posts a link To thaddeus's manifesto
Speaker 6: on the message board of the running Website let's run dot.
Speaker 6: Com if you are unfamiliar with the message boards Of Let's,
Speaker 6: run here are some typical. Threads two he runs crazy
Speaker 6: four to twenty three anchor leg FOR Nc, state but
Speaker 6: still not enough for d mr. Or at twenty, SEVEN
Speaker 6: i finally realized every tattoo anyone has is for attracting
Speaker 6: a mate Or Rip, spencer the official dog of The Boston,
Speaker 6: marathon has. Died now how DO i know about? This
Speaker 6: Because Let's run is one of my favorite. WEBSITES i
Speaker 6: am one of those people dutifully reading The Let's run message.
Speaker 6: Boards SO i see a link and click on. It
Speaker 6: because you know HOW i feel about THE us news.
Speaker 6: Rankings i'm obsessed with. Them i've lost track of how
Speaker 6: many revisionist history episodes have been devoted to testifying to their.
Speaker 6: STUPIDITY i don't understand why college administrators care so much about,
Speaker 6: them why parents and their college bound teenagers go nuts about.
Speaker 6: Them when law schools and medical schools began dropping out
Speaker 6: of THE us, RANKINGS i walked around the streets Of
Speaker 6: New york pounding on my chest LIKE i was personally.
Speaker 6: Responsible do you see What i'm? SAYING i was the
Speaker 6: target audience for The thaddeus Expose.
Speaker 5: AGAIN i salute. You you were serre of the tipping,
Speaker 5: point AS i, SAID i, mean but when you started
Speaker 5: tweeting about, it that was when the rest of the
Speaker 5: world started to take. Notice So i'm grateful for.
Speaker 6: That, oh the first nice thing anyone has ever said
Speaker 6: about My. Twitter so the story goes. Everywhere colombia goes
Speaker 6: into a defensive, crouch and THE Us news reanalyzes the
Speaker 6: situation and Downgrades columbia back to. Eighteen, oh how the
Speaker 6: mighty have. FALLEN i know what you're. Thinking The Pushkin
Speaker 6: prize is a highly prestigious. Award those statuettes are. Coveted
Speaker 6: so how can we be sure That columbia meets the
Speaker 6: elevated standard set by our Namesake George? Santos very good.
Speaker 6: Question please join me as we break it. Down to my,
Speaker 6: mind there are three Criteria columbia needs to meet to
Speaker 6: rise To santos level. Deception the first is. Gratuitousness that's
Speaker 6: the power of The santos bit about his volleyball career At.
Speaker 6: Baruk this was a lie fundamentally different from his claims
Speaker 6: to Being, jewish working At Golden sachs and running a
Speaker 6: charity for unwanted. Pets SORRY i left that one out.
Speaker 6: Before those were all lies that helped his case with
Speaker 6: the voters Of Long. ISLAND A jewish investment banker who
Speaker 6: loves domestic animals is pretty much The Long island equivalent
Speaker 6: Of George. Clooney but no one was going to vote
Speaker 6: for him because he blew out two knees battling as
Speaker 6: the shortest man on The barut volleyball. Squad he had
Speaker 6: them A Jewish Goldman sachs and abandoned. Kittens the volleyball
Speaker 6: lie was pure gilding the, lily and that's what makes
Speaker 6: it so. Heroic santos lied when it wasn't even in
Speaker 6: his interest to. Lie now Does columbia meet this? Standard
Speaker 6: was their deception? Gratuitous in order to answer this, QUESTION
Speaker 6: i turned To Revisionist history's resident data, Scientist Lauren. Lavelle,
Speaker 6: Lauren Lauren, Lauren, Hey, malcolm we ride. Again some of
Speaker 6: you may Remember lauren from The Project dillard episdisode Of Revision's.
Speaker 6: HISTORY a group of undergraduates that read college hacked their
Speaker 6: way into THE Us news, algorithm which gave them a
Speaker 6: computer model that can test any hypothesis about a school's.
Speaker 6: Rankings SO i Asked, lauren who studied statistics At, read
Speaker 6: to use the model to figure out how a historically
Speaker 6: black college could rise in THE Us news. Rankings you
Speaker 6: may recall her. Answer it was the best way for
Speaker 6: a college full of black students to rise in THE
Speaker 6: Us news rankings was to let in lots of white.
Speaker 4: Students AND i.
Speaker 3: Can't emphasize enough that this model was built by undergraduate
Speaker 3: students for a class. Project they did a great, job
Speaker 3: and this model works. Amazingly you, know it wasn't some
Speaker 3: super prestigious data scientists getting paid millions of dollars to
Speaker 3: do this for some super prestigious university like it's.
Speaker 6: Students in other, words the barriers to manipulation are. Low,
Speaker 6: Yes SO i said To, lauren let's use the Trusted
Speaker 6: read college model to get at this question of. GRATUITOUSNESS
Speaker 6: i send her a list of questions starting with tell
Speaker 6: me which Of columbia's whoppers mattered the, most and her
Speaker 6: conclusion was a.
Speaker 3: Shocker the thing that really making the biggest difference is
Speaker 3: the faculty resources. Category so for faculty, resources we have
Speaker 3: our class, size our percent of our faculty that are
Speaker 3: full time and our student to faculty.
Speaker 6: RATIO Us news grades all universities on a scale of
Speaker 6: zero to one, hundred So princeton at number one is one.
Speaker 6: Hundred columbia is a close second at ninety. Six according
Speaker 6: To lauren's, analysis fiddling with just those three variables Gave
Speaker 6: columbia an eight point. Boost and the reason that's unexpected
Speaker 6: is because faculty resources only count for a tiny amount
Speaker 6: in the OVERALL Us news ranking. Algorithm you tinker with those,
Speaker 6: variables you get a massive.
Speaker 3: Payoff exactly when you change just one or two of, them,
Speaker 3: again it's only like a one or two, Point but
Speaker 3: when you put all three of them, together it's the
Speaker 3: synergies between these variables that create these big. Jumps, wait
Speaker 3: so on.
Speaker 6: Apausitives, yeah this is really interesting because this supports the
Speaker 6: notion that this was not an accidental happening At. Columbia
Speaker 6: this suggests there was some significant thought behind, this because
Speaker 6: what you told me is something that's not. Intuitive. RIGHT
Speaker 6: i would have thought that you could identify one whiz
Speaker 6: bank that would have given us a massive. Payoff we
Speaker 6: wouldn't have had to do anything. Else but what you're
Speaker 6: saying is, no You, actually it's an unexpected area gives
Speaker 6: you a huge. Payoff and also if you want to
Speaker 6: get a twelve point, swing you have to tinker with
Speaker 6: a lot of.
Speaker 3: Variables, absolutely, Absolutely.
Speaker 6: And there's there's some kind of thing greater than the
Speaker 6: some of its parts that's that work here that you
Speaker 6: could only stumble on if you went behind the scenes
Speaker 6: and sort of tried to figure out a murky black
Speaker 6: box that is us.
Speaker 3: News, yes that is exactly What i'm. Saying so can
Speaker 3: we do screen share on? Here is that a? Thing
Speaker 3: CAN i show you my?
Speaker 6: Code can? You can you tilt your camera to just
Speaker 6: show me the thing IN i? See, oh oh it's
Speaker 6: on your? Screen can you screen share an? Emo, Lauren
Speaker 6: i'm fifty nine years. OLD i barely know how to
Speaker 6: work a. Computer, sorry this went on for a. Bit
Speaker 6: this is what happens when a data scientist tries to
Speaker 6: communicate with a boomer over. Zoom lauren laps into geek
Speaker 6: mode for like twenty, minutes talking about unexpected. Nonlinearities her
Speaker 6: point was that the way to climb the rankings is not.
Speaker 6: Obvious it's a laundry list of nips and tucks that
Speaker 6: an unexpected combination give you a. Facelift if you tried
Speaker 6: to do it just by eyeballing the criteria THAT Us
Speaker 6: news makes, public you'd fail to go back to the
Speaker 6: POINT i was, saying to my, mind this argues powerfully
Speaker 6: for some kind of premeditation on the part Of. COLUMBIA i,
Speaker 6: mean we have no idea what they, did so it
Speaker 6: is all in the realm of. Speculation but they basically
Speaker 6: manufactured a twelve point. Swing and it's very hard to
Speaker 6: imagine how you could manufacture a twelve point swing by
Speaker 6: the seat of your, pants because it's not.
Speaker 3: INTUITIVE i, agree there's probably some dirty play happening, Somewhere.
Speaker 6: Lauren they hired someone like, you that's what they. Did
Speaker 6: somewhere out, there there is some brainy twenty six year
Speaker 6: old with blood on their.
Speaker 3: HANDS i, mean, maybe to.
Speaker 6: Be, CLEAR i don't know that they hired someone Like
Speaker 6: lauren to coordinate. This but here's the crucial fact that
Speaker 6: Puts columbia In George santo's. Territory lots Of columbia's inventions
Speaker 6: don't have much of a, payoff, like for, instance their
Speaker 6: most spectacular nonsense of all The Big kahuna concerns something
Speaker 6: called instructional resources the more money you spend on, teaching
Speaker 6: the MORE Us news rewards. You and the number Of
Speaker 6: columbia claim to spend on teaching was hilariously, large just
Speaker 6: over three billion. Dollars that he has spent a huge
Speaker 6: amount of time trying to figure out just where that
Speaker 6: preposterous number came, from before he realized they just added
Speaker 6: in the one point two billion they spend every year
Speaker 6: on patient care At columbia's medical. Center they're pretending that
Speaker 6: the person getting an Appendect toby is a, student which
Speaker 6: is completely and utterly. Bananas now what difference did this
Speaker 6: particular outrageous bit Of shenanigan.
Speaker 3: Make let's, SEE i have a graph. Somewhere, Okay So
Speaker 3: columbia reported that it spends about three billion dollars on an.
Speaker 3: Instruction this is for fiscal year twenty twenty, two and
Speaker 3: it's consolidated financial. Statements they report for instruction and educational
Speaker 3: administration about two billion. Dollars.
Speaker 6: Oh the reason we know this is a lie is
Speaker 6: that on its official financial, statements which are audited by actual,
Speaker 6: professionals the school doesn't pull the same.
Speaker 3: Stunt so that's a billion dollars extra that they're reporting TO.
Speaker 3: Us news, basically and when that works out on a
Speaker 3: per student, basis you, know it's a lot of money
Speaker 3: that they're kind, of you, feel playing around with Their.
Speaker 6: Are you telling me long that a billion dollars is
Speaker 6: a lot of money in your?
Speaker 3: Book, yeah imagine, That like this number that's so large
Speaker 3: the human brain literally can't even. Understand. Imagine and yet
Speaker 3: when we drop that three billion down to two billion,
Speaker 3: dollars we're still only seeing like a three point drop
Speaker 3: in the, score two or three. Points so from about
Speaker 3: ninety six to about a ninety four or ninety three three.
Speaker 6: Points that's. It if they were only going to cheat
Speaker 6: by inflating their student instructional expenditures by a, billion they
Speaker 6: only get a three point jump. Exactly, okay, right it's
Speaker 6: good to.
Speaker 3: Know which sounds, crazy, Right like that's a lot of
Speaker 3: money to not really make a big difference in your. Score.
Speaker 6: Yeah so if you're the president Of columbia AND i
Speaker 6: come to you AND i say we can drop an
Speaker 6: imaginary billion into this and we're only getting three, points you're, Saying,
Speaker 6: okay But i'm. Not it's not floating your.
Speaker 3: Boat, yeah it doesn't seem like a very high return.
Speaker 3: Rate you know What i'm, saying it's.
Speaker 6: Gratuitous it's just Like George santos And baruke volleyball in.
Speaker 6: Retrospect that was their, error wasn't. It they shouldn't have
Speaker 6: done the bill. Done the billion dollar thing was so
Speaker 6: obvious to At, regis and it gave them such a small. Payoff,
Speaker 6: yeah why if you're trying to get away with some,
Speaker 6: shenanigans would.
Speaker 3: You it's a ridiculous, overstatement like it's more than it's
Speaker 3: larger than the corresponding figures For, Harvard, yale And princeton.
Speaker 3: COMBINED i, know, Bananas like it's so.
Speaker 6: Bananas here's my you know what my interpretation. Is so
Speaker 6: there's like some dude man or woman is charged with
Speaker 6: coming up with a strategy and that that's the one
Speaker 6: they do. Last so it's like it's It's monday morning
Speaker 6: at three. Am they got a hand in their proposal
Speaker 6: for hacking THE Us. News by nine, am they've been
Speaker 6: up for forty eight. Hours they've done all the hard,
Speaker 6: stuff and they're, like f let's just throw it an
Speaker 6: extra bill on this they why.
Speaker 3: Not throw in a few extra?
Speaker 6: Zeros the bar set By George santos was very. High
Speaker 6: The Pushkin prize committee Believes columbia met it okay criteria number.
Speaker 6: Two the second thing our, Namesake George santos teaches us
Speaker 6: is that you have to show as little remorse as.
Speaker 6: Possible when the furer over his lies was at its,
Speaker 6: peak he was.
Speaker 7: UNRUFFLED i don't understand where these allegations come. From, Oh
Speaker 7: George santels lives in a fantasy world or whatever it
Speaker 7: is that they're trying to elude, there because it's just
Speaker 7: people who know me know that that's just not the.
Speaker 6: Case people who know, me which is, hilarious, right because
Speaker 6: the whole reason there was a controversy Over George santos
Speaker 6: is that he wouldn't tell us who he. Was at some,
Speaker 6: point some enterprising journalists counted seven different names That santos
Speaker 6: has used over the years For Pushkin prize. Consideration we
Speaker 6: need that kind of. Morselessness let me give you WHAT
Speaker 6: i think is a relevant. Counterexample it Concerns Temple university's
Speaker 6: Online Business. School the story goes the dean of the
Speaker 6: b school, there a man Named Mosha, pori was upset
Speaker 6: about his school's LOW Us news, ranking so he sends
Speaker 6: several of his underlings To, washington D. C to complain
Speaker 6: to THE Us news rankings, team and in the course
Speaker 6: of that, MEETING Us news let slip that they don't
Speaker 6: actually check any of the data that schools send. Them
Speaker 6: so the underlings report this back To, mosha And mosha's, like,
Speaker 6: GREAT i guess there's no state troopers on this stretch
Speaker 6: of the university Prestige. Highway so he hires a data.
Speaker 6: Scientist they figure out that what really matters for online
Speaker 6: business schools is what percentage of the school's incoming class
Speaker 6: has taken THE. Gmat In temple's, case it's something like nineteen.
Speaker 6: Percent So mosha changes that number to one hundred, percent
Speaker 6: And Vola temple's Online business school faults to number one
Speaker 6: in THE Us News online B school. Rankings now you
Speaker 6: hear that story and you say to, yourself why Wasn't
Speaker 6: mosha up for a pushkin? Price and believe, me we
Speaker 6: thought long and hard about his. NOMINATION i, Mean mosha
Speaker 6: was convicted of fraud and sentenced to fourteen. Months he
Speaker 6: committed a.
Speaker 9: Crime the charges Against parat were not just simply that
Speaker 9: he DEFRAUDED Us News, rankings but that he defrauded applicants
Speaker 9: to the, school students at the, school and, donors all
Speaker 9: of whom look at the rankings and making their decision
Speaker 9: about where to direct their.
Speaker 6: Money That's Jennifer, williams who was in THE Us attorney's
Speaker 6: office In philadelphia at the time of The temple.
Speaker 9: Case and in, fact the, scheme as charged in the,
Speaker 9: indictment was very. Successful not only did the rankings improve,
Speaker 9: dramatically but the enrollment went way up and the total
Speaker 9: amount of tuition That temple was able to get due
Speaker 9: to the increased enrollment was almost forty million dollars over
Speaker 9: the course of several. Years so that is the goal
Speaker 9: of the. Fraud that's what made this a.
Speaker 6: Crime so why Doesn't temple get The Sentos award, because
Speaker 6: and this is, crucial the school has too much Remorse
Speaker 6: when word leaks out About moshess. Shedanigans the school hires
Speaker 6: a big name outside law, Firm Jones day to. Investigate
Speaker 6: the university pays out millions of dollars in damages to
Speaker 6: the students who enrolled thinking they were getting a degree
Speaker 6: from the number one rank school in the. Country it
Speaker 6: Was temple who turned In mosha to the. Authorities this
Speaker 6: is not How columbia behaved at. All thaddeus releases his
Speaker 6: report On february twenty, eighth twenty twenty, two And columbia
Speaker 6: responds with a press release from the school's provost On june,
Speaker 6: thirtieth months. Later i'm. Quoting columbia has long conducted what
Speaker 6: we believe to be a thorough process for gathering and
Speaker 6: reporting institutional, data but we are now closely reviewing our
Speaker 6: processes in light of the questions. Raised the ongoing review
Speaker 6: is a matter of. Integrity we will take no shortcuts
Speaker 6: in getting it. Right temple, hired one of the world's
Speaker 6: biggest law. Firms colombia launched a.
Speaker 5: Review the approach has been just to say as little as,
Speaker 5: possible try to attract as little, attention and wait for
Speaker 5: the storm to blow.
Speaker 6: Over you're saying that no member of the administration has
Speaker 6: reached out to you since you published that.
Speaker 5: Article Good. God, no, wait that's. Nuts that's. Nuts i'm
Speaker 5: glad you think. SO i asked the question at a faculty.
Speaker 5: Meeting did the review That columbia conducted explore the question
Speaker 5: of intent about whether you know these falsehoods were provided?
Speaker 5: Intentionally did anyone know that they were? False and if so,
Speaker 5: who and the answer, was, well, no our review did
Speaker 5: not look into that. Question so it's clear to me
Speaker 5: that the review was not seriously intended to get to
Speaker 5: the bottom of the. Matter was not a review.
Speaker 6: Because The santos criteria are so. RIGOROUS i REALIZED i
Speaker 6: needed to take further steps to see If columbia's remorselessness
Speaker 6: remained in. Place, FIRST i waited to see whether they
Speaker 6: would update The june thirtieth press. RELEASE i, waited waited
Speaker 6: six months, past so THEN i DECIDED i needed to
Speaker 6: contact them. DIRECTLY i sent an, email asked for an
Speaker 6: interview with the. Provost, waited, waited, waited until finally someone
Speaker 6: in the media relations department emailed me back with a
Speaker 6: link to the press release Of june. Thirtieth we are
Speaker 6: not commenting beyond the statements issued, BELOW i was. Told
Speaker 6: SO i respond BECAUSE i don't want some blogger down
Speaker 6: the line SAYING i rush to judgment on the remorselessness.
Speaker 6: Criteria are you? SURE i write. BACK i talk About Michael,
Speaker 6: THADDEUS i tell him About lauren and her computer. MODEL
Speaker 6: i tell him About Jennifer williams talking about The temple.
Speaker 6: Case are you? Sure for the university not to comment
Speaker 6: under these, circumstances, will from your, perspective be. Problematic don't
Speaker 6: you THINK a week, PASSES i get an email, Back
Speaker 6: we're working on. IT a month. Passes finally get another,
Speaker 6: email essentially restating the original press. RELEASE i print out
Speaker 6: the statement and run around the office holding it. HIGH
Speaker 6: i can't believe. It we have met the formal standard for.
Speaker 6: Remorselessness one last part of. Me you have to be
Speaker 6: reckless to win A pushkin. Prize your lines have to
Speaker 6: put you in potential jeopardy if if you want to
Speaker 6: win one of our coveted gold. Statuettes we have, gratuitousness
Speaker 6: we have, Remorselessness but do we have? Recklessness we? Do
Speaker 6: and to say, HOW i need to be serious for a.
Speaker 6: SECOND i actually Love. COLUMBIA i think it's an extraordinary
Speaker 6: place full of extraordinary. PEOPLE i can't tell you how
Speaker 6: many Times i've sat in the office of some professor
Speaker 6: At columbia and had the world opened up for. ME
Speaker 6: i Love, columbia even THOUGH i Know columbia will never
Speaker 6: Be princeton Or. Harvard they're never going to have fifty
Speaker 6: billion dollars in the, bank and without fifty billion dollars
Speaker 6: in the. Bank it's awfully hard to climb to the
Speaker 6: top of THE Us news. Rankings but The president Of
Speaker 6: columbia ought to be able to stand up and, say
Speaker 6: we are the pre eminent institution of learning in the
Speaker 6: greatest city in the, world and if we have lots
Speaker 6: of part time, faculty it's because we are drawing on
Speaker 6: the resources of amazing people who spend their working days
Speaker 6: On broadway Or Madison avenue Or Wall. Street and if
Speaker 6: our classes are, large it just means that every student
Speaker 6: has the privilege of rubbing shoulders with lots of other
Speaker 6: curious and willing. Students and by the, way if you
Speaker 6: are someone who believes at the best measure of a
Speaker 6: university's intellectual vitality is how much money it has in the,
Speaker 6: bank or what percentage of its faculty have, PhDs or
Speaker 6: how many students are in its, classes Then columbia is
Speaker 6: probably going to be wasted on. You The president Of
Speaker 6: columbia ought to be able to stand up and explain
Speaker 6: to the world What columbia is and what it stands.
Speaker 6: For but he didn't do, that and his school got
Speaker 6: consumed with succeeding at a rankings game that is morally
Speaker 6: and intellectually bankrupt some jackass in The columbia. Administration AND
Speaker 6: i have no idea who it, was BUT i hope
Speaker 6: they are found out and made to do one thousand
Speaker 6: hours of community service teaching arithmetic to some first. Grader
Speaker 6: that jackass decided to cook the. Books and now what
Speaker 6: do we have a school that has broken the most
Speaker 6: fundamental of promises.
Speaker 4: To its own.
Speaker 6: Community let me quote to you from The Columbia University
Speaker 6: code Of, conduct The Ethical. Standard columbia holds its own
Speaker 6: students to, falsification, forgery or misrepresentation of information to any
Speaker 6: university official in order to gain an unfair academic advantage
Speaker 6: in coursework or lab work on any, application, petition or
Speaker 6: documents submitted to the university is. Prohibited this, includes but
Speaker 6: is not limited, to falsifying information on a, resume fabrication
Speaker 6: of credentials or academic, records misrepresenting one's own, research and
Speaker 6: providing false or misleading. Information ladies and, GENTLEMEN i give
Speaker 6: you the winner of The Pushkin prize for, gratuitous, remorseless
Speaker 6: and recklessly deceptive self. Promotion this episode Of Revisionist history
Speaker 6: was produced By Kiara powell With Leemingestou Ben Adafh haffrey
Speaker 6: And Jacob. Smith original scoring By Luis, skara fact checking
Speaker 6: By Kishelle williams And Tolly. Emlin our showrunner Is Peter,
Speaker 6: clowney mastering By Flaon, williams engineering By Nina, lawrence and
Speaker 6: special things To columbia's Own Michael, fatius who not only
Speaker 6: did the research that inspired this, episode but also made
Speaker 6: a joke WHEN i was talking to him that inspired
Speaker 6: name of our first Ever Santos Memorial. Prize there's a
Speaker 6: PostScript to this. Story On june, sixth two days before
Speaker 6: this episode, Aired Columbia university made an announcement they were
Speaker 6: dropping out of THE Us News undergraduate, rankings becoming the
Speaker 6: FIRST Ivy league school to abandon THE Us news methodology
Speaker 6: that did so much to make THE Ivy league THE Ivy.
Speaker 6: League the press, release like so many of the press
Speaker 6: releases issued By columbia over the course of this, controversy
Speaker 6: read like it was dictated by a room of ten
Speaker 6: thousand dollars an hour attorneys on a zoom call from Midtown.
Speaker 6: Manhattan in a, Statement columbia said that in response to
Speaker 6: the allegations of, cheating it had, quote conducted an exhaustive internal,
Speaker 6: review and where errors were, confirmed is shoot public corrections
Speaker 6: and made changes to the collection methodologies that led to the.
Speaker 6: INACCURACIES i got an email From Michael thaddeus almost. Immediately
Speaker 6: this is completely, untrue he. Wrote columbia has never corrected
Speaker 6: the false information it, provided probably over many, years TO
Speaker 6: Us news about class sizes or about proportion of full time.
Speaker 6: Faculty for. Example what it did was admit in a
Speaker 6: general way to quote, outdated end or incorrect methodologies and
Speaker 6: acknowledged that quote class sized data was previously reported incorrectly,
Speaker 6: unquote but it never corrected the false, figures nor has
Speaker 6: it even specified which figures were false or for how.
Speaker 8: Long end of.
Speaker 6: Quote oh and by the, way the school's, provost whose
Speaker 6: office is responsible for its submissions TO Us, news suddenly
Speaker 6: announced that she was resigning after an unusually short term.
Speaker 6: Office we may have to do a follow, up don't
Speaker 6: you Think if you're listening To revision's history on pushkim,
Speaker 6: plus you already know the pleasure of hearing our shows
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