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> What was Judge Burroughs trying to hide? I eventually obtained the joke memo and the surrounding e-mails, and what I read didn’t strike me as having been wort

> What was Judge Burroughs trying to hide? I eventually obtained the joke memo and the surrounding e-mails, and what I read didn’t strike me as having been worth the fight to keep them secret. Yet you wrote a whole article about it. Sounds like a nothingburger that downplays and pulls attention away from real problems. A Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Education who is supposed to regulate Harvard is a friend of the dean of admissions at Harvard. And you just gloss over it and focus on the joke...

dmix 4y ago
Agreed, I actually agree with the judge here (even though I disagree with her rulings and behaviour otherwise): > she added, asserting that asking him about the memo on the stand would be “designed for media consumption and not for any great search for the truth.” It really is press fodder that will get 10x the attention of their buddy-buddy relationship between regulator and admissions office. The fact they were close friends and having lunch together regularily seems like a bigger story and a serious conflict of interest that gets glossed over to focus repeatedly on the joke memo + the judges reaction. The memo may have some minor relevance to the case for credibility attacks but this case is about much more than an individual DOE regulator's personality (especially considering it was the gov official not the Harvard guy who wrote it). But I guess the Streisand Effect cancels this out regardless.
- eternalban 4y ago
  > fodder Since 'fodder' is food for cattle, I think GP's point stands: The New Yorker is supposed to be food for the somewhat highly literate two legged reader.
sfink 4y ago
Yeah, this is a massive nothingburger, seemingly written because the author was pissed at being brushed off by the judge. And whether the judge was right or wrong to try to squash the joke, the comments in this thread show that she was right about people being eager to misinterpret the joke and focus on it, missing any signal for the shiny noise.
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dmix 4y ago

Agreed, I actually agree with the judge here (even though I disagree with her rulings and behaviour otherwise): > she added, asserting that asking him about the memo on the stand would be “designed for media consumption and not for any great search for the truth.” It really is press fodder that will get 10x the attention of their buddy-buddy relationship between regulator and admissions office. The fact they were close friends and having lunch together regularily seems like a bigger story and a serious conflict of interest that gets glossed over to focus repeatedly on the joke memo + the judges reaction. The memo may have some minor relevance to the case for credibility attacks but this case is about much more than an individual DOE regulator's personality (especially considering it was the gov official not the Harvard guy who wrote it). But I guess the Streisand Effect cancels this out regardless.

eternalban 4y ago
> fodder Since 'fodder' is food for cattle, I think GP's point stands: The New Yorker is supposed to be food for the somewhat highly literate two legged reader.

sfink 4y ago

Yeah, this is a massive nothingburger, seemingly written because the author was pissed at being brushed off by the judge. And whether the judge was right or wrong to try to squash the joke, the comments in this thread show that she was right about people being eager to misinterpret the joke and focus on it, missing any signal for the shiny noise.

deleted 4y ago

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