MIT Dean of Admissions Resigns in Lying Scandal

Billosaur writes "CNN has a report that the Dean of Admissions at MIT has resigned her post after admitting to lying about her academic record. 'Marilee Jones, who joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979 to lead the recruitment of women at the university, stepped down from her post after admitting that she had misrepresented her academic degrees to the institute, according to a statement posted on MIT's Web site.' The school had recently received information about her credentials and the subsequent investigation uncovered the misrepresentations. Question is, why did it take 28 years?"

Comments

It took 28 years because she is a woman.

[Anonymous Coward]

It took 28 years because she is a woman. They needed a woman as an alibi for gender balance earlier. Now they found another woman so they could expose this bitch.

One More Thing: Quotas Don't Work

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time, MIT had an astonishingly low percentage of women among the students, faculty, and staff. So, when MIT hired and later promoted Marilee Jones, there was considerable pressure to not investigate her background. An investigation would mean one of two things: (1) her getting the promotion or (2) her being fired. The latter choice runs counter to the political pressure to promote.

The idea of hiring or firing someone on the basis of her skin color runs counter to how free markets work. They foster excellence. Quotas work to the contrary.

At this point, some racist will say, "Hey! Let's hire the best." In theory, free markets foster hiring the best. However, periodically (even for long periods), the best is not hired even in a free market. Why? Determining the best is very subjective. Many racists use the slogan "hiring the best" as a way to justify using subjective criteria to exclude Asians, Hispanics, lesbians, etc.

Again, the case of Marilee Jones is an example of why the identification of the "best" is too subjective. Give the same pool of applicants to 3 different judges, and each judge would likely select a different person as the "best" choice. Even though Jones was not qualified for her job, her peers at MIT could not readily identify her as a poor candidate. She talked a good talk. To her peers, she seemed to be the "best", leading to her becoming the dean.

What I'm saying that we should not have quotas, that the free market works (in the long run) to typically select the better (not necessarily, the "best") candidates, but that periodically people like Marilee Jones slip through the cracks. No system is perfect. The free market is not perfect.

I'm also saying that there is no effective way to eliminate all racist hiring policies. Quotas should not be used to stop racism.

In college, you learn about false dichotomies!

[Tim]

While I am unsurprised to see the obligatory, reactionary, anti-intellectual slashdot response, I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out your blatant logical fallacy.

Logical fallacies: yet another part of a balanced, high-quality edumacation.

Mod parent up

[metamatic]

I'm also dismayed by the number of people who seem to think it's unimportant if the Dean of Admissions at MIT lied to get a job at MIT.

Then again, this is Slashdot, where there are hundreds of people who don't have a degree, who have a massive chip on their shoulders about the way they think they are treated. In any discussion of computer science education, for example, you'll have hundreds of postings saying that CS is irrelevant to working in software. It's not altogether surprising that the same people see nothing wrong with lying about having a degree in order to get around some perceived unfairness.