Controversial Yale alum Hyder Akbar (or friends thereof) is infiltrating and undermining the cyber-symbiosis of Wikipedia.

According to a Wikipedia editor-turned-whistleblower, Hyder’s Wikipedia entry is being mysteriously and repeatedly cleansed of any reference to his unfortunate arson incident.

Usernames ‘Brucebruceemily1,’ Brucebruceemily12‘, ‘Brucebruceemily123,’ (points for variety), and ‘Okaythen1‘ have been particularly delete-key-happy, at all hours of the day and night. Their nemeses, the honest Wikipedian editors, are at their wits’ end. One of them, ‘Hellomontana‘, pleads to the censors:

Don’t take off this part, it’s well documented and relevant.

Thus ensues a repeated back-and-forth copy/pasting duel. All in all, the flag-burning incident has been deleted from the site over eight times. One Hyder-happy censor even replaced a sentence about the obviously-significant crime with a list of his literary accolades. (How helpful!) An editor of the embattled page, clearly frustrated, contacted us with the story.

Nothing warms our hearts more than finding out that our old friends are keeping busy: namely, by editing teh Internet and crafting misleading online articles in order to self-promote and dodge public responsibility for drunken disrespectfulness. But if you thought there was nothing less classy than creating and editing your own hagiographical Wikipedia page (or burning a flag during wartime), then check out Hyder’s own ironic, pretentious, anti-American, and yet hilarious words, along with the Yale connection. After the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The buzz-killing master puppeteers behind political correctness are at it again in the Ivy League. But this time, bullshit has been decidedly called. Sparks are flying, and IvyGate is here to settle the Great Yale T-Shirt Saga once and for all. Investigation ho!

Turns out, the tale is as tangled as it is lame. In the days preceding the Harvard/Yale Game, Eli frosh cobbled together a mildly amusing anti-Cantab t-shirt, emblazoned with the seemingly innocuous quote

I think of all Harvard men as sissies.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Princeton-dropout and required 10th-grade reading.

The little Elis subsequently patted themselves on the back for their cutting wit, and happily prepared themselves for yet another gridiron drubbing at the hands of not-quite-as-athletically-feeble-but-still-very-much-so Harvard.

But not so fast witty frosh! Like the charge of the light brigade, the Yale LGBT Cooperative descended upon the baby politicos of the Freshman Class Council. Apparently, Yale—normally the most homophilic of the Ivies—had committed a major gay-bashing no-no. In the words of LGBT Coordinator Julio-Perez Torres (whose Facebook lists “Freedom Fighter” as his Political Views.) Irony forthcoming:

The term ‘sissies’ is considered offensive and demeaning, and a “thinly-veiled gay slur.”

The Co-op cried foul to Yale administrators, and the hypersensitive head honchos put their foot down. The folks at the Huffington Post and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education are also mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore. Read on after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Harvard Medical School recently announced that it would loosen its restrictive policies regarding student-media interaction. Called “ill-advised” and “problematic” by Harvard professors themselves, the old policy stated:

All interactions between students and the media should be coordinated with the Office of the Dean of Students and the Office of Public Affairs. This applies to situations in which students are contacted by the media as well as instances in which students may be seeking publicity about a student-related project or program.

Dr. Nancy Oriol, the developer of a guideline that essentially censored HMS students on medical conflicts of interests, continues to insist that the policy’s goal was to “help students, rather than limit speech or control what they say on controversial topics.”

This comes after HMS came under fire for its dubious approach to medical ethics and suspiciously opportunistic professors, including those who served as paid consultants to drug companies and brushed off questioning students who didn’t want to kill their future patients. (HBS is looking less corrupt by the minute.) But in a less than prudent choice of PR action, HMS didn’t even bother submitting its conflict of interest policies for review to the American Medical Student Association last year, promptly receiving the very non-Harvard grade F from the board in 2008.

Read more about the irony of Harvard’s crappy report card after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »