Last night, the Harvard University men's basketball team—considered scrappy underdogs in this, but no other, field—upset New Mexico in the NCAA tournament, to the exclusive delight of Harvard alumni. Yet today, in a bit of reassuring proof of the existence of karmic justice, comes news of a Harvard cheating scandal. HIDE YOUR SHAME, HARVARD DEVIANTS: your quiz bowl team was dirty.
Everyone please stop talking about Harvard's basketball team at once and direct your attention to this shocking report on the outrageous and unethical (and no doubt Harvard-instilled) behavior of a member of Harvard's championship quiz bowl team—after the Goldman Sachs executive suite, the gaudiest symbol of Harvard's pervasive control of all human knowledge. Inside Higher Ed details the depths of Ivy League depravity:
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC (NAQT) announced on Wednesday that it had recently reviewed server logs covering the past several years of tournaments; this review found that four team members from different teams, who were involved in the writing of questions for primarily middle and high school competitions, had improperly accessed information that could have included parts of questions used in the college competitions...
According to the NAQT, one of these writers, Andrew Watkins, of Harvard's "A" team (many institutions split their teams for tournaments), had accessed "questions-by-writer" and/or "category" pages directly prior to the NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
An Ivy League man with all the advantages in the world gave himself even more unfair advantages, in much the same way that Ivy League alumni throughout history have created the monument to class division and inequality that is modern American society. I submit to you that this, not some freak basketball victory, is the true and ugly face of Harvard's character, my friends. Gaze upon it in revulsion.
(Honestly Andrew Watkins it's not really even a big deal in the grand scheme of things bro, don't even sweat it. But you'll have to bask in the symbolism here.)
Four of Harvard's quiz team championships have been revoked. Should we not also imprison the administrators, faculty, and students of this den of sin? I fear that other Ivy Leaguers may suspect America of being soft on crime.
[Inside Higher Ed. Photo: Flickr]