Aaron Sibarium Profile picture
Reporter @FreeBeacon. Co-host of "Institutionalized" with @CharlesFLehman. DMs open. sibarium @ freebeacon dot com. “A kind of genius”—Jason Stanley
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Jul 2 11 tweets 4 min read
NEW: The deans at the center of the Columbia texting scandal said Jewish students were "coming from a place of privilege" and suggested they have more institutional support than their peers because of their supposed wealth, according to new messages reviewed by the Beacon.🧵
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The messages, obtained by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and released on Tuesday, show that three of the deans—Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm—engaged in a more extensive pattern of disparagement than has been previously reported.
Jun 21 8 tweets 2 min read
NEW: The dean of Columbia College, Josef Sorett, mocked Columbia’s top Hillel official in a new text message obtained by the Beacon, further implicating him in the scandal that’s caused three of his colleagues to be placed on leave.

“LMAO,” Sorett said of the rabbi’s remarks.🧵 Image Sorett’s text came in response to a sarcastic message from his colleague, Columbia’s vice dean and chief administrative officer Susan Chang-Kim, who said of Columbia’s Hillel director, Brian Cohen, "He is our hero."
Jun 17 4 tweets 2 min read
One reason the UCLA whistleblowers came forward is that their medical students couldn’t perform basic lab tests—the kind that that might be used to diagnosis life-threatening conditions like, well, sepsis.
Image "I have students on their rotation who don't know anything," a member of the admissions committee told the Free Beacon. "People get in and they struggle."

freebeacon.com/campus/a-faile…
Jun 14 7 tweets 2 min read
SCOOP: The dean of Columbia College, Josef Sorett, said today that the dismissive and vitriolic text messages he and his colleagues exchanged about a panel on anti-Semitism do not "indicate the views of any individual."

He also complained about the “invasion of privacy.”🧵 Image In an email to Columbia's Board of Visitors, an alumni body that advises the dean, Sorett apologized for the "harm" the exchange caused and pledged that "it will not happen again"—though he did not acknowledge his own texts were captured in the exchanges.
Jun 13 17 tweets 5 min read
NEW: In leaked text messages obtained by the Free Beacon, top Columbia administrators—including the dean of the college—mocked and dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism on campus and even used vomit emojis to refer to a Columbia rabbi’s op-ed.

Scoop w/@elianayjohnson.🧵
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The messages were sent in real time during a panel on anti-semitism at Columbia’s alumni weekend, which included the head of Columbia Hillel, Brian Cohen, and was attended by some of the school’s most senior officials. freebeacon.com/campus/columbi…
Jun 12 32 tweets 5 min read
EXCLUSIVE: Congressional Republicans have introduced a bill that would ax all DEI positions in the federal government AND bar federal contractors from requiring DEI statements and training sessions.

It would also ban DEI requirements in accreditation.🧵

freebeacon.com/politics/repub… The Dismantle DEI Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas), would also bar federal grants from going to diversity initiatives, cutting off a key source of support for DEI programs in science and medicine.
Jun 11 16 tweets 3 min read
NEW: For 5+ years, UCLA medical school refused to give its own faculty data on the link between MCATs and student performance.

And when whistleblowers tried to come forward about illegal admissions practices, UCLA refused to give them a written guarantee of non-retaliation.🧵 Since at least 2018, the school has refused to provide members of its faculty oversight board data on the relationship between admitted students’ academic credentials and their performance in medical school, two former members of that board said. freebeacon.com/campus/ucla-wa…
May 31 26 tweets 7 min read
NEW: The dean of UCLA medical school, Steven Dubinett, has spent the last week claiming that UCLA does not discriminate based on race and follows state and federal law.

But his own center within the medical school runs a minorities-only fellowship that experts say is illegal.🧵 Image The med school was hit with allegations last week that its admissions office holds black and Latino applicants to lower standards than their white and Asian counterparts.

Dubinett told an obscure Los Angeles Times columnist on Thursday that the allegations are "fact-free." Image
May 24 6 tweets 2 min read
NEW: Today the dean of UCLA medical school denied allegations that the school lowers academic standards for minorities, asserting that admissions decisions are "based on merit."

Notice: His statement refers to "false allegations" without saying which ones are false.🧵 Image The dean also claimed that "medical student final exam scores are well above the national average." It's not clear whether he was referring to the shelf exams—standardized tests that up to 50 percent of some UCLA cohorts now fail, per the school's own data—or to some other test.
May 23 50 tweets 10 min read
SCOOP: Whistleblowers at UCLA medical school say it has dramatically lowered admissions standards for minority applicants.

As a result, they say, 50% of some cohorts now fail basic tests of medical competence.

We've obtained shocking internal data.🧵
freebeacon.com/campus/a-faile…
Image UCLA medical school hired a new dean of admissions, Jennifer Lucero, In 2020. Since then, the number of students failing their shelf exams—standardized tests taken after each clinical rotation—has exploded, rising as much as tenfold in some subjects.

That wasn't a coincidence. Image
May 20 5 tweets 2 min read
In March 2023, nearly 100 Stanford Law students shouted down a federal judge because he had refused to use a transgender sex offender’s preferred pronouns in a judicial opinion. Yale Law received nearly a dozen discrimination complaints about a law student referring to his apartment as a trap house. It summoned the student to a meeting with DEI administrators who implied they would destroy his career if he didn’t sign a pre-drafted apology letter.
May 14 34 tweets 8 min read
NEW: In 2021, MIT hired six high-level DEI officials. Two of them now appear to be serial plagiarists.

One official, Tracie Jones-Barrett, copied an entire section on "ethical considerations" from a classmate in her Ph.D program.

Her dissertation's title? "Cite A Sista."🧵 Image In 2021, MIT welcomed six new deans of DEI, one for each of the institute's main schools, as part of a "DEI Strategic Action Plan" launched the previous year. The plan pledged to "make equity central" to the university "while ensuring the highest standards of excellence."
May 9 36 tweets 6 min read
NEW: Yale spent over a year investigating a Jewish professor for 6 words of an op-ed he published about campus anti-Semitism.

During that time, the school repeatedly refused to sanction students and professors for celebrating Oct. 7 and calling for the destruction of Israel.🧵 Evan Morris, a professor of biomedical engineering at Yale Med School, penned the 2022 op-ed in the Algemeiner along with 14 other professors. They described a pattern of anti-Semitism in the Yale Postdoctoral Association, which runs social and academic events for researchers.
May 7 16 tweets 3 min read
NEW: Middlebury College on Monday called for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza—but not for the release of the remaining hostages held there.

The one-sided statement comes as Middlebury faces a federal civil rights probe for allegedly discriminating against Jewish students.🧵 In an agreement struck with pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who had set up an encampment on the school’s main green, Middlebury president Laurie Patton issued a statementcondemning "the destruction and debilitation of educational institutions" in Gaza as a result of the carnage.
May 6 37 tweets 7 min read
NEW: 13 federal judges say they will no longer hire clerks from Columbia Law School OR Columbia College after the university allowed an encampment on its lawn to spiral into a destructive occupation of a campus building.

This is the first clerkship boycott to hit undergrads.🧵 Image The judges cite the "explosion of student disruptions" and the "virulent spread of antisemitism" at Columbia. They’re led by appellate judges James Ho and Liz Branch—who launched the boycotts of Yale and Stanford Law—as well as Matthew Solomson on the US Court of Federal Claims.
May 4 21 tweets 6 min read
THREAD: Certain people on this website keep claiming that the anti-woke movement—and in particular anti-woke Jews—have abandoned their commitment to free speech and are now demanding DEI-style censorship of views they find offensive.

The truth is almost the opposite.🧵 Today the editors of Tablet Magazine—a Jewish, Zionist, and vociferously anti-woke publication—put out an editorial lambasting efforts to police speech in the name of protecting Jews.

The editorial is literally titled, "Not In Our Name."

tabletmag.com/sections/news/…
May 2 15 tweets 3 min read
NEW: The student editors of the Columbia Law Review have issued a statement urging the law school to cancel exams in the wake of the police operation that cleared the university's encampment, saying the "violence" has left them "irrevocably shaken" and "unable to focus."🧵 Image Signed by 5 other law journals, including "A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual," the statement accused police of "brutalizing" students—though no major injuries have been reported—and claimed canceling exams was a "proportionate response" to the "distress our peers have been feeling." Image
Apr 29 21 tweets 4 min read
NEW: One of the most outspoken supporters of the Columbia encampment, classics professor Joseph Howley, is leading a review of the required humanities curriculum for all undergraduates.

Every student at Columbia will have to read the texts he assigns.🧵 Howley has emerged as one of the encampment’s most forceful champions, giving interviews from inside its perimeter and dismissing the idea that the unsanctioned protest—which has included calls to murder Jewish students and threats that "Columbia will burn"—poses a safety risk.
Apr 27 19 tweets 5 min read
EXCLUSIVE: UCLA medical school is launching a probe of its mandatory "health equity" class—and warning whistleblowers they could be punished if there are any more leaks.

It's also promised to address concerns that the course is antisemitic with—you guessed it—more DEI.🧵 The dean of the medical school, Steven Dubinett, announced today that his office had formed a task force to review all first-year courses, including "Structural Racism and Health Equity," after the Washington Free Beacon published materials from the mandatory class. Image
Apr 25 29 tweets 7 min read
NEW: Organizers of the Columbia encampment advised activists at Princeton on how to take over their own campus, giving them tips on disrupting university operations and stressing that there is "safety in numbers."

We've obtained documents showing extensive coordination.🧵 Image The tips were dispensed last week during a meeting between Aditi Rao, a Ph.D student at Princeton, and members of Columbia's encampment. Rao relayed the advice to her fellow Princeton activists in a strategy session last Saturday, notes from which were obtained by the Beacon.
Apr 24 25 tweets 6 min read
NEW: UCLA medical school's mandatory health equity class teaches students that weight loss is a "hopeless endeavor" and that "ob*sity" is a slur "used to exact violence on fat people."

The full syllabus has shocked prominent doctors—the former dean of Harvard Medical School.🧵 All first year students are assigned an essay by Marquisele Mercedes, a self-described "fat liberationist," who "describes how weight came to be pathologized and medicalized in racialized terms" and offers guidance on "resisting entrenched fat oppression," per the syllabus.