In the Name of Diversity: Why Mandatory Diversity Statements Violate the First Amendment and Reduce Intellectual Diversity in Academia

In the 1950s and 1960s in many parts of the country, a professor could be fired or never hired if he refused to denounce communism or declare loyalty to the United States Constitution. The University of California system took the lead in enforcing these loyalty oaths. These loyalty oaths were challenged all the way up to the United States Supreme Court and were soundly rejected, establishing the centrality of academic freedom and open inquiry on the university campus. So why are loyalty oaths making their resurgence in the form of mandatory diversity statements? Universities have begun requiring faculty members to declare fealty to a particular worldview and approach towards matters of diversity. In an irony that appears to be missed on campus diversity bureaucrats, these statements are being deployed in the name of diversity. And in another historical irony, this trend has once again been spearheaded in the University of California system. While these diversity statement were initially conceived of as just an additional factor to be weighed along with academic merit, teaching, and service, the purpose and use of these statements has radically morphed over the past few years. At some of the campuses today, a prospective professor who does not produce a diversity statement that will satisfy diversity bureaucrats, will be excluded from consideration without a review of any other aspect of his application. And the rubrics that are being deployed engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination, as well as a viewpoint based evaluation of the applicant’s research. At these campuses, it is unlikely, for instance, that an aspiring professor who shares the viewpoint Chief Justice Roberts that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” could be hired. Can a university employ such viewpoint based criterion in its hiring process, or do the First Amendment rights of individual professors foreclose such viewpoint based discrimination? This article examines this question in the context of the long standing debate over the First Amendment rights of Professors, and trends in academia that have undermine professorial academic freedom. It argues that diversity statements must be carefully scrutinized by Courts and that if they are being used as ideological litmus tests, as they clearly are at the University of California, they must be struck down as unconstitutional

Gauge Independence of IR singularities in Non-Commutative QFT - and Interpolating Gauges

IR divergences of a non-commutative U(1) Maxwell theory are discussed at the one-loop level using an interpolating gauge to show that quadratic IR divergences are independent not only from a covariant gauge fixing but also independent from an axial gauge fixing.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, v1 minor correction

Reflections on Seminole Rock: The Past, Present, and Future of Deference to Agency Regulatory Interpretations

Seminole Rock (or Auer) deference has captured the attention of scholars, policymakers, and the judiciary. That is why Notice & Comment, the blog of the Yale Journal on Regulation and the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice, hosted an online symposium from September 12 to September 23, 2016 on the subject. This symposium contains over 20 contributions addressing different aspects of Seminole Rock deference. Topics include: History of Seminole Rock Empirical Examinations of Seminole Rock Understanding Seminole Rock Within Agencies Understanding Seminole Rock as Applied to Tax, Environmental Law, and Criminal Sentencing Why Seminole Rock Matters Should the Supreme Court Overrule Seminole Rock? Would Overruling Seminole Rock Have Unintended Consequences? What Might the Supreme Court Do? What Might Congress Do? The Future of Seminole Roc

Spondarthritis in the Triassic

Background: The evidence of several forms of arthritis has been well documented in the fossil record. However, for pre-Cenozoic vertebrates, especially regarding reptiles, this record is rather scarce. In this work we present a case report of spondarthritis found in a vertebral series that belonged to a carnivorous archosaurian reptile from the Lower Triassic (,245 million years old) of the South African Karoo. Methodology/Principal Findings: Neutron tomography confirmed macroscopic data, revealing the ossification of the entire intervertebral disc space (both annulus fibrosus and nucleus pulposus), which supports the diagnosis of spondarthritis. Conclusions/Significance: The presence of spondarthritis in the new specimen represents by far the earliest evidence of any form of arthritis in the fossil record. The present find is nearly 100 million years older than the previous oldest report of this pathology, based on a Late Jurassic dinosaur. Spondarthritis may have indirectly contributed to the death of the anima

Detection and Molecular Characterization of 9000-Year-Old Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a Neolithic Settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the principal etiologic agent of human tuberculosis. It has no environmental reservoir and is believed to have co-evolved with its host over millennia. This is supported by skeletal evidence of the disease in early humans, and inferred from M. tuberculosis genomic analysis. Direct examination of ancient human remains for M. tuberculosis biomarkers should aid our understanding of the nature of prehistoric tuberculosis and the host/pathogen relationship.Methodology/Principal Findings: We used conventional PCR to examine bone samples with typical tuberculosis lesions from a woman and infant, who were buried together in the now submerged site of Atlit-Yam in the Eastern Mediterranean, dating from 9250-8160 years ago. Rigorous precautions were taken to prevent contamination, and independent centers were used to confirm authenticity of findings. DNA from five M. tuberculosis genetic loci was detected and had characteristics consistent with extant genetic lineages. High performance liquid chromatography was used as an independent method of verification and it directly detected mycolic acid lipid biomarkers, specific for the M. tuberculosis complex.Conclusions/Significance: Human tuberculosis was confirmed by morphological and molecular methods in a population living in one of the first villages with evidence of agriculture and animal domestication. The widespread use of animals was not a source of infection but may have supported a denser human population that facilitated transmission of the tubercle bacillus. The similarity of the M. tuberculosis genetic signature with those of today gives support to the theory of a long-term co-existence of host and pathogen

A diversidade cultural e a reprodução humana

Antes de começar a discorrer sobre este tema é necessário dizer algumas palavras sobre como ocorre a relação natureza e cultura, à partir do protagonista deste processo: o Homem. Em sua totalidade, o homem é o foco da produção científica. Sua apropriação diferencial, nas muitas áreas do conhecimento, torna-o, porém, divisível, portanto sujeito a análises parciais e diferentes. A diversidade das visões profissionais representa a somatória da experiência concreta vivida e dos valores assimilados no processo de aprendizagem. Essa diversidade orienta, enquanto experiência individual, a percepção do mundo, e, enquanto profissional, o seu objeto de trabalho

Civilizing tastes: From caste to class in South Indian foodways

Anthropological explorations of food in South Asia are often framed by theories of caste and ritual purity or pollution, with the highest castes characterised as protecting their purity by accepting food from no-one of lower caste status, and those at the bottom accepting food from anyone. The problem with this focus on caste is not that it is misguided per se; many Hindus do indeed regulate their consumption in relation to such concerns, and a quotidian understanding of caste remains vital in understanding how people in India relate to one another. Rather, the problem is that our focus on caste as the defining social institution of India has obscured social relationships defined by other cross-cutting hierarchies that also, and increasingly, reflect and shape Indian foodways. Drawing on prolonged ethnographic fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh, South India, this chapter is concerned with how class in particular – both in terms of economic status and as a marker of distinction – also has profound implications for what people in South India eat, with whom, and why; particularly in the wake of the economic liberalisation that began in the 1990s and the emergence of new foods and tastes ripe for symbolic appropriation

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics