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bolanrox t1_iu63wu8 wrote

didn't they also kick out the Ghostbusters?

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MLJ9999 t1_iu65zlh wrote

That was most definitely Columbia University's loss.

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kala-surtaj t1_iu6xwc1 wrote

They don’t have to give a reason nowadays.

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Cross_22 t1_iu6zp49 wrote

They wouldn't let him in - so he picked their locks.

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CrieDeCoeur t1_iu70bqn wrote

Feynman also had a great sense of humour. Pretty philosophical guy too from what I've read about him.

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Kthuun t1_iu73u84 wrote

Is Jewish a race? Thought it was just a religion.

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bigbrothersrule t1_iu7452n wrote

Many elite universities had a Jewish quota. It’s one of the reasons why Brandeis was founded.

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neox20 t1_iu76514 wrote

Ethnoreligion. Judaism doesn't try to convert people, and Judaism is based on matrilineal descent, so most Jews have a common ethnic background.

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sometimeslowly t1_iu7asn1 wrote

Huh interesting because 2 minutes of reading the wikipedia page says the opposite.

It says he was denied because of jewish quota's, which were to prevent universities from having too many jewish people.

"'In 1935 Yale accepted 76 applicants from a pool of 501. About 200 of those applicants were Jewish and only five got in.' He notes that Dean Milton Winternitz's instructions were remarkably precise: 'Never admit more than five Jews, and take no blacks at all'"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota

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[deleted] t1_iu7c21d wrote

If you like biographies and/or science, Genius by James Gleick is a great read on Feynman's life.

Six Easy Pieces and Six Not So Easy Pieces by Feynman are also great science reads

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locks_are_paranoid t1_iu7gbtm wrote

History is repeating itself. Harvard is rejecting Asian applicants just because they're Asian. The really sad part is that the ACLU sided with Harvard when they were sued for discrimination.

ACLU statement where they openly support taking race into account in college admissions.

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imk t1_iu7jl9h wrote

I live near Columbia university and, suffice it to say, that would be like a university not letting any townies in.

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johnqsack69 t1_iu7lowq wrote

Good luck having a solid science dept with no Jews

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RingGiver t1_iu83re5 wrote

If you think that this sort of thing is only a feature of the past, you should remember that there are a lot of people involved in higher education administration who claim that it is racist to NOT discriminate against applicants of Asian descent.

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icbm67 OP t1_iu85y60 wrote

Exactly, Fuchs was a spy and before he was caught he was asked once that who could be a spy among the Los Alamos scientists. He accused Feynman because RF would pick locks on the safes of other scientists and would travel to Albuquerque (to visit his dying wife).

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theswordofdoubt t1_iu8arbp wrote

Tokyo Medical University also got caught lowering the grades of women who sat for their entrance exams in order to reject those women, as recently as 2018. It was going on for decades before finally coming to the attention of authorities.

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icbm67 OP t1_iu8bqv6 wrote

It's the white people who implemented those "quotas" and prevented others to get in. Now Asians, Hispanics are getting in unis through merit and form the majority now while Whites are demanding that there should be a quota.

I don't see the problem here. When Whites were over represented by usurping other minorities place they weren't so keen on talking on "leaving degrees for the rest". Now other minorities are getting in through pure merit and whites are like "leave some for the rest"

Hypocrites

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Trust_No_Won t1_iu8ldeo wrote

I also came here to recommend Genius for those interested in learning about his life and work. I didn’t realize Feynman was one of those guys known for his lectures and antics who didn’t publish many written papers. Even the “autobiographies” people know were compiled by someone else.

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Thickensick t1_iu8pcer wrote

Orrrrr…. This is also about Asians being excluded and having different standards applied to them due to their minority status.

The parent comment of “Racial diversity is a good thing” being down voted also suggests it’s a super complex topic.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu8q9yz wrote

No. It’s a bunch of racist white folks who think denying black folks entrance to Harvard will somehow elevate them. If test scores were the only criteria Harvard would be half Asian. Harvard is under no obligation to only use test scores for entrance.

28% of this years FR class is Asian-American. Asian-Americans make up 8% of the USA. They’re not discriminated against as a whole when it comes to Harvard admission.

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rmphys t1_iu8ubkr wrote

And his students. He'd have been canned for sexual harassments almost instantly today (and to be clear, he should have been, I'm not complaining about today's standards. The man was a menace to women in science, but that was accepted back then)

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rmphys t1_iu8ulw0 wrote

Jewish people were overrepresented in higher ed relative to their proportion of the general population at the time of these quotas as well. Doesn't make it right.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu8vo9r wrote

Harvard is almost 30% Asian American while the population of Asian Americans in America is under 10%. Asian Americans as a whole are not discriminated against in Harvard admissions.

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EpsomHorse t1_iu93uga wrote

> And his students.

Who are we to judge the consensual activities that adults choose to partake in?

> He'd have been canned for sexual harassments almost instantly today

No he wouldn't. Even in the puritanical America of 2022, relationships with students are perfectly licit as long as you're not currently teaching them.

> The man was a menace to women in science

Nonsense. There hasn't been a single accusation against him for derailing someone's career, preventing them from getting scholarships, or any other abuse of power.

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HunterRoze t1_iu9xuos wrote

Does it matter when it is used as a basis of discrimination? Do you think the university asked themselves that question when they refused to admit Jews?

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SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_iu9yx8v wrote

I can imagine that the practice of filing formal complaints didn't exist. But if Feynman was destroying people's careers, that should have been known to everyone the field. It would have been knowledge of vital importance to his colleagues, not just gossip interest.

Besides, "The man was a menace to women in science": now that is a claim that has not been substantiated in this thread.

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SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_iua9lef wrote

Ok, but was the existence of these sexual relations at all correlated to the women's career outcomes? "Frisky Feynman was a menace to women in science", without concrete specifics to support it, sounds to me like the one making the claim doesn't realize that women like sex too. As far as I can tell, Feynman was very handsome and witty.

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Cycleofmadness t1_iuahxwp wrote

MIT was his 2nd choice? Did Columbia have a better physics program back then?

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Hapankaali t1_iuaijm8 wrote

The better way to address the problem is to create a level playing field: eliminate poverty and provide universal access to high-quality primary and secondary education. How can we ever convince people to not discriminate based on irrelevant traits when the system does it itself?

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blumpkinmania t1_iuaq6pj wrote

No. They are not. Asian Americans make up 28% of the FR class and about 8% of the total American pop. They are over represented at Harvard. And using woke like that makes you a moron.

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removed_bymoderator t1_iubf9hn wrote

And Tuva Or Bust, written by a friend of his. The two of them tried to go to Tuva in the Soviet Union, and it's a story of their finding a way to get a visa and whatever else was going on in their lives at the time. Fun book.

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