One of the core principles of mathematics is that the validity of an argument depends not on the status of the person making it but rather on its inherent worth. We have bigots as do all disciplines but we've been better about treating people the same way we treat arguments in recent years. Trump's opposition to DEI, to valuing people for what they are and not who they love or the color of their skin, is, on top of everything else, bad mathematics.
I caught a student cheating on a final exam this morning. I had a line of sight on them and watched for ten minutes as they took their cellphone out of their pocket, kept it below their table, typed into it, read it, put it away, then wrote on the exam, repeating this cycle over and over again. I was a bit surprised as the exam was open notes but this student had not attended many of our classes, just stopping by for exams, and I conjecture that they had no notes to open. I confronted the student who admitted that they had done wrong in an inarticulate non-confessional way. By the afternoon they had signed off on the honor code violation report to avoid further investigation and possible sanctions beyond failing the exam. Is anger the right emotion to feel now? I had a working relationship with the student, although they had not contributed much to it. They had deceived me in order to gain unwarranted advantage over their peers in the class and that is not right. I don't wan...
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