reSee.it - Tweets Saved By @leatherApronGuy
reSee.it AI Summary
I began investigating the claim that non-white criminals in the US are often misreported as white and found it may be a significant issue. I discovered examples of individuals listed as "Race: White" but "Ethnicity: Hispanic," raising questions about how this impacts national crime statistics. I'm curious if anyone has conducted a comprehensive analysis on this, especially state by state. My initial exploration showed varying reporting practices across states, and I plan to delve deeper into this topic.
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
I decided to look into the claim that oftentimes in the US, non-white criminals are reported as white in the US - expecting it to be an exaggerated meme basically. After just a brief poke around some states criminal DBs, it seems that it actually may be a rampant issue. Here are just 4 examples with more posted below. Might follow up and do a full analysis on this phenomenon.
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
Also potentially affecting the official stats are cases where individuals are listed as "Race: White" but "Ethnicity: Hispanic". Not sure how this gets totaled in things like national crime stats but I would assume its relevant. https://t.co/e8zJT3KGrb
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
I found all these and a few dozen others in just a brief time. I'm very curious to know how much this miscategorization affects national statistics. Has anyone ever done a comprehensive analysis on this, especially one on a state by state basis? https://t.co/PElOxoHHyV
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
@UnbiasedCrime Looks like you've already done some great work in this area. Do you have any data on this somewhere I could review?
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
@Alison275975428 This DB was only searchable by name, so I just put "John" in order to quickly test it out.
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
It varies state by state for sure. I've taken a look at 5 or so so far. Some report race + ethnicity separately, some together. Those that only report race sometimes distinguish between White and hispanic and some don't. A full analysis would have to look at many different states, if not all of them.
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
@Th3BadG0y I'd like to take a serious look at this yes.
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
@WhiteWolfOTWest Seriously. This was maybe 20 mins of poking around and searching for any "John"
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
Qatar OWNS our higher education???? Or is this narrative put out by @bariweiss and others of a similar caliber complete nonsense? https://t.co/yWswLV20tO
Video Transcript AI Summary
The speaker discusses ISGAP’s Follow the Money report, Corruption of the American Mind, about section 117 funding from Middle Eastern countries and antisemitic incidents on US campuses. The report’s top finding claims that, from 2015 to 2020, “institutions that accepted funding from Middle Eastern donors had on average 300% more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not.” The speaker notes this figure is not normalized for enrollment; with updated data, “2.51 antisemitic incidents per 1,000 students” at Middle Eastern-funded schools vs “2.71 incidents per thousand students, or about 8% more” at non-funded schools, reversing the conclusion. Other issues include counting any amount of funding (e.g., UC Merced with “$10 from Turkey”) and AMCHA’s database bias, described as “cataloging BDS activity as antisemitic.” Israel-funded schools show “3.02” vs Qatar’s “2.67” per thousand, implying correlation, not causation. Conclusion: “no proven causal link,” and “the ISGAP’s conclusions are overstated” due to confounding factors and potentially misleading methods.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: But what about schools which do have a more significant monetary relationship with Qatar? What about those six American universities that have satellite campuses in Doha? Does this more significant entanglement lead to antisemitism on those campuses perhaps? This question is the subject of the ISJP's largest and most thorough report published as part of Follow the Money titled Corruption of the American Mind. This report focuses on the alleged connection between section one seventeen funding from Middle Eastern countries and reported antisemitic incidents on US campuses.
This report contains perhaps the strongest arguments from all of these dozens of organizations complaining about Qatari funding. And let's face it, it was probably the reason they even cared about the topic in the first place. But even so, do these arguments hold water? Let's find out. In summation, the report presents a handful of different statistical analyses, which aim to prove that, like I said, universities which receive section one seventeen funding from Middle Eastern countries tend to have more antisemitic incidents reported on them.
Their top level finding indicates 300% more incidents. To get this figure, they looked at the top 203 universities in The US and separated them into universities that did and did not receive section one seventeen from those Middle Eastern countries. Then using a database of antisemitic incidents set up by an organization known as AMCHA or as they say it The AMCHA Initiative of More on them later, they analyzed the relationship between antisemitic incidents on campus and the binary presence or nonpresence of that section one seventeen funding from Middle Eastern countries at any particular school. This led them to the headline claim that, quote, from 2015 to 2020, institutions that accepted funding from Middle Eastern donors had on average 300% more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not. The findings for this study were presented in this table.
And as you can see, this statement seems to be reflected accurately in the data. These figures in the total column represent the logged total count of those incidents. So the percent increase in antisemitic incidents for schools that did receive Middle East funding was nearly double that of the schools that did not, at least compared to the constant. Now consider this information in light of what I told you in the above sections, that Qatari funding to these schools basically goes toward building campuses in Qatar and apolitical research projects. If this is true, if I haven't been lying to you, then how is the ISGAP apparently able to show that this funding increases antisemitism on campus?
One does not logically lead to the other. Well, suffice it to say, there are a couple problems with this report, which make its conclusions at the very least exaggerations. First and most glaringly, that 300% more antisemitic incidents claim is only technically correct. You see, to get that figure, which has been quoted in the media ad nauseam, likely because it appears at the top of the report, the researchers compared the total count of antisemitic incidents on all campuses that received Middle Eastern funding versus all those that did not. The problem is, of course, that the number of students enrolled in the campuses in both of these groups are wildly different.
The sizes of these universities weren't mentioned anywhere in the original report. So I took it upon myself to partially recreate the study from the ground up, grabbing the top 203 universities from the same sources as well as grabbing an updated version of the list of antisemitic incidents that the report used. My lists might be slightly different from theirs as I was using the latest information and theirs was from 2022, but the point should still stand. And this data which I gathered is, of course, available in the citation. So as I was going through the data, I noted the enrollment figures for each of these universities.
And in the end, I was able to determine that schools which did receive Middle Eastern funding have a total of 1,697,000 students, and those that did not have only 348,000, an almost five times difference in size. Then for each of these universities, I looked up the count of antisemitic incidents that have taken place on each according to OMSHA and put those in this column here. Now we can calculate the total number of antisemitic incidents at schools that did and didn't receive the Middle Eastern funding, and we get four thousand two hundred sixty seven and nine hundred forty three respectively. If I were to use the same dishonest methodology that the ISGAP did, then I could use these numbers to tell you that with up to date data, we find that Middle Eastern funded schools have 450% more antisemitic incidents. But I'm not a liar, so let's normalize for the massive difference in population size by calculating a rate.
Calculations are on screen if you need me to show my work. But in the end, we find out that schools which received Middle Eastern funding have seen 2.51 antisemitic incidents per 1,000 students, and schools which received no Middle Eastern funding see 2.71 incidents per thousand students, or about 8% more. Not only does the 300% more antisemitic incidents figure disappear when you normalize for population differences, but it actually starts going the other way. So the entire premise of this report, money from The Middle East makes students rabid antisemites, is, at least with up to date numbers, completely wrong, backwards even. Maybe they can come up with an explanation for this.
Maybe the dataset isn't perfect. I'm sure they would try to argue this in some way. But using the exact same methodology and sources as them, the ISJAP's report is completely invalidated. Should we now invalidate the actions taken by the departments of justice and education because of these reports? Do we nullify the executive orders which targeted funding for Middle Eastern sources and deported foreign students?
I suspect their side will be quiet on these questions. Now if I wanna be as fair as absolutely possible, I can say that with the data they used at the time, their conclusions might have been right. And there may have been slightly more antisemitic incidents at the Middle Eastern schools. I can't know for certain because they don't publish their data, but it is possible. But even if that were the case, the 300% more antisemitic incidents figure obviously didn't account for the differences in population sizes and was therefore necessarily dishonest.
In all likelihood, the increase in the rate of antisemitic incidents, had they calculated that at the time, would have been very modest at best. It is very probable that the ISGAP knew this fact too and intentionally misled their readers because later in this study, they actually account for enrollment in an expanded version of the table that I showed above. And basically, it shows that using the data they had at the time, as enrollment goes up, you naturally do see more antisemitic incidents. But that Middle Eastern funding still has a significant correlation, even accounting for this confounding variable. In other words, the study shows that even for schools of the same size, Middle East funding does seem to be correlated with the number of antisemitic incidents.
So they obviously knew this was a variable they needed to account for, but chose not to. Whether this was a simple mistake or an intentional deception on their part, we just don't know for sure. But we can say with certainty that one, the conclusions this report makes, even using their old data, are simply wrong. And two, the up to date data completely invalidates their entire report. And there are even further issues with this report that I could get into.
There are some easy ones to point out, like how they considered any school which received any amount of Middle Eastern funding to be in the Middle Eastern funded category. This leads to the ridiculous situation where the University of California Merced falls into this category because they received $10 from Turkey in 2019. This isn't some situation where this figure represents hundreds or thousands. This is $10, which the report implicitly argues affects on campus politics. But there are also less obvious problems with the report.
For instance, as I mentioned above, the antisemitic incidents for this study were pulled exclusively from the organization, OMCHA, which maintains a database of antisemitic incidents on college campuses because, of course, they do. Using this AMCHA database is a potential weakness to the argument the report is making, which even the ISGAP recognizes because as they write in their report, AMCHA has faced criticism for cataloging BDS activity as antisemitic because to some, it is interpreted as human rights activity. For those who don't know, BDS stands for boycott, divest, and sanction. It is a movement led by Palestinians which promotes these titular actions being taken against Israel in a non violent way. So does AMCHA classify peaceful BDS activity as anti Semitic?
While their website tries to make clear that they do not consider all criticism of Israel to be inherently anti Semitic, they simultaneously claim that all BDS activity is anti Semitic, that the BDS movement is anti Semitic in intent, content, expression, and effect, not leaving much room for interpretation. But let's not waste our time by looking at what they say and instead look at their actions. The AMTRA database of antisemitic incidents is available to the public online. Let's go through just a few of these ourselves and see just how hateful they are. I will only go through a few here of course, but please check the citation to explore for yourself.
Now, right off the bat, I will say that to their credit, there are undoubtedly instances of real discrimination against Jewish students. Take for instance when one former student at the Savannah College of Art and Design made a flyer advertising a student party which specified no Jews. And, okay, I think you got me on that one. We'll call that antisemitic. But the problem is this, I've read through several 100 of these, and in my opinion, the majority of these alleged incidents are in no way discriminatory nor truly harmful in any way to Jewish students.
Many are simply students protesting against the war in Gaza or against support for arms manufacturers, not even speaking out against Israel itself, let alone against Jewish people. Let's go through a couple of examples taken from just the last few months. Red paint was dumped over the front of Dartmouth Hall in an act of protest against the war in Gaza according to an interview with a source who claimed full responsibility. The individual stated to the Dartmouth, quote, despite the known atrocities unfolding, Dartmouth insists on fueling the war machine through its cooperation with arms manufacturers complicit with the Gaza genocide. As Dartmouth welcomes the class of twenty twenty nine to campus, university students in Gaza must put their education on pause for the second consecutive year due to Israel's continued assault on the Gaza Strip.
Let the blood that drips from Dartmouth Hall remind you of the price of silence. Institutional restraint is not neutrality. It is their refusal to admit wrongdoing. May the future students know the fascist nature of this institution and continue to fight for divestment and a free Palestine. In another example, faculty for justice in Palestine, UMass graduate employee organization Palestine Solidarity Caucus, and SJP held an event during which approximately 40 students, faculty, and community members gathered for a vigil.
The vigil was held, quote, for those who had been martyred in Gaza. During the vigil, Farin Parvez, an associate professor of sociology and member of FJP, stated, quote, it's important for us as a community to come together and grieve from time to time. We need to keep gathering like this to remind our community and our university that the genocide is still happening. In another example, the GUSA Election Commission announced the passage of a BDS referendum calling for economic and academic BDS with 67.9% of students voting in favor of the resolution and about 32.1 voting against it. The referendum called for Georgetown to disclose its investments in companies that support the Israeli military and for Georgetown to end partnerships with Tel Aviv University and other Israeli institutions with, quote, direct involvement in the occupation and genocide.
And one more example, Jews Against White Supremacy in collaboration with faculty for justice in Palestine posted a statement urging UCSC to cut ties with Hillel. Again, please look at Amtra's database yourself to see more examples. But I can assure you that a vanishingly small percentage of these represent anything which is discriminatory, let alone hateful. And you might be surprised to find out that many Jews participated in the incidents that were labeled antisemitic. In that last example, I mentioned Jews against white supremacy, but there is also Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now and a few others besides.
Now this might be obvious, but I'll say it anyhow. Considering all of these alleged antisemitic incidents made me reflect on just how much of the understanding that people think they have on any given topic is actually just a predigested and fully formed opinion made by someone else, and usually somebody who has an agenda as well as the free time or more often the paid time to put that story out to you. In this instance, anyone who follows the news knows for a fact that antisemitism is on the rise at universities. The president has said so. All the anchors said so.
All mainstream political e celebs. But very few people do the admittedly painful task of going through the database which is the source of that claim and allowing themselves to come to the nuanced opinion that many of these stories are nonsense. No real discrimination and oftentimes simply legitimate peaceful protest. And as pathetic as it is in the first place to feverishly record every time a crooked cross is drawn on the college campus, it would be more acceptable if they only recorded instances of real hate directed at Jewish students. But as it is, AMCA and other organizations like them are largely patting their numbers and crying wolf, which is a devastatingly stupid tactic, which will likely only breed more resentment against Jewish students and make the general public less receptive toward actual instances of hate directed at Jews.
But let's move on for now because there's another interesting angle to this whole argument. I noticed that despite the fact that every ISGAP report highlights Qatar as being far and away the most dangerous country funding our universities, this report in particular chose not to look at funding from Qatar, but instead looked at funding from all Middle Eastern countries as a whole. Why this oversight? It would have been a slam dunk if they could highlight that Qatari money correlates more strongly with antisemitic incidents than any other country. Well, I had a suspicion as to why they didn't do this.
So while I was recreating their study, I took the extra step of breaking down the Middle Eastern funding by country, and a very interesting fact emerged. Schools which were funded by Israel actually had a 13% higher rate of antisemitic incidents than schools which were funded by Qatar, 3.02 as compared to 2.67 incidents per thousand students. And this funding isn't coming from Palestinian or Arab sources in Israel by and large. It's almost entirely from Jewish individuals and organizations. So does this suggest that Israeli funding causes antisemitism?
Well, I would say no, or at the very least, that seems unlikely. But if we accept this, then, of course, the idea that Qatari funding has a causal link to antisemitism is rendered more or less impossible. Realistically, what we're dealing with here is unrelated correlations. As we've gone over in the above sections, foreign funding in the first place doesn't represent a huge portion of the money in school's coffers, and the money which they do get from foreign sources in almost all cases is used for apolitical research purposes. It suggests that more mundane factors are likely the cause here.
Most notably, the presence or nonpresence of Jews on campus probably increased the odds of an antisemitic incident greatly, as well as the presence or non presence of Arabs. And the report looked into neither of these obvious confounding factors. All things being equal, Israel is less likely to fund a school which doesn't have any Jewish students, and an antisemitic incident is less likely to occur if there are no Jews present. So, yes, it's probably unreasonable to say that Israeli funding causes antisemitism. But then it's equally unreasonable to conclude that Qatari funded research on perinatal depression causes it either.
So to sum this all up, it's doubtful that Qatari funding is the actual cause of any campus antisemitism. And if it is, the strength of that relationship has been exaggerated significantly. Considering the dubious nature of the source of the antisemitic incidents in AMCA, the fact that at the end of the day these are just correlations, the fact that the ISGAP basically just lied about their findings by telling us there were 300% more antisemitic incidents when in reality it was something like negative 8%, that they didn't bother looking into a number of obviously confounding factors like the number of Jewish and Arab students on a campus, that schools funded by Israel have a higher rate of antisemitic incidents than schools funded by Qatar. If there exists any causal relationship between Qatari funding and antisemitism on campuses, it has never been shown, and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to ever prove that connection. The ISJAP and others like them know this, which is why they rely on misleading and nonsensical studies, which can be used to make alarmist claims and headlines.
@leatherApronGuy - Leather Apron Club
A look into my world. Soon the Early Life check will be obsolete. Full data set is just over 1M names. https://t.co/mj2l14H7UA