Tea at Trianon: Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation

From Chronicles:

A miraculous fellow like Arday might never have been admitted as a student at Cambridge, let alone made “professor of the sociology of education,” if not for the spirit of DEI. Yet now he faces accusations of plagiarism because more than 100 passages in his dissertation appear to be lifted from another academic’s work.

He insists he’s a victim of racism and insufficient accommodation: “Arday did not dispute the allegations of plagiarism,” the BBC reports, “but defended himself by arguing that he had not received adequate supervision during his Ph.D. given his autism and learning disabilities …”

Even the left-wing Guardian newspaper found Arday less than reliable when he claimed a campaign to get him fired from Cambridge included a man threatening him with a knife—video showed no man and no knife—and someone sending a severed pig’s head to his parents. (London butchers and police said their recollections and records conflicted with Arday’s story.)

When the paper asked about the discrepancies, Arday replied, “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me.”

The trouble is, too many in the media and academy have believed Arday all along. He’s a poster child for the suspension of common-sense DEI demands of its believers on both sides of the Atlantic. When he’s just a professor of the sociology of education, even at a university as prestigious as Cambridge, an Arday is comical. But it’s no joke when DEI spreads from sociology and education departments to every other corner of the academy, including medical and law schools—and from there into hospitals and courtrooms. (Read more.)