RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

August 10 to August 16

Featured Investigation:

I Challenged Duke’s DEI Dogma – and Paid With My Job

Dr. Kendall Conger, an emergency room physician, was terminated from Duke University Health System after challenging the organization's diversity, equity and inclusion policies. His first-person story for RealClearInvestigations reveals the personal cost of dissent within institutional orthodoxy.

• Conger's resistance began in 2018 when Duke's diversity officer described society as divided between "oppressors" and "oppressed." He recognized similarities to Marxist class struggle rhetoric and began questioning the ideological foundations of DEI initiatives.
• When Duke introduced an antiracist pledge claiming racism was a "public health crisis," Conger requested medical evidence supporting this assertion. No administrator could provide the data, leading him to conclude the policy was based on ideology rather than science.
• After questioning the pledge's scientific basis and discussing implicit bias with a colleague, Conger was reported for "unsafe" speech. He was forbidden from discussing DEI policies on Duke property and eventually terminated on Jan. 1, 2024, for "disruptive behavior."
• The termination complicated Conger's medical license renewal and job search. He now works as a contractor at a facility over an hour from home. Duke's medical board investigation found no violations, vindicating his professional conduct.
• Conger frames his experience through the lens of truth-telling in the face of institutional pressure, citing influences like Solzhenitsyn and Jordan Peterson. He views Duke's quiet policy reversal as validation of his stance against what he considered divisive ideology masquerading as medical science.
• Conger has been vindicated. This summer Duke Health System quietly scrubbed its 2021 commitment to DEI from its website, replacing "Duke Health Stands Against Racism, Bias, and Hate" with "Leading with Heart: Rooted in Humanity." In addition to the lawsuit Conger has launched, the health system is facing a federal civil rights lawsuits alleging discrimination and the Trump administration has frozen $108 million in funding for Duke University and the health system over what terms an "illegal use of racial preferences."

Featured Investigation:

Fraud Hunters: Sniffing Out Bogus Science

Vince Bielski reports for RealClearInvestigations by Vince Bielski on the growing network of scientific fraud hunters who are exposing research misconduct, including at America's most prestigious universities. An estimated 1-2% of all research papers contain fabricated, falsified, or plagiarized evidence, with retractions increasing fivefold in the last decade and more than 20 Nobel Prize winners having papers retracted. Bielski reports:

• The crisis stems from "publish or perish" academic culture, creating intense pressure to frequently publish to maintain employment. This has fueled the growth of clandestine "paper mills" producing fake papers for predatory journals without peer review.
• Research integrity officers (RIOs) face significant institutional obstacles when investigating misconduct. Universities often prioritize protecting prominent researchers who bring in funding and prestige, while investigations remain shrouded in secrecy despite federal funding.
• Whistleblowers can face severe retaliation, as demonstrated by the decade-long persecution of North Carolina State professor Stefan Franzen, who was ostracized and investigated for exposing flawed research that was ultimately retracted.
• Investigative committees often struggle to hold senior lab directors accountable, finding it easier to blame junior researchers or classify misconduct as human error rather than conduct thorough probes that could damage institutional reputations.
• Independent science sleuths like Sholto David and organizations like Retraction Watch have become crucial in identifying fraudulent research, with their online exposés often providing the initial evidence for formal investigations.
• The misconduct crisis particularly threatens biomedical research, where fraudulent findings can harm patients and undermine public trust in science at a time of growing skepticism about scientific institutions.

• Experts propose reforms including mandatory screening for image manipulation, greater transparency in investigations, and enhanced ethics training for researchers to address what is may be a significant problem in academic research.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

Fed Funds Support Mamdani’s Antisemitism, RCI

Utah CEO Used Grants for Snorkeling, More, RCI

Delays, Cost Overruns in Transit Projects, RCI

Throwback Thursday - Quail on Cocaine, RCI

“Medicaid Millionaire” Bought Lamborghini, RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

FBI Ignored Tip Adam Schiff OKed Classified Leak, Fox News

Clapper Ignored NSA Concerns about Russiagate Report, Fox News

The Russiagate Leakers' Favorite Reporters, PJ Media

Dark Money Powers Anti-Trump's DC Protests, New York Post

The Key to Trump Family’s Crypto Riches, Wall Street Journal

U.S. Leaders Assail U.K.'s Censorious New Internet Rules, NBC News

Trump's State Capitalism Looks A Lot Like China's, Wall Street Journal

Cashing In: Making the Move from Congress to AI Lobbyist, Substack

Much of Trump's Surging Wealth Now from Crypto, Intercept

DOGEflation: DOGE’s Savings A Fraction What's Claimed, Politico

Wall Street Dem Becomes MAGA’s Favorite Money Man, Free Press

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Armies Figuring Out How to Zap Drones on the Cheap 

Wall Street Journal

Even as militaries around the world embrace drone warfare, they are also seeking ways to counter those cheap and deadly weapons. This article reports that radio jammers, Stryker vehicles, and automated interceptors are a few of the methods tested in recent NATO exercises. 

Project Flytrap began in March with initial research and testing. It has grown in scale and ambition, with 4.0 the first time troops integrated counterdrone systems into battalion-level fighting. The engagement scenario involved several dozen troops attacking roughly 180 defenders in traditional land battles augmented with hundreds of drones, employed in the most realistic ways possible short of lethality, said organizers. To crank up intensity, they packed into the four-day exercise a relentless series of attacks, engagements and threats modeled on fighting in Ukraine and other conflicts. … Troops from the Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment, based in Germany, and the U.K.’s Royal Yorkshire Regiment used new devices—some developed in-house and some from private companies—to track, jam and shoot down drones sent at them by other U.S. forces.

'“It’s very much a cat-and-mouse game,” said Army Lt. Col. Jeremy Medaris, a leader of the exercise. Drones keep adapting, “so then you have to have an adaptation as well” to counter them. Instead of seeking a single solution, he told the Journal, the emphasis is on developing a flexible and layered approach with a range of tools.

In a separate article, the Atlantic reports that human strengths are still vital to the military in an article by focusing on the U.S. Army’s Best Ranger Competition which “may be the hardest physical competition in the world. Fifty-two teams of two soldiers each start the Ranger Olympics. Over the course of three days, the field is narrowed as soldiers march and run dozens of miles, crawl through obstacle courses, and navigate swamps at night. They carry 50 pounds in their rucksacks, climb 60-foot ropes, and sleep, at most, for four hours at a time. All told, the average competitor burns more than 30,000 calories.”

Bomb Threats, Shooting, Arson: Attacks on Churches in 2024 

Daily Signal

The wave of attacks on churches following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe. Vs. Wade’s guarantee of federal abortion rights in 2022 appears to be abating. This article reports on a new study that found churches suffered 415 attacks in 2024 – down from 485 in 2023. That number, however, is still much higher than the figure of 2021 (98) and 2020 (55).

The Family Research Council used open-source documents, reports, and news articles to assess attacks against Christian churches. The 2024 report identified 284 acts of vandalism, 55 incidents of arson or other fires, 28 gun-related attacks, 14 bomb threats, and 47 other incidents, such as physical assault, disruption of church services, and general threats of harm. … Although vandalism may not result in severe damage, some 2024 cases cost churches thousands of dollars. North Peoria Church of Christ in Tulsa, Oklahoma, faced $100,000 in damage after a vandal attacked five air conditioning units in April, after paying $40,000 for a new air conditioning unit in 2023.

This article reports that the motives behind most attacks remained mysterious, but the Family Research Council did identify a few of them. “Previous reports identified 59 pro-abortion attacks in 2022 and 11 in 2023, while only two incidents traced back to support for abortion in 2024. In April, a vandal spray-painted “F— U” and “My body, my choice” on St. Patrick’s Church in Portland, Oregon. Incidents involving Satanism also decreased from 12 in 2023 to one in 2024.”

The Quiet Technocrat Who Enacts Putin’s Ruthless Agenda 

New York Times

This article opens with the story of a Kremlin official named Sergei V. Kiriyenko describing his latest project to a Moscow businessman: “stage-managing ‘referendums’ in occupied Ukraine to make it look like those regions wanted to join Russia … even listing the percentage breakdown of the results the Kremlin would declare.” That is only one of the duties of Kiriyenko, who represents the cadre of skilled, loyal and opportunistic managers Putin depends on to rule the Russian state.

Just in the past few months, Mr. Kiriyenko’s reach has extended to efforts to reintegrate Ukraine war veterans into civilian life and to push Russians onto a state-affiliated messaging app instead of Western ones. If Mr. Putin makes a deal with President Trump at their planned summit in Alaska on Friday to end the fighting in Ukraine, it is likely to be Mr. Kiriyenko’s job to sell any compromise to Russians as a victory. … In interviews, more than a dozen former colleagues and other Russians who know Mr. Kiriyenko described him as a man whose proficiency in the minutiae of control and influence have greased the machinery of Mr. Putin’s autocracy.

This profile of Kiriyenko, who was just 35 in 1998 when he briefly became Russia’s prime minister, describes his skill at “repeated reinvention,” one that has enabled him to thrive through “shifting alliances.”

The Hidden Toll of Unsolved Murders in St. Louis 

Marshall Project

There were nearly 2,000 homicides in St. Louis from 2014 through 2023 – and more than half of them went unsolved. This article reports on the terrible toll this takes on the deceased surviving family members.

When no one is held accountable for a person’s death, several families of homicide victims told The Marshall Project that it not only warps their sense of justice — it also complicates their grief. Many said they struggle to find a sense of closure, a struggle exacerbated by a shortage of grief-support resources. Unlike grieving an expected death, traumatic grief is an intense, prolonged mourning following a sudden, often violent, loss. Researchers say it shares symptoms with post-traumatic stress disorder and is also known as complex grief.

This article reports that Monthane Miller-Jones, whose 26-year old son Mario was shot and killed in 2018, said the grief from her son’s death tore her marriage apart. Her husband struggled to cope, she said, while she became fixated on helping police track down the person who killed her son. “I was married to my high school sweetheart, and when we lost Mario, we just could not find common ground with each other,” she recalled. “We blamed each other. We just argued – it could be [about] a crumb on the floor, it could have been anything.”

Inside Sports' Escalating Stalking Problem 

The Athletic

This article reports that stalking has become part of the sports landscape: Matches are being interrupted, players are acknowledging that fixated strangers are impacting their mental health and performance, leagues and colleges are directing more money and resources toward security. On social media, athletes share stories, ask for advice, connect and commiserate. Although there are no official statistics on the phenomenon, The Athletic reports that is has identified at least 52 stalking cases involving athletes, male and female, since 2020.

Female tennis players Iga Świątek, Yulia Putintseva and Emma Raducanu dealt with stalking incidents this year. Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and other women’s basketball players were subjected to stalking that led them to fear for their safety. Gymnasts Simone Biles and Livvy Dunne have been targeted, as has track athlete Gabby Thomas; American hurdler and bobsledder Lolo Jones had someone break into her training facility and attempt to do the same at her home, one of three men she said have stalked her in recent years. Among the male victims are former Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald; a woman has harassed and stalked him and his family for years. … A woman nicknamed “devil baby” pleaded guilty to stalking then-Chelsea players Mason Mount and Billy Gilmour.

This article reports that while every state and the federal government have anti-stalking laws, “most statutes designed to address and prohibit stalking are toothless, and prosecution of the crime falls almost entirely on the victim.”