How the Graham Family Is Intruding Their
"Washington Post" and "Newsweek" Magazine into Massachusetts
and Challenging the Sulzberger Monopoly
The
Graham's Magazine Was a Principal Advocate behind Efforts by Harvard
Medical School and Wellesley College to Make Boys More Like Girls
By MassNews Staff
It was this cover on Newsweek magazine (owned
by the Grahams) which drew our attention last week.
We are very aware that Newsweek has
been a principal advocate behind the efforts of psychologists at
Harvard Medical School and Wellesley College to make boys act like
girls. That is also the goal of the extreme feminists at Harvard,
Wellesley and NOW.
We revealed the machinations of Harvard
in July 2001 by exposing their psychologist, Dr. William Pollack.
He was a national phenomenon, running from the Today show to lectures
around the country and publishing many thousands of copies of his
best-selling book, "Real Boys, Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths
of Boyhood." |
|
When the massacre at Columbine High
School in Colorado jolted the country, Dr. Pollack stepped forward with
his new book to frighten and calm the country at the same time (and
make a lot of money).
While at his peak in November 2000,
Dr. Pollack had his lawyer flamboyantly threaten our founder, Atty.
J. Edward Pawlick, with a lawsuit, but Pawlick immediately responded
that he would welcome such a suit because it would allow him to question
Dr. Pollack. He would be able to discover the many unanswered questions
about Pollock's research. As Pawlick expected, the lawyer never responded.
By the following July, Atty. Pawlick
had discovered the answers he had been seeking without any help from
Dr. Pollack. This is the story that made Pollack suddenly retire and
disappear in July 2001.
Research
of Famous Harvard Psychologist Seriously Flawed, Perhaps Fraudulent
Students at Belmont Hill School Thought It Was a 'Farce'
By Atty. J. Edward Pawlick
July 2001
|
The
research that made Harvard psychologist William Pollack a famous
expert on American boys and frightened American parents and educators
is seriously flawed, if not fraudulent, according to people familiar
with the study. It became the basis of Pollack's bestseller, "Real
Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood."
Pollack's
overtly anti-male conclusions were used by Harvard Medical School
in 1998 to declare a "national emergency" that called
for "major social reform" of boys.
The
boys at Belmont Hill School who were used by Dr. William Pollack
to conduct the research for his best-selling book about American
boys thought that the survey, which reportedly employed coercion,
was a farce. |
Dr. William Pollack threatened to sue Mass News when we
reported the
charges by Prof. Summers. |
"No
one around me took the exam seriously with such one-sided and leading
questions being asked," one former pupil says. "The test turned
into a complete farce when kids began shouting out their answers to
their classmates in an effort to make a joke."
One
student still vividly remembers one question that they were required
to answer. "I was asked to answer how often I thought about killing
myself --- not if I did --- how
much I did. I was given the choice between once a year, once a month,
once a week, or once a day." One parent says the school refused
to provide parents with copies of the "test" which was administered
to their sons.
"We
were absolutely shocked when the teachers threateningly demanded that
we sign our names. I feel I can honestly say that the common sentiment,
as a direct result of those one-sided questions, throughout the entire
class was to not take the test seriously," a student has told Massachusetts
News.
It
is a violation of the Ethical Standards of the American Psychological
Association, to force subjects to complete surveys and to sign their
names.
Against
universally accepted scientific practice, Pollack has always refused
to reveal where the research was conducted or to allow other academics
to examine the data behind the sweeping and alarming conclusions he
published in Real Boys. But concerned parents and former pupils have
revealed that Pollack's research was done on May 19, 1997, at the prestigious
Belmont Hill School just outside Boston.
The
boys continued to talk about it for days. "Over the course of the
next few days," a boy says, "it became a badge of honor to
admit that one had filled it out incorrectly simply to spite this test
which, no matter how accurately answered, in no way reflected the student.
As a result, the student body did not answer accurately and honestly.
I am still outraged and frightened that the answers I wrote on that
test are actually connected to me by name, or by any means."
Because
of fear of retaliation, until the students left Belmont Hill and had
been accepted at colleges, the revelations have until now been kept
from the public. In addition, the boys do not wish to damage the school
in any way.
In
the meantime, Pollack a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School,
became famous and rich because of his best-selling book, published in
1998.
Is it Fiction?
Prof.
Howard Schwartz of Oakland University says the new revelations about
Pollack's research confirm what he suspected already.
"The
only question is how much of his interviews Pollack made up. I suspect
it was a lot. This information does nothing to reduce my uneasiness
about the standards he applies to his work. His data were collected
in a very questionable fashion from an extremely non-representative
sample of boys. It makes the head spin to think that he has generalized
his findings into a full blown diagnosis of cultural crisis. It is becoming
increasingly difficult to take Dr. Pollack seriously."
A
professor of organizational behavior, Professor Schwartz studies the
psychodynamics of political correctness and is publishing a new book
on the subject. He sees Pollack's underlying goal as "to provide
a theoretical basis for social engineering, for a certain kind of parenting
--- from a feminist perspective."
"Pollack
sees no particular [positive] meaning in the role of the father,"
says Schwartz. "His images of fathers are just about uniformly
negative. The whole idea behind the revolution in parenting
that he is trying to bring about is [the notion] that the traditional
family is throwing boys into distress by raising them to be like their
fathers rather than like women."
Research Doubted Last Year
Pollack's
research came under attack last year in a book by Prof. Christina Hoff
Sommers, of the American Enterprise Institute. In "The War Against
Boys" she wrote that we are turning against boys as the result
of research that is "riddled with errors."
"On
June 4, 1998," she wrote, "McLean Hospital, the psychiatric
teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School, issued a two-page Press
Release announcing the results of a new study of boys. The Release ...
reported that researchers at McLean and Harvard Medical School found
that 'psychologically "healthy" middle-class boys' are anxious,
alienated, lonely and isolated - 'despite appearing outwardly content.'"
Sommers
noted that Harvard said that this was a "national emergency"
that had been discovered by Dr. Pollack that called for "major
social reform." She reported that Harvard said, "The time
has come to change the way boys are raised - in our homes, in our schools
and in society."
It's
unusual to find such sensational claims and recommendations issuing
from a staid research institution such as McLean, which is routinely
ranked among the top three psychiatric hospitals in the United States,
Sommers reported.
So
Professor Sommers asked to see the research. "I requested a copy
of the 'Listening to Boys' Voices' study from McLean. A few days later,
a thirty-page typed manuscript arrived. It had not been published, nor
was it marked as about to be published. It had none of the usual properties
of a professional research paper. Unlike most scientific papers, which
alert readers to their limits, Pollack's paper was unabashedly extravagant,
declaring that 'these findings about boys are unprecedented in the literature
of research psychology.'"
The
"national emergency," Sommers discovered, was based on a "battery
of vaguely described tests administered to 150 boys" in grades
7-9. She says Pollack gave no explanation of how the boys had been selected
or whether they constituted anything like a representative sample.
"In
sum," Sommers reported, "Pollack's paper does not present
a single persuasive piece of evidence for a national boy crisis. I do
not know whether 'Listening to Boys' Voices' has been submitted for
publication in a professional journal. Its sparse data and its strident
and implausible conclusions render it un-publishable as a scholarly
article."
When
Pollack's former subjects now realize how their answers have been used
by Dr. Pollack as a recipe for changing the boys all across America,
they are astonished.
"Our
immature attempt at humor four years ago should not be the benchmark
for the 21st century," one told the Massachusetts News.
Pollack
threatened to sue Massachusetts News (but never did) after it printed
a story in the November 2000 issue. A subsequent story was published
in January 2001 with the headline, "Harvard Professor Joins Feminist
Plan to Alter the Nature of Males." The subhead was, "Dr.
William Pollack Became Famous and Wealthy, Saying Single Mothers are
Fine and Boys Are In Crisis, Just Like Their Fathers."
Violated APA Ethical Standards
Dr.
Pollack will undoubtedly respond to these revelations by saying that
he had permission from the parents to force the boys to complete the
surveys and to sign their names. But this newspaper has learned that
the only "permission" came as the result of a long, rambling
letter about various topics from Headmaster Richard Melvoin the previous
October.
Melvoin
wrote on page two of the letter, "Belmont Hill has been asked to
participate in two surveys. One will survey student attitudes toward
violence in the media. The second will study developmental issues in
boys' attitudes and will be overseen by Dr. William Pollack, a Harvard
Medical School faculty member who has written two books on issues of
boys and men in society. Dr. Pollack has also spoken in front of the
faculty and at the Boys' Schools Coalition Conference. If parents have
any concerns about their sons participating in these surveys, please
let our office know."
Pollack's
surveys were administered to all the pupils in grades 7-9 at the same
time in two separate locations at the all-boy school. The head of the
middle school, Deborah Callahan, was in charge and Pollack was present.
Pollack
appears to have violated the American Psychological Association's Ethical
Standard 6.11, (c) through (e), which states, "When psychologists
conduct research with individuals such as students or subordinates,
psychologists take special care to protect the prospective participants
from adverse consequences of declining or withdrawing from participation."
The
Ethical Standard also says that, "The psychologist must make an
effort to protect such individuals from any adverse consequences of
declining or withdrawing, such as a lowering of a grade or evaluation,
loss of privileges, or any other negative consequence over which the
researcher has some degree of control." It goes on to state, "Investigators
must obtain participant's clear assent or agreement to participate."
Parents Concerned
Concern was expressed
by parents about the methods used and the headmaster wrote a two-page
letter to all parents about a week later. He said that he has seen Pollack
as a "strong, articulate advocate for boys and boys' schools."
And in the next sentence, the Headmaster gave as his basis for this
opinion the following illogical statement:
"Indeed, he is about
to testify in California as an expert witness in an already celebrated
case where a young girl seeks to join the Boy Scouts. Part of why we
have allowed him to work at Belmont Hill is that he has been an outspoken
advocate for the rights and needs of boys."
Related Stories:
Questions Used by Dr. Pollack to
Disparage American Boys
Background Articles from our January Edition
Pollack became famous saying girls are better than boys
Terrible advice about
homosexuality
Is Pollack behind
homosexual speaker at Belmont Hill School?
Professor wonders
if Pollack’s interviews are ‘fiction’
Pollack is proud of
membership in group ‘studying’ men
Pollack does get around
Pollack attracts the
irresponsible
Soundbites from William
Pollack's Real Boys
Soundbites from Christina
Hoff Somers The War Against Boys
Who says, 'men are
more violent?'
When the ‘boy code’
was really tough
Some
of us remember when women were cherished, protected
Coming
Tomorrow: "Washington Post Company" Is Almost Identical in
History and Structure to "New York Times Company," the Publisher
of Boston Globe
