#SFatPauley: UCLA Needs to Investigate the Cooked "Den Survey"

Bumped. Please Tweet this post and"like" it on Facebook by hitting the buttons at the end of this post. -BN Eds.

I am bringing this up after reflecting on the post exposing the role of the "Den Survey" in justification of the land grab that deprived the students of prized seats. We all need to challenge the integrity of that survey and its use in this dispute.

The seat grab is being justified by reference to a “survey” that reeks of academic misconduct — the kind of phony research that besmirches the reputation of any academic institution that tolerates it.

People writing surveys know how to ask fair questions; unfortunately, the also know how to "cook" the questionnaire so as to reach a pre-ordained result.

A great research institution like UCLA, has many people who can draft fair surveys. Obviously, Morgan Center did not seek their help. Probably because they did not want an honest survey. They knew what they wanted and how they were going to use it.

It is clear that in a greedy land grab, Morgan Center made a decision to move the students out of seats which they perceived could be sold for lots of money. They have, in essence, already admitted that with a comment that the students could not have the better seats for financial reasons.

They probably knew that the students would, rightfully, protest. So, they decided to cook something up that they could use, post act, to justify their decision and fight the backlash. They decided to take the low road with a loaded question.

Had they wanted to write honest questions, they could have asked:

1. "Should the students be given a priority seating section from the floor to the top of Pauley, along the sidelines?"

But, they did not ask that question because they knew what the answer would be. What student group would vote “no”? or,

2. "In order to create a contiguous student seating section, would you, as a student, be willing to give up the current “Den section” in favor of putting all of the students behind the west basket?"

But, they didn't ask that question because the answer  would not work for someone looking to justify a decision already made without student input — one that everyone in Morgan knew would be unpopular and would not pass muster in the light of day.

So, they created a question that avoided reference to where the contiguous section would be and reference to the fact that the Den would be giving up its current section.

Does anyone believe that this was not a calculated attempt at misrepresentation? Does anyone believe that this was not a manipulative move to create ambiguity where none would exist had there been an honest survey?

A university is a community in which all strive to seek truth. The administration and faculty should rise up against this blatant misuse of “social science” to subvert the mission of our university — the student experience.

Phony “research” is a type of academic misconduct that would get a professor fired — even a tenured professor. A false survey, the results of which are misrepresented to the public, is academic misconduct.

Unfortunately, Guerrero and his minions are not “faculty” and therefore probably do not fall under the strict codes of academic honor and integrity.

Nonetheless, they should be investigated and sanctioned and the movement to strip the students of the seating should be stopped, immediately.

Chancellor Block, you may not care as much about sports as some of us do, but you have to care about intellectual honesty and integrity.

You cannot sit back and let this phony survey drift by.

If you do, my alma mater will start to lose what has distinguished us from the school across town -- the one whose athletic department has shamed it — and that will be a tragedy. I will not tolerate our losing one inch of the moral high ground to them — and this act of deception gives up acres of integrity.

sjh

PS. I’m sure the people in Morgan Center will say that they did not “intend” to mislead and that they simply were not “artful” in creating their draft.

I don’t buy that.  Surely, they cannot be that dumb.

Give any of the trial lawyers here a fair jury and I think none of us would have trouble convincing 12 neutral people that this was deliberate, intentional, willful and a part of a scam.

But, even if we take them at face value and believe that there was no hidden agenda behind the way the question was phrased and that it was an honest attempt to gather student opinion -- they should be fired. People who cannot draft a proper question and/or do not seek help doing so,  do not belong at a great university.