Real World Consequences
Hugh Hewitt > Blog
Thursday, February 5, 2026
On Tuesday we looked at how academia had become nonsensical. Yesterday we looked at how NYC is purposefully trying to do away with academic excellence. A lot of people look the other way at stuff like this recalling how little their education mattered in the “real world.” (Like they are now looking away from Iran where the regime has slaughtered people in the tens of thousands. How dare we?) And while you may not use algebra in your everyday existence (some of us did), these things have real world consequences, and they are costing us dearly.
At Stanford University, students are “gaming” the disability and religious accommodations system to get prime dorm rooms, better meals, and extra time on tests, a junior at the California institution wrote Monday at The Times….“… almost no one talks about the system with shame. Rather, we openly discuss, strategise and even joke about it. At a university of savvy optimisers, the feeling is that if you aren’t getting accommodations, you haven’t tried hard enough,” she wrote. “… if you’re not gaming it, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.”
They are not learning – they are “gaming” for grades, etc. But the plot thickens:
In the fall of 2025, as students readied for the AMC 12, the first in the series of math contests that lead to the International Mathematical Olympiad, a frightening realization started taking hold in the country’s elite math circles: Cheating had become so entrenched in the competition that it was threatening the very existence of the country’s most prestigious math contests.
The AMC 12, formally known as the American Mathematics Competition, had faced issues in the past with stolen exams. Last year, though, was different. It was not a question of a few leaked copies of tests passed from hand to hand a day before the competition. On Chinese sites like RedNote and WeChat, as well as Discord and even Reddit in the United States, copies of the yet-to-be-administered exams were openly for sale.
Some sellers offered full answers, while others peddled just the questions, ready to feed into ChatGPT or another artificial intelligence tool.
It is no longer about learning – it is about getting the score or grade and this is to be accomplished by any means necessary. Not only are our students being taught nonsense, or denied excellence – they are learning to cheat and getting away with it. The word “gaming” seems most appropriate. It is not about mastering the subject matter, it is about winning the game which is measured by other standards altogether.
Which is why it is not the least bit surprising that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass saw to it that the Palisades Fire Response Report was “watered down” to insure that the incompetence of LA City government was not exposed. Reporting from the L.A. Times and the N.Y. Post. Commentary and important background from John Sexton at HotAir. Nor should it come as any surprise that California Democrats are up to their eyeballs in fraud. (But then when it comes to Newsom, there is no there, there anyway.) They are not trying to govern well, they are trying to “game” government service to their personal benefit.
So, gaming the governmental system, a skill students are learning with great rapidity in the academic system, is costing us thousands of homes and billions of dollars. That is what I call real world consequences. I may not have had to use my algebraic skills to figure it out, but clearly and expensively, academia matters.
Character matters and our academic system used to teach it and imbue the students with it. That clearly seems to be decreasingly the case.
POSTSCRIPT: As long as we are talking about character…So many people in this nation find Donald J. Trump utterly distasteful because his personal and marital life has historically been abysmal. No one in their right mind wants this man held up as an example of how to conduct a marriage or dating – at least prior to his current marriage which seems decent by Trumpian standards. But at least there is not an accused murderer buried in the family leaf pile. As if Hunter Biden’s personal mess were not enough for the nation to have had to deal with, now we learn Jill Biden’s ex-husband has been charged with the murder of his current, well formerly current, wife?!?!?! Spare me your indignation at Trump’s various and ugly infidelities – none of which comes close to murder. If you want to be indignant, that street runs both ways.
And to think I can remember when the president having a colorful, alcoholic brother was scandalous….Oh look it up – Billy Carter.)
