Word: langs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...this technique in the later 1970s when leading a drive against an academic survey conducted by two sociology professors, Seymour M. Lipset and Everett C. Ladd. The study, to rank the nation's leading schools in a variety of disciplines, asked some 9000 professors to complete a questionnaire which Lang condemned as biased and overly subjective. He wrote to the authors, mobilized opposition among colleagues, protested to national education bodies about the study and found himself refereeing mail campaigns on both sides of the issue...
...compiled these letters press clippings and reports into a 712-page book, The File, published in 1982 by Springer-Verlag. In the book's forward Lang urges the reader to use The File's sources to develop new ways of thinking about social issues. The academic quarrels, personal affronts, progress of the Ladd-Lipset survey and illustrations of biased press coverage make The File an exciting, perhaps unique method of examining an issue. Ladd, the campaign's target, even sent along a congratulatory telegram praising the book as "a major literary achievement...
...Lang has also compiled files for private circulation on such issues as the imprisonment of a dissident Russian mathematician, grade inflation at Yale and Circular A-21 (still in progress), the OMB's set of guidelines for documenting research costs. "Every time you talk about Serge Lang you end up as part of a file," says Lionel S. Lewis, professor of sociology at the State University of New York, who wrote a flattering review of The File. "The editor [of that book] said apparently Lang must own shares of Xerox...
...Lang says he conducts mailings and creates files in part because of the shortcomings of the press, which he characterizes as biased and sensationalist. The New York Times is a favorite target: "They pretend to be the to and set the journalistic standards," Lang says. Several years ago Lang's refusal to comply with Circular A-21's effort reporting requirements forced Yale to turn down a government grant on Lang's behalf. The Times's coverage of the incident so enraged Lang that he sent the author--and those on his cc list--a seven-page critique, labeling...
...Health and Human Services (HHS) last November--a footnote to a piece on sexual harassment at Harvard--as an example. The one sentence note provoked a page-long mailing to the cc list, which added the magazine as an involuntary subscriber. "Time is acting as a patsy for HHS," Lang says. "They use sex and Harvard to catch the public's attention...