Brown’s president will resign after a tenure that included Trump deal 62%

By Alan Blinder77% New York Times Service62%

8/3/2026, 1:32:33 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 43.3% saturation with 196 hits. Analysis detected 747 faulty-reasoning hits from 453 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.4% and a BS Rank of 62% (10,585 of 27,794 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 61.90% of the article peer group.

Brown University’s president said Monday that she would step down at the end of the coming academic year, after steering Brown through fraught negotiations with the Trump administration and the agony of a campus shooting that left two students dead. 
The president, Christina H. 
Paxson, has been in her post longer than any other current leader of an Ivy League university. 
She became president in 2012. 
In an open letter Monday, she described her resignation as “the right decision for me and my family” and noted that she had previously extended her tenure to manage the university’s clash with the federal government. 
The university extinguished some of that fight last summer, when it agreed to a settlement that included Brown’s $50 million commitment to workforce development programs in Rhode Island. 
Brown forged the agreement after the Trump administration moved to block $510 million in research funds, which was part of a broader campaign to punish elite universities for perceived antisemitism and inaction over protests against the war in the Gaza Strip. 
Although the Brown agreement explicitly preserved the university’s authority over academic matters and restored the research money, its terms also aligned the school with the administration’s approaches to transgender athletes and “merit-based” admissions policies. 
Paxson faced substantial campus criticism over the settlement, which some regarded as an act of capitulation to an administration abusing its power. 
But later in the year, she forcefully rejected a Trump administration proposal for a compact with colleges and universities that floated tying research funding to ideological alignment. 
At the time, Paxson said she was worried that the compact “would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy” of Brown. 
(Hours before Paxson’s announcement Monday, the administration effectively abandoned talk of a compact and encouraged universities to detail on their websites how they are responding to a litany of complaints about higher education.) 
Brown’s year of turbulence turned to tragedy in December, after a former Brown student opened fire on campus, killing two and injuring nine others. 
As Paxson tried to lead the university through the aftermath, her leadership came under scrutiny, especially over the school’s approach to securing its campus in Providence, Rhode Island, where visitors have long had easy access. 
Brian T. 
Moynihan, the Bank of America CEO who is the university’s chancellor, said Paxson had led Brown through its challenges with a “balance of commitment to academic excellence, operational excellence and a collaborative philosophy.” 
Moynihan signaled that the cycle of strategic planning had played a role in the timing of Paxson’s exit. 
He added that there would be a national search for the next president. 
This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 19.0%Alan Blinder: 4.7%Boston.com: 2.0%Confirmation Bias19.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 4.9%Alan Blinder: 1.2%Boston.com: 2.3%Availability Heuristic4.9%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.6%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 6.2%Alan Blinder: 1.5%Boston.com: 0.4%Hindsight Bias6.2%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.1%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 9.9%Alan Blinder: 10.9%Boston.com: 4.6%Framing Effect9.9%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.7%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.5%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.6%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.9%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 43.3%Alan Blinder: 19.1%Boston.com: 4.9%Negativity Bias43.3%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.0%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 1.9%Boston.com: 0.4%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 7.7%Alan Blinder: 1.9%Boston.com: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias7.7%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.9%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 7.3%Alan Blinder: 6.4%Boston.com: 2.1%Halo Effect7.3%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 7.3%Alan Blinder: 3.6%Boston.com: 1.1%Recency Bias7.3%This article: 3.8%Alan Blinder: 2.4%Boston.com: 0.2%Primacy Effect3.8%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.5%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 7.3%Alan Blinder: 5.5%Boston.com: 2.7%Appeal to Authority7.3%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.8%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.3%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 12.6%Alan Blinder: 3.1%Boston.com: 2.4%Hasty Generalization12.6%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 3.5%Boston.com: 4.5%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.3%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 16.3%Alan Blinder: 4.1%Boston.com: 1.4%Post Hoc (False Cause)16.3%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.8%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 11.5%Alan Blinder: 2.9%Boston.com: 0.9%Ambiguity (Equivocation)11.5%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.0%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 7.9%Alan Blinder: 2.0%Boston.com: 0.9%Unattributed Quote7.9%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.1%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 5.4%Boston.com: 3.3%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.0%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 3.5%Boston.com: 0.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alan Blinder: 0.0%Boston.com: 1.8%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

453 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers19%attributed speech368writer words
Selected voice

Brian T. Moynihan

80%flagged-word coverage
64 attributed words75% of attributed speech95% writer coverage
0%5.0%10.0%Unattributed Quote-9.8 ptsWriter: 9.8%Brian T. Moynihan: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.