Yale Classmate: We Did The Prank Test That Ben Carson Is Talking About

Ben Carson was telling the truth.

It looks like Politico isn't the only media source who owes Dr. Carson a public apology.
Last week, the WSJ ran a story which cast doubt upon Dr. Carson's account of a fake test given at Yale :

"...the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that it found no evidence to support Carson’s claim that he was a victim of a hoax that led him to take a fake psychology test, as he wrote in his 1990 autobiography, Gifted Hands." -Buzzfeed

A former Yale classmate of Dr. Carson heard the story and came forward with evidence supporting Carson's claim.
Dr. Carson also found a newspaper clipping from the Yale paper, which validated his claim.

Contrary to their statements, the WSJ obviously didn't look very hard for evidence in support Dr. Carson's account after-all.
Perhaps, they didn't even really try. Smearing a top-tier candidate is so much more fun, than validating his claims...Just ask Politico.

A former staffer for the Yale Record told BuzzFeed News that the hoax Ben Carson described in his book (albeit more as an inspirational tale) really did happen.

A former staff member of the Yale Record says that he recalls many of the details of a prank that Dr. Ben Carson wrote about in an autobiography.

The incident has been the subject of media coverage in recent days, after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that it found no evidence to support Carson’s claim that he was a victim of a hoax that led him to take a fake psychology test, as he wrote in his 1990 autobiography, Gifted Hands.

In an interview with BuzzFeed News on Monday, Curtis Bakal, an editorial assistant at the satirical Yale Record who says he helped write the fake test, said he was “99% certain the way Carson remembers it is correct.”

“When I read about the story in the Wall Street Journal, I immediately said, to my wife and friend, ‘That was the prank we played at the Record! And Ben Carson was in the class,’” said Bakal, who noted he wasn’t actually present during the taking of the fake test. “We did a mock parody of the Yale Daily News during the exam period in January 1970, and in this parody we had a box that said: ‘So-and-so section of the exam has been lost in a fire. Professor so-and-so is going to give a makeup exam.’”

“We got a room to do the test in and one of us from the Record impersonated a proctor to give the test,” he said.
Over the weekend, Carson produced a link to a Yale Daily News account of the hoax. The Yale Daily News article describes an edition of the Record that was a total parody of the Yale Daily News, complete with fake articles meant to sound serious. In one article, the Record informed students that their exams had been destroyed and they needed to redo them.

Copies of the 1970 edition of the Record are not available at Yale’s library, an official told BuzzFeed News. (The school’s archives end in 1969 and don’t pick up again until the late 1970s.)

BuzzFeed News spoke to more than a dozen people listed on the Record masthead in 1969 — the year prior to the alleged hoax. No one besides Bakal could remember the incident, but a number had not been involved with the Record during that school year, or were only loosely involved. Some also noted that the prank did not sound out of the ordinary for the Record.

Lew Schwartz, the author of the Yale Daily News article mentioning the prank, told BuzzFeed News on Monday that he had not personally witnessed the exam and had reported it because “I guess we had heard that some folks had showed up.”

“To my knowledge we didn’t send anyone over to cover the story,” he added, noting that the Daily News had partly written the story to clarify that the issue of the Record posing as the Daily News was not, in fact, the Daily News.
Meanwhile, Carson suggested on Sunday that the Journal owed him an apology and, reached by BuzzFeed News on Monday, he was again critical of the paper.

“Their research teams are not very good,” Carson said over the phone. “I would have thought they would have crackerjack research teams. It really says something horrendous about their investigative abilities.”

In Gifted Hands, Carson writes that after reading that the examination papers for his psychology class, which he calls “Perceptions 301,” had “inadvertently burned,” he went to take a makeup exam along with about 150 of his peers. The tests, the story goes, were much harder than anything they’d studied, “so intricate that I figured a brilliant psychiatrist might have trouble with them.” Carson says that all the students walked out of the test, some saying they planned to tell their teacher they hadn’t seen the notice about the makeup exam. By the end, only he remained, at which point, he says, a Yale Daily News photographer showed up to snap a photo and the professor of the class told him it was a hoax. According to Carson, who casts the incident as an inspirational tale (rather than a college prank), the professor then awarded him $10 for being “the most honest student in the class.”

Carson writes that the incident occurred during his junior year, during a time when he was badly in need of money.
A Yale librarian told the Wall Street Journal that no courses called “Perceptions 301” were taught at Yale during Carson’s time there. At the time, the Yale Daily News noted that the psychology class was called Psychology 10 and that the prank occurred during Carson’s freshman year. BuzzFeed News confirmed on Monday that there was a course called Psychology 10 taught during that semester of Carson’s Yale career.

Bakal, the Record editorial assistant at the time, remembered other details about the prank that are compatible with Carson’s account, such as the unusual difficulty of the test. “Several students showed up, and the fake exam, a parody of exam — in fact, it had real psych questions, because I had taken the class the year before, but it was a more difficult and probing personal exam,” he said.

Because he did not witness the fake test, however, he could not confirm that Carson — or only one student — was there at the end of class. But Bakal also backed up Carson’s claim that “at the end what few students remained — it may have just been one or two, I wasn’t there — received a small cash prize.” Bakal noted a staffer from the Record “impersonated a proctor to give the test.” (Carson said a professor had given him the cash prize in his written account.)

Speaking on Sunday, Carson appeared to ascribe some of the discrepancies to his co-author and the passage of time.
“You know, when you write a book with a co-writer and you say that there was a class, a lot of time they’ll put a number or something just to give it more meat,” he said. “You know, obviously, decades later, I’m not going to remember the course number.”

www.buzzfeed.com...

a reply to: IAMTAT

It's pretty telling when even some of the top GOP mouthpieces (news) start smearing one of the top GOP candidates. People are really starting to pull out all the stops when it comes to smearing Carson. Better not threaten the establishment! They'll do whatever they want to trash your campaign!

Good. That's what vetting is about. Finding the truth. Just because Carson told the truth, doesn't mean the vetting was uncalled for. And there will be plenty more where that came from.

Carson is running for president. He better get his big boy pants out right now and be ready for questions about his personal life and his past. It's part of the job.

He said he's already been vetted more heavily than Obama was in the 7 years of his presidency. HA! That's INSANE. If he thinks it's over, he's got another thing coming! Carson's looking like a big cry baby to me.

What else do you expect from Rupert Murdoch?

a reply to: IAMTAT

Ben Carson was telling the truth.

Looks like it.

So, we'll just call even-Steven with the West Point story...

Should we be a bit more specific in our claim here?

Ben Carson was telling the truth about an event at Yale.

Good for Dr. Carson! He's had a tough week.

a reply to: IAMTAT

So, it took awhile to find anyone that remembered this hoax test took place in 1970? This = a smear campaign?

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
He said he's already been vetted more heavily than Obama was in the 7 years of his presidency. HA! That's INSANE. If he thinks it's over, he's got another thing coming! Carson's looking like a big cry baby to me.

It is insane. it's also the truth. When Obama was running for president his past was off-limits to anyone who asked. The media never confronted him on it. I have to ask the same thing Carson did: Where is the equivalency? Why is the media going to no end to dig up 50 year old dirt on him and dismiss every one of his explanations when they never confronted Obama about his sealed school record?

Carson has done a great job addressing all of the questions so far. However at every one of these conferences the journalists look like a bunch of fools.

originally posted by: peskyhumans

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
He said he's already been vetted more heavily than Obama was in the 7 years of his presidency. HA! That's INSANE. If he thinks it's over, he's got another thing coming! Carson's looking like a big cry baby to me.

It is insane. it's also the truth. When Obama was running for president his past was off-limits to anyone who asked. The media never confronted him on it. I have to ask the same thing Carson did: Where is the equivalency? Why is the media going to no end to dig up 50 year old dirt on him and dismiss every one of his explanations when they never confronted Obama about his sealed school record?

Carson has done a great job addressing all of the questions so far. However at every one of these conferences the journalists look like a bunch of fools.

Obama was questioned and vetted to death. Anyone who says he wasn't was in a coma at the time.

a reply to: peskyhumans

Okay, go ahead and watch Trevor Noah go through all the Obama vetting.

Noah played a montage of news anchors and commentators speculating on everything from the nature of Obama’s relationships with Bill Ayers and Pastor Jeremiah Wright to his drug use in college to his “true identity,” which flew in the face of Carson’s statement last week that he did “not remember this level of scrutiny” being thrust upon Obama.

I had forgotten about most of that -- I'm sure most Carson supporters have forgotten as well.

Obama's past off limits? There are still ardent believers that Obama isn't even an American -- and people are upset about some inconsistencies in a book...

"Challenge accepted, Dr. Carson," Noah said on "The Daily Show," before showing a montage of news clips from the 2008 election cycle in which the media exhaustedly vetted then-Senator Obama's background -- going so far as to question whether he was really a U.S. citizen.

“Yeah, so they vetted Obama to the point where they questioned that he was a legitimate natural-born American citizen,” Noah said. “But at least no one ever accused Obama of not stabbing a guy.”

Link

originally posted by: reldra

originally posted by: peskyhumans

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
He said he's already been vetted more heavily than Obama was in the 7 years of his presidency. HA! That's INSANE. If he thinks it's over, he's got another thing coming! Carson's looking like a big cry baby to me.

It is insane. it's also the truth. When Obama was running for president his past was off-limits to anyone who asked. The media never confronted him on it. I have to ask the same thing Carson did: Where is the equivalency? Why is the media going to no end to dig up 50 year old dirt on him and dismiss every one of his explanations when they never confronted Obama about his sealed school record?

Carson has done a great job addressing all of the questions so far. However at every one of these conferences the journalists look like a bunch of fools.

Obama was questioned and vetted to death. Anyone who says he wasn't was in a coma at the time.

That's not the case. He has been like teflon throughout his presidency. He never went through a barrage of media questions about crap he did 50 years ago like Carson has.

If you disagree I have to ask: Why is his school record sealed?

a reply to: peskyhumans

Ya like Mystic just said, if you really think Obama didn't go through the same you either are just willfully ignoring the past or just forgot about all that was said.

a reply to: reldra

Anyone have a copy of his college transcripts yet?

originally posted by: Gryphon66
Should we be a bit more specific in our claim here?

Ben Carson was telling the truth about an event at Yale.

Good for Dr. Carson! He's had a tough week.

Gaining $3.5 Mil in new campaign donations and kicking hostile media in the ass...all the while maintaining his lead in the polls...doesn't sound like a tough week to me.

a reply to: peskyhumans

www.factcheck.org...

It isn't as cut and dry as they are 'sealed'.

There are laws in place for everyone, not just obama.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: peskyhumans

www.factcheck.org...

It isn't as cut and dry as they are 'sealed'.

There are laws in place for everyone, not just obama.

However Obama could have them un-sealed at his request.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: reldra

Anyone have a copy of his college transcripts yet?

LOL...actually, it appears Obama's college transcripts have been sealed. Curious.

originally posted by: peskyhumans

originally posted by: reldra

originally posted by: peskyhumans

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
He said he's already been vetted more heavily than Obama was in the 7 years of his presidency. HA! That's INSANE. If he thinks it's over, he's got another thing coming! Carson's looking like a big cry baby to me.

It is insane. it's also the truth. When Obama was running for president his past was off-limits to anyone who asked. The media never confronted him on it. I have to ask the same thing Carson did: Where is the equivalency? Why is the media going to no end to dig up 50 year old dirt on him and dismiss every one of his explanations when they never confronted Obama about his sealed school record?

Carson has done a great job addressing all of the questions so far. However at every one of these conferences the journalists look like a bunch of fools.

Obama was questioned and vetted to death. Anyone who says he wasn't was in a coma at the time.

That's not the case. He has been like teflon throughout his presidency. He never went through a barrage of media questions about crap he did 50 years ago like Carson has.

If you disagree I have to ask: Why is his school record sealed?

You didn't watch the video then. Obama was confronted about his school record, starting at about 5 years old, when his father enrolled him in a private school in Indonesia. Then, almost every year after that, including college. Since you were apparently in a coma, that video from MystikMushroom should help catch you up a bit.

Obama's school record is NOT sealed. FactCheck

a reply to: reldra

Well, then, you should have no trouble finding those records on Google with grades and stuff.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: reldra

Well, then, you should have no trouble finding those records on Google with grades and stuff.

" college records. Obama’s college records are not “sealed” by a court order, as this graphic would have you believe. It would be illegal under federal law (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) for Occidental, Columbia or Harvard Law School to give any former student’s records to reporters or members of the public without that person’s specific, written permission. Obama hasn’t released them, but neither have other presidential candidates released their college records. George W. Bush’s grades at Yale eventually became public, but only because somebody leaked them to the New Yorker magazine. Bush himself refused to release them, according to a 1999 profile in the Washington Post."

factcheck

My grades aren't on the internet either. Are yours?