Naomi Schaefer Riley defends herself in the WSJ:

Scores of critics on the site complained that I had not read the dissertations in full before daring to write about them—an absurd standard for a 500-word blog post. A number of the dissertations aren’t even available. Which didn’t seem to stop the Chronicle reporter, though. And 6,500 academics signed a petition online demanding that I be fired.

At first, the Chronicle stood its ground, suggesting that my post was an “invitation to debate.” But that stance lasted for little more than a weekend. In a note that reads like a confession at a re-education camp, the Chronicle’s editor, Liz McMillen announced her decision on Monday to fire me: “We’ve heard you,” she tells my critics. “And we have taken to heart what you said. We now agree that Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet The Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles.”

When I asked Ms. McMillen whether the poem by fellow blogger Ms. Barreca, for instance, lived up to such standards, she said they were “reviewing” the other content on the site. So far, however, that blogger has not been fired. Other ad hominem attacks against me seem to have passed editorial muster as well.

In a sane world, banks would put a high premium on a loan to get a degree in anything “studies.”

For those who haven’t been following this, Nick Gillespie has the whole story.

[Update a few minutes later]

More from Ron Radosh.