> it's just the review process for getting in has always seemed to be easier for people with the right connections

What is this insinuation based on? Do you have data on how many papers by "people with the right connections" are rejected, for example?

it's anecdotal.

another anecdote, when first trying to raise awareness of the issue, when mentioning it to members of the community I never got the response "wow, how could this happen in computer architecture?" rather the response tended to be "wow, I can't believe it finally got bad enough that a student died"

Because these anecdotes are unsubstantiated, they can come across as sour grapes, which I think damages your good cause of exposing the serious misconduct for which there's actual evidence.

i think this is just anecdotal; this person is clearly in the community.

i'm not sure this data is useful, because we'd disagree on "people with the right connections".