Meanwhile, at Harvard...
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@George-K said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Jolly said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Now, let's drag a few more college presidents to Congress.
...and let the markets and donor$ decide.
Pretty much.
This stuff has been headed downhill for over a decade. It should have corrected years ago. Universities should be about academic excellence first.
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@George-K said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Jolly said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Universities should be about academic excellence first.
And free and unrestrained exchange of ideas second.
You can't have the former without the latter. And no I think colleges are epically failing in both.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Good for them.
In this fraught moment, colleges and universities must ensure student safety and well-being by taking action against violence, true threats, incitement, discriminatory harassment, and other unlawful activity.
I would say that line is particularly fuzzy in these circumstances.
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FIRE is of course right in its directional principles. It's just unclear whether this discussion leads towards, or away from, a single coherent standard of allowable free expression on campus.
I think we were all getting used to the microaggression stuff being condemned, and now we're being asked to think clearly, because of course, thinking clearly is what people do. Left unsaid is that thinking clearly is what people do when the left's free expression is impinged upon. If it's the right being contained, then a handy moral panic will do for justification. Let's not be hasty with all the thinking, as long as a moral panic is sufficient to guide the history we want to be on the right side of.
I know the principled people are reveling in their principles, but if there's no clear future where those principles are applied fairly, then the principles are not the only important part of the discussion. We need to consider the people who will be applying those principles.
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@George-K said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Some say that about people who say trans women are not women.
And some will say that burning a cross on your front lawn is protected speech.
So, yeah, where's the line?
Somewhere after microaggressions, might be the most common denominator.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Some say that about people who say trans women are not women.
Who do you want to decide where that line is?
Okay how about we not pretend that this here is the line and we just crossed it. Were you so quick to cite FIRE during the Evergreen College shenanigans? Compelled speech laws?
Perhaps more importantly, who do you think will get to decide if we let it be drawn?
Again, that's already happened, so we already know the answer to that question. In the past 20 years we've done and codified exactly the thing you say is at stake here. At universities, in online kangaroo courts, in every HR department in America. The answers to your questions are all behind you.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Some say that about people who say trans women are not women.
Who do you want to decide where that line is?
Okay how about we not pretend that this here is the line and we just crossed it. Were you so quick to cite FIRE during the Evergreen College shenanigans? Compelled speech laws?
Perhaps more importantly, who do you think will get to decide if we let it be drawn?
Again, that's already happened, so we already know the answer to that question. In the past 20 years we've done and codified exactly the thing you say is at stake here. At universities, in online kangaroo courts, in every HR department in America. The answers to your questions are all behind you.
Yep. FIRE was always here doing the ACLU's job for it. Only now is FIRE a thing anybody is talking about.
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@George-K said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Some say that about people who say trans women are not women.
And some will say that burning a cross on your front lawn is protected speech.
So, yeah, where's the line?
The ‘on your front lawn’ part makes it with the intent to intimidate. “Death to Jews” on a sign in front of the synagogue will cross well established first amendment lines.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Some say that about people who say trans women are not women.
Who do you want to decide where that line is?
Okay how about we not pretend that this here is the line and we just crossed it. Were you so quick to cite FIRE during the Evergreen College shenanigans? Compelled speech laws?
I didn’t have to, no one here was on the other side of the debate.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
Some say that about people who say trans women are not women.
Who do you want to decide where that line is?
Okay how about we not pretend that this here is the line and we just crossed it. Were you so quick to cite FIRE during the Evergreen College shenanigans? Compelled speech laws?
I didn’t have to, no one here was on the other side of the debate.
Fair enough, but your framing of the issue here makes it sound as if this is your first introduction to the "who decides" problem. We already know who decides. They've been deciding for years now.