Meanwhile, at Harvard...
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@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@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.
This is just the first time I’ve seen the board coalesce around speech restrictions. I don’t believe it’s happened before.
Gotcha. For me it's potentially different. This isn't some low-EQ sales guy who ignores a pronoun and gets fired for it.
In some of these incidents, you have a group of people in which "raising awareness" is a fucking joke. Intimidating jews is obviously their goal, and they hide behind free speech and their numbers in order to threaten. That's no longer free speech.
In other cases, sure. The "Free Palestine" stuff is silly but fine.
But isn’t that really what we’re talking about here? The literal call for genocide everyone repeats was in Australia. Here it’s ’globalize the intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Horace said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
If it were that I’d chime in. See Philip Lemoine’s comments which we discussed.
At the end of the day, the university presidents communicated the view that is consistent with the first amendment. Speech is not per se harassment or bullying. It does in fact depend on context.
They weren't asked about the first amendment, they were asked about university policy.
They were asked about “harassment and bullying” policies in the viral clip.
Then you claimed that made everything clear and obvious and logically definitional, then I proposed four simple scenarios for speech, to allow you to apply the clear definitions, then you punted.
Here they are again:
- Kill all Jews
- Kill all Jews on campus
- Kill all Jews in the campus Zionist club
- Kill Joe the Jew
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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...:
@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@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.
This is just the first time I’ve seen the board coalesce around speech restrictions. I don’t believe it’s happened before.
Gotcha. For me it's potentially different. This isn't some low-EQ sales guy who ignores a pronoun and gets fired for it.
In some of these incidents, you have a group of people in which "raising awareness" is a fucking joke. Intimidating jews is obviously their goal, and they hide behind free speech and their numbers in order to threaten. That's no longer free speech.
In other cases, sure. The "Free Palestine" stuff is silly but fine.
But isn’t that really what we’re talking about here? The literal call for genocide everyone repeats was in Australia. Here it’s ’globalize the intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’.
The question was posed as a thought experiment. The question was whether a literal call for genocide is allowable under university policy regarding harassment.
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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...:
@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@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.
This is just the first time I’ve seen the board coalesce around speech restrictions. I don’t believe it’s happened before.
Gotcha. For me it's potentially different. This isn't some low-EQ sales guy who ignores a pronoun and gets fired for it.
In some of these incidents, you have a group of people in which "raising awareness" is a fucking joke. Intimidating jews is obviously their goal, and they hide behind free speech and their numbers in order to threaten. That's no longer free speech.
In other cases, sure. The "Free Palestine" stuff is silly but fine.
But isn’t that really what we’re talking about here? The call for genocide everyone repeats was in Australia. Here it’s ’globalize the intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’.
It's not the words, it's the intent. If you can somehow prove to me that the mobs in MIT and Harvard were merely trying to express their opinion, and raise awareness about an important issue, then sure, fine. But they were doing a shitload more than that.
At Harvard, they literally boxed in Jewish students and wouldn't let them leave. It's ridiculous to call this free speech.
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@Horace , I didn’t punt so much as point out it was irrelevant to the conversation about the lemoine post.
But to the question I would imagine that a general policy drawing the line between 1 and 2 would survive any first amendment challenge, but even that line is context dependent. In the right context all four could be prohibited consistent with the 1st amendment.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
It's not the words, it's the intent. If you can somehow prove to me that the mobs in MIT and Harvard were merely trying to express their opinion, and raise awareness about an important issue, then sure, fine. But they were doing a shitload more than that.
Right. Congratulations - to the Presidents’ point, you just added context!
At Harvard, they literally boxed in Jewish students and wouldn't let them leave. It's ridiculous to call this free speech.
Right, and Stefanik didn’t ask about this and I have little doubt the administrators would have said such actions are clear violations of many policies and perhaps state laws.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@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.
Remind me to tell Justice Kavanaugh that...
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
I didn’t ignore it so much as point out it was irrelevant to the conversation about the lemoine post.
But to the question I would imagine that a general policy drawing the line between 1 and 2 would survive any first amendment challenge, but even that line is context dependent. In the right context all four could be prohibited consistent with the 1st amendment.
You keep going back to the first amendment, when the question is explicitly about university policy. That's exactly what got people giggled at a few months ago, when it so happens that it was the right, rather than the mainstream center left, that was doing it. It's known as a "bad free speech take".
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Aqua-Letifer said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
It's not the words, it's the intent. If you can somehow prove to me that the mobs in MIT and Harvard were merely trying to express their opinion, and raise awareness about an important issue, then sure, fine. But they were doing a shitload more than that.
Right. Congratulations - to the Presidents’ point, you just added context!
No, she said "it depends on the context."
She did not but should have said, "absolutely not in this particular context." -
@Aqua-Letifer Yes but the question to her (the viral one anyway) was not about actual campus protests that happened it was a hypothetical.
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@Horace said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
You keep going back to the first amendment, when the question is explicitly about university policy. That's exactly what got people giggled at a few months ago, when it so happens that it was the right, rather than the mainstream center left, that was doing it. It's known as a "bad free speech take".
This makes no sense, the university presidents had good free speech takes. Show me someone who said what they did who got giggles.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Aqua-Letifer Yes but the question to her (the viral one anyway) was not about actual campus protests that happened it was a hypothetical.
No it wasn't, she was there in that room, answering that hypothetical precisely because of the myriad shit that, in reality, she allowed on her campus.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@Horace said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
You keep going back to the first amendment, when the question is explicitly about university policy. That's exactly what got people giggled at a few months ago, when it so happens that it was the right, rather than the mainstream center left, that was doing it. It's known as a "bad free speech take".
This makes no sense, the university presidents had good free speech takes. Show me someone who said what they did who got giggles.
They were not asked about the first amendment. They were asked about their policies.
People on the right often referenced constitutional free speech when complaining about Twitter policies. You giggled at those takes. You wanted to start a thread to keep track of them, they were so hilarious. And now here you are referencing constitutional free speech when trying to justify Harvard's policies.
This conversation is about Harvard's (and MIT's etc) policies and the incoherence of the authorities who apply it.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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If I burn a cross on MY front lawn, does it cross the line?
It may cross municipal open fire regulations and bylaws. Even worse being that your front law is in the USA, it may not comply with HOA rules regarding lawn ornaments and accessories.
One thing for sure is that it would generate a lot of local gossip that could be totally out of context with your intentions to burn the cross in the first place.
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@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
They were asked about “harassment and bullying” policies in the viral clip.
That's right.
Are either of those illegal?
Or was it simply a question about the schools' policy and whether it was evenly applied?
I'm not sure if the Congresswoman ever got a straight answer to her question so I couldn't tell exactly where she was going.
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@Copper said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Harvard...:
They were asked about “harassment and bullying” policies in the viral clip.
That's right.
Are either of those illegal?
Yes. If charged as a misdemeanor, it would be 6-12 months in jail. If charged as a class 6 felony, it would be 1-5 years.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/opinion/antisemitism-university-presidents.html?smid=url-share
What the University Presidents Got Right and Wrong About Antisemitic Speech
I had a singular thought: Censorship helped put these presidents in their predicament, and censorship will not help them escape.
I’m a former litigator who spent much of my legal career battling censorship on college campuses, and the thing that struck me about the presidents’ answers wasn’t their legal insufficiency but rather their stunning hypocrisy. And it’s that hypocrisy, not the presidents’ understanding of the law, that has created a campus crisis.
First, let’s deal with the law. Harvard, Penn and M.I.T. are private universities. Unlike public schools, they’re not bound by the First Amendment, and they therefore possess enormous freedom to fashion their own custom speech policies. But while they are not bound by law to protect free speech, they are required, as educational institutions that receive federal funds, to protect students against discriminatory harassment, including — in some instances — student-on-student peer harassment.
Supreme Court has held that in the absence of an actual, immediate threat — such as an incitement to violence — the government cannot punish a person who advocates violence.
So if the university presidents were largely (though clumsily) correct about the legal balance, why the outrage? To quote the presidents back to themselves, context matters. For decades now, we’ve watched as campus administrators from coast to coast have constructed a comprehensive web of policies and practices intended to suppress so-called hate speech and to support students who find themselves distressed by speech they find offensive.
The result has been a network of speech codes, bias response teams, safe spaces and glossaries of microaggressions that are all designed to protect students from alleged emotional harm. But not all students. When, as a student at Harvard Law School, I was booed and hissed and told to “go die” for articulating pro-life or other conservative views, exactly zero administrators cared about my feelings. Nor did it cross my mind to ask them for help. I was an adult. I could handle my classmates’ anger.
But reform can’t be confined to policies. It also has to apply to cultures. As Pinker notes, that means disempowering a diversity, equity and inclusion apparatus that is itself all too often an engine of censorship and extreme political bias. Most important, universities need to take affirmative steps to embrace greater viewpoint diversity. Ideological monocultures breed groupthink, intolerance and oppression.
Universities must absorb the fundamental truth that the best answer to bad speech is better speech, not censorship. Recently I watched and listened to a video of a Jewish student’s
with pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University. Her voice shakes, and there’s no doubt that it was hard for her to speak. I’d urge you to listen to the entire thing. She seeks a “genuine and real conversation” but also tells her audience exactly what it means to her when she hears terms like “Zionist dogs.”
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People getting really worked up over words. Sticks and stones are real... but not at these silly college campuses right now.
ANYWAY....... curious if @Ivorythumper 's tree neighbor (lawyer at Penn?) is involved?
