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Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

reason.com

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Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#31
post #8

I so often wonder with pieces like this: what am I missing? I mean, it’s hard to believe this was so one-sided and that he was a little angel through it all. It could be, I suppose. And I am outraged if it is. But the question that keeps nagging me... is it?

The judges ruling (allowing the trial to go ahead) says that the university claims that he made threats on web forums. They have never provided the proof to him or the judge.

These alleged threats were the basis for the banning from campus, but not the suspension. The claim is that they have been made after the suspension. A lawsuit should bring these into the air.

Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#32
post #2

> On November 26, this suggestion became a mandate: The student was informed that he must be evaluated by psychological services before returning to classes. You know that something’s wrong when someone is forced to be psychologically evaluated for asking uncomfortable questions. This entire story looks like something straight out of a dystopia.

Should we be allowing psychologists to gate-keep academia?

Isn't this how universities become temples?

Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#33
post #15
post #2

> On November 26, this suggestion became a mandate: The student was informed that he must be evaluated by psychological services before returning to classes. You know that something’s wrong when someone is forced to be psychologically evaluated for asking uncomfortable questions. This entire story looks like something straight out of a dystopia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatr... They did it in Soviet Union at some point to the intellectuals who questioned their ideology.

They do it everywhere when an ideology takes over the common sense. To intellectuals or not.

Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#34
This story reads a bit too outrageous. It's like a plot from a film like "God is Not Dead", with social justice warriors standing in for militant atheists.

This should raise a few eyebrows with any critical reader. And indeed, the article simply completely sides with the student and takes every allegation as already proven – going so far as discrediting the university's defence of what happened as "gaslighting".

For all we learn from the article, the student may have been increasingly hostile to a point that warranted suspension. Siding so completely with the student against the university seems to be very premature. Unfortunately, the author seems to suffer from a critical misunderstanding about what a motion to dismiss is and isn't. A motion to dismiss claims that a case can't be won even under the assumption that everything alleged is true. That's why the opinion takes everything the student claims at face value – because that's the bar for a motion to dismiss. The court did not decide that these events were factual; just that if they all were that the case has to go on.

I'm not commenting on what happened. I don't know. But the article feels quite manipulative, even under the assumption that the misrepresentation of the court's opinion is an honest mistake, this article tries to enrage the reader. Not the kind of content I would have hoped to see under a brand like "reason.com".

Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#35
post #8

I so often wonder with pieces like this: what am I missing? I mean, it’s hard to believe this was so one-sided and that he was a little angel through it all. It could be, I suppose. And I am outraged if it is. But the question that keeps nagging me... is it?

What you are missing, is that totalitarian-authoritarianism is a real, legit transmissible mental disease, and those who have it can rarely detect it in others.

Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#36

I’m afraid that when the pendulum of public perception inevitably swings away from this insanity, a lot of the social progress we’ve done on discourse and tolerance will be lost. If I’m reading this and saying “what these people are doing is evil, I’d like to affiliate with the opposite group of people”, I won’t have too many outlets that are not far right.

This has happened before. Read The History Man by Bradbury.

And what will happen is that being "politically unreasonable" will be unfashionable and the society will swing to an equilibrium once again. The extremists will leave or retire and the people who kept their heads down will say "they were a silly bunch". In the UK they were labelled "The Loony Left" and subject to much comedy.

To suggest that it's either one extreme or the other isn't how things will work.

Re: Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions

#40
post #9
post #2

> On November 26, this suggestion became a mandate: The student was informed that he must be evaluated by psychological services before returning to classes. You know that something’s wrong when someone is forced to be psychologically evaluated for asking uncomfortable questions. This entire story looks like something straight out of a dystopia.

Going to university in the USA these days sounds like an absolutely terrifying prospect, and doesn't sound very promising for the future of the country.

As long as you keep quiet about sensitive issues, you will be fine.
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