Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

freespeech.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 194 posts

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#151

Post by ModernMech »

zozbot234 wrote: post #142
ModernMech wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without all the DEI bullshit a while back, I’d rather work with faculty and staff who don’t cater to my ethnicity, gender or whatever irrelevant traits, Let me give you an example of where one example where it might feel like bullshit and be perceived to be irrelevant to you, but makes a big deal when it comes to individual students in my classroom. On the issue of pronouns, many people feel like it's a bullshit th…

> Pretty much the only wrong answer here is to dismiss this as a bullshit nonissue that is irrelevant. Who's to say that there's any "right" or "wrong" answer to the issue? What if one were to fell back to basic norms of professional courtesy, that ask of us to treat others with tact and diplomacy so as to make them feel as comfortable as possible? One might then privately regard the whole matter as quite trifling, w…

> Who's to say that there's any "right" or "wrong" answer to the issue?

Ultimately the faculty doing the search will decide what's an acceptable answer.

> What if one were to fell back to basic norms of professional courtesy, that ask of us to treat others with tact and diplomacy so as to make them feel as comfortable as possible?

You can absolutely go this route but I'll just remind you that it's a highly competitive job search for one of the top universities in the world. The applicant pool is going to be highly competitive. Remember, community service is part of the job of being a faculty member. Berkeley is looking for leaders in all areas of the profession, this includes community service in the past and solid plans for the future.

It's one thing to say that you will abide by professional norms and make students feel as comfortable as possible. But those are just platitudes. How have you done so in the past? What specific examples can you use? How did you resolve a conflict related to DEI issues? What specific practices do you integrate into your teaching that serve to make students feel as comfortable as possible? How have you demonstrated tact in the past handling of a situation? Or where you weren't tactful and you learned the hard way why tact is important? What is a diplomatic way you've resolved an issue in the classroom? The answers to these questions make an excellent DEI statement, and they serve to do nothing more than elaborate with specificity on what you said you'll do. That shouldn't be a problem, right? That's all a DEI statement is really asking for.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#152

Post by Mezzie »

da_chicken wrote: post #145
throwaway8174 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but this is completely wrong and comically naïve. It is not representative of academic libraries at elite US universities. I work at an academic library at an Ivy League school, and am familiar enough with our peer institutions to provide some context. What you describe is a very rosy and idealistic view of libraries and especially librarians. The truth is, academic libraries are ex…

That may be your experience, but it does not reflect mine. My personal experience on the subject is working about a year at a modest municipal public library around 2005-2006 as their part-time IT administrator. It was around the time those librarians from New England sued the FBI over the PATRIOT Act, because that story broke while I was there. I'm basing my claim on my interactions on how those librarians tried to…

There's been a huge culture shift since 05-06. I started working in libraries in 2004, and what you're describing is more or less accurate until the mid-10s. That's when things started to shift. There's still a cohort that adheres to those ideals, but it's difficult to openly wade into contentious areas with that position unless one has the status to not be fired over it. A lot of it is that librarians, especially academic ones, are, as a group, very insecure because they often lack the credentials of other faculty, so they like to glom onto whatever the 'in' views in academia are in order to validate their presence in the academy.

Small, less prestigious libraries can go either way. On one hand, you're more likely to run into heterodox viewpoints, but on the other, a lot of progressives use those small libraries as career stepping stones and they're terrible about it. I still remember when the director of the community college library I worked in told me she was surprised I was a first-generation college graduate because I didn't seem like 'one of those people'. (Aka our students - this was in Flint, MI).

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#153

Post by Mezzie »

dogleash wrote: post #144
Mezzie wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The way the profession presents itself and the way librarians actually act are very at odds. Academic librarians are in full on social justice mode, to the point where I wouldn't be comfortable writing the paper I wrote in 2015 on the ethics of archival neutrality today because my rejection of post-modernism archival theory just wouldn't be acceptable now. I've also been chased out of a library discussion gro…

>post-modernism archival theory I guess it makes sense such a thing would exist, but I wasn't expecting to hear that phrase. Who chooses library science while wanting to be a bookburner? Seems like a recipe for absolutely miserable existence and life.

In context, post-modern archival theory makes sense. You just have to read it in context (that of the archival profession wrestling with their moral complicity in supporting some terrible governments in the mid 20th century) and contrast it with other views. Too many people don't do that.

It's more insidious than people going into the field hoping to censor. There's a large cohort that enters the field because they like helping people (as opposed to liking to organize information); those are the ones that end up here. They think they're helping or protecting people. They're also the loudest because the librarians working on things like open source repository tools prefer to bury their heads and ignore politics. Librarians are also really passive-aggressive and conflict-averse. It produces weird dynamics.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#154

Post by Mezzie »

throwaway8174 wrote: post #136
Mezzie wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The way the profession presents itself and the way librarians actually act are very at odds. Academic librarians are in full on social justice mode, to the point where I wouldn't be comfortable writing the paper I wrote in 2015 on the ethics of archival neutrality today because my rejection of post-modernism archival theory just wouldn't be acceptable now. I've also been chased out of a library discussion gro…

Agreed. I admire your candor and wish I could speak as freely as you, but like you said, this field is an ideological minefield where publicly voicing a dissenting opinion can cost you your job, or at the very least your social credibility. The most difficult part is watching people you know and respect say things that you know they don’t believe to appease a group of people who are salivating for any opportunity to…

Yeah, one of the few benefits to getting MS is like... what are they going to do, ruin my library career? My body did that when it decided to chew holes in my nervous system.

It's very hard, sometimes I kind of feel like I'm watching my former classmates be brainwashed. I try to only speak to people privately, unless they're being bold and expressing an unorthodox opinion, in which case I usually give public encouragement.

Oh man, I could go ON about the class dynamics. If you want the real dirt, talk to library staff. I was staff for over a decade before getting my MLIS.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#155

Post by legostormtroopr »

shadowgovt wrote: post #69
verisimi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> It used to be a common expression in left wing circles to say - 'I may not agree with your views, but I will fight for your right to say them'. Sadly those are long gone. The way I do the math, I wouldn't say they were long gone... I trace the death to approximately 2017. It was a philosophy predicated on a certain amount of tit for tat, and I think that philosophy took a big hit when during a pretty bog-standard p…

> I think that philosophy took a big hit when during a pretty bog-standard protest / counter-protest someone stabbed the left wing protesters in the back (or, more accurately, drove a car into them from behind).

Lets not pretend that "the left" only started using violence to silence dissenting voices until after Charlottesville. Earlier that year, there were riots over Milo Yiannopoulos being invited to speak at Stanford. And then a few months prior, there were mass riots at the Trump Innaguration (before he'd even done anything).

Its disingenuous to pretend this isn't a "both sides" problem based on issues of hyper-partisanship of the US over the past 10 (or more) years. I think one way for us to put this genie back in the bottle is firstly, for people to stop trying to place partisan blame, and instead say this is an "extremist" problem, and actually work in good faith to try and reconsile.

Anything less is doomed to failure.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/trump-inaugura... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAMN

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#156

Post by 908B64B197 »

woolion wrote: post #30

We have reached a point where it has been a mainstream position to view the idea of defending free speech as disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. This statement is so weak that it is necessary to consider this climate to even understand how this can be published as a statement. After explicitly saying that illegal speech is not free speech, it lists 6 exceptions for things that are not free speech either, includin…

> while being clearly a catch-all.

That's the whole point. This is straight from the Ethics playbook. It's a set of vague guidelines that wouldn't pass the stricter bar of being tested in court (like the first amendment has). It's basically anyone with a sliver of power playing judge and legislator. The catch-all clause simply makes it possible for the ethics mob to shut every form of speech they don't deem acceptable (again, this wouldn't stand in a real court of law).

Keep in mind the point of ethics is to shame people or practices you don't like via some kind of cancel culture of peer pressure. You'll also see the same thing with Codes of Conducts that basically allow anyone to exclude anyone for vague or no reason at all.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#157

Post by 908B64B197 »

gpm wrote: post #116
woolion wrote: post #30

We have reached a point where it has been a mainstream position to view the idea of defending free speech as disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. This statement is so weak that it is necessary to consider this climate to even understand how this can be published as a statement. After explicitly saying that illegal speech is not free speech, it lists 6 exceptions for things that are not free speech either, includin…

Ask yourself "what part of this allows them to prevent rock concerts during exams in the exam halls", it's only the parts that you seem to wish they would remove. I think we can both agree, that MIT does need the power to prevent rock concerts during exams in the exam halls.

> I think we can both agree, that MIT does need the power to prevent rock concerts during exams in the exam halls.

Sure, maybe at party schools.

The culture around MIT might surprise you. They take exams and learning quite seriously.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#158

Post by syshum »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #138
AlanYx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popper essentially takes the same position as Thomas Jefferson. Popper says: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." Emphasis on the unwise -- for some unknown reason, there's this idea floating around that Popper thought…

More briefly: When the intolerant reach for a gun, the tolerant don't have to tolerate that. Not when the intolerant speak - when they proceed past speech into violence. Then the tolerant don't have to tolerate it (and, in fact, kind of have to not tolerate it.)

This is why you now how people claiming "Speech is violence" and even "Silence is Violence"

They want to expand the definition of violence just like they have many many many other terms

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#159

Post by pelasaco »

oversocialized wrote: post #123

This is the same institution that railroaded Aaron Swartz and accepted donations from Jeffrey Epstein on behalf of Bill Gates (pedophile arrested at Gates' house). Anyone looking to these self serving institutes for morality or upholding the Constitution is in for a rude awakening.

whataboutism 101.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#160

Post by phone8675309 »

Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #128
gpm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact scenario was inspired by a "prank" the engineers pull off on new students at the university I went to every year (more along the lines of a spontaneous musical than a rock concert, but same effect). The broader point was that there's tons of "expression" that you need time/place/manner restrictions against for completely content legitimate, the exact example wasn't important. It's not a straw man at all...…

MIT's equivalent was and may still be "freshman shower night," where students would be forcibly abducted from their dorm rooms and thrown into a running shower the night before the first mid-term exams were held for core math and physics courses.

That sounds absolutely batshit - "don’t you dare say any wrongthink, but battery is a-okay if it’s a time honored tradition".

Saying "fuck the president" is a time honored tradition that doesn’t batter anybody, but I doubt that will be protected.

Post reply on HN