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Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

thefire.org

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Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#51

Post by abakker »

wilg wrote: post #31
abakker wrote: post #27

Just a reminder that a .org does not mean "trustworthy". https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Individ... In this case, the discussion and the tenor of the conversation is almost certainly cherry picked to serve a particular agenda. On its face, the actions by Stanford in this article seem...not good. But I also suspect that this is making a mountain out of a molehill for political gain.

But now you’ve posted a .org! Is that one trustworthy?

lol, you are of course correct. It seems they are owned by the Center for Media and Democracy, which looks pretty neutral, but it is of course hard to tell.

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#52

Post by prvc »

wilg wrote: post #48

Some rando on Twitter reposting an screenshot of an anonymous person claims the following: https://twitter.com/barrydeutsch/status/1618697230382399488 > This article hasn't framed the incident accurately at all. the incident was two theta girls posted a Snapchat story of them reading Mein Kampf as part of their costumes at a pregame and laughing, clearly in a joking way, not at all in a historical way. The joke was i…

> laughing, clearly in a joking way, not at all in a historical way

What should the penalty be for laughing in a non-"historical way"?

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#53

Post by minsc_and_boo »

sudobash1 wrote: post #39
abakker wrote: post #27

Just a reminder that a .org does not mean "trustworthy". https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Individ... In this case, the discussion and the tenor of the conversation is almost certainly cherry picked to serve a particular agenda. On its face, the actions by Stanford in this article seem...not good. But I also suspect that this is making a mountain out of a molehill for political gain.

Some other sources: There is more information in the a "Stanford Daily" article: https://stanforddaily.com/2023/01/22/protected-identity-harm... And an opinion article in the "Standford Review": https://stanfordreview.org/nazis-banned-books-we-shouldnt/

But to GP's point, that appears to be the only news about the event:

https://news.google.com/search?q=mein%20kampf%20stanford

It seems like this really is a molehill.

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#54

Post by leephillips »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
leephillips wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dizzying pace with which so many of our institutions—from the ACLU to basically all our our elite universities—have not only abandoned but energetically oppose their former principles, over just the past five years, is horrifying.

> from the ACLU The ACLU has a track record of defending the rights of the unfavorable, even irredeemable. Are there examples that lump them in with this nonsense?

“Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.”

That’s Chase Strangio, part of ACLU leadership, fighting to ban a book she doesn’t like: https://www.iwf.org/2020/11/16/some-in-aclu-have-new-cause-b...

You might object that the ACLU also fights against book bans, and that Strangio wasn’t necessarily expressing official ACLU policy, and those would be good points. But the ACLU tolerates this kind of rhetoric and keeps this individual in a prominent position, representing the organization. There are other examples.

Even if you don’t like the book in question, surely the old ACLU, the one I used to support, would have no truck with book banning and book banners.

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#55

Post by rgbrenner »

abakker wrote: post #27

Just a reminder that a .org does not mean "trustworthy". https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Individ... In this case, the discussion and the tenor of the conversation is almost certainly cherry picked to serve a particular agenda. On its face, the actions by Stanford in this article seem...not good. But I also suspect that this is making a mountain out of a molehill for political gain.

I read the sourcewatch link and see lots of conservative funding. So I went through FIREs articles and found lots of conservative-learning articles, but also:

https://www.thefire.org/news/florida-school-district-removes...

https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-warns-office-missouri-secr...

https://www.thefire.org/news/texas-bill-targeting-diversity-...

https://www.thefire.org/news/florida-school-district-removes...

So there's at least some bipartisan criticism. This article seems to match with the stanford article... so do you have any criticism of the contents of this article?

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#56

Post by [deleted] »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #12
jleyank wrote: post #3

Can have fun with this particularly if it’s a 20th century European history course assignment. If books cause harm, then pretty much any religious text will be (very) offensive to another as it’s heretical etc. psychology texts probably really offend Scientologists, and I’m sure you can come up with other combinations without too much effort. Das Kapital, any civil war history covering the western campaign and it’s g…

You would have to ask the individual(s) who profess to have been harmed. Claiming "it must be X" and then dismissing X is approaching a straw man. Restorative justice practices are notoriously antithetical to the adversarial justice system we're used to dealing with. Assumptions we make in adversarial justice systems like open observation to ensure a public check on proceedings are not part of restorative practices.…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#57

Post by sequoia »

In cases like these, details and context are important, and unfortunately they are very scant here.

Specifically, one may draw a distinction between someone reading Mein Kampf and posting a selfie on social media with the book (it's not clear whether a selfie was involved but social media posting was). There's no issue with reading mein kampf, but if it's being used as a prop on social media for the purpose of Jew-baiting, I can see how someone would take issue with this and/or consider it an offence against a school conduct guide.

To take another example, I don't think there's any issue with someone learning or teaching how to tie a knot used to make a noose. But if someone throws a noose over a tree, poses in front of it & posts the picture to social media, that's a very different action. In the latter case, it would be dishonest to say they were censured "for tying knots," they would be censured for race baiting and making implied threats.

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#58

Post by PointA2B »

mindcrime wrote: post #9

Wow. Just wow. As far as I'm concerned, the student in question should have exactly one response to the Stanford administration. "Fuck You."

Yep. If no rules or laws were broken, you have no obligation to participate in their circus.

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#59

Post by kube-system »

prvc wrote: post #52
wilg wrote: post #48

Some rando on Twitter reposting an screenshot of an anonymous person claims the following: https://twitter.com/barrydeutsch/status/1618697230382399488 > This article hasn't framed the incident accurately at all. the incident was two theta girls posted a Snapchat story of them reading Mein Kampf as part of their costumes at a pregame and laughing, clearly in a joking way, not at all in a historical way. The joke was i…

> laughing, clearly in a joking way, not at all in a historical way What should the penalty be for laughing in a non-"historical way"?

From our government? Nothing. From a private organization? Whatever their rules are, as long as they are within the law. It is exceedingly common for private organizations to have standards of behavior that are much more than required by law.

Re: Stanford student may need to ‘acknowledge harm’ for reading ‘Mein Kampf’

#60

Post by automatoney »

Here is a more journalistic piece on the incident:

https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-reported-for-...

and the school's newspaper's reporting on it (which is linked in both articles)

https://stanforddaily.com/2023/01/22/protected-identity-harm...

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