I've heard/read about similar situations recently where a black person is caught committing a crime and people protest the establishment for racism. At a vintage store in Brooklyn, a black woman was caught shoplifting and arrested. Then a group of people started protesting the store.
Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
131–140 of 198 posts
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think simply calling somebody "racist" should EVER be libel. Even when inaccurate. But hey, that's me and I'm a free speech supporter.
> I don't think simply calling somebody "racist" should EVER be libel. Even when inaccurate. You're a racist. Just exercising free speech over here, am I doing this right?
Yep. Even if I had your name, I wouldn't sue! And if I did, I'd hope that it'd get laughed out of court.
Now imagine a world where I could win. For tens of millions of dollars. That should scare you. Thanks for making my point.
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#133The tl;dr seems to be an underage black person tried to buy wine, apparently stole wine, then there was a fight with the owner's son. There was a demonstration that was probably based on an unclear understanding of the events. So people over-reacted to events, yes they were stupid to do. But you shouldn't use this as an excuse to clutch one's pearls and conclude colleges have lost their way. This looks like a cya act…
Did you miss the part about college officials committing purgery? In what institution would she be able to keep her job? So yes - some protest and confusion in the days after are understandable. But the actions of the college go way beyond that. She should have been fired long ago the college should have apologized to the community alumni and the bakery and then it would all have ended. This is a good example of coll…
yeah, if she lied she should be fired. I am surprised there is not clear evidence, like a recording.
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downvotes are more likely because of the fiery rhetoric in your comment. It's tedious, and there's far too much of it online. People come to HN to be interested, not blared at. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and using this site as intended from now on? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Please enlighten me as to what about my post is rhetoric rather than describing a position and backing it up with facts from this very article. You keep saying I'm doing this yet I can't really see what I'm doing beyond assessing a social phenomenon. Can you be more direct than referring me to nebulous guidelines? Because to me it doesn't seem constructive at all. Fwiw I see posts all over that have the same "fire" t…
He probably objects to language like "despicable". To fit in around here, it helps to smoke some dope and like, mellow out. Instead of "despicable" you could say something more chill like "disappointing bruh."
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#135It is like you see your car is headed towards a ditch and you step on the gas.
Quite amazed that such poor judgement was exercised throughout this incident - from deans and upper level admins no less - how out of touch with reality can someone be?
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
If libel laws now allow you to successfully sue for tens of millions of dollars because you falsely accuse somebody of being a racist, that's a sad day for freedom of speech. The impact would be truly chilling on national debate. As I stated elsewhere, there are absolutely limits to libel laws based on Constitutional issues as decided in NYT v Sullivan. I wish people were arguing that based on the facts of this case,…
To me, the most important factor in this case is that after the protests, etc the Bakery first asked the University to simply retract it's claims that it was racist and had a history of racism. The University refused, despite having no proof of it's claims, which shows bad faith at least. Another fact that goes to bad faith are the lies they made on the stand, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. If you…
I agree with you about things that make their case weaker.
I would disagree if you're claiming that the national debate about racism only applies to newspapers talking about politicians. There's a HUGELY IMPORTANT debate in the culture generally about racism that I'd argue just as important if not moreso.
(That said, from a legal standpoint it's obviously true that a politician is a clearer-cut case of a public figure. That obviously matters when judging the merits. But you seemed to be suggesting that talking about this case in terms of the national debate around racism is irrelevant.)
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think simply calling somebody "racist" should EVER be libel. Even when inaccurate. You're a racist. Just exercising free speech over here, am I doing this right?
Yep. Even if I had your name, I wouldn't sue! And if I did, I'd hope that it'd get laughed out of court. Now imagine a world where I could win. For tens of millions of dollars. That should scare you. Thanks for making my point.
It would suck to live in a world where people can destroy your life by spreading lies about you, and you have no recourse. That's not the world we live in. What benefits do you think free-for-all slander and libel would give society exactly?
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
interesting. opposition to "social justice" signals an opposition to fairness and equality, and theoretically should be rare. i wonder if it's the strain of opposition that sees it as zero-sum and resists (i.e., "if things get fairer for the disadvantaged, then i, as an advantaged person, must necessarily lose something")? or the strain that resists social normalization (e.g., i should be free to offend and belittle…
Everyone is all for fairness and equality but, as is becoming increasingly clear, "social justice" as a movement has little, if anything, to do with actual fairness or equality. Oberlin College's misbehavior may be at the extremum but it is far from the only example of this. Even on as pro-left a site as HN, people are realizing that this movement is more of a problem than a force for good and that one can be a liber…
The social justice movement was responsible for the general expectation in polite society to not misgender trans people, so it's clearly had material benefits. This is not to say that there aren't extreme elements, but shifting the center of gravity of society to a fairer place does involve some extreme elements.
It's like how RMS is the crazy extremist free software guy, and that gives the rest of us cover to share our or our employers' code freely with the world.
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Even if I had your name, I wouldn't sue! And if I did, I'd hope that it'd get laughed out of court. Now imagine a world where I could win. For tens of millions of dollars. That should scare you. Thanks for making my point.
It would suck to live in a world where people can destroy your life by spreading lies about you, and you have no recourse. That's not the world we live in. What benefits do you think free-for-all slander and libel would give society exactly?
I'll answer your question but I hope you answer mine: Do you think I should be able to successfully sue you for millions of dollars if you had SERIOUSLY just called me a racist? If not, we're closer in viewpoint than you want to admit.
Now to your question:
> What benefits do you think free-for-all slander and libel would give society exactly?
I DON'T favor "free-for-all" slander or libel. But to the extent that I draw the line differently from you, the benefit to society would be that society gets to debate what exactly it means to be racist and hopefully that open debate leads to something useful. I like the idea that you combat speech with more speech because I think it leads to better outcomes for all of us. I don't think it's helpful to have people live in fear of saying anything controversial.
Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Multiple school officials were actively participating in the demonization of the business and using their authority to create economic sanctions on the same. I don't see how you can justify their behavior. Especially since Gibson's was an actual victim of a real crime unlike the narrative the school was trying to paint. There was also a link to another article laying out the evidence of collusion by school administra…
I don't "justify" saying stupid things. I just care about freedom of speech. There's another user who made the point that the facts of this case extend to a dean accusing the business of committing a criminal act. Based on those facts, I think there's a much better argument that you could be making rather than arguing that defending the right to say something is the same as defending the underlying stupid comment.
Freedom of speech does does carry with it freedom from the repercussions of libel and lost wages due to those erroneous statements. Now, you can argue the validity of those laws and their impact on the freedom of speech, but they aren't protected under the free speech laws. They have very real specifications and aren't cart blanche to be an asshole without repercussion. Ignorance of the law has never been a defence, and I would hope a college would have understood that.