Live data from Hacker News

Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

texastribune.org

151–160 of 223 posts

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#151
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your regular reminder that the biggest threat to free speech is the government. The only thing the first amendment protects you from is the government.

that is an excellent point, it's kind of a distraction to drag in extraneous protections that don't apply, namely speech between citizenry. There is a government focus to the amendments that's worth keeping foremost in mind. Your statement helps me to keep this understanding in the foreground which I don't always do all the time.

> that is an excellent point

It's not, really. It comes from conflating mentions of "free speech" with "the first amendment". The person you're responding to brought up the latter, despite the fact that the person they were responding to said the former.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#152
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everybody (to a first approximation) supports private censorship. If you come into my house and insult my family or friends, or start in on a racist tirade, I’m kicking you out. Are there people who really wouldn’t do this?

I think when we have the government having regular meetings with major social networks, instructing them who to ban and which topics to exclude from discussion, and when we have the pipeline from foreign security services through the US government to the all major social networks which allow them to ban anybody without as little as cursory review - we are way, way beyond "family and friends" situation here.

The owners of social networks have free speech rights too. They can take others suggestions as to who and what to block and decide for themselves. The constitutional law is settled on this question. I wouldn’t be so quick to infringe that.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#153
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not at all what happened. What actually happened is that the parliament slightly restricted the number of reasons the Supreme Court is allowed to use to overrule decisions of the government. Since Israel has no Constitution (it has some Basic Laws, but they don't cover much) the Supreme Court has been increasingly intervening into politics - including appointments, government decisions, policies, etc. - much…

> What actually happened is that the parliament slightly restricted the number of reasons the Supreme Court is allowed to use to overrule decisions of the government. This seems a bit misleading. There's a lot more to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform > The Supreme Court can declare Knesset legislation unconstitutional. The reform would permit the Knesset to override such a ruling by rein…

I would seriously advise against using Wikipedia as an ultimate source for politically controversial topics, especially ones concerning fresh ongoing events.

That said, the two last paragraphs is not actually an objection to anything I said, it's just saying "but also they plan to do other bad things". Maybe they do, maybe they don't - it doesn't change the nature of the particular thing they passed, and that's what I was addressing and that's what the comment I was answered was alleging (it said "just removed", not "planning to remove" or "going to remove" - and that's false).

As for the first paragraph (after the link), I suspect what it refers to is part of another bill, and as such it's kind of hard to discuss because these change all the time as part of inter- and intra-coalition wheeling and dealing. I did not find any reference to this provision being part of the law that actually passed, if you have any (non-Wikipedia) reference to it please provide it. On its face, it looks ridiculous - that means to nullify any Supreme Court decision the parliament has to just vote on it twice (and the majority is implied - you can not pass any bill without having majority anyway) - so there's no point to have any court at all. This exaggerated ridiculousness suggests to me something is missing - this is not how it works and even people wanting to somehow establish a dictatorship (which nobody in Israel actually wants, despite what both sides claim - they just want to bend the system towards the party they favor) does not do it by passing a law saying "anything I say twice is the truth". Why then bother with saying it twice anyway - once should be enough? It just doesn't make any sense, all politics aside, so I suspect the real bill, whatever it is, is something different. But, as I said, I haven't read it so I don't know.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#154
post #26

Crackdowns on free speech are increasing worldwide. Afghanistan, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Florida, Texas... Israel just reached the using fire hoses on protestors level.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/world/middleeast/israel-j...

Don't forget California, where faculty is effectively required to engage in progressive political speech! https://archive.is/VDNPj

Did the California Community Colleges implement anti-racist policies because they believed they resulted in the best pedagogy, or because politicians told them to?

This article doesn't say, but it does appear from other reporting that the community colleges implemented these policies without influence from state politicians.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-12/communit...

That means it is not an analogue to the Texas scenario, where the university censured people because the politicians said to.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#155
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. The Texas A&M chancellor is elected by the board of regents, selected by the Governor of Texas. This is true for many (all?) state systems (eg. the board of governors, appointed by the state politicians, picks the UNC head chancellor). So, that position is always under political pressure. This is not true at privates.

Private entities are immune from corruption and never collude with politicians? People do not get fired for political reasons at private institutions? You show a mechanism through which the government can abuse its power, which is terrible and everyone should agree that it’s bad and change how this works. But how not having that implies that a chancellor picked by a board with no oversight could not be worse? The pro…

You're inferring too much. Nobody said one was better or worse. Chancellors at privates also answer to a board, which may be good or bad, but they aren't appointed by the government, a fact particularly relevant to this situation. There's great private and public universities, so obviously neither option is necessarily bad.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#156
post #145
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Forced participation in DEI is well beyond "equality of all citizens". In fact, if you notice, the very word "equality" is banned there - you must say "equity", because equality is not enough. As Kendi teaches us, "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination".…

[flagged]

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#157

> The Texas A&M University professor had just returned home from giving a routine lecture on the opioid crisis at the University of Texas Medical Branch in March when she learned a student had accused her of disparaging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick during the talk. Very Soviet. Is this a weird Texas thing, or is it normal for American universities? It's virtually impossible to imagine here; universities are more or less grou…

It's a weird Texas thing. In general, American universities don't bat an eye at anyone criticizing established organizations.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#158
post #139
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Many people believe what they teach works toward equality for all citizens, many people believe it undermines equality. Regardless, teaching one side of a current controversy as fact in mandatory school is manipulation.

"Regardless, teaching one side of a current controversy as fact in mandatory school is manipulation."

If there were a real controversy, sure, but the sides here are "everyone is a human worthy of rights, protections, and opportunity," versus "some people deserve more and opportunity than others". One is tolerant, one is not. I am under no compulsion to be tolerant of intolerance. It is proper, ethical, and moral to fight for the rights of all humans, and it is improper, unethical, and immoral to fight against them.

Not all arguments have two worthwhile sides.

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#159
post #26

Crackdowns on free speech are increasing worldwide. Afghanistan, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Florida, Texas... Israel just reached the using fire hoses on protestors level.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/world/middleeast/israel-j...

Don't forget California, where faculty is effectively required to engage in progressive political speech! https://archive.is/VDNPj

[dead]

Re: Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Patrick in lecture

#160
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when we have the government having regular meetings with major social networks, instructing them who to ban and which topics to exclude from discussion, and when we have the pipeline from foreign security services through the US government to the all major social networks which allow them to ban anybody without as little as cursory review - we are way, way beyond "family and friends" situation here.

The owners of social networks have free speech rights too. They can take others suggestions as to who and what to block and decide for themselves. The constitutional law is settled on this question. I wouldn’t be so quick to infringe that.

"Suggestions". Right. Regular meetings and demands from the government to shut down speech is just mere "suggestions". How stupid you think your target audience is?
Post reply on HN