Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way • Hacker News Board

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#171

Post by ThrustVectoring » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #93

elicash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are limits to libel laws as a result of the First Amendment. I understand your confusion/question, but that's why I bring it up -- there's a lot of disagreement over how to interpret these speech protections and lots of people weigh the issues involved differently. From OP's description at least, it's a bad ruling for people who care deeply about freedom of expression. Sadly, most people only care about scoring…

There's no confusion here. The amendment is a restriction on government, not individuals suing. Aside from that, not everyone who cares deeply about freedom of expression would agree that this ruling is bad in that context.

Any individual suing in civil court is using the apparatus of the government in order to enforce controls on speech. This is settled law - the alternative is that the government can control speech through allowing private parties to sue over speech in civil court. Take, for example, a law that would allow school shooting victims to sue people who made violent video games that the school shooter played. While this is not direct suppression of free speech rights to make violent video games, it is definitely using the apparatus of the government to suppress protected speech.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#172

Post by deogeo » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 4:25 AM UTC

elicash wrote: post #162

deogeo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 8chan warrant story is still on the 2nd page after a whole day, and wasn't flagged. And this story is about a $887 million institution pressuring a working-class assault victim to drop charges against their attackers, by using libel and economic sanctions. So what makes this story 'conservative'? That the victim was white?

Most of the interest in this story has been in right-wing media stemming from a false "racism" accusation that is a PART of this case and also due to a bigger narrative around left-wing campuses. I'd frame the story differently than you did, but the bigger point is that we shouldn't pretend this isn't mostly a right-wing media news story for these reasons. I think we both agree that if the racism charge had strong me…

> OP said exactly why they thought it was conservative. They cited that it was because it was related to "conservative campus panic." To pretend they could have said it because "the victim was white" is very dishonest of you.

Dishonest? In your very post, you agree with me! You say if the racism charge had merit, i.e. if the white kid was at fault, then it would be a liberal story. Just like [1].

Saying they thought it was conservative because it was related to conservative campus panic is pretty much circular logic, and doesn't explain anything. If anything was dishonest in my post, it was the implication that the attitude was limited to pessimizer, when in fact it seems to have seeped into the terms 'conservative' and 'liberal' themselves.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/25/citing-trump...

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#173

Post by deogeo » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

elicash wrote: post #163

deogeo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about calling someone a pedophile? Should that also not be libel? And before you claim it's different because being a pedophile is a crime - it's not a crime. Acting on it is. Just how being racist isn't a crime, but refusing to serve customers based on race is.

What about "jerk?" Should that be libel if there's no evidence the person is a jerk?

That's a good point. The difference is that 'jerk' is on its face a subjective assessment, an opinion, while 'racist' is less so. I have a feeling there's supreme court precedent drawing a more exact line.

Of course, devoid of context, 'racist' is pretty subjective as well. I'm guessing if the statements had been left sufficiently ambiguous, they might have gotten away with it. But they weren't - they accused them of a very specific racism, and demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth.

From a quick search, looks like in cases such as these, the standard would be that the statements are made with 'actual malice' [1].

Edit: I noticed you asked what the law should be, not what it is. I guess I'm not so sure of the answer, but I'd venture that statements made with 'actual malice' should be included in libel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact#Priva...

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#174

Post by asveikau » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 7:37 AM UTC

Fins wrote: post #164

djakjxnanjak wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether someone is a victim of assault or rightfully practiced self-defense is often a difficult question dependent on the states of mind of the people involved in a volatile situation, remembered through the veil of faulty human memories. Details like who used force first are pretty much impossible to determine without a video recording. Of course, police officers are as fallible as anyone else. Defamation requires…

Given that students in question plead guilty, it seems quite plausible that "willful disregard for the truth" is exactly what happened here.

It's a good thing innocent people have never pled guilty before.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#175

Post by Fins » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #174

Fins wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that students in question plead guilty, it seems quite plausible that "willful disregard for the truth" is exactly what happened here.

It's a good thing innocent people have never pled guilty before.

Yeah, this clearly was the case here!! Although even Oberlin does not seem to be making that claim.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#176

Post by Sacho » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 10:21 AM UTC

odiroot wrote: post #57

grellas wrote: post #14

A bit more factual context: 1. The student "protests" erupted the day after the 2016 election results came in, with a corresponding politically inflammatory element at work in the background. 2. The underlying incident involved an underaged black student who attempted to buy a bottle of wine, was refused, and was then found to have 2 other bottles under his coat as he walked out. When the owner's son chased him out,…

How are these people not in jail for kicking a man on the ground? On top of theft at that.

From LI's reporting, if I understood correctly, the Gibsons' agreed to drop the assault charges if the accused students would make a statement that the Gibsons' were not racist.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#177

Post by asveikau » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 10:34 AM UTC

Fins wrote: post #175

asveikau wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good thing innocent people have never pled guilty before.

Yeah, this clearly was the case here!! Although even Oberlin does not seem to be making that claim.

I don't know if you caught that. But for me, "they pled guilty!" is meaningless. People are coerced into that all the time. So speaking generally, to those who think saying that is shorthand for winning an argument, it's quite silly.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#178

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

high_derivative wrote: post #44

not_a_moth wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my own experience, no, at the top universities the upper middle class demographic is far more concerned about lining up high paying jobs, networking, and/or working on their general social status than any sort of political activism at all. The activism comes from other groups, if even then. Maybe at small liberal arts colleges or less elite institutions your viewpoint might be true, but I can't speak for that.

Just to clarify, I have spent the better part of the last decade at one of the institutions in my response. I have seen generations of students come and go. Your experience may differ but at least where I am, the qualitative change is this: earlier this decade, it's been really only small groups. Now, with students born after 2000 and having grown up fully immersed in social media being on campus, what would have bee…

Do you have any sources to back up a reduced tolerance for viewpoint diversity, or is it just that their Overton window has shifted away from yours?

e.g. would they tolerate (even if they didn't fully agree with it) things on the extreme but opposite end of various political axis from you that you would consider beyond the pale, and vice versa?

From your perspective what seems like a narrowing of viewpoint diversity could seem like a blossoming to someone diametrically opposed to you, because each sees the subtler distinctions between factions in their own comfort zone.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#179

Post by mmmrk » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 11:19 AM UTC

high_derivative wrote: post #19

I am a grad student leaving university soon enough, and this does not surprise me at all. Especially at elite universities, there is this interesting phenomenon of mostly upper middle class white women from on average the most privileged upbringings in the western hemisphere arriving at a university they (anyone) could only attend by incredible privilege and luck. Yet they arrive fully convinced they have been held b…

> Especially at elite universities, there is this interesting phenomenon of mostly upper middle class white women from on average the most privileged upbringings in the western hemisphere arriving at a university they (anyone) could only attend by incredible privilege and luck. Yet they arrive fully convinced they have been held back by the patriarchy their entire lives. Same for other groups and their pet causes.

This does not have to be a contradiction.

1. If you come from a wealthy family, attending a prestigious university might be par for the course instead of an incredible privilege; you can still be "held back by the patriarchy" (no sarcasm intended). The two things can work in orthogonal ways.

2. They might realize they are privileged and are leveraging their position in an attempt to help others up, i.e. by raising/forcing awareness, a valid thing to do. Feminists aren't the only ones to do it.

I perceive these two points to be common themes in "The Guilty Feminist" podcast I like to listen to.

Re: Oberlin College case shows how universities are losing their way

#180

Post by Chazprime » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

zuminator wrote: post #18

The problem I always have with stories like this is the context. 1) The writer breathlessly warns that "campuses across the country" are succumbing to mob rule. How many campuses is that? Sure, we "know" from the internet that this problem is rampant, just like we "know" that other hot-button issues such as shooting of unarmed black teens, the incel movement, anchor babies, etc. have reached epidemic proportions. But…

Colleges have been hotbeds of protest for hundreds of years. Is it really true that something has fundamentally changed, or does it just seem that way because this time groups that we (ymmv) approve of are on the receiving end of the protests?

You’re right, and the voices of young people have sometimes made actual, positive changes to the world… look at Tiananmen Square, Kent State, Occupy Wall Street or the 1964 Berkeley protests (just off the top of my head).

It’s not who the recipients are that’s the problem, it’s that this protest appears to be predicated on a lie, and that destroying these people’s livelihood was not even a consideration to the school’s administration... that’s the problem. There’s no nobility in this kind of protest, and it will not make our world a better place to live in.

And does it matter how many times this has happened to become worrisome? This kind of activism is cropping up all over the place (social media, news, entertainment) so I’m not sure the focus should be on the number of colleges this has happened at, but rather the ethos that’s driving younger generations.