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Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

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Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#31

Post by drcongo »

rhino369 wrote: post #24
whoknew1122 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What consequences did he face from Yale? A couple of conversations with an Associate Dean and Director of DEI? An email stating that Yale didn't agree with his language? Oh, the horror! He's still at Yale Law School. His blog post is being circulated on Hacker News. Give me some of those consequences.

Threats from the administration, specifically threats they would report him to the bar C&F committee.

Threats are not consequences. They are, quite literally, the threats of consequences, not consequences.

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#33

Post by shadowgovt »

dariusj18 wrote: post #30
okdjnfweonfe wrote: post #23

> The Yale administrators did not believe I had been racist by using the phrase “trap house.” + > an email was sent to Yale Law’s entire second-year class “condemn[ing] in the strongest possible terms” the “pejorative and racist language” in the invitation. == Yale Law administration was happy to lie to their entire second-year class. If true, then the administration was more interested about protecting their brand,…

"pejorative and racist language" does not equal being racist. The article seems pretty clear that the author had no idea the language had racial roots (if they can be called that given it's kinda racist to assume that a drug den is race related) and therefore they were not being racist. I take that at face value because I also only had a modern surface level knowledge of the term "trap house" from similar contexts. I…

It's possible to say racist things without intending to be racist. In fact, it's extremely likely given how much of American culture is pretty firmly grounded in a racist history; a lot of common sayings started as racially-charged stereotypes. So these racist sayings are propagated forward by people innocently unaware of their origins and implied meaning.

Whether one, having learned that history, changes one's choice of language or shrugs, says "I didn't invent the term so its use is not my problem," and charges forward will influence the kind of company one keeps in our society.

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#34

Post by rhino369 »

drcongo wrote: post #31
rhino369 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threats from the administration, specifically threats they would report him to the bar C&F committee.

Threats are not consequences. They are, quite literally, the threats of consequences, not consequences.

Of course they are.

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#35

Post by rhino369 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #20
rhino369 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech on campus does actually mean freedom from consequences from the administration. Yale might not have to allow free speech on its campus, but it purports to. And what they did was a violation of that principle. And while the other students are free to harass him for invented crimes, he's free to call them out for doing so.

Honestly, Yale's administration is trying to help. This individual's major risk surface isn't what Yale will do to him... It's that his peers have filed his name away in their personal Rolodex-analog as "Someone very, very clueless about tone and reading a room." i.e. "Someone I don't want as partner in my law firm." And the legal profession is (relatively speaking) a tiny community... But big enough that there's rar…

Maybe they did think they were helping. But their threats and denouncement of him were likely harmful.

IMO, an apology just looks like an admission of guilt in this case.

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#36

Post by shadowgovt »

rhino369 wrote: post #35
shadowgovt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, Yale's administration is trying to help. This individual's major risk surface isn't what Yale will do to him... It's that his peers have filed his name away in their personal Rolodex-analog as "Someone very, very clueless about tone and reading a room." i.e. "Someone I don't want as partner in my law firm." And the legal profession is (relatively speaking) a tiny community... But big enough that there's rar…

Maybe they did think they were helping. But their threats and denouncement of him were likely harmful. IMO, an apology just looks like an admission of guilt in this case.

The denouncement clearly wasn't helping him, but since it's Yale, it's not unexpected. Yale itself has a bad racism reputation (https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/05/10/yale-responds-afte...), so the administration can be expected to respond by covering their own asses via declaring their lack of condonement or concurrence with his speech.

The letter they proposed is an acknowledgement that his actions were harmful and a specific declaration of lack of intent. It'd have been a good tack for him to take. Doubling down, instead, that the word choice should not be considered hurtful is risky; definitions are semi-subjective, and the history of the term he chose was clear (reference to a controversial left-wing blog isn't really an excuse; it's basically an argument "Well if shock jocks can use it, why can't I?" Because your profession of choice is lawyer, friend, not audio entertainer).

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#37

Post by throwoutway »

shadowgovt wrote: post #33
dariusj18 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pejorative and racist language" does not equal being racist. The article seems pretty clear that the author had no idea the language had racial roots (if they can be called that given it's kinda racist to assume that a drug den is race related) and therefore they were not being racist. I take that at face value because I also only had a modern surface level knowledge of the term "trap house" from similar contexts. I…

It's possible to say racist things without intending to be racist. In fact, it's extremely likely given how much of American culture is pretty firmly grounded in a racist history; a lot of common sayings started as racially-charged stereotypes. So these racist sayings are propagated forward by people innocently unaware of their origins and implied meaning. Whether one, having learned that history, changes one's choic…

Question: if 100,000,000 people use some common phrase, innocently unaware of its history/roots, and one person finds a racist definition for it from 200 years ago, why should the entire population be beholden to an outdated definition? Shouldn’t we be able to change the definition (after all, that’s exactly what dictionaries do)

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#38

Post by CodeGlitch »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #14
Aliabid94 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being offended does not give you the undeniable power to demand apologies.

You can demand anything at any time. Doesn't mean you're getting one. He said something that people took offense to. They demanded an apology. He didn't apologize. I'm not sure why this necessitated a blog article, much less one circulated on Hacker News. For what it's worth, I'm a white guy who grew up in poverty and have seen more than one trap house. I'm uncomfortable about the use of trap house here, because it's…

Don't forget that the administrators threatened that the situation "could escalate". Being in his position I would read that as being expelled.

It's important and should be on hacker news because one day they'll come for you.

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#39

Post by xboxnolifes »

nynx wrote: post #27
xboxnolifes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, if you use some particular language that other people find offensive, even if you didn’t mean it that way, just apologize. I disagree. You apologize if you believe you did something wrong. If you do not feel what you did was wrong, do not apologize.

He’s certainly free to do that and that seems to be what ultimately happened. That being said, he’s free to experience the social consequences of showing himself to be unable or unwilling to read a room.

It's not just about being "free" to do something. It's about not putting out the fake "I'm sorry you are offended" apology.

Re: Why I didn’t apologize for that Yale Law School email

#40

Post by david38 »

drcongo wrote: post #31
rhino369 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threats from the administration, specifically threats they would report him to the bar C&F committee.

Threats are not consequences. They are, quite literally, the threats of consequences, not consequences.

Literally they are treated equivalent.

Ever hear “through the use of force or threat of force”?

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