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A university president makes a case against cowardice

newyorker.com

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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#481

Post by vimax »

hellotheretoday wrote: post #382
emptysongglass wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Well for brevity I did trivialize it but I will expand: The left side got people fired. This is objectively not as bad as getting people disappeared. You can get a new fucking job. You can’t get freedom from detention and you cannot easily return to the country (if at all) Additionally there is the motivational factor behind both sides: The lefts argument in policing language was to reduce harm to marginalized groups…

You're still trivializing. The cancel culture would often follow the people it wanted to cancel to make it hard for them to get another job again.

Also, I'll add that the "there is the door" comment is entirely wrong. There are countless stories of open source maintainers being harassed to make language changes to their code base, master/slave, whitelist/blacklist. The harassers never offered to do the work themselves just demanded it be done for them or they'll keep harassing. These were people matching into someone else's "safe space" to police their private language.

The government disappearing people and dismantling the country is very bad, and nothing good can be said about it. What I'm talking about are the individuals on both sides not formally in power, and their equal efforts to stifle what they see as "bad speech". It's that mentality, on both sides, that led us to where we are.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#482

Post by xhkkffbf »

mapt wrote: post #475

Columbia has an endowment that stands (pre- Liberation Day) at 15 billion dollars. They kowtowed to some of the militant Zionist interests involved in that endowment in order to attain a fractionally higher return, and betrayed their students. They kowtowed to the fascist administration on the grounds that it was threatening 400 million dollars in grants, and betrayed their students to the point of facilitating a pro…

[flagged]

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#483

Post by ben7799 »

jwjohnson314 wrote: post #150
disambiguation wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The political and ideological divide speaks for itself, but on behalf of the common folk universities have been failing their core mission - to provide the people with a quality education. The inversion and disconnect between the cost of tuition and economic outcomes is stunning. Too many kids who don't know better are pressured into pursuing higher education and taking on massive debt, only to graduate without any j…

> The salt in the wounds is that universities are flush with cash, yet its spent on anything and everything except for the welfare of the students. Maybe the elites. State schools and small colleges are not flush with cash and many have been shuttered or severely downsized recently. Though they could still spend their limited funds better.

Spending massive amounts of money on sports is something state schools are very much into.

They will shutter academic departments but continue to pay a football coach more than the University president.

Not all schools do this but it is part of the conversation, sports spending has grown out of control along with everything else.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#484

Post by mapt »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #482
mapt wrote: post #475

Columbia has an endowment that stands (pre- Liberation Day) at 15 billion dollars. They kowtowed to some of the militant Zionist interests involved in that endowment in order to attain a fractionally higher return, and betrayed their students. They kowtowed to the fascist administration on the grounds that it was threatening 400 million dollars in grants, and betrayed their students to the point of facilitating a pro…

[flagged]

A significant number of Columbia students are Jewish and were largely protesting the genocide. Almost the entirety of this movement had zero issue with Jews, only with the actions of Israel and Zionism. A significant number of outside agitators were older Jewish Zionists or (often) Zionist evangelicals who lived within driving distance and wanted to start a fight. 50 year old drunk men wearing Israeli flags and pushing into the crowd in groups.

I watched this narrative get created and promoted without any evidence; Video after video showed peaceful and surprisingly media-savvy students (I mean, it is Columbia). Every politician and most media organizations taking direct input from Israeli government officials or AIPAC. On MSNBC and CNN we heard voice after voice after voice pronouncing expert opinions on the shame of this protest/terrorism in an Israeli accent. Administration officials trying to expel anybody caught on camera who was identifiable. While the bombs dropped on Gaza.

I can't say with any confidence that there was absolutely zero conflict, but the absolute confidence that every figure of authority immediately brought to bear on the subject of all Jews being purged by Hamas terrorists from Columbia and needing the National Guard to be called out to protect them? It was beyond the pale.

All of the video I watched of actual Zionist students (or student-aged people) had them victim-posing for social media after throwing themselves into the protest and being largely ignored.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#486

Post by robertlagrant »

Bluescreenbuddy wrote: post #474
pclmulqdq wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past decade, the left got so cancel-happy that "cancellation" by the left-wing activist crowd lost pretty much all of its weight among anyone who isn't an ideologue. In 2016-2018, if you got canceled, you would have a very hard time finding any white-collar job afterward.

Well what did they do to get called out?

This is called "victim blaming".

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#487

Post by salt-thrower »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #482
mapt wrote: post #475

Columbia has an endowment that stands (pre- Liberation Day) at 15 billion dollars. They kowtowed to some of the militant Zionist interests involved in that endowment in order to attain a fractionally higher return, and betrayed their students. They kowtowed to the fascist administration on the grounds that it was threatening 400 million dollars in grants, and betrayed their students to the point of facilitating a pro…

[flagged]

Your argument is so out of touch I can only assume it’s being made in bad faith.

Many of the pro-Palestinian protesters are also Jewish. Equating all Jewish people with Israel and Zionism is insidious and misleading.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#488

Post by intended »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #482
mapt wrote: post #475

Columbia has an endowment that stands (pre- Liberation Day) at 15 billion dollars. They kowtowed to some of the militant Zionist interests involved in that endowment in order to attain a fractionally higher return, and betrayed their students. They kowtowed to the fascist administration on the grounds that it was threatening 400 million dollars in grants, and betrayed their students to the point of facilitating a pro…

[flagged]

The complaint was passed through the US President.

Against a liberal university.

And ICE is picking students up.

—

I mean… this isn’t the kind of liberal university I think of; places which have fought regularly for their ideas and for advancement.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#489

Post by mapt »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #482
mapt wrote: post #475

Columbia has an endowment that stands (pre- Liberation Day) at 15 billion dollars. They kowtowed to some of the militant Zionist interests involved in that endowment in order to attain a fractionally higher return, and betrayed their students. They kowtowed to the fascist administration on the grounds that it was threatening 400 million dollars in grants, and betrayed their students to the point of facilitating a pro…

[flagged]

> What you're looking for is a town square where everyone can protest to their hearts content. You're not looking for a place of quiet contemplation and study.

The university quad, a multipurpose public space designated for students, is basically the only type of public, physical town square left in this entire country.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#490

Post by freejazz »

lelanthran wrote: post #441
freejazz wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how that follows. Do elite universities typically track the general population?

> I'm not sure how that follows. Do elite universities typically track the general population? He's saying that the universities are out of touch with the general population, which is never a good thing.

Was it ever the case they were in touch the with the general population... they are elite after all...
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