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Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#81

Post by bradleyjg »

metaphorm wrote: post #22

I'm so conflicted right now. On the one hand, yeah, that shit is offensive and I'm not too keen on elevating a person who makes jokes about sexual assault or violence against minorities. On the other hand I'm terrified at the creeping surveillance society that has institutions examining all of our utterances for "wrong speech", which is much too close for comfort to "wrong think", which is much too close for comfort…

Harvard could admit only valedictorians. It could admit only those with perfect scores on the SAT. It doesn't do either of those things. Rather it spends a lot of time and energy putting together a class that it thinks will be greater than the sum of its parts. As a private organization it is perfectly entitled to pick and choose what matters to it.

In that light, why not consider the character of the people it decides to bring into its community? And once it has decided to consider character, what justification can their be for limiting themselves to only considering manicured (and sometimes manufactured) personal statements and letters of recommendation rather than available data that might have a chance of being actually revealing?

Would you object to the Catholic Church looking into the social media histories of candidates for the priesthood?

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#82

Post by std_throwaway »

bryondowd wrote: post #35
std_throwaway wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care what they said. If it's against the law, let the law deal with it. If it's covered under freedom of speech, let them speak.

Nobody is stopping them from speaking. Doesn't mean everyone else isn't free to choose not to associate with them. That includes organizations.

So they can keep out everyone they don't really like by an arbitrary set of rules?

Maybe you spit out chewing gum somewhere one night and violated the rule of not spitting for one example.

I'm not saying that these students are good people or that I endorse anything they said. I'm defending the right of privacy and free speech for anyone at any time.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#83

Post by jswny »

I think a lot of people are missing this:

> “As a reminder, Harvard College reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission under various conditions including if an admitted student engages in behavior that brings into question his or her honesty, maturity, or moral character,” the group description states.

Whether you think that this was ok for Harvard to do or not, doing this kind of stuff in the official Harvard student Facebook group (managed by Harvard employees) given that description is just downright stupid.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#84

Post by cpncrunch »

aestetix wrote: post #60

Maybe I missed it from the article: 1. Were the students given a warning before having their admissions withdrawn? 2. I'm curious why Harvard chose the nuclear option, rather than to use this as an opportunity to teach why the memes were considered offensive, and more appropriate ways to express themselves.

>I'm curious why Harvard chose the nuclear option, than to use this as an opportunity to teach why the memes were considered offensive, and more appropriate ways to express themselves.

Presumably they don't want nasty, highly offensive people in their institution. Which is perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't want anything to do with people like that either.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#85

Post by Cozumel »

wehere1 wrote: post #62
nxsynonym wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because free speech is universal. You can't cherry pick what topics/views/opinions are protected based on your world view.

every time these topics come up, someone always claims 'b-but muh freeze peach' - 'free speech' refers to the right to voice one's opinions without government retaliation or censorship. society and organizations still have the right to act accordingly. you can't walk into a wal-mart yelling racial slurs and claim 'free speech' as reason to not get kicked out

It's worth bearing in mind that these students were in a supposedly private Facebook group, it wasn't like they were publicly posting.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#86

Post by bjl »

alunchbox wrote: post #78
g051051 wrote: post #41

Considering how competitive the acceptance criteria are for Harvard (2,056 out of 39,506 applications), this is just another decision point. Now 10 other people are able to get in, and the entire body of current and prospective students have learned a valuable lesson about privacy and free speech.

unfortunately for these 10 ex-applicants of Harvard they might not get into any University period for 2017/2018... This isn't a small implication to them for stupid posts online. I'm not 100% sure if I feel that's fair. them not getting into Harvard is one thing but losing education at this point in time is even worse.

Some of things they said went beyond just 'stupid posts'.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#87

Post by weberc2 »

Frondo wrote: post #37
metaphorm wrote: post #22

I'm so conflicted right now. On the one hand, yeah, that shit is offensive and I'm not too keen on elevating a person who makes jokes about sexual assault or violence against minorities. On the other hand I'm terrified at the creeping surveillance society that has institutions examining all of our utterances for "wrong speech", which is much too close for comfort to "wrong think", which is much too close for comfort…

I am perfectly fine with private organizations banning whoever they like for posting racist shit. Racist shit is "wrong speech". If I have friends who start uttering racist shit, and I can't talk them out of it, they are no longer my friends. (This has happened precisely once, no regrets. Thanks, Fox News, for poisoning an old man's mind.) Posting racist memes is wrong, saying racist things is wrong, thinking racist…

I can remember back to the early aughts when moral relativism and free speech we're anthems on the left...

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#88

Post by jswny »

tdb7893 wrote: post #42
std_throwaway wrote: post #5

We'll have to create a public and a second, private, personality just like in the old days of the police state. Society is more open than it probably was ever before but at the same time, if close minded leaders of fascist political or religious color came into power they'd have their tools handed to them to create an oppressive apparatus never seen before.

I don't think it's ever really been okay to say horrible things in public and have no reprecussions. I'm pretty sure that if someone could prove that you had said these things at most points in history the acceptance would be rescinded. I think a lot of it is that with the internet it's much easier for people to find out about these sorts of things.

I don't think a private Facebook chat counts as "in public." Yes, it is much easier to find out about this kind of stuff because of Facebook but that doesn't mean that there is no expectation of privacy at all.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#89

Post by pyre »

std_throwaway wrote: post #8
fdsfsafasfdas wrote: post #4

For such apparently intelligent people, such dimwitted use of a centrally managed communications. Not to mention bad taste, it seems.

People go to the toilet to get the crap out. Same for many online forums.

As much as you say that, repeating something over and over eventually normalizes it no matter how much you try to remain conscious of this process.

Re: Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

#90

Post by throwaway91111 »

std_throwaway wrote: post #66
g051051 wrote: post #41

Considering how competitive the acceptance criteria are for Harvard (2,056 out of 39,506 applications), this is just another decision point. Now 10 other people are able to get in, and the entire body of current and prospective students have learned a valuable lesson about privacy and free speech.

...that privacy probably doesn't exist and free speech shouldn't be used.

No, that there are times, places, and contexts on how to use free speech. If you knowingly and publically associate your name with something offensive, there could be private consequences.

Facebook is a public forum that happens to be visible to harvard staff. Students should know this.

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