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From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

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Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#91

Post by chasing »

samstave wrote: post #63

As a father of three, the heinous crime against a small child, in the way described, in my mind, is unforgivable. I couldn't care less about here PHD - and that smug look in that picture makes her worse in my eyes, not "redeemed" You don't beat a four year old child then leave them locked in an apartment to die. Fuck her.

That's my only take. She murdered her child. Heinously, if the description is accurate. Harvard has the right to look at a person's entire resume when deciding whether to accept someone, and that is an incredibly dark black mark.

Prison is just the punishment the state metes out. No one's obligated to act as if she never murdered a child.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#92

Post by lucozade »

zhengyi13 wrote: post #81
appleiigs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She would be a net positive for your organization, however, that's a low hurdle. When there is a good amount of competition for hiring or admittance, it would be hard to justify hiring/admitting her when you can find someone with similar skills without the time in prison.

I find such justification easy. Is the net social gain of hiring someone working towards or through rehabilitation greater than that of hiring someone who's not faced with that burden? In other words, am I helping reduce recidivism? I think so.

Maybe. If a kid fucked up and has shown maturity then I would completely agree. It's both beneficial to them and to society.

For the person in the article, it's not that clear. There's no reason to believe she'll repeat the heinous crime but the effect of her presence in the organisation could be very disruptive. I wouldn't say it is easy.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#93

Post by Broken_Hippo »

biotech wrote: post #64
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because keeping someone in prison for life after a fairly minor felony, committed when someone is 18 or 19 (and possibly still in high school) seems cruel and unusual punishment. The current system lets the government not take the blame for the lifetime of punishment the person might face. Of course, in my eyes the government still takes the blame for such things.

How is murdering a 4 year old child a "fairly minor" felony??

That in itself isn't. But we do jail folks for years over drug charges, don't we? And let that follow them around for the rest of their lives? It can disqualify you from a lot of stuff.

It doesn't matter what the crime is when folks are wondering why we let folks out of jail at all. It isn't so much the crime that was committed at that point.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#94

Post by Balgair »

fhood wrote: post #56
throwaway287391 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... wow. I'm pretty shocked that a Harvard prof would admit to overturning someone's admission due in part to them being a racial minority, fearing the prospect of bad press from Fox News . Fox has really won the culture wars in a major way.

Why would Harvard actually care what Fox news thinks? Honest question.

I was going to say something more 2015-ish, but with Donny's revealing of the wizard behind the curtain, yeah, you are right.

Why do they care?

I mean, they have enough cash in the bank to never let another student in for 200 years, and still be just fine. They have more good-will built up than anything else out there. They make advances in human knowledge comparable to almost nothing else besides another University. They have it all. So what could they want then?

The only thing I can come up with is that they do think Fox would be correct in that assumption. They aren't worried about the money. Maybe they are worried about the woman herself and just are using the Fox stuff as cover? Nothing else really makes sense.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#95

Post by dahdum »

rhizome wrote: post #85
dzdt wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has nothing to do with her as a person and everything to do with a bad PR incident. Yes. The rejection is not about further punishing Ms. Jones. It is about protecting Harvard from bad press. Is it unreasonable that Harvard admissions be based in part on protecting its image in the publuc eye?

Harvard's image isn't going to be compromised with an altruistic admission, they just don't want to stand up for rehabilitation. Consider what that says about their integrity, their culture, and their goals as an institution.

Do you really think their image wouldn't be compromised by selecting a convicted child murderer for their PHD program? I can't imagine the US would majority poll in support of that, and I doubt it would differ across party lines all that much either.

To put in perspective, we're still at 60% support for the death penalty in this country.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#96

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

jackmott wrote: post #3

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

From the article she was essentially sentenced to life in prison as she was given a 50 year sentence. The justice system actually brought this about by releasing her after 20 years or 40% of her sentence. There may be a discrepancy between what society sees as a just punishment and what the justice system feels it can impose.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#97

Post by appleiigs »

zhengyi13 wrote: post #81
appleiigs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She would be a net positive for your organization, however, that's a low hurdle. When there is a good amount of competition for hiring or admittance, it would be hard to justify hiring/admitting her when you can find someone with similar skills without the time in prison.

I find such justification easy. Is the net social gain of hiring someone working towards or through rehabilitation greater than that of hiring someone who's not faced with that burden? In other words, am I helping reduce recidivism? I think so.

Can you really say to your team that you've hired the best available when you hire PhD with prison when you had PhDs available without.

If you think hiring someone with rehabilitation is a greater social good, then you are effectively punishing people who don't have a criminal record.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#98

Post by alexashka »

jackmott wrote: post #3

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

Harvard is for rich kids, and some extremely capable, to keep up appearances of 'we're not just a rich kids club, we're a real university', plus to make sure there's at least a few intelligent people running things in the long run.

The extremely capable do all the work, while the rich get to intermingle.

The extremely capable of course are carefully vetted to be fully indoctrinated in the system - you have to want to be part of the rich club - a true capitalist.

Not only is this lady out of prison not interested in being part of the rich club, nobody in the rich club wants her to be in!

Hence, she's not welcome at Harvard.

Of course Harvard can't come out and say that, but they're well versed in doublespeak [0], and this'll soon be forgotten.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#99

Post by kafkaesq »

jackmott wrote: post #3

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again.

Because the current criminal "justice" system has very little to do with actually preventing and helping society recover from the effects of criminal behavior. It's about generating false appearances of "retribution" (or making people "pay" for their crimes, whatever that means), and the (deeply) false appearance of some kind of "moral balance" in the world, generally. And reinforcing systems of (low-key) terror and control on the general population.

It only encourages people to revert to evil.

You got it. That may not be the stated goal of the current system. But it's certainly one of its inevitable outcomes.

The tragedy is that it's not just the offenders - or even those wrongly accused - who suffer from (and become morally corrupted by) the current order. It's all of us.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#100

Post by lucozade »

fhood wrote: post #56
throwaway287391 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... wow. I'm pretty shocked that a Harvard prof would admit to overturning someone's admission due in part to them being a racial minority, fearing the prospect of bad press from Fox News . Fox has really won the culture wars in a major way.

Why would Harvard actually care what Fox news thinks? Honest question.

They don't want to be a negative target of DC. DC is currently Republican led and Republican politicians most definitely care what Fox news thinks.

My guess is that the profs saw this as such a perfect shitstorm that, if it becomes a major story, DC would feel they have no choice but to do something about it.

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