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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 v

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 to "wrong person".

adamnemecek 9y ago
> makes jokes about sexual assault or violence against minorities. At the same time it's somewhat hypocritical of the school to do this as their attitude towards sexual assault on campus is pretty lenient. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/6/9/harvard-clery-stats-mass/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/6/9/harvard-clery-sta...
- tanderson92 9y ago
  That's not called hypocrisy, it's called a mixed record.
Frondo 9y ago
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 thoughts is wrong. How did we get here, that racism falls under the scare-quotes version of "wrong speech" and not actually wrong speech??
- nxsynonym 9y ago
  because free speech is universal. You can't cherry pick what topics/views/opinions are protected based on your world view.
  - wehere1 9y ago
    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
    - Cozumel 9y ago
      It's worth bearing in mind that these students were in a supposedly private Facebook group, it wasn't like they were publicly posting.
      - kbenson 9y ago
        No, there was a private group that required offensive material be posted to the main Harvard group to get access. The main group was private only inasmuch as you had to be an (incoming?) Harvard student. This is no different than students posting offensive material on a physical message board on some main through fare on campus. Edit: Actually, it's somewhat unclear to what degree and what material was required to be posted on the main chat, and what portion was in a separate private chat (still likely associated with Harvard in some way?). The article is unclear on these points. Harvard still has the right to gate admissions how they like (and they state that includes "moral character"), so if they are able to determine you are participating in actions they don't approve of, then they have grounds to reject you or revoke your prior acceptance. Just as if they Google'd you on your initial application and found verifiable and unsettling information.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    People protecting the right of racists to spread racism, support racism. It cannot be any other way. You cannot claim that you dislike racism, and and also want to preserve it. Also, "Free speech" refers to the fact that the government cannot bust in to your house with a SWAT team and arrest you for speaking something that they don't like. Private companies can enforce whatever speech rules they like, and that doesn't interfere with the free speech of the individual. They can walk outside and state those things. There are already numerous hate speech laws covering the fact that the first amendment does not mean that you have a right to say whatever you want in a private space.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- metaphorm 9y ago
  I want to respond to you in good faith but I'm afraid to because I get the strong impression that you will not respond in kind. Therefore I choose to say nothing further.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    Then maybe don't say anything at all.
    - metaphorm 9y ago
      in a conversation about chilling effects on speech, I find your comment to be an ironic form of validation.
- khrm 9y ago
  It's not easy to draw line. What about some light racist jokes? Or jokes demeaning wives(fairly common in India) or blonde women? Most seems fine with it but what happens when this line move a bit more further? In Hollywood movies, I have seen comedies doing all this and people applauding it. I believe we need a firm policy of no jokes with a hint of racism or sexism. Or have absolute free speech. You can't be cherry picking stuffs.
  - elif 9y ago
    I think cherry-picking is far more reasonable of a proposal than somehow developing a black-and-white rule out of an infinite space of infinite dimensional speech or abandoning the pursuit of rational discourse by allowing absolutely everything in every context.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I can remember back to the early aughts when moral relativism and free speech we're anthems on the left...
  - mason240 9y ago
    It's an easy way to ascertain what group is the dominant political power.
- julianmarq 9y ago
  > Posting racist memes is wrong, saying racist things is wrong, thinking racist thoughts is wrong. How did we get here, that racism falls under the scare-quotes version of "wrong speech" and not actually wrong speech?? There has never been, there never should be, and most likely there never will be (no matter how your crowd fights for it) such a thing as wrong speech. At least not outside of totalitarian states. As long as anyone accepts the concept of wrong speech, anything can be labelled that, and wars can explode over the littlest thing.
std_throwaway 9y ago
If it's of any indication: listen closely how the politicans argue that we always need more surveillance and never less. They seem to have their speeches ready even before the incident happens.
wombatpm 9y ago
The word you are looking for is thoughtcrime. Thoughtcrime is doubleplusungood.
- artorias 9y ago
  This guy gets it. Orwell is rollin' in his grave right now.
misterbowfinger 9y ago
I agree that what they posted was offensive. But we can't start holding graduating high school students to the same standards we hold world and business leaders. Ironically, we didn't for Trump, but that's certainly the idea. Revoking one's admission to Harvard is a really rough way to teach the lesson of what you're supposed to and not supposed to say. College is the time to not only learn new ideas, but also to un-learn things that you may have learned in a toxic environment. I can say that I certainly did, and it's only fair that we allow others to fail in a similar way. I believe that actions like this only further foster the alt-right and do a great disservice to our current political atmosphere. These kids have no positive way to understand their punishment - they have been reprimanded by a power that controls their fate, without warning. The odds that they'll "learn" from their "mistake" is highly unlikely. Comparing this to fascism is a little heavy, but not out of line.
- misingnoglic 9y ago
  I don't think that standards should be lowered for high school seniors. These are people who are legally allowed to vote, join the army, buy guns, etc.., and for these people it's go to Harvard. They should know that it's unacceptable to share memes about sexual violence, racism, and whatnot, especially on Facebook. When I was in 6th grade (I'm 21 now), my school gave us the talk about the internet, saying that whatever you post on the internet is forever. This might have been exaggerated, but definitely not for a Facebook account that had your name attached to it, and a group chat that's directly splintered from your incoming Harvard class group page. At the same time, I have a bit of a personal story. When I was in 8th grade, I made a Facebook account, and uploaded a random picture with a random caption involving rape - at the time my friends and I used the word like when you beat someone at a video game... Yeah it was pretty bad. My mom found the picture and responded by screaming at me and basically taking my computer away for a while, and my Facebook deactivated for much longer. I didn't understand at the time why it was such a big deal (maybe more explaining could have happened) but that interaction both makes me cringe every time I think about it and might have been the best thing to happen to me. Maybe getting the acceptences revoked is just the kick in the ass that they need.
  - 9y ago
JoshTriplett 9y ago
Dystopian fiction has given so much terrorizing weight to the concept of "thoughtcrime" and "wrong think" that I think people forget how much positive effect a culture can have on widespread mindsets and stopping ignorance. There are some ignorant thoughts that have almost entirely fallen out of the collective consciousness (in terms of serious belief, not abstract discussion of the past). (As a random example, there are vanishingly few ignorant people left who genuinely believe that disease is a punishment of the wicked that should not be interfered with, "ostracize the lepers", etc.) There are many more that need to. If you think that some people are inherently "lesser" than others and can be treated as such, that's wrong. If you think that it's OK to assault people, that's wrong. Whether that turns into violent action or not, it still pervades other actions and societal structure, and it's the source of more subtle discrimination; that it has gone as far as being written and conveyed in ways that influence others makes it more than just thoughts. It's a good thing to influence society in ways that make people who think and write and talk and influence others in that way less successful, favoring people who don't, and over time find that fewer people think that way. Because the same power that makes it possible for institutions to do that also gives us a check on those institutions. It seems entirely fine for an institution to look at the kind of person they're accepting and be selective in this way. If we start seeing institutions be selective for things we don't want to see selection on, we can push back on those institutions. There's no slippery slope here. We're not talking about violent suppression of free speech. We're talking about non-violent exercise of the right to free association, to shun racists and sexists.
- throwanem 9y ago
  Punishing speech independent of action isn't a new or controversial concept among certain political strains, most especially among those that also include the conceit of having some special access to virtue beyond that available to others contending for the same power. What you're suggesting here falls right in that line. But it's rarely stated so openly, and while I like nothing else about it, I must admit I like the honesty.
  - openasocket 9y ago
    We punish speech all the time, in certain limited and well-defined ways, and is not particularly controversial. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... . Threatening someone with bodily harm can be punished, as can libel. These don't cover this particular case, but your statement is vague enough I think this response is warranted. In general, it's important to note that the separate between speech and action isn't as clear cut as you assert, especially speech made in a public forum. Speech affects others, and words can be used to cause others pain or discomfort. Speech has direct consequences on others just like any action, and this must be considered. Which isn't to say that speech doesn't deserve broad protections, of course.
bradleyjg 9y ago
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?
- throwanem 9y ago
  No, but on the other hand, membership in the priesthood implies a direct responsibility for the wellbeing of those in your pastoral care, and a degree of authority, derived from one's position, which can be abused to do great harm. I'm not really sure what there is about being a freshman at Harvard that merits the same extent of scrutiny.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Every Harvard student has a shared responsibility with every other student for the quality and tone of the community as a whole. Harvard cultivates a very specific type of community. These candidates signaled to Harvard through their actions that they are not conducive to the community Harvard is trying to cultivate (whether true or not).
    - NotSammyHagar 9y ago
      But I think this behavior is nothing new. It is just revealed in a persistent form when you put it on a chatroom with your name next to it. One hears about this kind of stuff everywhere, all over the world. It fits the stereotype of the entitled rich white guys from the ivy league, but it's also not that uncommon in the non-ivyleague world. Yes, its unacceptable to share this publically, or with coworkers. But that's a pretty huge penalty. High school kids do stupid shit. There are some people there who lost their admission who probably were very lucky to get into harvard, who don't have 10 other ivy league schools to go to.
pvnick 9y ago
While it is within Harvard's right as a private institution to dictate which speech it finds acceptable, it is perhaps still a bad idea. In today's culture, those in positions with the authority to moderate speech (e.g. online forums such as Reddit, Youtube, Twitter, etc.) are doing so liberally. I would prefer prestigious institutions of higher learning to specifically allow these kinds of offensive and hateful speech because they are shocking and uncomfortable, and the more ideas to which students are exposed the sharper their minds become. Not to mention that filth like this serves as a kind of canary in the coalmine - if one can make jokes about violence against minorities without fear of repercussions, then that bodes well for ideas actually intended to be taken seriously.
rdruxn 9y ago
I expected to feel conflicted before reading this article for the exact reasons you outlined. However, this line from the article made a difference: > "The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group." They were being deliberate shit heads. This wasn't a private chat, this was intentionally sharing offensive content with the explicit purpose of ruffling feathers and pissing people off. To call this a "private chat" is misleading - this was essentially a public forum for an incoming class to share content and these 10 students should have had zero expectation of privacy. If I were on the AdCom, I wouldn't have kicked them out for posting objectionable content, I would have kicked them out for being sheer, utter morons.
cirgue 9y ago
Could you be denied admittance to Harvard because you showed up on campus at some kind of freshman event and started telling extremely offensive jokes in front of the whole gathering? How is a Facebook group full of people you don't know any different?
- danso 9y ago
  You probably couldn't if you did so as a student, especially if doing so for a student publication. Reminds me of how the University of Illinois rescinded a tenure offer to Steven Salaita after he was accused of being anti-Semitic in tweets about Gaza. He would have been safe if he had tweeted after officially accepting the job: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/middleeast/professors-angry-tweets-on-gaza-cost-him-a-job.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/middleeast/professo...
- objclxt 9y ago
  > Could you be denied admittance to Harvard because you showed up on campus at some kind of freshman event and started telling extremely offensive jokes in front of the whole gathering? Probably depends how offensive you were. But yeah, sure you could. I am absolutely positive there are some prospective freshmen at Harvard who have had their admission rescinded based on their behavior during the pre-frosh weekend. Such incidents tend to be less publicized because they involve a single student, and there's normally an embarrassment factor involved. Once you are on campus and admitted it would be more difficult...it would depend on the context. Certainly people have been kicked out (or rather, "asked to leave") based on sharing offensive material and memes, but in the cases I know of it was because that material was targeting specific individuals / people.
ajross 9y ago
> creeping surveillance society This was a university-moderated and maintained facebook group. There was absolutely no expectation on the part of the posters that Harvard could not read their words. You can get expelled for public speech on campus too.
- schwap 9y ago
  They met through the university's group, but they created their own chat.
  - openasocket 9y ago
    And then > "The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group."
  - ajross 9y ago
    That doesn't fly either. If you're a college student and decide to make a "private" White Power Resistance Cell with your friends and then advertise for it on campus using university-provided messaging, you still get expelled. Again, Harvard did no "surveillance" here. They found these kids because they were posting garbage on Harvard's own forum.
cuck33 9y ago
Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even grasp. Please read abut socialist culture marxism by ex kgb agent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0 >Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even No one talking about this, freemarket i don't care, BUT we the people have to fight and post "hate speach" edege memes, about niggers, muh 6 millions, lolcaust, feminist totalitarian stte and other. We won't be silenced, by bunch of jews and SJW: 8ch.net/voat.co/tor proud user

adamnemecek 9y ago

> makes jokes about sexual assault or violence against minorities. At the same time it's somewhat hypocritical of the school to do this as their attitude towards sexual assault on campus is pretty lenient. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/6/9/harvard-clery-stats-mass/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/6/9/harvard-clery-sta...

tanderson92 9y ago
That's not called hypocrisy, it's called a mixed record.

Frondo 9y ago

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 thoughts is wrong. How did we get here, that racism falls under the scare-quotes version of "wrong speech" and not actually wrong speech??

nxsynonym 9y ago
because free speech is universal. You can't cherry pick what topics/views/opinions are protected based on your world view.
- wehere1 9y ago
  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
  - Cozumel 9y ago
    It's worth bearing in mind that these students were in a supposedly private Facebook group, it wasn't like they were publicly posting.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      No, there was a private group that required offensive material be posted to the main Harvard group to get access. The main group was private only inasmuch as you had to be an (incoming?) Harvard student. This is no different than students posting offensive material on a physical message board on some main through fare on campus. Edit: Actually, it's somewhat unclear to what degree and what material was required to be posted on the main chat, and what portion was in a separate private chat (still likely associated with Harvard in some way?). The article is unclear on these points. Harvard still has the right to gate admissions how they like (and they state that includes "moral character"), so if they are able to determine you are participating in actions they don't approve of, then they have grounds to reject you or revoke your prior acceptance. Just as if they Google'd you on your initial application and found verifiable and unsettling information.
- fao_ 9y ago
  People protecting the right of racists to spread racism, support racism. It cannot be any other way. You cannot claim that you dislike racism, and and also want to preserve it. Also, "Free speech" refers to the fact that the government cannot bust in to your house with a SWAT team and arrest you for speaking something that they don't like. Private companies can enforce whatever speech rules they like, and that doesn't interfere with the free speech of the individual. They can walk outside and state those things. There are already numerous hate speech laws covering the fact that the first amendment does not mean that you have a right to say whatever you want in a private space.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
metaphorm 9y ago
I want to respond to you in good faith but I'm afraid to because I get the strong impression that you will not respond in kind. Therefore I choose to say nothing further.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Then maybe don't say anything at all.
  - metaphorm 9y ago
    in a conversation about chilling effects on speech, I find your comment to be an ironic form of validation.
khrm 9y ago
It's not easy to draw line. What about some light racist jokes? Or jokes demeaning wives(fairly common in India) or blonde women? Most seems fine with it but what happens when this line move a bit more further? In Hollywood movies, I have seen comedies doing all this and people applauding it. I believe we need a firm policy of no jokes with a hint of racism or sexism. Or have absolute free speech. You can't be cherry picking stuffs.
- elif 9y ago
  I think cherry-picking is far more reasonable of a proposal than somehow developing a black-and-white rule out of an infinite space of infinite dimensional speech or abandoning the pursuit of rational discourse by allowing absolutely everything in every context.
weberc2 9y ago
I can remember back to the early aughts when moral relativism and free speech we're anthems on the left...
- mason240 9y ago
  It's an easy way to ascertain what group is the dominant political power.
julianmarq 9y ago
> Posting racist memes is wrong, saying racist things is wrong, thinking racist thoughts is wrong. How did we get here, that racism falls under the scare-quotes version of "wrong speech" and not actually wrong speech?? There has never been, there never should be, and most likely there never will be (no matter how your crowd fights for it) such a thing as wrong speech. At least not outside of totalitarian states. As long as anyone accepts the concept of wrong speech, anything can be labelled that, and wars can explode over the littlest thing.

std_throwaway 9y ago

If it's of any indication: listen closely how the politicans argue that we always need more surveillance and never less. They seem to have their speeches ready even before the incident happens.

wombatpm 9y ago

The word you are looking for is thoughtcrime. Thoughtcrime is doubleplusungood.

artorias 9y ago
This guy gets it. Orwell is rollin' in his grave right now.

misterbowfinger 9y ago

I agree that what they posted was offensive. But we can't start holding graduating high school students to the same standards we hold world and business leaders. Ironically, we didn't for Trump, but that's certainly the idea. Revoking one's admission to Harvard is a really rough way to teach the lesson of what you're supposed to and not supposed to say. College is the time to not only learn new ideas, but also to un-learn things that you may have learned in a toxic environment. I can say that I certainly did, and it's only fair that we allow others to fail in a similar way. I believe that actions like this only further foster the alt-right and do a great disservice to our current political atmosphere. These kids have no positive way to understand their punishment - they have been reprimanded by a power that controls their fate, without warning. The odds that they'll "learn" from their "mistake" is highly unlikely. Comparing this to fascism is a little heavy, but not out of line.

misingnoglic 9y ago
I don't think that standards should be lowered for high school seniors. These are people who are legally allowed to vote, join the army, buy guns, etc.., and for these people it's go to Harvard. They should know that it's unacceptable to share memes about sexual violence, racism, and whatnot, especially on Facebook. When I was in 6th grade (I'm 21 now), my school gave us the talk about the internet, saying that whatever you post on the internet is forever. This might have been exaggerated, but definitely not for a Facebook account that had your name attached to it, and a group chat that's directly splintered from your incoming Harvard class group page. At the same time, I have a bit of a personal story. When I was in 8th grade, I made a Facebook account, and uploaded a random picture with a random caption involving rape - at the time my friends and I used the word like when you beat someone at a video game... Yeah it was pretty bad. My mom found the picture and responded by screaming at me and basically taking my computer away for a while, and my Facebook deactivated for much longer. I didn't understand at the time why it was such a big deal (maybe more explaining could have happened) but that interaction both makes me cringe every time I think about it and might have been the best thing to happen to me. Maybe getting the acceptences revoked is just the kick in the ass that they need.
- 9y ago

JoshTriplett 9y ago

Dystopian fiction has given so much terrorizing weight to the concept of "thoughtcrime" and "wrong think" that I think people forget how much positive effect a culture can have on widespread mindsets and stopping ignorance. There are some ignorant thoughts that have almost entirely fallen out of the collective consciousness (in terms of serious belief, not abstract discussion of the past). (As a random example, there are vanishingly few ignorant people left who genuinely believe that disease is a punishment of the wicked that should not be interfered with, "ostracize the lepers", etc.) There are many more that need to. If you think that some people are inherently "lesser" than others and can be treated as such, that's wrong. If you think that it's OK to assault people, that's wrong. Whether that turns into violent action or not, it still pervades other actions and societal structure, and it's the source of more subtle discrimination; that it has gone as far as being written and conveyed in ways that influence others makes it more than just thoughts. It's a good thing to influence society in ways that make people who think and write and talk and influence others in that way less successful, favoring people who don't, and over time find that fewer people think that way. Because the same power that makes it possible for institutions to do that also gives us a check on those institutions. It seems entirely fine for an institution to look at the kind of person they're accepting and be selective in this way. If we start seeing institutions be selective for things we don't want to see selection on, we can push back on those institutions. There's no slippery slope here. We're not talking about violent suppression of free speech. We're talking about non-violent exercise of the right to free association, to shun racists and sexists.

throwanem 9y ago
Punishing speech independent of action isn't a new or controversial concept among certain political strains, most especially among those that also include the conceit of having some special access to virtue beyond that available to others contending for the same power. What you're suggesting here falls right in that line. But it's rarely stated so openly, and while I like nothing else about it, I must admit I like the honesty.
- openasocket 9y ago
  We punish speech all the time, in certain limited and well-defined ways, and is not particularly controversial. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... . Threatening someone with bodily harm can be punished, as can libel. These don't cover this particular case, but your statement is vague enough I think this response is warranted. In general, it's important to note that the separate between speech and action isn't as clear cut as you assert, especially speech made in a public forum. Speech affects others, and words can be used to cause others pain or discomfort. Speech has direct consequences on others just like any action, and this must be considered. Which isn't to say that speech doesn't deserve broad protections, of course.

bradleyjg 9y ago

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?

throwanem 9y ago
No, but on the other hand, membership in the priesthood implies a direct responsibility for the wellbeing of those in your pastoral care, and a degree of authority, derived from one's position, which can be abused to do great harm. I'm not really sure what there is about being a freshman at Harvard that merits the same extent of scrutiny.
- kbenson 9y ago
  Every Harvard student has a shared responsibility with every other student for the quality and tone of the community as a whole. Harvard cultivates a very specific type of community. These candidates signaled to Harvard through their actions that they are not conducive to the community Harvard is trying to cultivate (whether true or not).
  - NotSammyHagar 9y ago
    But I think this behavior is nothing new. It is just revealed in a persistent form when you put it on a chatroom with your name next to it. One hears about this kind of stuff everywhere, all over the world. It fits the stereotype of the entitled rich white guys from the ivy league, but it's also not that uncommon in the non-ivyleague world. Yes, its unacceptable to share this publically, or with coworkers. But that's a pretty huge penalty. High school kids do stupid shit. There are some people there who lost their admission who probably were very lucky to get into harvard, who don't have 10 other ivy league schools to go to.

pvnick 9y ago

While it is within Harvard's right as a private institution to dictate which speech it finds acceptable, it is perhaps still a bad idea. In today's culture, those in positions with the authority to moderate speech (e.g. online forums such as Reddit, Youtube, Twitter, etc.) are doing so liberally. I would prefer prestigious institutions of higher learning to specifically allow these kinds of offensive and hateful speech because they are shocking and uncomfortable, and the more ideas to which students are exposed the sharper their minds become. Not to mention that filth like this serves as a kind of canary in the coalmine - if one can make jokes about violence against minorities without fear of repercussions, then that bodes well for ideas actually intended to be taken seriously.

rdruxn 9y ago

I expected to feel conflicted before reading this article for the exact reasons you outlined. However, this line from the article made a difference: > "The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group." They were being deliberate shit heads. This wasn't a private chat, this was intentionally sharing offensive content with the explicit purpose of ruffling feathers and pissing people off. To call this a "private chat" is misleading - this was essentially a public forum for an incoming class to share content and these 10 students should have had zero expectation of privacy. If I were on the AdCom, I wouldn't have kicked them out for posting objectionable content, I would have kicked them out for being sheer, utter morons.

cirgue 9y ago

Could you be denied admittance to Harvard because you showed up on campus at some kind of freshman event and started telling extremely offensive jokes in front of the whole gathering? How is a Facebook group full of people you don't know any different?

danso 9y ago
You probably couldn't if you did so as a student, especially if doing so for a student publication. Reminds me of how the University of Illinois rescinded a tenure offer to Steven Salaita after he was accused of being anti-Semitic in tweets about Gaza. He would have been safe if he had tweeted after officially accepting the job: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/middleeast/professors-angry-tweets-on-gaza-cost-him-a-job.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/middleeast/professo...
objclxt 9y ago
> Could you be denied admittance to Harvard because you showed up on campus at some kind of freshman event and started telling extremely offensive jokes in front of the whole gathering? Probably depends how offensive you were. But yeah, sure you could. I am absolutely positive there are some prospective freshmen at Harvard who have had their admission rescinded based on their behavior during the pre-frosh weekend. Such incidents tend to be less publicized because they involve a single student, and there's normally an embarrassment factor involved. Once you are on campus and admitted it would be more difficult...it would depend on the context. Certainly people have been kicked out (or rather, "asked to leave") based on sharing offensive material and memes, but in the cases I know of it was because that material was targeting specific individuals / people.

ajross 9y ago

> creeping surveillance society This was a university-moderated and maintained facebook group. There was absolutely no expectation on the part of the posters that Harvard could not read their words. You can get expelled for public speech on campus too.

schwap 9y ago
They met through the university's group, but they created their own chat.
- openasocket 9y ago
  And then > "The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group."
- ajross 9y ago
  That doesn't fly either. If you're a college student and decide to make a "private" White Power Resistance Cell with your friends and then advertise for it on campus using university-provided messaging, you still get expelled. Again, Harvard did no "surveillance" here. They found these kids because they were posting garbage on Harvard's own forum.

cuck33 9y ago

Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even grasp. Please read abut socialist culture marxism by ex kgb agent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0 >Yet another SJW propaganda war against free speech i can't even No one talking about this, freemarket i don't care, BUT we the people have to fight and post "hate speach" edege memes, about niggers, muh 6 millions, lolcaust, feminist totalitarian stte and other. We won't be silenced, by bunch of jews and SJW: 8ch.net/voat.co/tor proud user