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People worried about free speech rights should realize that Harvard is a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you becaus

People worried about free speech rights should realize that Harvard is a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you called my dog a 'mutt', you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit students, unless of course they breach civil rights laws, is ultimately decreasing the amount of intellectual diversity in the world. People that don't like Harvard can apply to any other college. There's no shortage of them to choose from. But if you tell Harvard what they can and can't do, you run the risk of destroying the individuality of Harvard. Also, there's some mumbling about the fact that it was private speech that was supposedly surveilled on. Obviously it wasn't that private if school administrators caught wind of it. If you really want a private group, keep it truly private and don't tell anyone about it. The lesson kids should be taking away from this is, don't let your friends drag you into dangerous situations. Harvard is a nationally recognized school, any screw-ups earn national attention. It's very much a "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" sort of situation.

Houshalter 9y ago
I don't see anyone in the comments that genuinely believe what Harvard did was illegal. They have a legal right to do whatever they want (so long as they don't receive any taxpayer money whatsoever, which I'm not sure is true.) But we have a legal right to criticize them for it and be angry at them.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  No, but they are saying that it's a free speech issue. It is a free speech issue, but not in the way they are saying. Your anger is misplaced if it's directed at Harvard.
  - metaphorm 9y ago
    who is "they" and what did "they" say, specifically? can you quote someone? the discussion of speech issues is often about culture and norms rather than about legal statutes.
    - WalterSear 9y ago
      > the discussion of speech issues is often about culture and norms rather than about legal statutes. While it may be something that many people make a lot of noise about 'respecting', freedom of speech, tolerance of discourse, and a willingness to listen to others are not deeply held social or cultural norms I have witnessed in the US.
- kudu 9y ago
  In the 2014 fiscal year, Harvard received $608 million in research funding from the government.
- bradleyjg 9y ago
  "They have a legal right to do whatever they want (so long as they don't receive any taxpayer money whatsoever, which I'm not sure is true.)" Receiving government money doesn't transform an entity into a state actor for the purposes of the First Amendment.
TheGirondin 9y ago
So then you support removing all government funding from the college, yes?
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Why would I want that? The government funds private institutions all the time. Doesn't make them less private. If the government wants to run Harvard, then it can tell Harvard who it can and can't admit.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    > Doesn't make them less private. Doesn't it? "Who pays the piper..."
  - geebee 9y ago
    <Doesn't make them less private> Ok, now I can see why we disagree. Private/public is, to me, not binary. There are degrees. A homeowner, for instance, does get a favored tax status where it comes to income taxes (though the home owner also pays heavy property taxes that largely offset this). Yet we wouldn't regulate what people are allowed to talk about in their own home. But on this continuum, Harvard is pretty far toward the "public" side of private. Massive amounts of government funding and tax exemptions. And anyway, the government wouldn't need to get in the business of running Harvard, it could just say "here are the criteria for receiving federal grants and the tax exemptions". Harvard would be free to choose.
    - yawaramin 9y ago
      Aren't you forgetting something? Money never comes with no strings attached. Harvard's government funding already came with conditions. Controlling Harvard's admittance policy (which has been in place for a long time) is evidently not something the government cares about.
  - TheGirondin 9y ago
    >Doesn't make them less private. Yes, it does actually.
pvnick 9y ago
Folks always make this argument which this kind of thing comes up. Just because you as a private entity can limit free speech, doesn't mean you should. Censorship is generally a bad idea, and I as a private entity can be upset at Harvard for doing it.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  The Internet has shown all of us that simple restrictions on speech go a long way towards creating a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. Attacking basic civility and hate speech restrictions on speech is putting principles before reality. You don't want to make any laws restricting truly public speech, but censuring private entities for that is counter-productive.
  - pvnick 9y ago
    Cutting down on trolling, perhaps. But there appears to be an encroaching ideologically-driven purge in some areas against people expressing "incorrect" speech. Most of the complaints seem to be focused on youtube, twitter, and facebook (e.g. pewdiepie; also H3H3 productions appears to be having trouble; the site-wide purge of alt-right accounts on twitter and the banning of Milo; instapundit and james o'keefe were temporarily banned; I think nobody would be surprised if someone like Steven Crowder got in trouble someday soon; etc.).
  - julianmarq 9y ago
    > Attacking basic civility and hate speech restrictions on speech is putting principles before reality. Now this is quite the 180° turn from how things really work. Setting in place "rules" because they might or might not "offend" someone isn't putting principles before reality how, exactly? It is, of course that's exactly what it is, but I'm curious to how you'd rationalize the opposite.
- maxwin 9y ago
  How do u deal with hate speech
  - 9y ago
geebee 9y ago
I mentioned this in a comment above - Harvard is a private university that is blessed by favored government status. The exemption on endowment growth is worth more per undergraduate than public colleges receive from the state (apologize for no cite, I read that it is worth 3x more per undergrad than what Berkeley gets per undergrad from the state). Harvard also gets a massive amount of its funding from government research grants, and it does divert a substantial amount of it to general operating funds. Harvard is pretty far from a purely private organization. I understand we live in a complicated world, and almost nothing is "purely" private, but there are still degrees of public and private, it exists on a continuum. Harvard, as far as "private" institutions go, is heavily supported by government money and favored status. It's nothing close to your analogy of a privately owned house.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  I read that Harvard's endowment is not taxed because Harvard is a non-profit organization. No private non-profit university's endowment is. People are acting like the government treats universities like farmers. But unless someone can actually show that Harvard is getting special treatment that no other non-profit university is, I'm not buying it. Yes, they get research grants. So do a lot of institutions. Who else is going to do research? Maybe Harvard gets more than most. So what?
taneq 9y ago
Yeah but the line gets greyer the closer your 'private company' gets to being a public institution, whether in law or just in public perception. The fact that you're saying "if someone found out about the private contents of the private group means it wasn't private enough" is kind of disturbing tbh.
- DanBC 9y ago
  There were two groups. One was meant to be used by all that year's intake. Another was private and meant to be used for these jokes. The owners of the private group encouraged people to post offensive jokes to the main group to gain access to the private group. > The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group. It's this that is, I think, the problem. 1) using the non-private group 2) Encouraging people to break the rules of the public group 3) Being so fucking easily led that you do so.
a_puppy 9y ago
"People worried about womens' rights in the early 20th century should have realized that Harvard was a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you were a woman, you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit students, unless of course they breach free speech rights, is ultimately decreasing the amount of intellectual diversity in the world. Women that don't like Harvard can apply to any other college. There's no shortage of them to choose from. But if you tell Harvard what they can and can't do, you run the risk of destroying the individuality of Harvard." "People worried about reproductive rights should realize that Hobby Lobby is a private corporation." "People worried about gay rights should realize that Chick-fil-A is a private corporation." The choices of private organizations and individuals have huge effects, and it's reasonable to criticize them if we disagree with their actions. But on the other hand, I agree that it's important to give private organizations freedom. This is a difficult trade-off; we need to consider both sides of it, and whatever principle we decide on, we should apply consistently. So unless you'd also defend historical gender segregation at private universities, or defend Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, you should find a different defense of Harvard's actions.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  I specifically noted the civil rights exception in my comment.
  - a_puppy 9y ago
    You stated the exception without justification. You need to give an actual argument for why discrimination should be an exception but free speech shouldn't. Free speech has historically been considered an extremely important right. In fact, free speech is a civil right--one of the originals. Why shouldn't it be included under your civil rights exception?
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      The civil rights movement itself exposed the need for specific legal protections for minorities, because leaving it all up to the "marketplace of ideas" only ensures that patterns of systemized oppression continue. What happens when you don't restrict along protected grounds is that entire industries collude to exclude those classes of people. Mass hatred drowns out the whole marketplace.
2OEH8eoCRo 9y ago
Sure they're private so they aren't bound by law to allow freedom of speech but they still send a bad message by suppressing it.
- noer 9y ago
  Free Speech isn't "Consequence-Free Speech" and is a two way street. Sure, feel free to say/write the most despicable, racist thing imaginable. However, what is often forgotten is that there are consequences for everything that happens. As long as the government isn't restricting you from or putting you in jail or saying/writing it, the speech is free.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    Well then maybe Harvard should lose its billions of dollars in government funding. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. And the consequence for not supporting freedom of thought should be that the government takes away its billions of dollars from you.

Houshalter 9y ago

I don't see anyone in the comments that genuinely believe what Harvard did was illegal. They have a legal right to do whatever they want (so long as they don't receive any taxpayer money whatsoever, which I'm not sure is true.) But we have a legal right to criticize them for it and be angry at them.

vinceguidry 9y ago
No, but they are saying that it's a free speech issue. It is a free speech issue, but not in the way they are saying. Your anger is misplaced if it's directed at Harvard.
- metaphorm 9y ago
  who is "they" and what did "they" say, specifically? can you quote someone? the discussion of speech issues is often about culture and norms rather than about legal statutes.
  - WalterSear 9y ago
    > the discussion of speech issues is often about culture and norms rather than about legal statutes. While it may be something that many people make a lot of noise about 'respecting', freedom of speech, tolerance of discourse, and a willingness to listen to others are not deeply held social or cultural norms I have witnessed in the US.
kudu 9y ago
In the 2014 fiscal year, Harvard received $608 million in research funding from the government.
bradleyjg 9y ago
"They have a legal right to do whatever they want (so long as they don't receive any taxpayer money whatsoever, which I'm not sure is true.)" Receiving government money doesn't transform an entity into a state actor for the purposes of the First Amendment.

TheGirondin 9y ago

So then you support removing all government funding from the college, yes?

vinceguidry 9y ago
Why would I want that? The government funds private institutions all the time. Doesn't make them less private. If the government wants to run Harvard, then it can tell Harvard who it can and can't admit.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > Doesn't make them less private. Doesn't it? "Who pays the piper..."
- geebee 9y ago
  <Doesn't make them less private> Ok, now I can see why we disagree. Private/public is, to me, not binary. There are degrees. A homeowner, for instance, does get a favored tax status where it comes to income taxes (though the home owner also pays heavy property taxes that largely offset this). Yet we wouldn't regulate what people are allowed to talk about in their own home. But on this continuum, Harvard is pretty far toward the "public" side of private. Massive amounts of government funding and tax exemptions. And anyway, the government wouldn't need to get in the business of running Harvard, it could just say "here are the criteria for receiving federal grants and the tax exemptions". Harvard would be free to choose.
  - yawaramin 9y ago
    Aren't you forgetting something? Money never comes with no strings attached. Harvard's government funding already came with conditions. Controlling Harvard's admittance policy (which has been in place for a long time) is evidently not something the government cares about.
- TheGirondin 9y ago
  >Doesn't make them less private. Yes, it does actually.

pvnick 9y ago

Folks always make this argument which this kind of thing comes up. Just because you as a private entity can limit free speech, doesn't mean you should. Censorship is generally a bad idea, and I as a private entity can be upset at Harvard for doing it.

vinceguidry 9y ago
The Internet has shown all of us that simple restrictions on speech go a long way towards creating a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. Attacking basic civility and hate speech restrictions on speech is putting principles before reality. You don't want to make any laws restricting truly public speech, but censuring private entities for that is counter-productive.
- pvnick 9y ago
  Cutting down on trolling, perhaps. But there appears to be an encroaching ideologically-driven purge in some areas against people expressing "incorrect" speech. Most of the complaints seem to be focused on youtube, twitter, and facebook (e.g. pewdiepie; also H3H3 productions appears to be having trouble; the site-wide purge of alt-right accounts on twitter and the banning of Milo; instapundit and james o'keefe were temporarily banned; I think nobody would be surprised if someone like Steven Crowder got in trouble someday soon; etc.).
- julianmarq 9y ago
  > Attacking basic civility and hate speech restrictions on speech is putting principles before reality. Now this is quite the 180° turn from how things really work. Setting in place "rules" because they might or might not "offend" someone isn't putting principles before reality how, exactly? It is, of course that's exactly what it is, but I'm curious to how you'd rationalize the opposite.
maxwin 9y ago
How do u deal with hate speech
- 9y ago

geebee 9y ago

I mentioned this in a comment above - Harvard is a private university that is blessed by favored government status. The exemption on endowment growth is worth more per undergraduate than public colleges receive from the state (apologize for no cite, I read that it is worth 3x more per undergrad than what Berkeley gets per undergrad from the state). Harvard also gets a massive amount of its funding from government research grants, and it does divert a substantial amount of it to general operating funds. Harvard is pretty far from a purely private organization. I understand we live in a complicated world, and almost nothing is "purely" private, but there are still degrees of public and private, it exists on a continuum. Harvard, as far as "private" institutions go, is heavily supported by government money and favored status. It's nothing close to your analogy of a privately owned house.

vinceguidry 9y ago
I read that Harvard's endowment is not taxed because Harvard is a non-profit organization. No private non-profit university's endowment is. People are acting like the government treats universities like farmers. But unless someone can actually show that Harvard is getting special treatment that no other non-profit university is, I'm not buying it. Yes, they get research grants. So do a lot of institutions. Who else is going to do research? Maybe Harvard gets more than most. So what?

taneq 9y ago

Yeah but the line gets greyer the closer your 'private company' gets to being a public institution, whether in law or just in public perception. The fact that you're saying "if someone found out about the private contents of the private group means it wasn't private enough" is kind of disturbing tbh.

DanBC 9y ago
There were two groups. One was meant to be used by all that year's intake. Another was private and meant to be used for these jokes. The owners of the private group encouraged people to post offensive jokes to the main group to gain access to the private group. > The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group. It's this that is, I think, the problem. 1) using the non-private group 2) Encouraging people to break the rules of the public group 3) Being so fucking easily led that you do so.

a_puppy 9y ago

"People worried about womens' rights in the early 20th century should have realized that Harvard was a private university. If I held a party at my house and didn't want to invite you because you were a woman, you'd get laughed out of court if you tried to sue me over it. People should be allowed to organize under whatever principles they want to organize under. Disallowing Harvard to use whatever criteria they want to use to admit students, unless of course they breach free speech rights, is ultimately decreasing the amount of intellectual diversity in the world. Women that don't like Harvard can apply to any other college. There's no shortage of them to choose from. But if you tell Harvard what they can and can't do, you run the risk of destroying the individuality of Harvard." "People worried about reproductive rights should realize that Hobby Lobby is a private corporation." "People worried about gay rights should realize that Chick-fil-A is a private corporation." The choices of private organizations and individuals have huge effects, and it's reasonable to criticize them if we disagree with their actions. But on the other hand, I agree that it's important to give private organizations freedom. This is a difficult trade-off; we need to consider both sides of it, and whatever principle we decide on, we should apply consistently. So unless you'd also defend historical gender segregation at private universities, or defend Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, you should find a different defense of Harvard's actions.

vinceguidry 9y ago
I specifically noted the civil rights exception in my comment.
- a_puppy 9y ago
  You stated the exception without justification. You need to give an actual argument for why discrimination should be an exception but free speech shouldn't. Free speech has historically been considered an extremely important right. In fact, free speech is a civil right--one of the originals. Why shouldn't it be included under your civil rights exception?
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    The civil rights movement itself exposed the need for specific legal protections for minorities, because leaving it all up to the "marketplace of ideas" only ensures that patterns of systemized oppression continue. What happens when you don't restrict along protected grounds is that entire industries collude to exclude those classes of people. Mass hatred drowns out the whole marketplace.

2OEH8eoCRo 9y ago

Sure they're private so they aren't bound by law to allow freedom of speech but they still send a bad message by suppressing it.

noer 9y ago
Free Speech isn't "Consequence-Free Speech" and is a two way street. Sure, feel free to say/write the most despicable, racist thing imaginable. However, what is often forgotten is that there are consequences for everything that happens. As long as the government isn't restricting you from or putting you in jail or saying/writing it, the speech is free.
- stale2002 9y ago
  Well then maybe Harvard should lose its billions of dollars in government funding. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. And the consequence for not supporting freedom of thought should be that the government takes away its billions of dollars from you.