6 ms·

So? They’re a private university, they can do what they want. You also can choose to no longer attend. But the faux outrage over this — “they shouldn’t be allo

So? They’re a private university, they can do what they want. You also can choose to no longer attend. But the faux outrage over this — “they shouldn’t be allowed to do that!” — reads very hypocritical to me, like private entities are allowed to do what they want without interference until they do something that is personally disagreeable.

marklubi 5y ago
> So? They’re a private university, they can do what they want. How does that work if you don’t want to bake a cake? I’m all for individual rights, but this statement is so hypocritical that I find it hard to not comment on it.
- version_five 5y ago
  This is good, regardless of how it gets moderated
  - marklubi 5y ago
    Thank you!
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  The reason why the “bake a cake” thing was ever an actual point of controversy is because it centered around an immutable aspect of people; their sexual orientation. There is leagues of difference between denying service due to who they are vs. their behavior.
  - IdEntities 5y ago
    Muslims can simply renounce their faith whenever they like.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      As can Christians, aethists, or whomever else. Are you arguing that we should remove religion from the list of protected classes? A bit harder than most of the others since it happens to be in the constitution, but whatever, I'm open to that idea...
      - IdEntities 5y ago
        > Are you arguing that we should remove religion from the list of protected classes? Of course not, the idea is completely bonkers. The point is that protections are not extended solely on the basis of "immutable" or inborn characteristics.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - version_five 5y ago
    There was a relevant discussion earlier today in which I commented [0]. Read the parent comment too. The point we were making is that nondiscrimination against homosexuality (or anything) should be automatic, and not have anything to do with whether it's genetic or not. The argument that somehow it's more important because its immutable" is ridiculous- if some later study decided it was learned, would that change something? Anyway, that has no bearing the the "cake" business because that was about the cake, not the attributes of the client. And the analogy is very relevant regardless, because it's about hypocrisy in telling private businesses what to do. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30968739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30968739
  - marklubi 5y ago
    > The reason why the “bake a cake” thing was ever an actual point of controversy is because it centered around an immutable aspect of people; their sexual orientation. There is leagues of difference between denying service due to who they are vs. their behavior. So sexuality is immutable?
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    I will repeat a part of my comment I posted in another thread: It’s a weird legal meme that immutable characteristics should somehow be treated differently for the purposes of moral blameworthiness. I am not really sure where it comes from and why people seem so eager to parrot it, but it looks completely baseless.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > How does that work if you don’t want to bake a cake? This will be a better argument when vaccine choices are added to the list of protected classes. That does not seem too likely, however, given that it is a choice rather than an immutable characteristic.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Religion is a choice and not an immutable characteristic, yet that is also a protected class.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      That's not how the legal theory works, fyi. The theory is that “sincere belief” is not a choice, and since it’s impossible to determine that externally the only choices were to not protect sincere belief or to protect all religion sincere or not.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    > This will be a better argument when vaccine choices are added to the list of protected classes. List of protected classes is just a list that can be amended, changed or entirely removed. I am not really sure how it’s an argument for anything unless you are a hardcore ultra-legalist who believes that a law, a completely artificial human construct, has some sort of divine importance over everything else. > That does not seem too likely, however, given that it is a choice rather than an immutable characteristic. It’s a weird legal meme that immutable characteristics should somehow be treated differently for the purposes of moral blameworthiness. Again, I am not really sure where it comes from and why people seem so eager to parrot it, but it looks completely baseless.
    - marklubi 5y ago
      > It’s a weird legal meme that immutable characteristics should somehow be treated differently for the purposes of moral blameworthiness. >> List of protected classes is just a list that can be amended, changed or entirely removed. I am not really sure how it’s an argument for anything unless you are a hardcore ultra-legalist who believes that a law, a completely artificial human construct, has some sort of divine importance over everything else. I think that you may need to spend some time thinking about what you just said. Perhaps you need to look at your own actions
- criddell 5y ago
  Are you talking about the baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding? I believe he won that case. The university would probably say they are trying to keep the school safe for vulnerable students. One of my kids would likely be in the vulnerable category, so I'm somewhat sympathetic to that argument.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    > I believe he won that case. Yes, but the people who think that decision was wrong and should be reversed are basically the same people who are supporting what Emory is doing.
    - criddell 5y ago
      I don't know about that. I think the decision was correct and I support Emory.
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      Yes, people saying racial discrimination is unacceptable are the same ones saying that public health (vis-a-vis vaccine mandates) are acceptable and it's not hypocrisy. If you really think those are equivalent, there's not a lot of room for communication in a purely written forum.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        The double standard is that they're saying that freedom of association is a right when used for reasons they consider acceptable, but not when used for reasons they don't.
        spacemanmatt 5y ago
        Maybe they can take it to the Supreme Cou...oh, right.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  Emory university can still be held accountable for the same discrimination as the bakery. Hope that helps!
version_five 5y ago
Your argument certainly isn't novel, it's the standard "they can build their own Twitter" that gets always trotted out. In general, I agree that private companies can't be forced to do things. But that certainly doesnt mean they can't be called out when they do something distasteful. Your "they shouldn't be allowed to do that" is a strawman.
- MrPatan 5y ago
  I don't think the twitter argument is good anymore. Surely now the rightthink is that the government must do Something to stop anybody doing whatever they want with their own company.
jovial_cavalier 5y ago
No university is private. They all operate on public grants for funding, and subsidized student loans.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  Then no business is private and no individual is private.
  - jovial_cavalier 5y ago
    There are entities that take government money and there are entities that generate government money. Those in the latter are private. Those in the former have a duty to those in the latter.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  you use publicly subsidized roads and drink water from the publicly subsidized treatment plants so you're a public citizen
leetcrew 5y ago
at the time of this post, no one in the comments is saying that. I see a lot of posts that could be summarized as "they shouldn't do this" (which I agree with). that's subtly but importantly different from "they shouldn't be allowed to do this". that said, there are at least two ways to look at this. the first is that this is a silly policy that seems to have nothing to do with an infectious disease, which for me, brings up memories of all sorts of ridiculous rules that institutions tend to have. the other way of looking at it is that this policy is really quite mild compared to other measures the school could take to encourage students to get boosters.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Most universities required immunizations before covid, although I suspect that enforcement varied wildly. I distinctly remember having to get a whole bunch of vaccinations because we’d lost my records and couldn’t prove that I was in compliance without another round. It was a mild inconvenience at worst.

marklubi 5y ago

> So? They’re a private university, they can do what they want. How does that work if you don’t want to bake a cake? I’m all for individual rights, but this statement is so hypocritical that I find it hard to not comment on it.

version_five 5y ago
This is good, regardless of how it gets moderated
- marklubi 5y ago
  Thank you!
ashtonkem 5y ago
The reason why the “bake a cake” thing was ever an actual point of controversy is because it centered around an immutable aspect of people; their sexual orientation. There is leagues of difference between denying service due to who they are vs. their behavior.
- IdEntities 5y ago
  Muslims can simply renounce their faith whenever they like.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    As can Christians, aethists, or whomever else. Are you arguing that we should remove religion from the list of protected classes? A bit harder than most of the others since it happens to be in the constitution, but whatever, I'm open to that idea...
    - IdEntities 5y ago
      > Are you arguing that we should remove religion from the list of protected classes? Of course not, the idea is completely bonkers. The point is that protections are not extended solely on the basis of "immutable" or inborn characteristics.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- version_five 5y ago
  There was a relevant discussion earlier today in which I commented [0]. Read the parent comment too. The point we were making is that nondiscrimination against homosexuality (or anything) should be automatic, and not have anything to do with whether it's genetic or not. The argument that somehow it's more important because its immutable" is ridiculous- if some later study decided it was learned, would that change something? Anyway, that has no bearing the the "cake" business because that was about the cake, not the attributes of the client. And the analogy is very relevant regardless, because it's about hypocrisy in telling private businesses what to do. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30968739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30968739
- marklubi 5y ago
  > The reason why the “bake a cake” thing was ever an actual point of controversy is because it centered around an immutable aspect of people; their sexual orientation. There is leagues of difference between denying service due to who they are vs. their behavior. So sexuality is immutable?
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  I will repeat a part of my comment I posted in another thread: It’s a weird legal meme that immutable characteristics should somehow be treated differently for the purposes of moral blameworthiness. I am not really sure where it comes from and why people seem so eager to parrot it, but it looks completely baseless.
rootusrootus 5y ago
> How does that work if you don’t want to bake a cake? This will be a better argument when vaccine choices are added to the list of protected classes. That does not seem too likely, however, given that it is a choice rather than an immutable characteristic.
- sneak 5y ago
  Religion is a choice and not an immutable characteristic, yet that is also a protected class.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    That's not how the legal theory works, fyi. The theory is that “sincere belief” is not a choice, and since it’s impossible to determine that externally the only choices were to not protect sincere belief or to protect all religion sincere or not.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  > This will be a better argument when vaccine choices are added to the list of protected classes. List of protected classes is just a list that can be amended, changed or entirely removed. I am not really sure how it’s an argument for anything unless you are a hardcore ultra-legalist who believes that a law, a completely artificial human construct, has some sort of divine importance over everything else. > That does not seem too likely, however, given that it is a choice rather than an immutable characteristic. It’s a weird legal meme that immutable characteristics should somehow be treated differently for the purposes of moral blameworthiness. Again, I am not really sure where it comes from and why people seem so eager to parrot it, but it looks completely baseless.
  - marklubi 5y ago
    > It’s a weird legal meme that immutable characteristics should somehow be treated differently for the purposes of moral blameworthiness. >> List of protected classes is just a list that can be amended, changed or entirely removed. I am not really sure how it’s an argument for anything unless you are a hardcore ultra-legalist who believes that a law, a completely artificial human construct, has some sort of divine importance over everything else. I think that you may need to spend some time thinking about what you just said. Perhaps you need to look at your own actions
criddell 5y ago
Are you talking about the baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding? I believe he won that case. The university would probably say they are trying to keep the school safe for vulnerable students. One of my kids would likely be in the vulnerable category, so I'm somewhat sympathetic to that argument.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > I believe he won that case. Yes, but the people who think that decision was wrong and should be reversed are basically the same people who are supporting what Emory is doing.
  - criddell 5y ago
    I don't know about that. I think the decision was correct and I support Emory.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    Yes, people saying racial discrimination is unacceptable are the same ones saying that public health (vis-a-vis vaccine mandates) are acceptable and it's not hypocrisy. If you really think those are equivalent, there's not a lot of room for communication in a purely written forum.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      The double standard is that they're saying that freedom of association is a right when used for reasons they consider acceptable, but not when used for reasons they don't.
      - spacemanmatt 5y ago
        Maybe they can take it to the Supreme Cou...oh, right.
spacemanmatt 5y ago
Emory university can still be held accountable for the same discrimination as the bakery. Hope that helps!

version_five 5y ago

Your argument certainly isn't novel, it's the standard "they can build their own Twitter" that gets always trotted out. In general, I agree that private companies can't be forced to do things. But that certainly doesnt mean they can't be called out when they do something distasteful. Your "they shouldn't be allowed to do that" is a strawman.

MrPatan 5y ago
I don't think the twitter argument is good anymore. Surely now the rightthink is that the government must do Something to stop anybody doing whatever they want with their own company.

jovial_cavalier 5y ago

No university is private. They all operate on public grants for funding, and subsidized student loans.

notreallyserio 5y ago
Then no business is private and no individual is private.
- jovial_cavalier 5y ago
  There are entities that take government money and there are entities that generate government money. Those in the latter are private. Those in the former have a duty to those in the latter.
spacemanmatt 5y ago
you use publicly subsidized roads and drink water from the publicly subsidized treatment plants so you're a public citizen

leetcrew 5y ago

at the time of this post, no one in the comments is saying that. I see a lot of posts that could be summarized as "they shouldn't do this" (which I agree with). that's subtly but importantly different from "they shouldn't be allowed to do this". that said, there are at least two ways to look at this. the first is that this is a silly policy that seems to have nothing to do with an infectious disease, which for me, brings up memories of all sorts of ridiculous rules that institutions tend to have. the other way of looking at it is that this policy is really quite mild compared to other measures the school could take to encourage students to get boosters.

ashtonkem 5y ago

Most universities required immunizations before covid, although I suspect that enforcement varied wildly. I distinctly remember having to get a whole bunch of vaccinations because we’d lost my records and couldn’t prove that I was in compliance without another round. It was a mild inconvenience at worst.