3 ms·

I have no idea what the rules are in american universities, but all the recent stories i've read regarding eg gender pronouns, and how people should behave on c

by bsaul 3y ago

I have no idea what the rules are in american universities, but all the recent stories i've read regarding eg gender pronouns, and how people should behave on campus in general made me think free speech is quite a remote consideration. If i'm wrong however and people really are allowed to say absolutely anything they want, then it would have been a very simple statement to make "we are free speech absolutists, we believe people shouldn't be punished for what they say, no matter how offensive it is, only for what they do". In which case i would have been 100% supporting her.

vb6sp6 3y ago
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SauciestGNU 3y ago
So her answer was complicated in testimony because the pro-Israel side has been trying to frame the words "Free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea" as a call for genocide against Jewish people. Maybe for some people that's what those slogans mean, but for many others those slogans mean a one (secular) state solution with equal civil rights for Jewish Israelis and no military occupations or apartheid. To others it means the establishment of a Palestinian state around the 1967 borders. The problem is the pro-Israeli right was out to "scalp" Gay (Christopher Rufo said exactly that). Her testimony was bad, but largely because she was not being asked questions in good faith.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Nothing Chris Rufo says matters. He'd claim responsibility for Sam Altman's ouster from OpenAI if it somehow suited the grandiose public profile he's attempted to craft for himself. Certainly no matter who was serving as president of Harvard, and no matter what they'd said, Rufo would love nothing more than to associate himself and his "movement" with their failure. It's nobody's fault but Rufo's opponents if an Ivy League university administrator somehow becomes a cause celebre and a major 'L' for the left. He's a gigantic troll and there is no reason to empower him. There's no reason to concede the culture war framing in the comment you responded to. We have in fact extraordinarily clear evidence that Gay engaged repeatedly in (perhaps minor, perhaps major) instances of plagiarism. Nobody has a divine mandate to serve as Harvard president; no cause depends on a particular person holding that role; no great injustice can be done by someone losing it who has, for whatever reason, become a liability to the institution. Claudine Gay will be fine. Someone else will be Harvard president.
  - SauciestGNU 3y ago
    I agree with your framing here almost entirely, but I think it's a mistake to write off Rufo entirely. It may be in this case it's a self-serving post hoc analysis of events on his part. Maybe even probably that. But he's managed to start moral panics before (he was championing CRT and "parental rights" as wedge issues long before they were in vogue). Not worth listening to, but imo worth monitoring.
- bsaul 3y ago
  "trying to feame the words free palestine" : i understand that was the goal, however the question in itself was super unambiguous. If she wanted to be vague or super careful it should gave been on the following questions, not on that one. The least one can say is that she's not very smart.

by bsaul 3y ago

vb6sp6 3y ago

[dead]

SauciestGNU 3y ago

So her answer was complicated in testimony because the pro-Israel side has been trying to frame the words "Free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea" as a call for genocide against Jewish people. Maybe for some people that's what those slogans mean, but for many others those slogans mean a one (secular) state solution with equal civil rights for Jewish Israelis and no military occupations or apartheid. To others it means the establishment of a Palestinian state around the 1967 borders. The problem is the pro-Israeli right was out to "scalp" Gay (Christopher Rufo said exactly that). Her testimony was bad, but largely because she was not being asked questions in good faith.

tptacek 3y ago
Nothing Chris Rufo says matters. He'd claim responsibility for Sam Altman's ouster from OpenAI if it somehow suited the grandiose public profile he's attempted to craft for himself. Certainly no matter who was serving as president of Harvard, and no matter what they'd said, Rufo would love nothing more than to associate himself and his "movement" with their failure. It's nobody's fault but Rufo's opponents if an Ivy League university administrator somehow becomes a cause celebre and a major 'L' for the left. He's a gigantic troll and there is no reason to empower him. There's no reason to concede the culture war framing in the comment you responded to. We have in fact extraordinarily clear evidence that Gay engaged repeatedly in (perhaps minor, perhaps major) instances of plagiarism. Nobody has a divine mandate to serve as Harvard president; no cause depends on a particular person holding that role; no great injustice can be done by someone losing it who has, for whatever reason, become a liability to the institution. Claudine Gay will be fine. Someone else will be Harvard president.
- SauciestGNU 3y ago
  I agree with your framing here almost entirely, but I think it's a mistake to write off Rufo entirely. It may be in this case it's a self-serving post hoc analysis of events on his part. Maybe even probably that. But he's managed to start moral panics before (he was championing CRT and "parental rights" as wedge issues long before they were in vogue). Not worth listening to, but imo worth monitoring.
bsaul 3y ago
"trying to feame the words free palestine" : i understand that was the goal, however the question in itself was super unambiguous. If she wanted to be vague or super careful it should gave been on the following questions, not on that one. The least one can say is that she's not very smart.