Hacker News Reader

Comment by lclarkmichalek | Hacker News Reader

> The students in the spinoff group exchanged memes and images “mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children,” sometimes directing jokes at specific ethnic or racial groups, the Crimson reported. One message “called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child ‘piñata time’” while other messages quipped that “abusing children was sexually arousing,” according to images of the chat described by the Crimson.

You know, if that's your personality, I'm OK with you feeling ashamed enough that you feel the need to keep it private.

View on HN

I don't care what they said. If it's against the law, let the law deal with it. If it's covered under freedom of speech, let them speak.

No one is stoping them from speaking. Harvard just doesn't want them if those are the things they have to say

Sure, they can speak. I can then use my right to freedom of association to not associate with them. Is that right not as important?

A different set of ethical/legal calculus comes into play when we're talking about a college that gets federal funds.

Nobody is stopping them from speaking. Doesn't mean everyone else isn't free to choose not to associate with them. That includes organizations.

So they can keep out everyone they don't really like by an arbitrary set of rules?

Maybe you spit out chewing gum somewhere one night and violated the rule of not spitting for one example.

I'm not saying that these students are good people or that I endorse anything they said. I'm defending the right of privacy and free speech for anyone at any time.

You are defending the "right of privacy and free speech" by shitting on other people's right to freely associate with the people they choose to.

Almost like it isn't about "free speech" at all.

Your comments offends me. How would you like it if I then contacted your workplace and got you fired, or expelled from school.

I wouldn't! But if I did something shitty (let's be real here, you're not offended, you're upset at the notion that words have consequences), it would be entirely within your rights to react to what I did. And mine to defend myself, and my employer to decide whether the cost of being represented by someone with my views was commensurate with its return.

Look, nobody is arguing that Harvard is doing something that is literally illegal.

But that is their only defense.

What we are arguing is that the Harvard administration is full of terrible people who can go F themselves. Because they do not care about students and they do not care about freedom of thought.

Maybe they are just going to start expelling people because they publicly disagreed with them about tuition hikes or something else that is arbitrary. Who knows!

That wouldn't be illegal either. Would you defend them for that?

The claim that Harvard "doesn't care about students" is reality-denying. Harvard has students who these people, with their racist propaganda, would do harm to (and if you don't understand that we're dealing with literal and concrete racist propaganda, you are naive or dissembling). Should Harvard not care about those students (and faculty, and staff, etc. who would similarly be affected)? There's nothing sacrosanct about racist propaganda that deserves to be defended at a private institution--and Harvard refusing to make their community worse is commendable. It's not comparable to complaints about university policy at all to a degree that is not merely ridiculous but actively malicious on your part.

I don't particularly care about, and it sure seems like Harvard doesn't either, students who, after being found out and asked to explain their super gross actions, didn't. Didn't present what they'd done (as they'd been asked to), didn't explain, didn't apologize. This group had over a hundred members. About ten decided not to own up to what they'd done and were shown the door for it.

Trying to hang the consequences of racist behavior on the institution that refuses to put up with racist behavior is head-screwing. Maybe...don't be racist? Or at least not openly? And then you can go to Harvard like Mommy and Daddy wanted instead of having to explain why you're not. Harvard's in my own backyard; I'll applaud them doing what they can to keep my backyard free of racist propagandists where they can.

Yes. Free speech only applies to government censorship, not what private individuals or institutions choose to use to filter those they care to listen to, associate with, or otherwise give the time of day to.

Likewise, privacy isn't really a concern here, since it isn't like the organization broke into their accounts to check up on their privately held conversations or beliefs. It was posted into a group with many other loosely associated members, and was brought to the organization's attention.

In your gum spitting example, it's like spitting out gum in your back yard behind a privacy fence versus spitting out gum in your employer's parking lot and having your boss step in it moments later. It's not private, and it may have consequences.

Harvard also has the right to turn away those it doesn't deem fit, by its own standards. Free speech is protected in the sense that the government cannot limit it, not that every private place has to tolerate all forms of speech at all times.

They were allowed to speak. They did speak. "Freedom of speech" applies only and strictly to governments, not to a private institution. And that's because the only way "freedom of speech" matters is if others are free to react to you as they please; Harvard might not like you and might tell you to get the hell out of their (and my, as it happens) neighborhood.

If you don't like that, then you have options. One, don't be cretinous. Two, hide it better. Three, accept that being cretinous will cost you opportunities and own it.

Actions have consequences. You don't get to hide behind "my free speech". Own what you do.

Cutting down to the point.

* What these students did or didn't do does not matter in this case.

* Harvard can withdraw the acceptance for anyone at any time for any reason.

We don't need to argue about privacy or free speech here. All we can argue about as a first point is if Harvard should have the ability to withdraw their acceptance or not.

And of course they should, because free association exists (pursuant to the bounds of contracts, which don't appear to be violated here--h/t kudu), so why are you whatabouting?

Racists are not a protected class. I see no reason why Harvard should not be allowed to act the way they did.

It is unfortunate that they chose to share those memes on a Facebook group chat though, I think the debate is about how not "private" a lot of our "private" chats have become and how sometimes people are just not thinking about where there communications are stored enough. If they had printed pamphlets with the material and shared them with classmates I think the same consequences would have happened, but they would have had more time to stop themselves and think about what could go wrong. Now sending offensive jokes is easy and "private" channels are deceptively public.

Not true that Harvard can withdraw the acceptance at any time for any reason. There is a specific set of circumstances in which it can be withdrawn (in this case, where the person's integrity/moral character is in doubt); otherwise, the unconditional offer of admission could be considered a legally binding contract between the university and the student.

They are allowed to speak. Harvard is allowed to withdraw their acceptances. No legal charges have been pressed against them.

There you go-- freedom of speech.

I think the OP was observing that the development of an apparatus for monitoring and transferring communication logs to decision makers is a tool that can and will be abused by future authorities, regardless of whether they are doing right or wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com