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Comment by bryondowd | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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