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Comment by Geekette | Hacker News Reader

Worse, he's apparently a scholar on antislavery and professor of African American Studies, i.e. a demographic supposedly more cognizant of barriers minorities face and importance of their getting opportunities like admission to Harvard.

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I imagine there are plenty of very highly qualified scholars who, to use the professor's own words, "happen to be a minority," that never killed their infant child.

Plenty of very highly qualified scholars who didn't grow up in the context that she did, whose backgrounds aren't comparable. Doesn't make her less deserving of this opportunity; she committed a crime and did her time, she's allowed to move on.

She absolutely is and should not have any impediments from the state in moving on with her life. Private individuals and institutions are under no such obligation, though.

So, you're stating that I'm not allowed to have an opinion that disapproves of the actions of Harvard in this instance?

No one is stating that Harvard had an obligation to accept her. People are expressing their dissatisfaction with Harvard's actions. That's still allowed, right?

[As a side note: If all private individuals/institutions impose additional hardships on ex-cons, then it's highly hypocritical for any of those individuals/institutions to complain about the recidivism rates. You may as well just send them all away for life in prison for any crime and be done with it if your plan is to hamper their efforts to move on after prison.]

Nothing I said could be reasonably interpreted to mean that you're not allowed to disagree with Harvard's decision. Stop trying to be argumentative.

Nobody's disputing the rights of private institutions but everybody has a right to express their distaste over their actions, especially when it is arrived at in a manner which runs against what such institutions claim to stand for.

Claiming that private institutions aren't under any obligations for reasonable conduct seems to be a very uniquely American ideation; that somehow only the government is bound by higher ideals, and businesses can do what they please with whoever they please as long as someone signs a contract

Harvard is a private institution that receives funding from the Government in the form of Pell Grants. This is not just a small business in Wisconsin. If Harvard wants to be able to extend the punishment of someone who has served their time, they should no longer receive Government funding.

You don't get to have it both ways.

She committed a crime, did her time, and is allowed to not be incarcerated by the state anymore. That doesn't mean she's entitled to any number of additional things such as admission to Harvard doctoral programs, employment at any given employer, etc.

I think they were trying to say that if this person was not a minority there would have been no way they would even be considered.

Not to get into an argument about affirmative action, but if the problem is that minorities are often perceived as having a lower bar for entry, one of the few ways to ameliorate that perception is to actually hire minority candidates who do meet the "normal" bar for entry. Yes, skeptics will still be skeptics, but if an institution as renowned as Harvard is too scared by Fox News to take that action, than who isn't? (besides NYU and the other schools that accepted the Ph.D. candidate)

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