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Comment by testfoobar | Hacker News Reader

Children, that is who we are talking about here, learn from making mistakes. It is easy for children to follow a crowd and do all sorts of things they will later regret: experiment with drugs, alcohol, smoking, unhealthy relationships, sexual flings, etc. Included in this list is experimenting with racist language.

It is the responsibility of parents, teachers, adults and mentors to guide children away from mistakes towards the ability to make healthier choices.

Children also learn from their environment. Many of my college friends had never had anything spicy beyond a hint of black pepper due to their upbringing. Some thought spicy food was foul, unpleasant and foreign. It took them a few times visiting Indian, Caribbean, Thai, and Korean places to get hooked and completely change their world view.

We shouldn't mark kids as racist. Everyone has the capacity to grow and learn. Children especially so.

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And oftentimes, children learn the best from the consequences of their mistakes.

Completely agree. All of the above examples have pretty severe consequences in many cases. No reason why "experimenting" with racist language should be any different.

Most cases of experimentation with drinking, drugs, smoking, sex do not lead to severe consequences. For a lot of people, they lead to growth and better judgement along with some level of understanding the stupidity of their earlier decisions. That is the point of experimentation. To learn.

Online posts unfortunately do not disappear. So an 18 year old has to answer for his dumb 16 year old self. This is awful and makes me sad.

A wise primary school teacher told me that over his decades of experience he learned that many kids experiment with things that make them feel strong and powerful. He observed that they often had little to no understanding of what they were doing until they were guided. So a child using racist language may not be a racist, as much as he is trying on the power of a racist. It is the power that thrills him.

These are children. They can learn. The "racist" ones are exactly the ones that we should reach and teach.

Exactly. With these consequences they can be taught.

Consequences should be calibrated and at least for children their records expunged where sensible. Online posts that are never expunged and can be screenshotted and shared do not lead to calibrated consequences.

Maybe these kids can do something extra to atone and make a case for themselves in their next application. Until then this particular consequence seems well calibrated.

Completely agree with this comment. Well put.

Top colleges are incredibly competitive. Plenty of valedictorians and budding star athletes, artists, scientists, inventors are not admitted. To admit someone who's said racist remarks is to spit on the talented and hard-working "just missed it" applicants who presumably have the judgement not to hold (or at the very least say) such awful things.

They're also being admitted for their actions as children. By the logic of "they're just kids", you shouldn't have a college admissions process at all!

Then is speech the same as action? And do actions balance out to a net positive or negative, or do you expect no negative at all?

Debate team?

The question really is what is redeemable vs what is not? You can decide for yourself. What instantly disqualifies a child vs what does not?

IMHO, educational institutions at all levels should be more generous and more forgiving because they are in the business of producing educated healthy adults.

If anything, we should focus more resources towards kids that are saying racist things. They are still kids. We can show them a better way.

Forgiveness is divine.

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