A Disinvitation at MIT | Hacker News Reader

A Disinvitation at MIT

reason.com

24 pointsatdrummond4 comments

Such mild criticism warrants cancellation, but we can totally trust studies that show the unalloyed benefits of diversity, right? There are no incentives against undertaking studies likely to show an adverse effect, or to publish their findings?

In which the cancel mob comes for someone who voiced fairly muted misgivings about the methods (not even the aims!) of DEI initiatives.

That was my takeaway as well. It was not a very strong stance he made, nor did he attempt to whip up a furore either before or after the cancellation. Further, it doesn’t seem like said drive for spiking the talk was a student-prompted movement but rather an instructor-led one.

This story is very bizarre all around.

After reading the article. I initially just wanted to bring up first ammendment freedom of speech and then dive into one of the reasons universities were created for in the first place. Which was for the purpose of getting the opportunity to experience and communicate with individuals from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life. It even at the time was presented as the place to discuss what we concidered the taboo subjects.

I can see some frustration or a sense of a loss of control by professors over the last one hundred years. Simply with the changes of who is accepted into universities these days. As we all know not every university was open to mixed races or having woman and men in the classroom. So I can see some professors feeling like they lost their opinion and control of the environment.

Going back to the taboo topics that most highschools would simply shut down. These taboo topics included religion and politics to cover the two that sometimes could sneak into a highschool for a few minutes before being erased from the classroom. With a simple stop! Followed by a unsatisfied "because I say so!" for any student who pushed the envelope.

Living in this day and age I have seen the dramatic change from lets agree to disagree and walk away from it. Without social consequences or loss (unfriending someone on social media)

Sadly I can see it being an instructor led cancellation. Ive had a professor attempt to silence me in a classroom simply because that instructor was of a different political belief than me. The professor allowed students who politically aligned speak even though no facts were used and it was only emotionally driven rhetoric.

When I stood up for myself and argued freedom of speech and what the purpose of a university environment is designed for I merely got a baffled professor. Who immediately went on with the lesson and never made eye contact with me again.

The academy freedom alliance wrote an excellent letter. That is linked in the article and covers far better then I could. The wrongs of MIT against not only their policies, but against what higher learning is about and even the first ammendment speech.

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