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Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

> The professor is literally and obviously a victim of an ideological and authoritarian mob attack on his career. Blatant.

The point I have been making throughout this thread is that both things can be true.

Negy and Katz both said nasty offensive things, seemingly on purpose in order to rile people up and/or because they are bad people. You can't "whatabout" your way out of that.

The people they said offensive things about are somewhat-radical ideologues who lack respect for freedom and due process.

Two wrongs do not make a right, and vigilante justice is illegal for a reason.

IMO, strongly taking one side in this issue is a clear signal that you are abandoning your own critical thinking skills in favor of your feelings.

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There's a fundamental difference.

He said something he thought to be true - he was making a rhetorical point, in an uncomfortable and insensitive manner. He doesn't really come from a position of power and notably, has wasn't 'going after' anyone, just making a dumb comment.

The person representing the authority or power in the equation ... it doesn't matter much what their statements were, the fact is they went after him (and others) in a systematic and authoritarian manner.

At most, he should have been asked to apologize for being insensitive.

The school, however, needs to be investigated for systematic oppression of profs. using their weird internal investigations to harass people (aka '9 hour interviews? That's fing STASI like stuff, it's what the FBI does to serial killers. Could you imagine your employer grilling you in a room for 9 hours?).

He spoke out of line, the school acted with retribution using arbitrary authority.

The students attempting to get Negy fired also adamantly believe that they are doing the right thing.

It doesn't really matter what they believe, judicially.

Trump believed he won the election.

The students should also be given actual leadership, so that they can contextualize their concerns, and understand when they're being tits.

Some of them want to be tits, which is fine, so long as they aren't being overly vindictive or violent, being a tit is not illegal in most cases.

That there is no easy way to contextualize all of this is insane.

People seem to take one of 'either side' and can't find where a reasonable landing point is.

It's hard because the 'system' in Academia is judicializing their moral perspective, aka referring to protesters as 'terrorists' off hand is considered 'crime' when really it's 'insensitive and irresponsible'.

I should not be that hard and these schools and unions need to be reformed.

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