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Comment by muh_gradle | Hacker News Reader

This comment itself is in such bad faith that I don't even know where to begin. Imagine this. A progressive event was taking place in which a progressive speaker didn't get to do their planned talk. Instead an administrator gave their pre-written notes (literally printed) and went into a diatribe admonishing the intended speaker when their job was to help moderate the event. Are you seriously telling me that this was appropriate?

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I'm not the person you're responding to, but you clearly are laying out a version of facts that is being contested. You're saying she "hijacked" the event rather than attempted to de-escalate an already out-of-control situation, and maybe even suggesting that doing so is out of the normal responsibility of deans.

She clearly failed. And I think she should have enforced existing policy rather than think her speech would be effective (although not 100% sure the best way to carry that out in the moment). But we both agree that part of her role in her position is to act in that moment. I think the two of us even agree about what she should have done. We just disagree about whether she acted in good faith.

She had prepared remarks. Obviously what she did was not in good faith (from the perspective of the invited speaker).

I'm not sure I understand the problem with preparing remarks. Preparing remarks seems like a good thing. It was known that students were upset with the speaker in advance.

I just wish the remarks would have been different than what they were and focused on enforcement of the rules, rather than the failed attempt at de-escalation.

If Tirien Steinbach was acting on good faith to de-escalate, she wouldn't stop saying "is the juice worth the squeeze" to the speaker ad nauseum. I watched the 9 minute video of her speaking uninterrupted. In fact she loves asking "is the juice worth the squeeze" so much to the point that it becomes a subtitle in her Wall Street Journal article (https://www.wsj.com/articles/diversity-and-free-speech-can-c...).

That's not a good faith attempt at de-escalation in that moment nor do I believe she was ever trained to de-escalate in such a manner. It's a prepared, written piece of dramatic, performative theater and she wanted a stage to deliver her thoughts.

She said it twice, and then a third time only when the speaker asked her to explain what she meant by the phrase. Here's the full context of that second time:

> When I say “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” that's what I'm asking. Is this worth it? And I hope so, and I'll stay for your remarks to see, because I do want to know your perspective. I am not, you know, in the business of wanting to either shut down speech, because I do know that if they come for this group today, they will come for the group that I am part of tomorrow.

Sounds like good-faith to me. That said, by nature I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I find most people say what they think.

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