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Comment by simpletone | Hacker News Reader

What you choose to teach and how you choose to teach is innately a form of activism. It's impossible to separate teaching from activism. The problem with activism in universities isn't with the professors, it's with the administrative staff.

What yale and other institutions need to do is adopt a neutral stance and protect freedom of speech. Which used to be the standard when I went to school.

A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should have a right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american university. People need to feel free to be a 'devil's advocate' in any academic institution. The problem is that the lunatic fringe has coalesced together and taken power not only in academia, but corporate america and government.

As for limiting donor influence, I think we can all agree on that. It's crazy how a few despicable billionaires were able to take out the leaders of harvard, penn, etc.

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I agree with some of the sentiment here but not the detail/presentation -- in particular I find it very frustrating to see an argument that we should embrace nazis as teachers built on the implication that that's the only way to have a "devil's advocate" perspective. I have met many many many people who can think critically and effectively consider/debate multiple angles of something without embracing nationalism or racist hatred as an identity.

Yes let's ensure we have the best opportunity to learn from, debate, and critique each other. No let's not excuse or embrace outrageously hostile behavior.

Or simply the fact that in the normal course of my life I have encountered plenty of racists, neonazis, colonialists, IQ fetishists, wannabe eugenicists etc etc. I considered these ideas already.

They all suck and there is no value in further consideration of them, either for me or for our society. These ideas need nothing more from us but to be pushed out of the main stream of intellectual discourse and the people who support and endorse them are offering nothing useful to us by doing it.

>> adopt a neutral stance and protect freedom of speech.

Neutral stances sound all well and good, but in reality they are fraught with difficulties. What is the neutral stance on anthropomorphic climate change? What is the neutral stance on the age of the earth? Or its shape? Adopting pure neutrality means giving voice to the fringes. While students can certainly benefit in principal from hearing such voices, I would have walked out of Geology 101 had we been tested on "alternative" religious-based models of geology. I went to university to learn about reality. I can get enough of the non-reality from the internet.

You're not actually arguing against what the GP said. The argument being made is that administrative staff should stay out of these sorts of debates. They should have no position on climate change. That's the faculty's job, especially faculty whose expertise is in climate science.

If faculty is teaching religious-based versions of these sorts of topics, then students are free to either a) enroll elsewhere, or b) engage in activism with the goal of having these faculty members removed from teaching positions.

The administrative staff should be responding to the wants and needs of students (and faculty, to some extent), not pushing their own views on them.

Of course, there's usually some overlap. Some (many?) university departments will have dean positions that rotate among teaching faculty. But pure administrative positions should maybe sit back and listen rather than pushing their own agenda.

How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter? How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose?

> How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter?

Harvard, Penn, etc is far more important than bill ackman, trump, etc.

> How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose.

They don't have to donate. And their children don't get special privileges to these institutions. Besides, as I said, the organizations should take a neutral stance.

I agree with your toplevel comment in general, but I'm not sure I understand how they should avoid the outsized influence of a few donors. Is the idea that institutions should adopt policies that ensure that no one donor (or a small group of donors) consists of too much of the donations pool? Or should they actively be rejecting donations based on some sort of subjective evaluation of the donor? The former seems reasonable, but the latter sounds like the opposite of an org taking a neutral stance.

I do think there are some cases where orgs should be actively disqualifying specific donors; the Epstein junk seems to be a good example of why they should be picky.

Neutral is an ideal, not a practical reality.

> A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should have a right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american university.

Of course. But they're not free from the consequences of e.g. espousing neo-nazi nonsense.

> The problem is that the lunatic fringe has coalesced together and taken power not only in academia, but corporate america and government

But enough about Conservatives. /s

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