Harvard Pulls Student Offers Over Online Comments (go.com)

Reader joshtops shares a report: Harvard University's student newspaper says the school has revoked admission offers to at least 10 prospective freshmen over offensive online messages. The Harvard Crimson says the students posted images and comments in a private Facebook group mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and racial minorities. The newspaper reported that several group members said at least 10 people were told by Harvard in April that their acceptances had been withdrawn.

Comments

Seems reasonable.

[Guspaz]

Harvard is a private school, not a public school. Their call to reject students based on this sort of thing.

Re:Seems reasonable.

[cellocgw]

No, it doesn't say those things. It says if you're an asshole you're not welcome here.

To repeat what should have been bloody obvious to you: Who gets to define "asshole." ? Suppose a college withdraws acceptances for some kids who post that they put their faith in $DEITY over government, for example?

Re:Seems reasonable.

[computational super]

I think it's interesting (and telling) that nobody said "free speech", but these Antifa types have shown up almost immediately to remind us that we have only a very narrow constitutional right to "free speech" and that private institutions and businesses can do whatever they want, whenever they want, because they're not the government.

Re:Seems reasonable.

[x0ra]

No you can't. Go one way, you are antisemitic, and go the other way and you are racist / islamophobic.

Re:Seems reasonable.

[hey!]

I think the red flag here isn't bigotry, it's hazing. Prove you're extreme enough to join our in-group, then pressure others to do the same.

Toxic conformity produces all the ills bigotry does and then some, but with none of the sincerity. It's doing what you're told simply because you were told.

Bigotry, where it isn't tied to some kind of psychopathy, is mainly a matter of ignorance. You can educate people out of it. But the hazing mentality is refractory and self-perpetuating. The recent Penn hazing case shows that academically smart kids who are prone to act like irresponsible conformist idiots can't be fixed by anti-hazing policies and educational programs. They just have to grow out of it. Some people never do.

People who are susceptible to this kind of social pressure might even need a controlled form of supervised hazing, like boot camp.

Re:Seems reasonable.

[gnick]

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences

Um, yes, that's exactly what it means. That is, in fact, the definition.

If Randall disagrees, then I disagree too. I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.

Re:Seems reasonable.

[GLMDesigns]

That's true. But the point is - if Harvard can do what it wants because it's a private entity then why shouldn't the bar owner? Who should decide? The business (who chooses to cater to smokers) or the government?

Now, if you're arguing that it's the government's role, then the fact that Harvard is a private business is irrelevant.

If you're a libertarian, who believes in freedom and limiting government power then you would say that each of these businesses (Harvard, the bar and the bakery) can make their own choice.

Re:Seems reasonable.

[computational super]

Not that I agree with anything that these kids (allegedly) said or even that I disagree with what Harvard did... I find it very interesting, to say the least, that every time somebody is punished for expressing a thought, leftists appear seemingly out of the woodwork to remind us, before anybody even has a chance to contradict them, that the concept of freedom of speech "only applies to the government" (it doesn't, although the laws that enshrine it do) and that it doesn't matter anyway because you DID say it, so whatever happens afterward, you still had freedom of speech in the moment. This thread is at 212 comments now, and I count exactly 0 people suggesting that Harvard did the wrong thing, or that the free speech of these applicants was somehow abridged, but that hasn't stopped Antifa from coming in here and moralizing at us that Harvard did the right thing, and that even if it was the wrong thing, they were within their rights to do it because they weren't the United States government. To me it's mostly just funny, because if they succeed in getting the world that they want, the first group of people it will be used against is them - they laid the groundwork, for example, for Donald Trump's election by creating an imperial presidency and an activist supreme court.

Re:Private group?

[Jason Levine]

Be warned, millenials! Nothing is private on the interwebs.

This is pretty much Rule #1 of Internet use: No matter what you post, no matter how private the message or restricted the forum, assume that it WILL get out. If you wouldn't say this to your spouse, parents, siblings, relatives, boss, co-workers, etc, then you should seriously reconsider saying it online.