Harvard Gift- rescinded!!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
41

<p>because i don't really believe our political differences will ever be reconciled, i'll leave that alone and focus primarily on political correctness.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Yes, it absolutely is..if its a private setting. Those terms can be stretched to fit anything. If you are constructing a new house, are you going to hire a 6'2'' man who weighs 200 lbs or a 5'0'' woman who weighs a hundred? Isn't that 'gender bias'? Those two terms are just strawmen for you to justify PC.

[/quote]
you know full well that that isn't the context in which PC is invoked. it deals exclusively with linguistics and phraseology. institutional discrimination is something entirely different.

[quote]

Define hateful. A swastika means two different things to a Jew and a Buddhist. A white hood means two different things in Italy and the South...People are offended by different things. You cannot sacrifice free speech by trying to please everyone.

[/quote]
just because it's hard to draw a bright line doesn't mean that we shouldn't do so. in american universities, we can make these kinds of distinctions because most people don't interpret signs and symbols in the context of italian culture or buddhist symbolism. the alternative is to let some be subjugated by oppressive linguistic norms.

[quote]
Wrong. Political correctness is social engineering by liberals who want to dictate what you can say and can't say. In current times, who exactly is a hated minority?

[/quote]
non-responsive to my argument. you're just reasserting your belief that PC = social engineering without responding to my statement that speech can shape thought and exclude some from discourse.</p>

<p>wrt to your question "who is a hated minority?", i have the same response as before: just because it's difficult to come up with comprehensive rules doesn't mean that we should give up. while we can never completely protect everyone from linguistic bigotry, we should aim to protect as many as possible.</p>

<p>as an aside, you might be interested in doing some reading about the sapir-whorf hypothesis. while few subscribe to the hypothesis in its entirety, moderate forms of the hypothesis provide a perfectly compelling reason to believe that our language can affect others in profound ways.</p>

42

<p>Beatiful threadjack, Pig.</p>

<p>Cosar-Ellison's gift has been reported as unrelated to his $100 million insider trading forced donation.</p>

43

<p>ok for those people that think guantanamo is ok. As a person not from the US let me tell you how much of a hypocresy that is. u guys are destroying any image that u ever had in alot of countries.</p>

44

<p>I'm not from the US either mate. For Americans to war any war, world opinions be damned. They are totally irrevelant. Other countries are generally jealous of the power, wealth, etc, the US has. But do share where you are from serge.</p>

45

<p>forget<em>me</em>not. ;-)</p>

46

<p>I am from colombia. i dont think the issues lies in envy at all. a worldleader should verliy care abut world opinions if it doenst want to be accused of ethnocentricism. guantanamo violates things the US claims to espouse. I dont think other countries have an issue because they envy, many countries dont envy much about it and see the US society as declining in morals and other things. it has something to do with the rights every person has. denying habeas corpus for all this people and calling them terrorists and then release them years after after finding no evidence to charge them. who knows all the abuses going on in thta place.</p>

47

<p>If there are such big problems at Harvard, I'm sure nobody would mind if you went to BJU instead.</p>

48

<p>
[quote]
I am from colombia. i dont think the issues lies in envy at all.

[/quote]

Right...Name just one European or South American country that can even hope to match the US in terms of military or economy.

[quote]
a worldleader should verliy care abut world opinions if it doenst want to be accused of ethnocentricism

[/quote]

Sorry I don't quite follow your reasoning. Is ethnocentrism a strawman for doing whats in the best interest of the US? Face it, without the US, South America be European colonies (or at least protectorates or heavily reliant) for much longer than they were. The US should discard 'world opinions' if they come from the likes of Chiraq or Musharraf or Chavez, etc...When your house is being attacked, you don't go around taking a consensus in your neighborhood whether to take any action or not.</p>

<p>
[quote]
guantanamo violates things the US claims to espouse.

[/quote]

What things specifically?

[quote]
I dont think other countries have an issue because they envy, many countries dont envy much about it and see the US society as declining in morals and other things.

[/quote]

Declining in morals? Really? How do you define morals and do point out a few examples of how we are declining in morals. </p>

<p>
[quote]
it has something to do with the rights every person has. denying habeas corpus for all this people and calling them terrorists and then release them years after after finding no evidence to charge them. who knows all the abuses going on in thta place.

[/quote]

Released prisoners eh? Like Abdullah Mehsud, who joined the Talibal after his release? Like Airat Vakhitov and
Rustam Akhmyarov who were later arrested by Russian authorities? Or maybe Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar who joined the Taliban shortly after his release. As for habeus corpus, that right is given to the citizens of the United States. As far as my knowledge goes, the released detainees were from UK an Afganistan mainly.</p>

49

<p>
[quote]
Right...Name just one European or South American country that can even hope to match the US in terms of military or economy.

[/quote]
might doesn't make right. justice isn't just the will of the powerful. even if european and south american countries are weak compared to the US, that doesn't mean we should ignore them.

[quote]
Sorry I don't quite follow your reasoning. Is ethnocentrism a strawman for doing whats in the best interest of the US? Face it, without the US, South America be European colonies (or at least protectorates or heavily reliant) for much longer than they were.

[/quote]
ahahahahahahaahaha</p>

<p>hahahaaahahhahahaha</p>

<p>hahahahahahaahahaaaaaa</p>

<p>have you heard of the samozas in nicaragua? pinochet in chile? banzer in bolivia? noriega in panama? videla in argentina? batista in cuba? trujillo in the dominican republic? the list goes on.</p>

<p>south america had independent democracies just fine, thank you very much, until the united states started supporting military dictatorships to supplant their economic interests. learn some history and then get back to me.

[quote]
The US should discard 'world opinions' if they come from the likes of Chiraq or Musharraf or Chavez, etc...When your house is being attacked, you don't go around taking a consensus in your neighborhood whether to take any action or not.

[/quote]
i wonder how we would know if the people detained at guantanamo have ties with terrorist activities against the united states if we never give them a trial, hmm? and more fundamentally, is vigilante justice really all that good? just because we were attacked doesn't mean we have the right to stomp all over whoever we think is responsible.

[quote]
What things specifically?

[/quote]
the right to habeas corpus, the right to not be tortured, the right to know the charges being pressed against onesself, the right to basic civil liberties.<br>

[quote]
Declining in morals? Really? How do you define morals and do point out a few examples of how we are declining in morals.

[/quote]

i don't think guantanamo and the international outcry is about America's moral decay, so i'll leave this one alone.

[quote]
Released prisoners eh? Like Abdullah Mehsud, who joined the Talibal after his release? Like Airat Vakhitov and
Rustam Akhmyarov who were later arrested by Russian authorities? Or maybe Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar who joined the Taliban shortly after his release.

[/quote]
you're confusing cause and effect. after we imprison innocents for years with no evidence, is it really all that surprising that they wouldn't look on America with negative feeling? guantanamo is basically galvanizing extremist movements by giving them more rhetorical firepower. it's easy to understand their outrage when things like abu ghraib and guantanamo and the recent slaying of innocent iraqis continue to be perpetuated.

[quote]
As for habeus corpus, that right is given to the citizens of the United States. As far as my knowledge goes, the released detainees were from UK an Afganistan mainly.

[/quote]
now you're just being pedantic. i don't think there's anyone who seriously thinks that habeas corpus is a privilege, not a right, regardless of where our laws begin and end.</p>

<p>as a general comment to all you jingoistic war-hawks: just because it's difficult to carry out justice during war time doesn't mean that we should give up on doing so. no one ever said acting correctly was convenient, but it's certainly our obligation, no matter what our enemies do. two wrongs don't make a right.</p>

50

<p>i think iloveagoodbrew's post was perhaps the most ignorant thing i have ever read.</p>

<p>"oh you're not jealous of us, eh? but we've got a stronger economy and military!"</p>

<p>you're just an idiot. i can't wait for china's economy to overtake the US's (shouldn't be more than a decade to go now...), and as for your military? ok, so its huge and has fantastic resources. however, its poorly trained, inexperienced, and i think that iraq and afghanistan show how quickly the US army can be stretched to breaking point. there's nothing george bush would like more than to invade iran right now, but the US just doesn't have the resources. bush has lead his country down a narrow alley that it is desperately trying to get itself out of now - unfortunately, by idiotically invading afghanistan and iraq the US has a moral obligation to stick around until some sort of order emerges from the wreckage. the army is totally impotent and contained now.</p>

<p>and what was your justification for invading iraq anyway? it sure wasn't WMDs. so you fall back on "sadam was a madman!" or, "he tried to kill my dad!". what about all those other dictatorships all over the world that the US not only endures, but many of them it actually supports/maintains. talk about double standards.</p>

<p>i think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the US doesn't support the notion of habeas corpus. i quote 'to kill a mockingbird' - if there's one thing man should be guaranteed, it's a fair trial. and if you're seriously suggesting that the US doesn't support this, then it's basically it doesn't even assert half of what it supposedly stands for, and tries to impose, forcefully, on others. of course, through gitmo, abu graibh and countless other breaches of its own statute, the US proves itself to completely ignore its own values right at the highest level.</p>

<p>i think i went off the point there several times, but you get the general idea.</p>

51

<p>Cheers to Ellison. Someone has to stand up to those politically correct scumbags for organizing a witch hunt against Summers</p>

<p>It's not really about political correctness, it's the ignorance that he displays with his incendiary remarks that reveal that he really doesn't have a basic understanding of human biology, psychology, sociology, etc., and his background in the ivory tower and as an economist has shaped his obviously limited worldview, partly due to his isolation. Obviously, his comments about women in science (among several other things) is telling to that end. Women aren't "naturally" less capable scientists; the difference in the number of women in scientific fields in the American context (the divide often isn't the same in many other countries, and is in some instances flip-flopped) is primarily due to social and cultural constructs in the U.S. Regardless, he's not a good diplomat and he doesn't no how to interact with a wide variety of different people that have different views and different backgrounds - which is a crucial ability to have as a president of a major research university like Harvard. He has also forced some pretty important intellectuals to leave, which isn't good for the academic environment for undergraduate or graduate students. In general, he's great for the competition, and that was the problem.</p>

52

<p>davida1, who is the person with the unlimited worldview? Is summer's really more limited than any other person in a similar position, than what any other person could expect of him?</p>

<p>His comments about the biological differences between the sexes and its effect on science were overblown and very indefinite. They caused extreme over reaction, particularly in general media. How many intellectuals did he "force" to leave? Most prominently, the head of the African American studies department who he proded into publishing something, but what other cases were there?</p>

<p>I don't know how poor he was for the Harvard undergrads. He seemed to try to shift more focus onto them and improve what the university offered to them. In fact, many supported him, and I believe a few polls showed they overwhelmingly did so near when he announced his retirement.</p>

53

<p>Cornell West is a first rate scumbag. Not only did he hand out As for everyone, he wasted his time making crappy rap music and writing books that even a liberal publication like the New Republic called totally useless.</p>

54

<p>People seem unable dispassionately to absorb what Summers said. Look at it this way: in a bell curve of people's intelligence, both the top .01% (often scientists) and the non-retarded bottom .01% (often criminals) are disproportionately men. Is it biological or social? I would guess it is mostly social, but how STUPID to criticize Summers for suggesting it might be biological and should be looked at!</p>

55

<p>"Cornell West is a first rate scumbag. Not only did he hand out As for everyone, he wasted his time making crappy rap music and writing books that even a liberal publication like the New Republic called totally useless."</p>

<p>a little background: cornel (one "l") west graduated magna cum laude from harvard in just three years, earned a ph.d. at princeton, his dissertation for which was later published, and has since taught at H, Y, <em>and</em> P. harvard, before its change in leadership to the impossibly tactless larry summers, made west one of its dozen or so institution-wide "university professors," its highest faculty honor. as for west's books, "race matters" was a big-time bestseller and continues to sell well. on a more scholarly measure, he's currently the highest ranking black male scholar in the google books database (higher even than harvard's skip gates) and one of the ten most-cited in google scholar. not surprisingly, many at harvard would like to have him back (see link # 4).</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index040606_p.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index040606_p.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index033006_p.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index033006_p.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/06/some_seek_a_scholars_return/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/06/some_seek_a_scholars_return/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"While West taught the introductory course Af-Am 10, “Introduction to Afro-American Studies,” the class saw enrollments of 584 in the 2001 and 316 in 1999. Today, the course enrollment has plummeted to 17 students under the auspices of Professor of Government Michael C. Dawson and Professor of African and African American Studies Evelynn M. Hammonds."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502418%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502418&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

56

<p>Yea very impressive..Here is a quote by that fool</p>

<p>"Although most people don't know chickens as well as they know cats and dogs, chickens are interesting individuals with personalities and interests every bit as developed as the dogs and cats with whom many of us share our lives"</p>

<p>Chickens are interesting inviduals. Even Hillary Clinton wouldn't say something this retarded. Only in American academia can idiots of this caliber survive with a six figure salary.</p>

57

<p>wow, i don't think i can even stomach arguing with iloveagoodbrew anymore.</p>

<p>disagreeing with cornel west is fine, but labeling him an uneducated scumbag fool is just too much.</p>

58

<p>How can anyone in their right mind be compelled to give to Harvard when their donation would be a rounding error merely in comparison to the returns Harvard gets on their own existing endowment?</p>

<p>It's particuarly absurd when people balyhooing themselves as "progressive" perform such a financial stunt akin to the "tax-cuts-for-the-rich" they so proclaim to detest.</p>

<p>Okay, it's probably not akin to it; it's much worse.</p>

59

<p>yea goodbrew....im just speechless about ur "ur jealous about our military and might" as if that is what makes a country great. maybe u should visit other countries and see that greatness can be achieved without being all over everybodies business (switzerland, the nordic countries, etc) and that these people are not concern with military and those countries opinions are not controlled by demagogy and justify all their deeds in the name of patriotism. you talk about freedom here and everything but in reality the oppression is made less odious on the many and far more onerous on the few. the US violates what it claims to stand for. habeas corpus is not something is not a privilege, it is a right everybody has. when u start taking away peoples rights like that and lose standards of freedom then more things are to follow are they have like the phone spying and all those things. tell me if the other civilized countries are doing this? NO. and why is the country that has been the only one to detonate a nuclear bomb on civilians so worried about others having nuclear bombs and rapaciously taking other countries soverignty away?</p>

60

<p>how about this country was the one that ended a war that would have otherwise eliminated a whole race of people from the earth. Next time you criticize the US, remeber that without us you probably would not have the ability to use free speech or live in a democracy. Secondly, as for being from Columbia, the leaders of your revolution from Spain were inspired by the American Revolution. As for the military, without the US military you would most likely be langushing under oppression and extermination (i.e. the Nazis would have won). Next time you want to make a comment make sure you are not biting that hand that has fed you along with rest of the world.</p>