The issue I believe is not even the yelling; it was the nonsense being said.
Thank God for the First Amendment that allowed for these students to make public their extreme positions of what they believe. And I use extreme on purpose. For example, it is extreme for that Princeton female to say that “All of this [Princeton} is all mine.” Delusional. And in 2015 to be asking for separate but equal housing, as a way to foster equality. Delusional. Demanding what amounts to forced re-education camps to teach non-white students how to act and what not to say around them around them. Delusional. Etc.
I recall a poster pointing out that Amherst offers affinity housing. However, I do believe Amherst’s affinity housing has been there for some 50 to 60 years. It is nothing new. And credit to Amherst, that house is marketed to students as a multicultural house where latino students etc. and even white students can apply to be part of the house, and they have. Therefore, I see this very different than what the Princeton students are asking for.
awcntb the princeton students did not ask for separate but equal housing. They asked for affinity housing. You may want to check your facts. They also never asked for forced re education camps to teach non white students how to act
That must mean I have a split personality, because I don’t ever remember protesting in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic and hurling insults at the women that enter. In fact, I don’t even know where the nearest one is, but maybe my alter ego knows.
Or, perhaps more likely, the problem is that it doesn’t occur to you that rational people could have an opinion that differs markedly from yours.
Are you assuming that the rest of the world is as bad at negotiating as the President of Princeton? Here’s a useful hint for you–people who negotiate that badly in the real world tend to get fired and quickly. Stanford’s President showed the proper stance with students that took over his office. They were told to leave or face disciplinary charges.
I have no special love for Wilson, or Princeton but I am disappointed that the BJL’s “bullying tactics” worked, specially because it violated so many other stakeholder’s legitimate rights also. And yes if you also think that I am not genuinely concerned about Freedom of Speech on campus, then you need to change your sensors too, because that is my concern here.
I am worried it sets a very bad precedent for resolving other contentious issues on campus, where the group with the biggest bull horn and the one that makes the most noise will shame others into silence and get their way. The folks who see nothing wrong with how the BJL conducted themselves will rue the day when some other extreme group uses the same tactics to push an agenda through that they may not agree with. This kind of behavior is wrong whatever the issue is. When one group can bull doze its way and hoist its views on others, another group will try the same. If we allow one group to get away with it, tomorrow ten others will adopt the same tactics.
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Well words are just words, right? That doesn’t strike me as bullying at all. They began a negotiation with requests (phrased as “demands” - to be real demands I’d say there needs to be a specific “or else”), the school countered by meeting some and not others, and the negotiation goes on.
I don’t get what’s bullying or inappropriate about that.
I saw a very sharp statement somewhere that said about liberals and progressives. They believe different opinion = hate speech = violence.
In contrast, when BlackLivesMatter protestors shout: “Pigs in a blanket; Fry them up like bacon” that is freedom of speech and does not mean anything and does not lead to violence against police. Yeah, right.
There are endless examples of this double standard and when it gets real rough libs resort to the argument that all groups have their fringe members and they are not responsible or all members. However, somehow conservative groups must be responsible for all their fringe members.
Are the BJLs tactics so much different from the freedom caucus or the tea partiers. How about the member of congress who screamed Liar at the president during the state of the union. I guess it is annoying to some posters in this thread when the BJL uses the same playbook for groups that they like. Now that is the double standard in full force
When I said they challenged his view points, I did not just mean that short out-of-context viral video that has been circulating the internet, used by people to support their perceptions that the young generation is “coddled” and that free speech is threatened and everyone on “liberal” campuses are indoctrinated robots. There are additional narratives which I cannot find at the moment, in which students claimed to have made attempts to discuss the issue with both the Christakis and have been rebuffed. I am not going to assume ab initio that this situation is a clear case of right and wrong. That Christakis is the victim and the students are the bully.
I very strongly disagree that the protesters were attempting to invalidate his right to have an opinion. There is a power differential as well as a dichotomy in experiences here that needs to be acknowledged. This is not just an abstract debate where there are no vested parties. His opinion as an administrator carries weight and influences their experiences within that residential college.
For the girl who screamed, I understand her viewpoint and there is relevance in her actions. It shows frustration at her personal experiences not being heard. The students are the one who have to deal with the practical issue of his argument. Christakis can of course write within the confines and protection of academia, and argue in the abstract about the importance of civil liberties. He just doesn’t have to deal with it.
I wouldn’t go that far with capitalists in general. Just the extreme laissez faire ones who feel there’s nothing wrong with legalizing effective large scale bribery.
Interestingly, this is definitely a conservative perspective as it’s bringing US politics back to the unsavory ways it was practiced before the late 19th/early 20th century when large scale bribes/patronage was openly practiced and approved of by many in the political establishment.
Heck, some of the same folks I’ve read making such arguments also advocate going back to the days when voting rights were limited to landowners owning a minimum amount of land taxable at a rate which was only sustainable for upper-class or the higher echelons of the upper-middle classes*. Arguments in favor of that boil down to the idea that non-landowners and those with landholdings below that minimum threshold supposedly don’t have a real stake in the country.
