Undone by social media: Harvard rescinds admissions

You posed a good question, @roethlisburger and it would be a great hypo for a law school exam. As someone upthread mentioned, the remedies would be between the parties (not Harvard) and I guess they could structure them to compensate for the possibility of admission rescission. Hopefully during all of those TOS negotiations they would realize they shouldn’t be posting stuff like that in the first place.

@Hanna I’m still noodling your use of the word “snitch” in this situation. I agree that many times the “pleasure” of tattling is a motivator in these situations, but what if the “informer” was actually a little edgy, joined the subgroup, was surprised by the depths of the depravity of the memes and couldn’t live with him/herself if they let it go, knowing that the students who posted the worst memes may not be suited for the multicultural realities of life at Harvard at best, or pose a threat to others at worse? I agree it’s a stretch to think an 18 year old would contact the Harvard administration purely to protect Harvard from making a mistake by enrolling the others, but it’s a possibility. And “snitch” is such a loaded word. I just don’t know that “punishing” the individual who revealed the info to Harvard by labeling them a snitch (even anonymously) is fair.

Should the informer have removed themselves from the group and stayed silent? Wouldn’t that be condoning the inexcusable? I don’t know what the right answer is but it feels a little uncomfortable to me to label the informer a “snitch.”

“I see this as a violation of the code of conduct. Virtually every university has its own code of conduct regardless of whether it is a private university or a public university. I would not be surprised of a similar outcome if it occurred at UCB or any other major public university.”

Sometimes as an attorney who often works in the area of the First Amendment it frightens me how little people understand about their rights. If UCB or any public university did this they’d have a huge First Amendment problem on their hands. A “Code Of Conduct” doesn’t trump First Amendment rights. It’s the Code that gets thrown out, not the Constitution, if the two are in conflict. Period. Full Stop.

But isn’t disseminating images condoning rape or hate crimes against the law, in that advocating violence isn’t part of free speech? And isn’t it in violation of any university 's bylaws as well as responsibility (IE,.toward others ’ safety)?

We live in fly-over country as well, and Stanford and Berkeley are bigger pulls than the Ivies here.

“isn’t disseminating images condoning rape or hate crimes against the law, in that advocating violence isn’t part of free speech?”

No, it isn’t against the law. There may be circumstances where the government can choose to restrict it, but nothing here approaches illegal activity.

I did some research on “snitch” this morning, and “informant” is probably the best and most neutral term. But lawyers, including prosecutors and those whose clients benefit from the information, regularly use “snitch” in conversation to describe a co-conspirator or co-inmate who provides information to authorities. It doesn’t have to mean someone who acts from a selfish motivation, and I did not mean to suggest that I know this informant’s goals.

“Stanford always seems to lose out with cross-admits and they know it.”

This is not generally true in the Chicago area. Harvard’s admit yield around here is lower than its overall average, though I do not know if that’s true in this unusual year.

While there was clearly some offensive material in those memes, I have to be honest and say that 3 or 4 of the 8 went right over my head – I simply did not understand them. Another seemed sexual in nature rather than directed at any particular group. Then there was one that I assume was considered pornographic and thus actionable by the admissions committee. It was of a male in what appears to be a chastity belt and a mask. Not sure the meaning behind that one either.

A publication called The Tab still had them up as of early this morning.

If your Colorado and west, Stanford usually wins, if your east of Colorado, Harvard wins. Really its a geography thing.
Of course there are always exceptions.

"I did some research on “snitch” this morning, and “informant” is probably the best and most neutral term. "

How about “witness,” as in “a witness came forward with information?”

Who cares who prefers Stanford or Harvard?! It’s not relevant to this discussion.

This seems similar to the “marines united” group…

@Hanna

Hanna, where did you see that? I’m not being snarky. I’ve read several reports and all of them said that multiple people reported the posts to the Admissions Office. Some specifically said that a few different students took screen shots of posts they found offensive and emailed those to admissions. So, it seems probable that the Admissions Office received more than one offensive meme.So, the news articles I read said something entirely different from what you said had been “widely reported.”

Thank you, @Scipio – “witness” is exactly right. To use “snitch” or compare this to “Johnny didn’t color his homework right” (or whatever), is troubling. If I were a parent of an incoming Harvard frosh, I’d be relieved to know these folks were not sharing classes and dorms with my kid.

Without naming names, the Boston Globe is reporting that one of those whose admission was rescinded was the daughter of major donors to Harvard. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2017/06/05/harvard-revokes-admission-least-students-for-offensive-facebook-posts/kI0icc1doFDmWlg3T6dKCJ/story.html

It once was that McD’s would fire anyone who wore their uniform to a Wendy’s or BK or whatever. It wasn’t going to the other restaurant that was the problem, it was identifying as a McDonalds employee while doing so.

Whaddaya bet that had these kids not identified themselves as representing H - even in this casual way - there’d be no story.

People can and do leave jobs because of hostile environments and people do get fired for making a hostile environment.
This event is effectively both.

Students are not employees, I know, but there is some form of contractual relationship, in a social even if not in a strictly legal sense. Both the students and the U rely on each other to further their own image. These students broke that trust.

“But isn’t disseminating images condoning rape or hate crimes against the law, in that advocating violence isn’t part of free speech?”

No no no no. PLEASE learn more about your rights. Seriously. Hate Speech is NOT illegal.

As the Washington Post Free speech expert summarized : "I keep hearing about a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?”

But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans."

It’s not that us free speech advocartes love “hate speech”. Its that we are well aware of how easily the government could call things “hate speech” and how dangerous it is to democracy.

Nor is " advocating" violence an exception to the First amendment right to free speech. Only " inciting" violence is. And that exception is a very narrow. It only comes into play when someone has said something that will very likely (and this is important) IMMEDIATELY cause another to engage in violence. And example of clear incitement would be if someone says" look at the person standing there, he’s going To hurt you, you better stop him with a good swift punch!"

That is still snitching…look up the definition. Anytime someone tattles/snitches/reports/squeals on someone else’s behavior…The word doesn’t bother me but there are tons of synonyms that mean the same thing. The concept of an 18 year old protecting the glory of Harvard makes me giggle.

Here’s an easy test: tattling is telling on someone to get them into trouble and reporting is telling about something to help someone keep out of trouble. Which one do you think “sparked” Harvard’s actions? I know what my money is on…

I didn’t realize so many CC members held the code of omerta in such high regard.

@momofthreeboys I don’t think the informants were out to protect the glory of Harvard at all. When you see something truly offensive and disgusting you become alarmed and concerned for others, especially those who may be targets. I would not have discouraged my daughter from bringing memes like these to the attention of the school and wouldn’t have considered her a tattle tale of she did so. I wish we could send a message to kids that tolerance is something to work hard on.

According to the article, the offending FB subgroup was created in December, so the administrators were probably Early Decision admits. That means they had committed to Harvard, and would not have any backup colleges to accept invitations from. I suspect that others among the small group had already notified colleges that they would not be accepting their invitations, and that most of the colleges they passed on were highly selective ones with extensive waiting lists and no need to accommodate those who call them frantically asking if spaces are still available.
Harvard is a fabulously wealthy institution, furthermore, and so some of the rescinded students might not be able to secure financial aid packages that are as generous as those Harvard offers.
Gap years are probably the best option for the rescinded students. It’s safe to assume that they all had superb high school accomplishments, and will be able to get into other colleges easily next year. It is not so safe to presume that they will get into Stanford, Yale, or Princeton, however. They would probably be well-advised to skip any highly-selective colleges they applied to, and subsequently turned down, this year. Everyone knows what happened, and a new application could easily raise a red flag, despite all the bromides about confidentiality.

H is SCEA, not ED. If 84% of kids in SCEA choose H as the others nine of the ten of these kids would probably not have applied other schools.