That’s what I find so ironic. With all due respect to the current generation of students and those shocked by their actions, the campus turmoil of the 60’s and 70’s was far, far worse.
Tensions were high and universities struggled mightily with these issues. The conclusion academia came to was embodied in the Woodward Report, which remains Yale’s official doctrine to this day.
Perhaps people should remember that in the 60’s many tried to deny Dr. King and those who marched with him their rights to free speech and free expression. The marchers at Selma were met with violence in an attempt to stop them from being heard.
But people of good faith everywhere, judge after judge, thundered down that, no matter how much people might disagree with the Selma marchers, they can NOT silence them. I hope people who today find it convenient to shut down expression they do not like will reflect on how history might view them.
@cobrat : I was trying to find some “hard data” to support my earlier claim that Yale is “notably liberal”, but couldn’t quite except a recent student survey I found by a quick googling - http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/5/freshman-survey-part-v/ (a comparison of the same survey from class 2018 of H and Y)
And I think a concern/complaint you may hear “nowadays” on Yale campus is that the conservatives don’t have an equal platform to speak as the liberals.
As in my mind’s eye I substitute two white, middle class freshmen for NC in the middle of the crowd in the Silliman courtyard I envision that this might have ignited an even bigger firestorm, a kind of black student/white student campus divide.
As to official responses from the school, if Yale punishes EC for responding what she says are student concerns about the original IAC email what does this say to the students who approached her with concerns? Would we expect them to ever feel safe voicing their opinions on matters of race and personal responsibility?
I am concerned, too. As I wrote earlier, I didn’t read it as anger so much as extreme distress. And I certainly didn’t think she looked threatening. Even if you think she was out of line, even if you think every college student has a responsibility to conduct themselves at all times as if they could end up on the international news, I think you must agree she has been punished more than enough.
Is it out of line for me to wonder if we could please discuss this without continuing to focus on her? Many of you posting have college age kids and I hope this never happens to one of yours. I am so glad no child of mine ever ended up in this situation and I feel for her. I don’t believe there was any excuse for that video being posted. And Harvest is absolutely correct that we can never unsee it.
That may have been an actual valid complaint when I was an undergrad at Oberlin or Antioch, another college where like Oberlin the campus culture was overwhelmingly dominated by radical left progressive activist students. Hey, I was there and expressed concerns when someone’s Dole '96 poster was ripped off someone’s door and tossed into a nearby trashbin.
However, when I hear the same at more mainstream campuses like Columbia where I not only frequently visit, but also took some graduate classes in, what I’m really seeing is the campus conservatives/libertarians decrying the fact their exercising free speech and behaviors/remarks of questionable taste/decency has provoked liberal and radical progressive left campus activists to exercise their own forms of free speech to criticize and protest them, in turn. In short, the campus conservatives/libertarian-right seem to want free speech without consequences or allowing the other side to exercise the same right in return.
It’s also ironic considering the campus conservatives/libertarian-right there aren’t shrinking violets, but quite proud and loudly vocal and active to the point of IME, getting far too in your face to their ideological opponents and even disinterested bystanders whose disinterest they seem to misinterpret as support for the other side much like some liberal/progressive radical left members. If anything, both groups seem pretty balanced out on the loudness/obnoxiousness scale from what I’ve seen.
When I hear the same at Yale as it is now or Harvard which I am much more familiar with, it makes me wonder whether they really had a point as with the Oberlin of my undergrad days or whether its more like what I saw at Columbia where they “can dish it out with gusto, but can’t take it” when their ideological opponents do likewise,
Not sure about that—Iʻm not a student, but was on campus for several years, and my feeling that while not probably equally divided, progressive thought was a tad more prevalent than those that bent towards ideological conservatism. That said, having been on several other campuses over the last 20 years, that also follows pattern of folks, who are in the 19-23 age demographic. I will say, I once sat on a George Will talk at Y, and it was very spirited and well attended at Yale, more so, than other speakers who would be classified as liberal–but that’s all anecdotal.
I’m not sure whether she has felt much punishment. If she, her family and friends, as well as other virtual supporters truly believe she was justified in her outburst due to our sad history of racism, then she may actually be feeling heroic at present for starting a campus debate and a national discussion. If she received threats, then that is certainly very punishing. However, is there official verification of that claim? In her mind, though, any threats would validate her status as a victim of white oppression, and thus she may be feeling vindicated in her position.
“there’s also this disconnection between what the school administration’s perception of the racial relationship on campus and how the students feel every day.”
It was a rude awakening for me when, in my 5th year at Harvard and third year as a law student, I joined the African-diaspora choir and met a lot of students who felt that Harvard was a gauntlet of exclusion and struggle. I had experienced it almost as a warm bath of acceptance – highly competitive, sure, but a place where I felt more understood than any other place I’d ever been. It seemed like pretty much everyone, not just me, had a supportive family of some kind on campus, and often more than one (their housemate group plus some team/choir/activity group). Remember, I was a junior transfer, and in that sense I came in at a huge disadvantage as far as finding a home. Yet for me, it was truly a safe space in the sense that Yale students use that term: a place where I never felt the need to hide any part of myself.
So it was awful seeing Harvard through these students’ eyes. A lot of them felt that they were constantly regulating how black or how honest they could be in any given environment. It was a life on eggshells, and the choir was one of the few places they could relax. I think about that a lot in the context of these debates. I could not begin to see the Harvard these students lived in. All I could do was listen to their description of what it was like.
But why should we want to “unsee” it @ahl? It’s reality. I am always grateful for video since we live in an age where everything is distorted to support individual agendas. I can see what transpired with my own eyes and draw my own conclusions.
The people who attend accepted students days are not necessarily the same as the ones who actually attend. The way students behave at these events is often quite different from the way they behave when they actually attend.
I have a lot of friends who are Yalies and know a fair number of kids who attended. None have made any observations similar to cobrat’s. (Not that my friends and hearsay bear any more weight than cobrats!)
In any event, wasn’t it Princeton that was the college that is full of preppy kids?
I should clarify that the evenness at least from my observations at Columbia was between the students inclined towards political activism for the conservative/libertarian-right and liberal/radical progressive-left. There was also a larger number of students who were either indifferent or wanted to have no part with either camp.
I agree there has been more support for progressive thought on more mainstream campuses and across US society, especially among many in the millennial generation in recent years.
However, I’ve also noticed an increasing trend of backlash from various right-leaning groups and individuals who “don’t want to be bothered to think about it” regarding the wider spread of progressive ideas regarding greater sensitivity towards URMs and other marginalized groups and if applicable, being mindful of one’s own privileges.
In fact, some of the posters on this very thread have underscored the degree of backlash such progressive ideas and their attempted implementation have prompted.
Regarding political leaning stereotypes and Ivies back when I was in HS and during part of my undergrad years, the ones regarded on the conservative preppy side were Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale in order from most conservative/preppy to less. UPenn, Columbia, and Cornell were somewhere in the middle, and Harvard and especially Brown were regarded as the most progressive liberal.
And HS classmates and friends with strong political leanings one way or another factored this in when applying/deciding whether to accept the admission offer. While a few opted for the school opposite their personal politics/ideology to play the gadfly role, most for whom political leanings were important chose to apply/accept admission to the ones which were the best fit for their leanings.
There is nothing to do, is there? If my white child had done something like that, I’d be appalled and embarrassed for her and for our family, and overwhelmingly furious at her actions. But given that we are the privileged, D would not have any historical excuse or sociological underpinnings for that rude behavior, so her situation would be totally different than that the girl in the video. No one would be rushing to her defense on a CC thread or in the media, or demanding the video be taken down to protect her. I’d expect that absolutely everyone would call her spoiled, entitled and obnoxious, if not worse. However, in light of national events in which people have expressed justifications for far worse behavior than screaming (eg. false testimony, rioting, looting, and burning), I am not certain if she is embarrassed or proud of her courage. I am not sure if her parents would be embarrassed, or would they be proud that their little girl spoke her mind and stood up to racism? You tell me!
The aspiring hardcore engineering/CS majors during my HS/undergrad years would have been much more likely to apply/choose Cornell, Princeton, or Columbia over Harvard as their engineering/CS departments were considered much stronger than Harvard’s back then.
