Which MIGHT be the case if these idiots had sung this song on the quad as AA students walked by, or stood outside an AA sorority house and sang this song or specifically targeted an AA group in some public manner. But it did NOT happen that way, they were inside a bus being jerks but with no intent that AAs would ever see it or know about it. It was in no way a credible threat, much less was it “highly threatening.”
Uh, if something doesn’t meet the legal definition, that DOES matter.
And the fact you’re expending much effort defending two students from the dominant majority who have admitted they participated in a chant which can be reasonably viewed as creating a threatening hostile environment by the targeted marginalized group underscores the level of tone-deafness in terms of priorities you and others defending threatening speech which creates a hostile educational environment for such marginalized groups.
Bad enough to defend students with racist attitudes…worse if the racism displayed also references a murderous threat which most AAs…especially in regions like Oklahoma historically understood all too well.
Its one thing to defend those who are making intellectual challenges to arguments where there are reasonable differences.
It’s another to defend what’s essentially which not only has no redeeming educational value, but behaviors which underscores the students’ and fraternity’s history of encouraging behaviors which create a hostile environment for AAs and other marginalized groups:
As for the legal definition, that hasn’t been decided yet as unless there’s news to the contrary…they/their families have yet to launch a suit challenging their expulsion.
Hold on there. I have never defended these idiots. NOT ONCE. You are now stepping over the line. I don’t defend racists, but I sure understand the First Amendment protects all kinds of speech I find abhorrent. We are not talking about a private school or a private work environment, we are talking about students at a PUBLIC university. And saying that their despicable chant said within the confines of a hired bus could be “reasonably viewed as creating a hostile environment” over and over does NOT make it true. There was NO credible threat ever exposed in this incident, and you know it.There was no intent to subject any AA to this chant, and you know it. There was no indication whatsoever that this group of men meant for any AA to hear their speech and create fear or a hostile environment for them, and you know it. You would just like the First Amendment to NOT apply to speech you find repugnant, and you will try to twist any speech you dislike in order to to censor it, which is a damn slippery slope. I for one am totally for such individuals stating these views freely so that they can be exposed for being the racist jerks they are. I don’t feel sorry for them at all that they were exposed. But I do not pretend that these guys were fomenting a plot to lynch AAs or create the fear in them they were plotting to do so in order to advance my agenda.
That’s because they were never actually expelled. As I understand it, they agreed to withdraw.
"Thank you for footnoting this. None of us would have ever known that there was lynching, esp in the south, if it weren’t for these careful footnotes.
Partially because the comments emphasizing “free speech” rights keep eliding over the issue that due to such historical factors which stretch into recent historical memory for many AAs"
Whoosh, right over your head!
"And the fact you’re expending much effort defending two students from the dominant majority who have admitted they participated in a chant "
How dare you. Nrdsb was NOT “defending” them. She was merely stating that their behavior does not rise to the level of creating a hostile environment - an opinion shared by actual lawyers, not just people-who-think-they-know-it-all. You owe her an apology, big time.
Then it’s a moot point as they voluntarily agreed to withdraw in the fact of outrage which would reasonably be considered a natural consequence of their wrongful behaviors and the latent racially hostile attitudes such behaviors could reasonably be considered to denote by those targeted in such a chant.
With the exception of the death threats the withdrawn students received…the outrage from the campus community and administration which prompted them to withdraw is a natural consequence of the campus community and administration exercising their own free speech and in the latter case…the need to maintain a campus environment which isn’t seen as condoning racist behaviors and attitudes which creates a hostile environment for AAs and other marginalized groups…especially considering the recent history lynchings in that region of the country.
It’s not a moot point at all with regard to them challenging the constitutionality of expulsion if they were not in fact expelled. I have no problem with outrage causing them to withdraw in shame. I have no problem with the frat closing the chapter or expelling members who break their code of ethics. I have no problem with them receiving censure (not legal censorship) from fellow students. I would have a problem with a publicly funded university expelling them for objectional speech made within the confines of a hired bus on the way to a private function. THAT is the slippery slope, and many lawyers who are not racists have argued the same thing.
Post #1600: “My observation is that those who succeed and ultimately gain access to power, are most often those with an exceptional work ethic, a well developed skill set and an ability to get along with colleagues and clients. The fact that this group is currently disproportionately represented by white males is not particularly surprising to me - they have been at it much longer than women and minorities…”
As a way to explain why white men control the halls of power, there’s two ways to interpret the above statement. But neither makes sense.
One interpretation is white men have genetic material that bestows upon them “exceptional work ethic, well-developed skill set and ability to get along.” If that is the case, why wouldn’t powerful men also be passing these genes to their daughters? Well, it’s 2015. Women have been in the workforce for two, three generations in some industries, plying their work ethic, skills and ability to get along. If hard work, skill and ‘ability to get along’ were genetic, the number of women in power should be roughly equal to those of men by now. But that is not the case.
The other interpretation is that ‘exceptional work ethic, well-developed skills and ability to get along,’ are learned behaviors. This can only make sense if you believe, erroneously, that successive generations of white men learned these behaviors faster/better than women or minorities, and continue to do so to this day.
For sure, losing your temper in the workplace is not a career-enhancing move for most people. But the existence of ill-tempered people in the upper echelon proves that not having the “ability to get along” won’t keep you from moving up. I bet many of us can name any number of jerks who can’t get along with anyone but manage to get promoted anyway. I hate that they get away with it. Unfortunately for everyone, hard work, skills and ability to get along alone just doesn’t cut it. You have to have luck and pluck, too. It really is not what you know but who you know.
Most of us posters do not know the Yale student personally. It is presumptuous for strangers to use one episode to judge her character. I don’t think its wise to paint an entire demographic with the same broad brush, which is where this thread keeps going back to.
And it shifts the discussion away from racism on college campuses. Is that coincidental?
Harvestmoon:
Crenshaw:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/
I read the same concerns in your quotes.
Frankly, I am getting very sick of the “dominant majority” rhetoric. It just doesn’t hold true where I live with regard to educational success and access to the job market, since it is actually two minority groups rather than whites who are dominant here. Secondly, both of my older children are job hunting. Perhaps their field is more meritocratic, but they always have to complete a complex project or two for the company with whom they are interviewing as part of the selection process. Frankly, the employer is interested in learning if you can do the work and are a decent, well-adjusted person who is not going to cause them trouble. Other than that, we live in the 21st century and skin color is irrelevant. If that were not the case, we would not have so many Indian and Chinese people entering the country with work visas. Despite the terrorism situation, I see that the number of Muslim immigrants is also increasing by leaps and bounds where I live. I see them at the mall driving SUV’s and dressing well, so I assume they have found gainful employment here. African Americans with good skills are a hot commodity, if for no other reason than that larger companies need to show ethnic balance. The issue, IMO, is no longer prejudice per se as much as other societal factors like poverty and bad urban schools. Yes, I know that that has roots in historical prejudice, but the browning of America means skin color plays less and less a role.
What I have noticed when talking to AA friends is that, counter to demographic realities, they seem expect their numbers to closely approximate that of whites in top positions, if for no other reason than for the country to make reparations. One well-educated friend was complaining about the AA representation in a group we belong to. I pointed out that the percentage of AA’s in the organization was actually a good bit higher than that of the AA population percentage in the US. She remained dissatisfied. Our country has shown itself quite willing to entrust very important jobs in government to AA’s who have the goods. But as was repeatedly stated during the Ferguson talks about the police force, the city can’t hire AA’s if they don’t complete the training and apply.
Agreed. Nothing to do with either of those. The issue is the reaction is out of kilter with the actual situation. Given the reaction, you would think something serious happened to her personally when it was nothing of the sort.
And her concept that Yale should be providing a home for students rubs a lot of people as totally misguided. She seems to have expected the same coddling and support she got at home from Yale. Ah, no. I am in my 50s and I do not recall anyone every thinking that our colleges or grad schools were meant to be like a home. In fact, we were thrilled that they were not.
And the story would also have been very different, which is one reason I do not trust the mainstream media much. I read for facts and just ignore their opinions.
If this was mainstream media footage, the accompanying story would have been about the braveness of Yale student protesters to confront injustice, racism, and inequality at Yale and or some unrelated big theme. When in fact the situation had nothing to so with that - it had to do with some students deciding and getting angry that someone MIGHT offend in the future with a halloween costume that they get to decide if it is offensive or not and that it was the duty of others to read their minds and to protect them from this non-existent offense. In short, the entire thing was 100% conjecture.
As an analogy to how the media operates, I saw a story about a Trump rally. The story of the rally really was he had the biggest crowd ever in that area, some 20,000+ people. But that was not the lead in the mainstream media. The lead was the supposed throng of protestors who came out to against him. Well, that read fine until one saw the news footage. There were less than 50 protestors and nary a wimpy they were making - just carrying signs and barely audible in what they were saying. Pretty much right up there with Chris Matthews on MSNBC who declared two nights ago that “There are no mass shootings in France or other European countries” even though we have all seen the footage of Charlie Hebdo and the most recent one; both within the last 9 months.
My point - news stories and footage are often not in sync because of larger biased agendas, and I suspect the same would have happened here with this Yale story.
When I was there and got these silly arguments about the number of AAs in the company etc., I would simply forward my name, email, a list of all open jobs, and say to send their applications straight to me, the very top guy. Well, never got one back, not one. So what the heck was the complaint about, as I was not dumbing down my standards to hire anyone? Their loss, not mine, I sent the relevant application info. My job was to hire and direct people to do a job, not to placate people who are living in the past. Even the government learned to leave us alone.
awc: This has been all over mainstream media the last weeks. If you find time to read and investigate the events at Yale, I would appreciate any cites to articles supporting the Yale protesters. I have had difficulty finding any. Thanks in advance.
The bus incident was brought up in this thread due to the argument that the video of the girl in the quad should not have been released and she did not deserve to be criticized for her actions. In the bus case, someone videoed the boys singing, without their knowledge or agreement, and due to the release of the video, they were shamed for being racist and ended up leaving the school. Many would argue they deserved that result because of the hateful and racist song they sang. It is protected speech, especially since it was not directed at an individual or group on the bus. That doesn’t make it right or mean that they (and the frat overall) were protected from the consequences of their song. It also doesn’t mean that every member of that frat or every kid on that bus agreed with the song or is racist, but they certainly deserved the negative attention by not speaking out against the song.
In the same way, the video taken of the girl yelling at NC painted her in a bad light. She clearly was frustrated and angry that the group was not getting the results they wanted. Alh: you seem to suggest that Lukianoff was wrong to videotape this. He was quoted as stating he was videoing to protect NC in case anything happened. Others were videoing as well. Quite likely this would have gotten out even if L had not released it. Of course he used it to support his position. However, I have seen very little (beyond some initial outrage) stating that he violated Yale policies. I think the fact that others were also taping and nobody stopped them makes that argument more difficult.
In both cases, students were videotaped doing things that were objectionable (to me, the song is much worse than losing one’s temper). I just don’t see how you can support one instance as uncovering a wrong and the other as an unfair portrayal. Both happened, both were caught on tape and both were released to a wider audience with consequences.
Perhaps what confuses a lot of people is that they don’t realize that Yale makes a point of portraying itself as providing a home-like atmosphere for students in the residential colleges. Anybody who doesn’t like that idea probably should not go to Yale. I think it’s appropriate for a student to say (if it’s true): “Hey, Yale, you supposedly provide a home-like atmosphere; how come it’s not so home-like for minority students?” I think it’s too bad the student lost her temper, and I think some of the demands were over the top, but I note that Salovey responded to them in a serious and adult manner, and recognized that some changes would be helpful.
As to the videotapes, I guess I don’t mind too much that people caught doing bad things on tape are criticized. But I do object to them being crucified.
I am not comparing this to boys on a bus. I am not particularly interested in the various free speech arguments. Lukianoff could have written his story about PC gone wild at Yale without that video. It isn’t necessary for his defense of free speech. I keep referring to Yale policies to show he knew what he was doing crossed a line. Whether others crossed lines has nothing to do with my perception of Lukianoff’s actions. For me, that is beside the point.
Here is the reason for my outrage. Someone in the business of shaping public opinion took video of a student and used it for self-promotion, at her expense. This was deliberate. I would not want someone to do this to my child. His goal could have been accomplished without damaging individual students. I think Hunt suggested that maybe his behavior wasn’t very nice. Even if he had the right to do it, which I don’t believe, I find it extremely questionable behavior.
Taking the video to protect his friend might make sense to me, if he had kept it private unless it was needed. He did not.
Personally, I find his actions at Yale extremely distasteful. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his politics or free speech agenda. I spend a lot of time among self-promoters and that personality trait doesn’t particularly bother me. However, I am offended by exploiting others for self-advancement.
adding: With any luck, this makes my position clear. Obviously I’m in a minority in my view, both on this board and even in mainstream media.
I really don’t believe I took a stand on the boys on the bus. Since my memory isn’t that great, anything is possible.
@alh, it wasn’t you who supported one instance as uncovering a wrong and the other an unfair portrayal.
Anything is possible, but could you please show me where because I honestly don’t remember it.
adding: I’m not sure I understood post #1638. I was reading it as a question not a statement. Also, I was reading everything in mom2ands post, after my name, as addressed to me.