A couple of things. One I think we unfairly expect more from ivy students, these are college kids and they are overreacting like college kids do. I think the whole it’s Yale makes it seem both more surprising than it should be, years ago when I was in college I was in my student government and this sort of thing happens.
I think this growing sensitivity movement is dividing students by ethnicity much more than it is bringing them together. Joking about ethnic backgrounds, in somewhat offensive ways via costumes or jokes of what have you while in the past it was mocking was more recently when I was their age (I’m in my late 20s), how you knew oh, we are kind of okay with another.
What we are seeing is kids now are raised in a society that in adulthood and even school people will get fired, sued etc… for insensitivity. People in their early 20s are on a hair trigger and being offended is rewarded. These kids are just doing exactly what they’ve told they are supposed to do.
I think if Ivy League schools want to say they are the best and brightest, they should live up to it, otherwise don’t put yourself on a pedestal.
Ivies are different from a place like Cal Tech - which just skims from the top regardless of anything. A place like Yale wants to go on and on about how they are creating leaders - and they are (2 of the top three current presidential candidates are Yale graduates), so if they don’t live up to that they should be called on it.
They are creating leaders but most of it is kids who were focused at whatever from pretty early on or have a compelling story. Any college that was just in the buisness of leaders, wouldn’t have enough applicants every year. Some students want to be support staff, behind the scenes people for someone else, or just study and research some field. Plenty are still finding themselves and being obnoxious is something young adults do when doing that.
They have some of the best and brightest but they also have fairly competent driven people who have all the hang ups of young people their age. I bet allot will cringe at themselves when they are older, just like any one would at their college self.
Are the professors upset?
[QUOTE=Nicholas Christakis]
No one, especially no students exercising right to speech, should be judged just on basis of short video clip.
[/QUOTE]
Compelling story, blah blah blah. I think the idea of putting so much emphasis on what people do when they are between the ages of 14 - 17 is ridiculous in the first place. Yet, our culture as a whole seems to buy it hook line and sinker.
There has obviously been an inflection point in the past few years. The acts, systemic and long held or captured on video, of those in power against other groups are being held up and questioned. We all see it and can put the original “think about your costume” email within that context. Hey, don’t be an idiot, now more than ever.
So while the rhetorical argument from the professor may have been sound (kids should be allowed to work through their idiocy), it was tone-deaf in today’s environment and a self-inflicted wound that could easily been avoided. Not seeing how it could be used by groups focused on increased sensitivity feels like a “shame on you for not anticipating that” moment.
The fact that it is still going appears to be related to the continuing tone-deaf reaction from the professors, but also that this issue appears to be picking at a long-standing set of grievances at Yale. Individuals and groups focused on sensitivity/equality issues are looking to see how they can use this event and its fallout to move their agenda forward. It is not surprising, and given the current environment, there appears to be more opportunity for them to move their agenda forward. Again, given what we have been seeing across the country, this is not surprising.
Yeah there is some really upset guy/gal at Yale’s HR.
I’ve heard the long standing grievance part, but it’s hard to parse in today’s environment what are real grievances and imagined slights of someone not being sensitive enough or off hand comments made in poor taste by some student and/or group of students and so on
Well, I think that is at the core of the inflection point we are going through: it is now expected that there is acknowledgement that deep-seated behaviors against disempowered groups are part of the fabric of the culture of most communities - academic, urban, suburban, etc.
That is the biggest change: videos, data, and other social media forces seem to have established an evidence base for this. So individual incidents are more likely to be tied to larger systemic issues. If the institution has a reputation for anything like that and also fumbles the handling of the issue(s) at hand, watch out.
ETA: in the case of Yale, its ongoing issue with using John C. Calhoun’s name (there may be other racial issues, but I know of that one), its overall reputation for being elitest, which carries a subtext of exclusion, condescension and pretentiousness, etc., are biting it in the butt. Add the follow-up fumbles for this current issue, add excitable students with new traction and flambe - poof.
I think the systemic issue in this day and age is hugely overblown. At this point with affirmative action being a minority works for you in the application process, as for the names of buildings, it’s really a non issue, it was named after a political figure who is now viewed much differently. There is a statue of Jefferson Davis in the capital building too.
It’s talked about now precisely because it is a non issue. It is safe to discuss because it’s all mostly theatrics over something dealt with already. It’s a combination of outrage culture, over sensitivity and low risk jumping on a band wagon, it’s the performance of rebellion without the actual risk. At least that’s my opinion.
No, but there is a portrait of Richard II in Westminster, a statue of Andrew Jackson in DC, a mausoleum to Che in Cuba, and Lenin is still entombed in Moscow. In general memorials and commerations out last the support of what they were erected for.
If they no longer mean what they were supposed to mean - might as well eliminate all doubt.
If the statues no longer mean what they were supposed to mean, Yale should do a lil bit of updating - I think with their endowment they can find some way to work it into the budget.
If they want to keep the statues, building names etc. then they should stand behind their right to express what these things really mean - and not pretend they mean anything different.
You can simply acknowledge them as historical artifacts. Right now they don’t mean anything really. It’s not as if Yale is home to a hotbed of John C. Calhoun supporters. This is people choosing to be offended over nothing. Also that would simply be a rather silly waste of resources. You’re imparting a meaningful by there being there that there simply isn’t.
This is just pure sophistry to me. If a building being named after a leading advocate for slavery has no meaning - then really nothing does. A swastika can be a historical artifact by your definition.
I think you are just choosing to dismiss things that are not offensive to you personally as not offensive in general.
Choosing to update your campus to reflect your stated purpose of embracing cultural diversity does not seem “silly” to me.
Please see my comments above about Missouri. The various stakeholder groups took this set of incidents and the fumbled reactions to point out the systemic problems they perceive to be historically present there.
I have no dog in that hunt, and do sometimes worry about PC-ness getting out of hand. But when groups across students, faculty, sports teams, etc. all stand up, it suggests that a place can have systemic issues in this day and age.
Now, does Yale have systemic issues that this costume kerfuffle is lighting a match to? Not my call. It sure appears to be getting tried in the court of public opinion. Ruken provides a summary of some of the artifacts that point to a history of issues (thanks), but as you say, if they are history, then this should blow over.
Shouting down a view you don’t like should not be regarded (by rational people) as winning.
Where, pray tell, did you get the curious idea that this is offensive to me?
Though it certainly is included within free speech, the right to speak offensively offend does not “represent” free speech. Free speech supporters know that they will occasionally deplore what they defend. They do not see offensive speech as an inherently good thing - they see its suppression as a truly bad thing.