"News that Harvard revoked the admission of at least 10 incoming students caught posting offensive comments online is sending shivers through high school graduates across the country who are wondering: Are universities increasingly shredding acceptance letters over ill-advised Instagram posts and Twitter threads?
The question is especially interesting in California, which is the only state in the country with a law that grants First Amendment protections to students at private colleges and high schools as well as public institutions. So far, it doesn’t appear that any universities in the Golden State have tried to revoke admission for online posts. Harvard took action against would-be students for posting memes that, among other things, mocked the Holocaust and sexual assault." …
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/general-news/20170606/can-colleges-revoke-admissions-for-offensive-online-comments
I thought it was common knowledge that colleges look at students’ social media and inappropriate conduct can get you rescinded. Freedom of speech protects people from penalties by the government. Private institutions can do whatever they want. The state law in California is very interesting.
The whole Harvard meme fiasco is a separate issue because the memes were posted in a private group. It’s an issue of invasion of privacy rather than free speech.
The “private” (lol) FB group that used the entity “Harvard” in its title was reported to Harvard Admissions by members of that “private” group who were offended by the direction it took, and took screen shots, which they sent to Admissions (according to the Crimson article). It’s not like Harvard Admissions employs private investigators who spend all their waking hours trying to hack into “private” FB groups in order to find dirt on already admitted students. Not sure how much privacy one should expect in online forums where any member can screen shot one’s words.
–Harvard is a private institution and can do what it wants within the bounds of legality.
–Every acceptance letter has a provision for grades and behavior remaining up to standard.
–People can say what they want online or otherwise, nobody suggested they should be arrested for the memes – but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be ramifications.
Also aren’t there already a ton of threads on this???