^ When I was at Harvard Medical School in 1991, following Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings and alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill, 2 caucasian students decided to dress up in blackface as Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill for a Halloween party. They were apparently unaware of the sensitivity of this issue, and thought it would be funny. A first year African-American medical student from the south took great offense, and ended up assaulting the male student, breaking his jaw. This led to his arrest and to a year suspension (later controversially downgraded to 2 years probation), and the formation of a medical school committee on racial and cultural sensitivity to heighten awareness. None of the people involved was a particularly “bad” person with a history of behavioral problems, and I believe all subsequently graduated from HMS, but their behavior was (to varying degrees) inappropriate and showed poor judgment, and gave Harvard (and the assaulted student) a public black eye.
In the current case, some of the students involved may be bigots, and have significant character issues; some may have engaged in poor judgment to which they were insensitive of the possible consequences; some may have just gone along with the activity in order to fit in. We don’t know. Regardless, their actions were questionable and offensive (at the very least), and left Harvard with a public black eye; and as a private institution that holds students to a standard of conduct, Harvard is free to deal with this however they see fit. If this had happened before they had been accepted, there is little doubt that Harvard would have decided not to admit them in favor of tens of thousands of other highly qualified applicants. It does seem that Harvard investigated this carefully, gave students a chance to defend their actions, and only rescinded a portion of the students involved, so they clearly felt that the behavior in some cases fell below a level of what was permissible as innocent-but-insensitive behavior by teens. We don’t have access to the details or to Harvard’s investigation, so it’s hard to judge.
I get a chuckle that those calling the majority here “normies” are choosing to hang out on CC and post here. Seems like a VERY “normie” thing to do to occupy one’s time.
I am late coming to this discussion, but I wanted to add the following:
I believe the Crimson may be wrong about there being no rescissions in the Class of 2020. I think there were at least three students who had their admissions rescinded for questionable social media posts. Hence, I made the following comment in the “What Will Get Me Rescinded” Thread begun in the Harvard Forum last December,
FWIW, as the parent of two Harvard undergrads, I agree with the comments succinctly expressed by @baltimoreguy several pages ago:
As with at least some of Class of 2020 students whose admissions were rescinded, I think it is likely that some of these students were SCEA admits and had few or no other choices. They will have a year to consider their bad judgment.
I am also a parent to a Harvard undergrad. I wouldn’t want these kids anywhere near my kid. I have met a number of Harvard undergrads . None of them act in any manner like these 10 kids.
I can only imagine what the posters here would say if Harvard had let them in. Many in this forum bash Harvard no matter what they do.
The academic senate of Harvard is still wrestling with the final club issue. I am sure they don’t want any more drama.
I searched CC for “normies” and checked Urban Dictionary. It doesn’t seem offensive in the same way as the memes.
Lots of cultures have terms for people not inside the culture. SciFi fandom and SCAers called people outside the culture “mundanes,” at least around 30 years ago, before I gafiatied. Geocaching and probably many other groups created since Harry Potter was written call outsiders muggles.
Such terms do not deny the fundamental humanity of outsiders.
What we don’t want is people who say things like, “to me, they’re not even people” about their critics. Feelings that deny the humanity of others go along with generating things like the piñata meme, etc. (See terms used in wartime for persons of other races.)
