Harvard is one of the world’s foremost institutions of higher learning.
A group of 10 incoming freshmen demonstrated through their own words and actions that they lack what Harvard considers to be the mental capacity and/or judgment necessary to be a successful member of its academic community.
So Harvard didn’t allow them to enroll. Good decision.
I looked at the memes. Mindboggling. I literally can’t see how any human with a shred of decency would consider any of them remotely funny or defensible. Call me morally superior, by all means. It’s a compliment of the highest order in context of anyone who wants to defend the disgusting filth those kids posted.
@NEPatsGirl , @Lindagaf Agree with you 1,000%
Haven’t we all told our kids repeatedly since middle school to be careful about what they post on social media? The fact that these kids posted such atrocities on a Harvard account screams stupidity and lack of common sense.
What a bunch of losers. Harvard would have been nuts not to rescind them.
Wow, I expected them to be pretty bad, but they are much worse than expected. If objecting to this type of *humor[/i ] constitutes “judgmental PC elitism that has killed comedy on campuses,” color me a judgmental elitist comedy killer.
That Boston Globe article posted earlier, behind a paywall (but “view source” works fine if you want to see the text), quotes a kid in the larger group who says the kids in the smaller meme group succumbed to “peer pressure” so as to be included in what they saw as the “more exclusive” group.
Here they are, kids who probably dreamed about getting in H, worked very hard to get there, blah blah. They’re in the accepted student group. Then some join the offshoot meme group. Then another offshoot forms but this one requires the posting of an “edgy” meme to get in. There are clearly some kids who are ALL ABOUT “getting in”, so they do what they need to do to get in. Once in, apparently some (well, 10), participated enthusiastically.
These kids would have gotten to H to find that actually, that they aren’t really “in” if they aren’t in the coolest finals club or the coolest secret society or have the edgiest comments about what kind of sex other athletes like to have on the group chat/mailing list etc. It really never ends, not even with getting into a school that rejects 95 out of 100 applicants. They will have to make moral choices all the way through, about what they are willing to do in order to “belong”.
It seems like these 10 gave an early indication that their future choices would have been poor.
Speaking of Blazing Saddles, love the farting scene, but that’s just my sophomoric humor. Airplane was another funny movie at the time, but if you were to view it now, through the lens of the 1990’s and 2000’s, there’s a scene with Peter Graves and a young kid in the cockpit that’s just cringe worthy now. At the time, I just wasn’t old enough to understand it. Today, as a parent, WOW! No wonder they never replay the movie on the classic movie channels.
@foosondaughter , your comments about joke books published in 1985 and comedy being “killed” on campus are irrelevant because you are failing to consider context. Things that used to be okay no longer are. It used to be okay to put a sign in a window saying “No Irish Need Apply.” Now it isn’t, because it is discriminatory. It used to be okay to own slaves, use child labor, sexually assault your spouse, put any kind of disabled person in an institution, and on and on. Those things are obviously wrong, because with the passage of time it’s been shown those things are harmful and degrading. Humor is no different, though I can’t imagine anyone in any era finding those memes funny.
As far as comedy, if someone is relying on tasteless topics in an attempt to be funny, they are not a very good comedian, or they are something worse than that. Tasteless stuff crosses lines when society deems that openly mocking things is no longer socially acceptable. That time is now. Maybe jokes about dead babies were socially acceptable in 1985, but they aren’t now. You are entitled to your opinions,and I am entitled to tell you that your opinions are outdated and no longer hold water. 1985 was long time ago now.
Once again a good reason never to post on social media.<
[/QUOTE]
As posted on social media LOL.
From the article “In the group, students sent each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children…”
Clearly, Harvard is in a position to decide they don’t want these people representing their school. So 10 other bright, capable students will now get the chance to attend Harvard, and will do a better job of representing the school.
No one is owed admission to any school. This isn’t a trophy for participation in little league, this is admission to one of the most prestigious schools in the country. There are thousands of kids every bit as qualified as those 10, but with far better judgement.
For anyone who STILL, somehow, hasn’t gotten the message:
ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Yes, even yours.
Actually, humor is very different than those other things (employment discrimination, slavery, child labor, spousal sexual assault, and institutionalization of the disabled). All of the latter directly affect and negatively impact people, and are illegal to boot. In comparison, humor (even the most vulgar and inappropriate) is a form of expression that only negatively affects people’s feelings. Moreover, in the public arena it is expressly legal and protected under the First Amendment (see, e.g., Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell).
This is a question of values, in the sense of “what are the things one values?” You greatly value the feelings of others and deem it appropriate to suppress socially unacceptable expression. I value freedom of expression more. FWIW, Harvard agrees with you, which is why they get a Red speech code rating from Fire (https://www.thefire.org/schools/harvard-university/). By way of comparison, U. of Chicago gets a Green rating (https://www.thefire.org/schools/university-of-chicago/)
Fire has come up on this site many times. It is an extremely conservative organization. I am sure anything Harvard does Fire would disapprove of. I value the feelings of others and I glad Harvard rescinded admission to those 10
Not that they would, but do you really think they could institute a "no Jews!"or “no Blacks” policy and not face legal challenges?
Last I checked, posters of vile content making fun of genocidal events, marginalized groups, etc which violates a private college’s code of conduct for applicants/admits is a very different kettle of fish from outright discriminating against racial/religious/ethnic/status* groups …especially those protected under Federal EEOC policies.
*I.e. Veterans.
My son mentioned that on the UChicago memes group, people were defending the Harvard students who were expelled until someone posted a link to the Tab site mentioned in post #136. My son says the defense appears to have stopped after people looked at the images.
(I haven’t looked, as I believe such things are hard to unsee. If I were defending these students, I guess I’d need to look to see what I was defending. Personally, I believe Harvard has good enough lawyers to allow them to legally rescind based on this behavior.)
I saw it. They were over the top in shock value and poor taste offensive.
I chose those groups exactly because they were protected groups, to challenge the assertion that “Harvard is a private school, they can admit whomever they want and give money to anyone they think need it to attend.” While Harvard has a great deal of latitude, they still have to follow all relevant Federal, State and Local laws in their admissions process.
I don’t know where this myth comes from. FIRE has received verbal support by a former president of the ACLU, and has many liberal people working for it.
There are plenty of things that aren’t illegal but will still get you into trouble. It’s not illegal to attend a business meeting in inappropriate clothing; your company may not even have a dress code, but try showing up to a client meeting in a bathing suit and you can expect to be fired.
As I said before, for me this is primarily about judgement. A poster upthread made a good point about kids who show poor judgement and susceptibility to peer pressure in this case being the ones who are most likely to display these same characteristics at the university. For me it brings to mind the recent death at a PSU frat, where poor judgement cost a kid his life.
There are all sorts of comedy no longer considered appropriate. We no longer make “Pollock” jokes, a fixture of my childhood. AIDS jokes including the word “fruits” are no longer considered funny. Even in my high school days Uncle Tom jokes were considered offensive. These students should have known better.
I have never heard of Fire until this thread, and I have no idea if it’s liberal or conservative. I myself am extremely liberal. The thought that objection to what those students did as being a “leftist” issue is laughable. In response to foosondaughter’s comment about humor not harming society, that’s false. People diseminating that type of “humor” are indeed harming society. My revulsion to those memes is based on being a human who objects to dehumanizing other humans, and has nothing to do with political views.