<p>Okay, so I’m reading this book (One L) about life at HLS and in it the author said students will hiss other student/professors if they make a point they don’t like or agree with. He also said that hissing is a common Harvard practice. Does this really go on in Harvard classes?</p>
<p>Nope. My daughter is a junior at Harvard and she says she has never heard of such a thing. Perhaps it’s law school custom if it exists at all.</p>
<p>the book said it was mainly an undergrad thing that had spread to the LS via HLS students who had done their undergrad at harvard</p>
<p>That sounds very, very weird. . .</p>
<p>…then again the book was written nearly 40 years ago</p>
<p>If it ever existed, it can’t have been be a very wide-spread or well-known custom. Googling the phrase “hissing at Harvard” produces zero hits.</p>
<p>Try googling it this way:</p>
<p><a href=“hissing harvard[/url] - Google Search”>hissing harvard - Google Search;
<p>Acutally more of a British thing. Try Oxford.</p>
<p>Yes, the kind of hissing described in “One-L” exists in both the college and the law school, but it’s very rare. I heard it probably once in college and three or four times in law school. Law school classes are (1) more likely to be big lectures and (2) more likely to address intensely controversial and politicized subjects. Nobody would ever hiss in a seminar, or because the professor denigrates the works of Dostoevsky. I’ve only known it to occur in a class of 100+ covering some incendiary topic like affirmative action or Israel’s foreign policy, and the professor says something that the class considers racist or outrageously insulting.</p>
<p>… or mildly politically incorrect to the leftists at the back of the hall.</p>
<p>(Woah, Byerly and I share an opinion for once)</p>
<p>But yeah, I’ve heard it’s bigger in Europe… it’s considered more refined, I think, which is odd, given what British Parliament sounds like.</p>
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<p>Have you ever been in a Harvard Law class when hissing occurred?</p>
<p>The moment I looked at the title of this thread, I burst out loud laughing.
ROFL. Just imagine your professor hissing at you, and shaking his arms wildly. No talking, just hissing.</p>
<p>I attended 1989-1993, and never even heard about hissing.</p>
<p>What would be an example of a “mildly politically incorrect” comment? It seems that would depend on who you ask.</p>
<p>I spent 4 years listing to hissing in government, history and literature classes, though not, as I recall, during a discussion of Dostoevsky. </p>
<p>Generally, then as now, the people or points of view hissed were of other than the liberal persuasion.</p>
<p>I recall it as fairlly common, but centered more on unpopular decrees about homework and grading policy than political content.</p>
<p>I call BS… hissing, if it ever occurs, is incredibly rare… I have never heard of it, and none of my harvard friends have either.</p>
<p>That too, afan.</p>
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<p>So you’re talking about the college, not the law school.</p>
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<p>Both you and One-L agree that this was common in the 60’s. What’s the basis for your statement about the frequency/cause of hissing now?</p>