Take the political commentary to the political forum. A number of posts were flagged and hidden.
I’m setting this thread in slow mode as well.
I imagine it does. And if anyone witnesses or is a victim of an actual crime they should contact law enforcement. As always.
Are they not crimes if no one sees them committed?
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Crimes are events that violate the criminal code. If you have actual knowledge of such events, please call the police. They can determine if an actual crime occured and whether your reporting has any value.
Of course, you are welcome to call the police regardless. They are used to all sorts of complaints by members of the public against their neighbors, coworkers, politicians, public officials, campus leaders, students, etc. You can also register your opinion with your duly elected representative.
And now you have backed yourself into an odd metaphysical corner in which crimes are not crimes unless and until they are witnessed, reported to, and acted on by legal authorities
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Exactly. And that’s the way intimidation by these groups works. Rile up their members, incite the crime and then wash your hands of it when it’s brought to the attention of administration because no one witnessed it. Yet the evidence remains.
And even worse, it allows others to deny the motive and insist that you can’t prove it when you spell it out for them.
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And to clarify one more point, this thread is in the general forum where debate is not permitted. State your position once and move on.
My Smithie only sent me the President’s email and has not said much about this. How is this affecting day to day life of Smithies? I understand if you need one of the offices in the building, you do not have access. What are the other effects? Not trying to downplay it. Just trying to understand the impact on non-participating students. (My Smithie must be having an amazing semester --or a stressful one-- because normally I speak to them often, but this semester I’ve barely heard a peep, hence being in the dark.)
And one more thing - keep the posts relevant to Smith. There are threads to discuss wider topics. Several more posts deleted. Off-topic posts are subject to deletion without comment.
As opinion, I give these students every benefit of the doubt as to the purity of their motives. They see the stakes as extremely high, and are acting accordingly.
I think it depends on the Smithie. Mine has struggled. A lot. She does not agree with this protest as she has done a deep dive into SJP. Her friends ask her, almost daily, to go to the protests with them. She finds reasons not to go as she doesn’t want to get into a discussion about this in fear that it will ruin what are otherwise great friendships. She’s had classes canceled, and the one class she has that goes past 11:45 is disrupted each day when a group of students get up and leave class. She feels that those who disagree with what is going do not have a safe platform upon which to speak. She is there to get an education. While she certainly is still being educated, it is not the same as it was two weeks ago. There is an undercurrent that is always there that makes her uncomfortable.
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My child’s experience has been largely the same as it was in previous semesters: she is active in student government, she attends her sport practices, she hangs out with her friends and she has not had any of her classes disrupted. She has friends who walk out at 11:45, she has friends who are inside college hall, and she has friends who do not support the sit-in. She has friends who are Jewish who are supportive of the sit-in, and friends who are not Jewish who do not support the protest. She has her personal feelings about what is happening, and how it is happening, and those are influenced by her knowledge of the way the Board works and a finances presentation that was given to the student government.
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Since it seems we’ve exhausted the conversation about Smith, I’m closing the thread.
For anyone interested, there is a thread about college protests in general over in the politics forum.