America's Ten Most Oppressive Colleges 385
An anonymous reader writes: A new review of free speech on campuses across the United States has listed the country's ten most oppressive colleges, with examples of why they earned this odious status.
The first link is the actual report, while the second provides a good quick summary. In either case, the behavior of college officials in attempting to squelch dissent is quite disgusting. Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views. They are the future, and that future does not look pleasant. In South Carolina students are suing their college for interrogating them for daring to hold an event in support of free speech that offended some students.
The first link is the actual report, while the second provides a good quick summary. In either case, the behavior of college officials in attempting to squelch dissent is quite disgusting. Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views. They are the future, and that future does not look pleasant. In South Carolina students are suing their college for interrogating them for daring to hold an event in support of free speech that offended some students.
Triumph comic dog visitng non-oppressive college (Score:5, Funny)
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Fuck you and your "safe space" (Score:4, Insightful)
You have no right not to be offended.
Shove your idea of "microagressions" right up your ass. So it can be near your brain.
Re:Fuck you and your "safe space" (Score:4, Insightful)
You have no right not to be offended.
Shove your idea of "microagressions" right up your ass. So it can be near your brain.
My employer made me and everyone in the department (that's thousands of people) take a microagressions training session. Utter bullshit. "Pretend to be nice to hopeless incompetents, because it's their bad feelz that makes them hopeless engineers" seemed to be the message.
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My employer made me and everyone in the department (that's thousands of people) take a microagressions training session.
Sensitivity training was quite popular in the 1990's, especially when the only women in the entire company worked in HR.
Cultural inclusivity (Score:5, Interesting)
I caused a minor revolt and pissed off the ultra-leftists (the sane leftists sympathized with my views) when I publically accused our micro-aggressions indocrnitator that she was being culturally insensitive and that it was absolutely unethical and a violation of university policy for her to conflate cultural idioms with aggressions. Something like "When speaking a rural Appalachian dialect is a microaggression, you have banned my culture" and then quoted our "cultural diversity" statement. Itw as funny. The indoctrinator was red faced and puffy. The ultra-leftists went off on their screed, the sane leftists argued with them, and then the hour allotted was over. I'm sure I'll be summoned to the dean's office again, and I think I'll have the EO complaint written.
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Culture is not a protected attribute. Culture, religion, political views and anything else that is a matter of choice can be freely criticised.
You shouldn't get in trouble for arguing your point, but others have every right to criticise your culture.
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I like Zoidberg's approach to peer review:
"Your design's bad and you should feel bad!"
Oppressive (Score:4, Informative)
'Oppressive' seems a bit over-the-top. Even TFA article doesn't use that word.
Next up: "America's Most Genocidal Colleges"!
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Next up: "America's Most Genocidal Colleges"!
That would be The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the US Army School of the Americas
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If you want oppressive colleges, try the Electoral College.
Re:Oppressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the Electoral College is a necessary equalizer for the states...without that, a very small number of states would perpetually run roughshod over the other states....and one of the conditions of becoming a state was that you'd get your equal representation on the federal level, and this is VERY important.
Remember, you are a member of your state first....THEN you are a member of the United States.
At least..that's how it was set up.
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Remember, you are a member of your state first....THEN you are a member of the United States.
At least..that's how it was set up.
This is very true, and it's something that's almost completely forgotten today. It's the reason why Charles Francis Adams -- grandson of President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President John Adams -- a man who led black Union troops in the Civil War, and a president of the American Historical Association, could argue in 1902 that Robert E. Lee [archive.org] should be given a statue in Washington, D.C.
Why? Because Lee first-and-foremost saw himself as a Virginian, and he was literally defending his country
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Remember, you are a member of your state first....THEN you are a member of the United States.
At least..that's how it was set up.
No, it wasn't, you were always a citizen of the United States, and only fools thought they were a member of a state first and foremost. Such fools were also the ones who caused the worst war on American soil.
They weren't "fools." That's the entire reason why it's called the "United STATES," rather than some new country with a single name. Before the Civil War, they were a collection of quasi-autonomous jurisdictions that agreed mainly to come together for the explicit purposes (and only those) emphasized in the Constitution.
And you had these "fools" on both sides defying that federal government. One of the main complaints of the Southern States (read their Articles of Secession) was the failure of the Fede
In defense of Mount St. Mary's University (Score:2)
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All awful but the bias is interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's be clear: pretty much all of these situations are completely unacceptable, and most disturbingly they show a tendency for much of these sorts of problems to occur on the left, what essentially amounts to the "illiberal left" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/liberals-and-the-illiberal-left/384988/ [theatlantic.com]. However, FIRE's own biases are coming into play in this list, in that every example they decide to include is on the left or has no political aspect. But there were a lot of rimilar activities with an apparently right-wing bent, such as the situation at Wheaton College https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/wheaton-illinois-moves-fire-professor-who-wore-hijab [insidehighered.com]. It may be that FIRE's top list is still more of an issue for legitimate reasons because many of these universities are large, public universities and thus engaging in trampling on free speech is even more serious, but it does seem like FIRE's own biases may be having a role in what they've decided to highlight.
However, the general upshot should be clear: trampling on free speech is not ok. And we should support free speech whether or not it is speech we agree with. Universities must be bastions of free expression for them to effectively do their jobs. And groups of all sorts should remember that even if they have power now to censor others, they may not always be the ones in power.
Re:All awful but the bias is interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's be clear: pretty much all of these situations are completely unacceptable, and most disturbingly they show a tendency for much of these sorts of problems to occur on the left, what essentially amounts to the "illiberal left" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/liberals-and-the-illiberal-left/384988/ [theatlantic.com]. However, FIRE's own biases are coming into play in this list, in that every example they decide to include is on the left or has no political aspect. But there were a lot of rimilar activities with an apparently right-wing bent, such as the situation at Wheaton College https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/wheaton-illinois-moves-fire-professor-who-wore-hijab [insidehighered.com]. It may be that FIRE's top list is still more of an issue for legitimate reasons because many of these universities are large, public universities and thus engaging in trampling on free speech is even more serious, but it does seem like FIRE's own biases may be having a role in what they've decided to highlight.
However, the general upshot should be clear: trampling on free speech is not ok. And we should support free speech whether or not it is speech we agree with. Universities must be bastions of free expression for them to effectively do their jobs. And groups of all sorts should remember that even if they have power now to censor others, they may not always be the ones in power.
So to be clear, private colleges (not all) *can* and do stifle free speech and are exempt from many parts of Title XIV or free speech restrictions. Thus concentrating on a private school is pretty dopey. Granted if they accept federal funds in any capacity they have to adhere to some part (not that I know them offhand).
When a publicly funded institution violates constitutional laws, it is a much bigger deal as they are AGENTS OF THE STATE. FIRE concentrating on large public institutions makes perfect sense because it affects far more people than private institutions and they shouldn't even be *thinking* of doing stuff like this, yet do anyway.
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He didn't say they concentrated exclusively on public institutions. He s
Re:All awful but the bias is interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
2) Student suspended for reading a book from school library on the downfall of hte KKK - http://www.thefire.org/article... [thefire.org]
3) Defending a student who'd been unilaterally expelled over a joke - http://chronicle.com/article/F... [chronicle.com]
4) Defending an atheist college professor - http://insidehighered.com/news... [insidehighered.com]
5) Calling out Depaul for not recognizing a pro-marijauna group - http://thefire.org/article/123... [thefire.org]
6) FIRE calls out university for denying an LGBT group school recognition - https://www.thefire.org/fire-l... [thefire.org]
I can go on if you want. Lots of these cases do seem skewed toward benefitting white males, but if you look at the actual cases well you'd see why. Lots of the decisions they draw FIRE's ire are fucking stupid, short-sighted, and somehow scraped their way out of a poorly run administration meeting.
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I didn't realize the government were the ones setting up safe spaces to suppress free speech.
We should be arguing that there is no such constitutional right to go un-offended, but talking about free speech in this context is a red herring.
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FIRE is indeed concerned with government violations of the First Amendment. What private universities do, however assholey, is not a battle they chose to fight as no First Amendment government infraction is occuring.
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So let's be clear: pretty much all of these situations are completely unacceptable, and most disturbingly they show a tendency for much of these sorts of problems to occur on the left, what essentially amounts to the "illiberal left" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/liberals-and-the-illiberal-left/384988/ [theatlantic.com].
Are they, though? I haven't checked them all, but their number 2 spot regarding Northwestern University and Professor Laura Kipnis actually involves allegations of defamation and retaliation by the professor against a sexual assault victim [huffingtonpost.com]. Free speech has never included a right to publish libel.
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So let's be clear: pretty much all of these situations are completely unacceptable, and most disturbingly they show a tendency for much of these sorts of problems to occur on the left, what essentially amounts to the "illiberal left" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/liberals-and-the-illiberal-left/384988/ [theatlantic.com].
Number 4 involves a student government cutting funding to a student paper. Free speech has never required that others provide you with free money to support your publication.
Re:All awful but the bias is interesting (Score:4, Informative)
It may be that FIRE's top list is still more of an issue for legitimate reasons because many of these universities are large, public universities and thus engaging in trampling on free speech is even more serious, but it does seem like FIRE's own biases may be having a role in what they've decided to highlight.
I don't know if it is a bias for many of them. Quite a few are bad all by themselves without a liberal or conservative bias. I thought this one was beautifully told: Following a spate of “Black Lives Matter” protests, the student newspaper published a column that took issue with some of the BLM rhetoric, arguing that it encouraged violence. Angry BLM supporters quickly circulated a petition demanding that the university defund the paper unless their demands were met, including mandatory “social justice/diversity” training for the paper’s editors and guaranteed space in the paper for articles representing “marginalized groups and voices.” The protesters also threatened to steal and destroy copies of the paper unless their demands were met.
TL;DR for that:
The school paper says "These groups are violent." and the groups reply "Take that back or we'll destroy your stuff!" The university leaders give in to the violent protester demands, squelching the school's newspaper.
Consider the Source (Score:4, Informative)
The John William Pope Center [popecenter.org] is a mouthpiece for a right-wing think tank [thenation.com], and is no friend of higher education.
That having been said, some of the incidents described are pretty egregious. But then university administrators have been cowardly autocrats since universities began.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh, so it's cherry picked examples to inflame those on the right and make them froth at the mouth and also worry those who could be coerced onto being more right-leaning.
The John William Pope Center sounds like a training ground for Daily Mail journalists.
Re:Consider the Source (Score:4, Funny)
You're calling Thomas Jefferson a cowardly autocrat.
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Then it is a welcome respite from the steady drumbeat of biased left-wing news on this site. It's about time we got some equality around here.
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"He may be right, but I've been trained to hate him, so movealongnothingtoseehere"
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>cowardly autocrats
Kind of an oxymoron, don't you think?
You obviously haven't spent much time dealing with university administrators.
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Never thought I would see PC in red state schools (Score:3, Insightful)
I expected this SJW shit at Berkley. But now it's poisoning even public state colleges in red states. Scary shit.
Re:Never thought I would see PC in red state schoo (Score:4, Interesting)
Berkeley, the town, is as hardcore liberal as ever. Berkeley, the University, transitioned some years ago to overachiever central. Everyone over at Cal is too busy studying and working hard to get their science, engineering, business, and law degrees to have time for SJW-ism. UCSC has taken up the kookiness mantle lately. But they get less press because they don't have the historical notoriety of Berkeley.
Re:Never thought I would see PC in red state schoo (Score:4, Insightful)
I dare say that all the professors losing their jobs and students getting expelled for saying the wrong thing would view it as more than a "spat."
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"All" in this context is less fingers than you have unless you suck with power tools out of 10's of thousands.
I can think of things that are more lethal and more likely that I'd reserve 'scary' for.
Not right, concerning, wrong, cause for action, sure. Scary no.
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It's enough if 1-2 lose their jobs for the remaining 1000 to get the message, be scared and not open their mouth any more. Censorship is most successful when a system is established in which people self-censor for fear of negative consequences if they actually use their right to free speech which they still have on paper.
A few lost jobs is all it takes to make people self-censor and to be a serious threat to freedom. SJWs are a far greater threat than many people think and should be fought accordingly
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Some of the fired professors were fired *because* of their SJW proclivities. They were offended by something some autocrat said, spoke out and the autocrat fired them. Are you going to defend them even though they're special little snow flakes whose feelings were hurt by the idea of drowning little bunnies or do you approve of their firing ?
Free speech is free speech, it's not limited to just those you agree with. If you're truly that concerned about free speech then defend free speech. If you're more
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SJWism as an acquired a contagious mental disorder (Score:5, Interesting)
When so many people started talking about the importance of "trigger warnings" and how they had developped "PTSD" from encountering divergent opinions from theirs, I just shrugged and. When my younger brother transitioned to female and started raving hard about all things Social-Justice-y, I was stupefied. When she started talkign about her anxiety attacks over the mere mention of the word "rape" (she has never been sexually assaulted nor witnessed any rape except on TV), I started digging into the science of anxiety fits to see what there really was about it.
It turns out that one can indeed teach one's own brain to develop PTSD over any kind of stimuli at all. All you need to do is to foster a sense of being threatened every time you encounter the stimulus of your choice. For example, you start thinking about people trying to beat you up, of menacing predators pouncing, of natural disasters closing in on you, whenever the stimulus is there. You can also jsut go and read detailed testimonies of aggressions - the more expressive and vivid, the better. You then reinforce and validate this self-inflicted perception of threat by expressing to other people how you feel threatened by the stimulus of your choice, and have the other people agree with you. Basically, this retrains your amygdala into stimulating your cingulate cortex so that it activates the limbic axis for fight-or-flight response. With enough practice, you can push yourself deep into somatization, and develop identical symptoms to that of genuine PTSD-sufferers, to the point where you will have nausea and dizziness just from thinking about the stimulus.
The interesting thing is, it's the kind of the reverse of desensitization therapy for actual PTSD: if you have a rape victim with severa agoraphobia, you can slowly train their amygdala into NOT stimulating the cingulate cortex and thus not triggering panic attacks by desensitizing them to open spaces or the outside, until the link between "outside" and "being attacked" ceases to exist in the brain.
That, IMO, is how SJWs make themselves sick, and make others around them sick, with an acquired mental disorder.
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'Social normalization of deviance means that people within the organization become so much accustomed to a deviant behaviour that they don't consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules for the elementary safety.' - Diane Vaughan
The longer it goes on within an organisation, the more people become accustomed to it. People on the outside see it as abnormal but within the organisation it becomes accepted as everyday practise.
http://www.fastjetperformance.... [fastjetperformance.com]
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That's what hir said!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Amherst Students Protest ‘Free Speech' (Score:2)
When did college students become so self-centered? (Score:2)
.
Perhaps this is just an extension of the filter bubble that everyone creates for themselves in their view of the internet, i.e., tending to visit sites or "friend" people with opinions similar to yours. Then when these people get to college, they are offended that there are others with differing viewpoints.
Col
Really changed in 10 years (Score:3)
I graduated college back in 2009. Went to a small Baptist university in rural North Carolina that had only recently broken from the Southern Baptist Convention. They had chapel every Thursday morning a students were basically required to go to at least some of them while you attended (you had to attend a certain number of events such as chapel, plays, and concerts but unless you went to every single play and concert you had to go to some chapels because you wouldn't have enough events). But even there we still had comparative religion classes, there were class trips (purely historical and sightseeing) that went to places like Tunisia.
What is the whole purpose of going to college if not to challenge not only you, but also the way in which you view the world. Is that not how you learn and grow as a person? Just as you can't win a debate by shouting down your opponent (although Trump seems to think that counts as a victory), stifling every opinion that differs from your own doesn't mean that your side is right. Instead it simply shows that either your side or your own beliefs are so weak that any challenge of them will bring the whole thing crashing down. I'm afraid we will eventually get in a situation where a whole generation of people will be unable to cope with challenging or dissenting viewpoints, and instead of trying to defend their own beliefs will simply do the equivalent of holding their hands over their ears while shouting "la la la, can't hear you".
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That sounds like a Mickey Mouse school, with religion, Mickey-Mouse and/or feel-good courses, and little else. What's the point of going to college for that?
That Mickey Mouse school also has one of the best pharmacy schools in the country.
Forgot One (Score:4, Informative)
Compare and contrast (Score:2)
Question for all of you on campus (Score:4, Insightful)
When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for fear of being punished for saying it?
If you are on an American campus, it probably hasn't been long.
There is one big one that they forgot..... (Score:5, Informative)
"Far more horrifying"? (Score:2)
Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views.
And they shouldn't be allowed to do that? Sounds like Subby wants those students censored, in the name of "free speech".
The list because it's not anywhere quick (Score:4, Informative)
Ordered as presented, ranking not given. Read the article for why.
Mount St. Mary's University
Northwestern University
Louisiana State University
University of California, San Diego
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
University of Oklahoma
Marquette University
Colorado College
University of Tulsa
Wesleyan University
The right to feel offended (Score:3)
The problem in these instances is the one that is attacking all western society since the turn of the century. For some strange reason, people now think they have the right to feel offended and that people that offends them must be shut up
There is this sense of self entitlement fed by the media going around, that if someone says something against any particular aspect of some social justice cause, you deserve some kind of punishment. You are essentially bared from contesting any kind of argument about any aspect of say, feminism, black empowerment, religion and a few other. No matter how idiotic is the specific pro argument for one of those issues, if you point that out, you are automatically dismissed and any public forum will do its best to shut you up.
College is for creating the next gen of SJWs (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been in college before, studying engineering, and I didn't see much "indoctrination" like many claimed that colleges have. I saw hints of it with groups speaking on campus, flyers hung on billboards, but nothing in class. While in engineering I felt largely insulated from the liberal nonsense that I was told would surround me in college. In engineering we were there to solve practical problems such as accurately simulating a circuit, estimating the yield of a manufacturing process, and properly encoding a message and then decoding it on the other end.
My how things have changed now that I'm studying statistics and computer science. In one statistics text an example was made on the Bush v. Gore election fiasco in Florida, it showed how Bush "stole" the election. That same text likes to give examples on how global warming is affecting the ice pack, water levels, and so forth. If the other examples had not tipped me off on the left leaning authors I might not have thought much about the study they highlighted on HPV vaccines. If they are going to pick on Presidents named Bush, oil companies, then why not pick on those that advocate abstinence and put an HPV vaccine study in there.
I had a computer science professor spend half of a class lecturing us on how war is bad. She had to know that it is quite likely that half of her class will end up working in the "military industrial complex" that she was speaking about. Not all of them are going to be coding iPhone apps and online shopping websites. Quite a few of them are going to be designing crypto communication systems, deadly accurate navigation, ballistic prediction software, and what not.
I've had other courses that discussed probabilities, algorithms, and so forth like these statistics and computer science courses. What they didn't do is work politically loaded examples into the coursework. Examples on statistics and probability while in engineering involved problems of fruit flies interbreeding, noise in a communications channel, cards/dice/coins, letters in the alphabet, and just generally examples that were practical to getting a job done or curiosities of physics.
Why give a statistics example on Bush v. Gore? Why not choose something like people's favorite ice cream flavor? Perhaps give examples in astronomy, biology, a manufacturing process. Instead we get to look at climate change, election results, income inequality, gender roles, and so on.
These statistics and computer science courses are just as much about creating the next generation of social justice warriors as it is about teaching practical skills.
At least my math and music courses haven't tried to indoctrinate me into a way of thinking. At least not yet. Courses on calculus, matrix algebra, and numerical analysis might not be conducive to social justice indoctrination. My music lessons are on folk songs and Christian hymns, which might have something to do with a long shared history between "Western" music and Christian churches. All the instruments we commonly play, and the way we note music, in the "Western World" draws from a time and place where Christianity was prevalent. If you are going to learn to play the piano then you are not going to find a lot of pieces to play that the "diversity police" can impose upon you. While I would not be opposed to learn some music from around the world at least I know I won't be considered "insensitive" for wanting to play a Christmas hymn for my semester end recital.
There are some things I'd like to discuss in class but I fear I might be considered being "micro-aggressive" if I speak up. This can be stressful and I feel like I have to just shut up and keep my head down or I might find myself being retaliated against. Oh, I'm a white Christian male that also happens to be a veteran of the US Army. Being that I'm quite tall I kind of stick out in a crowd, people remember me.
Since I'm considered disabled because of an injury while in the Army I am considered a "minority", it's not a very visible disability, I just walk with a bit of a limp. I get the e-mail announcements from the "office of diversity" or whatever its called that invite me to certain events. I have not yet gone to any events because I doubt I'd be welcomed.
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It's worse than that: Technocrat middle class white males, the persecuted minority within a persecuted minority.
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Technocrat middle class white males, the persecuted minority within a persecuted minority.
Only if you work at Cisco and don't like vegan pizza.
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That's like the perfect euphemism for a slashdotter. I might steal that in the future.
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Authorizing government to silence certain opinions hasn't worked out too well for blacks or women.
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Everyone knows racism, sexism, etc don't count against straight white cis males.
Unless you're the only white guy in a black social studies or women lit class. Then you bear the responsibility for 400+ years of racism (American slavery) and 6,000+ years of sexism (Adam's rib). Fortunately, my instructors protected me from being lynched or castrated by my fellow classmates.
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That's just bullshit. We had matriarchal societies as recently as 1500 years ago, you don't have to carry the other 4500 years.
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We had matriarchal societies as recently as 1500 years ago, you don't have to carry the other 4500 years.
Unless you're a Christian and follow the Bible, then you're responsible for Eve coming from Adam's rib.
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It must be really tough being a victim for 3 hours a week.
It was six hours a week. I took black social studies and women lit in the same semester. But I wasn't playing the victim game; I only accepted the burden of being a white male.
Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
willing to enroll students of any faith/non-faith who are will to abide by the conduct codes
The code of conduct is misleading, for serious students they're usually not that onerous, just focus on your studies and you probably will never have disciplinary issues. But you can't live some place for 4+ years and be a castle, particularly not with modern group-based education practices. My sister went to Liberty, I don't know why, but I hear-tell if you are even mildly catholic, never mind some heathen non-Christian religion, you won't feel very welcome. I don't know how it is now that Falwell is gone, but I felt it clearly standing there during graduation. There's a secret handshake in the vocabulary they use, and the interpretations they use.
Unless there is some very compelling reason to be at a religious university, I think it's just not worth pretending to be someone you are not. There are plenty of good secular schools. In the US at least most of the secular schools offer both better educations and better reputations anyhow, with a few exceptions I can think of.
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I have no idea why your sister went there (I gather from your writing that she was Catholic or otherwise not quite of the same religious thinking as the majority of students there), but from what I've read, one big reason other non-evangelical students go there is because their parents basically force them to, such as by paying their tuition there but only there and not a decent state school, threatening to cut off all support if they don't go there, etc.
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She had no problems there, she drank the kool-aid willingly and my parents certainly did not force her (in fact tried to direct her elsewhere). But even she noticed how difficult it was not having been raised from birth in that...culture...for lack of better words. We were in fact raised baptist, but we had lived in many large cities in the country and had a somewhat larger perspective of the world.
I really don't think you'd want to go there and just play ball. That particular school is maybe not quite the
Re:Not really (Score:5, Informative)
No, they don't. They have doctrinal statements for faculty and staff, and may have stricter conduct codes, but they are generally willing to enroll students of any faith/non-faith who are will to abide by the conduct codes
I attended Brigham Young University (owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Tithing from the faithful subsidize students' education, so members of the faith pay a lower tuition (like how residents pay less at state universities). Faculty and students must sign the Honor Code and receive an Ecclesiastic Endorsement on a yearly basis. In essence, you promise to live up to dress and grooming standards, live the Word of Wisdom (no alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, or illicit drugs), follow moral rules (no extra-marital sex, no men in the ladies dorms [or vice verse] after midnight), etc. This does not exclude students from other religions - or even atheists - but most students are LdS.
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I took a bit too much LDS once...the pretty colors and the walls melting were fun, but man...it was a drag coming down off that stuff!!! Stayed awake for like 28 hours....
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That's what happens when you send a Vulcan to Berkeley.
Re:Not really (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not really (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because it's a Catholic university and not an Evangelical Christian university like Liberty U. Catholics have long been very tolerant of other religions that way (they had some real problems back in the time of Galileo, but they've had centuries to improve), and have long been big promoters of education. Catholic grade schools are much the same: they take kids of all (or no) faiths and aren't real pushy about the religion angle.
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I wonder how tolerate a Muslim university would be?
If caught looking at a girl walking by....chopping hands off as an easy first offense?
Re:Not really (Score:4, Informative)
Sharia Law is to Muslim as Catholic is to Christianity. They are certainly tangentially based on the original source materials, but they took centuries of refinements to build up a set of strange nonsense rules that represent their original source version of things. Looking back at the rules they form, and one has to question why they were ever made. Plus, Sharia itself doesn't have a central authority to dictate, so maybe something like like the collage of baptist faiths would be a better analogy.
Secondly, much like described above, since all Muslims don't believe in the Sharia, why would you ever assume that a Muslim university (especially in the US) would espouse it?
Re:Not really (Score:5, Informative)
Liberty U is very tolerant of other views - as are most Christian Schools - being a core element of their beliefs.
Bullshit.
From every job listing for Liberty
Disclaimer Statement: Liberty University's hiring practices and EEO Statement are fully in compliance with both federal and state law. Federal law creates an exception to the "religion" component of the employment discrimination laws for religious organizations (including educational institutions), and permits them to give employment preference to members of their own religion. Liberty University is in that category.
That particular entry I pulled out at random was for a Network Engineering job. If you aren't a Baptist you can't even plug in network cables there. I've personally known people who have lied about their religion to get a job there, and people who got rejected for being Catholic. Employees sign a "Way of Life" contract.
Tolerant my left nut.
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It might stem from the state you are working in. While the rules of conduct might apply, OSHA and other work-related rules do apply. but I am guessing that you were well educated and understand how to talk to people and listen, that's most likely why they are cool with you
Fantastic (Score:3)
Re:Not really (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, Catholics may be more open-minded than some deep-south Baptists (please don't flame me if you are Baptist in the deep-south - I have many friends that are as well, but institutionally IME they tend to think Catholics, Mormons and others are basically 'the devil'). YMMV, etc
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This is a very strange but often successful attempt to shut down a conversation. There's usually an implication that the person making the original observation was suggesting that something should be illegal; there is no such implication here that I'm aware of. The point is that the anti-freedom perils of ultra-conservative universities might
Re:Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Most places don't ask such questions
Most places are not religious institutions.
I'd love to see those idiots if people were allowed to refuse them service because of their religion.
This is already true. A church is free to refuse service to muslims. A mosque is free to refuse service to christians.
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I was dreading reading the list because my state hosts to a few very vocal wack jobs that embarrasses the majority of the residents on the national news all the time. I'm not sure if I should be surprised we're not on the list, not surprised, or just relieved.
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You're mostly right. Most of these jackoffs complaining about being censored or oppressed are just are really just complaining about not being able to say whatever comes to mind and suffering zero criticism for it.
These people are not being criticised, they are being expelled or fired. People can say whatever comes to their minds and people can criticise them for it, but they can not retaliate against them what would be in violation of the law.
Re:Why shouldn't free speech have consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel there needs to be some sort of consequences for inflammatory speech.
One of the problems is the definition of "inflammatory". Another problem is that some people are just way too sensitive.
Re:Why shouldn't free speech have consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't like free speech, then why don't you go to any one of the number of countries where it doesn't exist?
I am a millennial, born in 1987, and let me tell you, the stereotype is true. Most of my generation are soft, squishy, and hypersensitive. Those are the best definitions I've ever heard, and I thank you for them. Most of my people CAN'T handle the real world. And people who use the term "inflammatory speech" are the soft, squishy types who can't handle the real world.
If someone says something you don't like, YOU IGNORE THEM. Ignoring the blowhards is the easiest way to get them to stop. You don't fight with them, it just causes them to double down on their opinions. And remember, just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them wrong. You sound EXACTLY like one of these millennial pukes of my generation who are the special snowflakes who can't handle ANY kind of criticism or ANY kind of opinions that fall outside of or make them question their worldview. The fact that you invoke Donald Trump just proves my point.
I want a country of 300 million people, all speaking their minds, and all understanding that not everyone will agree with them at every turn. The fact that Donald Trump (since you brought him up) has so many supporters just tells me that there is a large swath of the population that is disenfranchised, and that contrary to popular belief, they seem to fall across all racial, demographics, and educational boundaries. People who are taxpaying members of society just like you and me who deserve to have their voice heard. Whether or not I agree with them. But you would have them silenced, because their opinions aren't the correct ones. They aren't "falling in line" with what YOU think is right. That's not freedom. Period.
You see, that's the beauty of a free society, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about you. You don't have to "fall in" with the party line. You can stand up and give the finger to whoever you want, and you AREN'T PUNISHED FOR DOING SO. Punishing people for speech, as you are advocating, is dangerous and tyrannical. And I don't understand why people just don't get it. Freedom is the best thing to ever happen, and the soft squishy types like yourself only seem to want to put it back in the bottle. It makes me sick.
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" Punishing people for speech, as you are advocating, is dangerous and tyrannical. And I don't understand why people just don't get it. Freedom is the best thing to ever happen, and the soft squishy types like yourself only seem to want to put it back in the bottle. It makes me sick."
I'm not advocating punishing free speech. I am advocating not espousing the belief that angry, harassing, hate-inciting speech is the preferred method of discourse. Two examples:
- How would you like it if everyone, in every int
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the problem for me is where does freedom of speech end and freedom of association begin.
we've got digital lynch mobs effectively punishing individuals for political views. brendan eich.
it's troubling, i don't want anyone to suffer for sharing their political views, in any context. That way lies madness. but again, freedom of association means that they're all well within their rights as individuals to force the man out of his job.
Tryanny of the majority (Score:4, Interesting)
I have the opposite view -- I feel there needs to be some sort of consequences for inflammatory speech.
Careful there. You are correct that free speech does not (and should not) equal consequence free speech except where Constitutionally defined. HOWEVER sometimes what is considered inflammatory by some is considered ordinary by others. Just because an opinion is unpopular doesn't mean there should always be consequences. It wasn't that long ago that saying something like "man evolved from apes" or "interracial marriage is ok" could get you into some serious hot water. Heck there are still parts of this country that (technically) you cannot hold public office if you say you don't believe in god. Always having consequences for spoken ideas can result in things like Jim Crow laws if you aren't careful. It can easily become a tyranny of the majority or of the powerful.
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"Hate speech"-- now there's a term that shouldn't exist in a free country.
Indeed. Look at Thailand and disrespectful speech about the monarchy. Same kind of thing.
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You can't shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. And you shouldn't be able to use racial and sexist profanities to intimidate people.
Since you volunteered, tell that to Mr. Trump.
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as the much-missed hitchens pointed out,
the fire ruling was made to silence the speech of socialist jews that were trying to keep america out of WWI.
it was not a good ruling.