Monthly Archives: June 2017

Craig F. Walker/globe staff

The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library in Harvard Yard in Cambridge.

A nationwide debate has erupted over Harvard Universitys recent decision to rescind admission offers to at least 10 students because of extremely offensive memes they posted in a private Facebook chat.

Some higher education specialists call the punishment appropriate, but others say that Harvard ignored its own claim to embrace free speech and that it missed an opportunity to educate those students about their poor choices.

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I dont know what lesson these students have learned, other than to keep their mouth shut, said Will Creeley, a senior vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, based in Philadelphia.

The incident comes at a time when free speech has become a flashpoint on college campuses across the country. Concern about acceptance and inclusivity has in some cases led administrators to curtail what might otherwise be seen as students freedom to act and speak how they choose.

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This is true at Harvard, where for the past year the school has been embroiled in a debate about whether the university can punish students for clubs they join off campus. Few on campus seem to support a group of off-campus, exclusive all-male social clubs, but many students, professors, and alumni nonetheless say the university went too far in trying to punish members by restricting their on-campus privileges.Administrators, meanwhile, say the clubs foster a judgmental and unsafe culture that Harvard does not condone.

For many young people, memes the wild variety of funny captions over memorable images are a second language.

The recent incident involving the Facebook memes took place in April, when administrators were sent copies of memes that students had posted in a private group chat on Facebook whose members had been admitted to the class of 2021.

The messages made sexual jokes about the Holocaust, implied that child abuse was sexually arousing, and poked fun at suicide and Mexicans.

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Harvard has declined to comment directly on the situation but did say the school reserves the right to withdraw admission for a variety of reasons, including if a student engages in behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity, or moral character.

One of the students who lost her seat is the daughter of major donors to the university, according to correspondence reviewed by the Globe.

News of the rescinded applications comes less than two weeks after Harvard President Drew Faust used her commencement address to passionately defend free speech.

We must remember that limiting some speech opens the dangerous possibility that the speech that is ultimately censored may be our own, Faust said in the speech.

If some words are to be treated as equivalent to physical violence and silenced or even prosecuted, who is to decide which words? Freedom of expression, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said long ago, protects not only free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate. We need to hear those hateful ideas so our society is fully equipped to oppose and defeat them, she said, according to an online copy of her remarks.

Creeley, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the organization has seen a spike in the past decade of faculty and students disciplined for online speech that sometimes has nothing to do with their official capacities at the school. The Harvard case was unique because the students had not matriculated yet, he said.

In some instances, administrators overreact, Creeley said, citing a Yale lecturer who resigned in 2015 after she came under attack for challenging students to stand up for their right to wear Halloween costumes that could be construed as offensive.

I can help but think that no matter how offensive these jokes may be to most if not all, that theres been an opportunity missed in terms of the possibility of educating these students, Creeley said.

Wendy Kaminer, a lawyer, author, and former board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Harvard should not have rescinded admission since the students made no actual threats against people, she said.

I guess you could say there is no free speech at Harvard; there is only speech of which the administration does not disapprove, she said.

Others disagree. Jonathan P. Epstein, a senior vice president at the higher education consulting firm Whiteboard Higher Education in Waltham, works with college administrators daily and said he has heard little objection.

From what Ive heard, counselors have been telling students for years ... that anything that you do online is essentially part of your application, Epstein said.

Harvard did not tell students they cant make those jokes, he said, but simply that it does not want students who act that way to attend the school.

Howard Gardner, a professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said this is not a question of free speech. Any community needs to observe certain standards, and admission to Harvard is a privilege, he said in an e-mail.

The students have learned a lesson that they will never forget, he said.

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Harvard admission decision prompts debate over free speech - The Boston Globe

Florida Republican Rep. Francis Rooney, a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, suggested Tuesday night that members may consider restricting funds from universities that limit free speech rights on campus.

I think there is a bill out there to not fund the University of California at Berkeley for what they did. And I think its certainly worth considering just like the idea of not funding sanctuary cities, Rooney said on Patriot Tonight on SiriusXMs Patriot channel.

Rooney went on to say, Its certainly worth considering cutting back funds federal funds to schools that dont believe enough in our Constitution and our free speech to defend it.

Following violence early in the yearthat broke out on the campus of UC Berkeley because of protests against libertarian provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, President Donald Trump tweeted, If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view NO FEDERAL FUNDS?

California Democrats lashed out at the president for his tweet. California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, whosedistrict includes Berkeleys campus, said in a statement:

Berkeley has a proud history of dissent and students were fully within their rights to protest peacefully. However, I am disappointed by the unacceptable acts of violence last night which were counterproductive and dangerous, she said. President Donald Trump cannot bully our university into silence. Simply put, President Trumps empty threat to cut funding from UC Berkeley is an abuse of power.

Rooney, however, believes such legislation would have support in the House.

I think there would be a lot of people that would want to do that and I think theres a couple of bills in place, he said.

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Republican Rep Floats Cutting Funding From Schools That Limit Free Speech - The Daily Caller

Afirst amendment institute sent a letter to President Trump demanding he unblock all people hes blocked on Twitter or face legal action.

The Knight First Amendment Institute, which sent the letter, argues that the President, by blocking his critics, has violated the First Amendment rights of those people.

In a letter sent [yesterday] to President Trump, the Knight First Amendment Institute asked the President to unblock the Twitter accounts of individuals denied access to his account after they criticized or disagreed with him, or face legal action to protect the First Amendment rights of the blocked individuals, the Institutes press release read.

According to the Institute, Trumps Twitter account is a designated public forum and therefore subjected to the constitutionalfree speech guarantees that prohibits the government from silencing people in public places due to their views.

The Knight Institute asked the President to unblock its clients, or to direct his subordinates to do so, the release added.

Multiple people have recently taken to Twitter toannounce that they were blocked by the President on Twitter. A Jimmy Kimmel Live! comedy writer, Bess Kalb, wasblocked by Trump because, according to him, she hurt his feelings. (Most likely its due to her lame jokes.)

Some users have suggested the comedy writer contact the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and sue Trump for violating The Presidential Records Act whichguarantees the public have access to Trumps public records, in this case they mean his Twitter feed.

The Institute documented another case where a person was blocked by Trump. A Twitter user named @@AynRandPaulRyan was blocked after tweeting at Trump a gifof the Pope lookinggloomy.

Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institutes executive director, claimed This is a context in which the Constitution precludes the President from making up his own rules.

Though the architects of the Constitution surely didnt contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the President must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable. Having opened this forum to all comers, the President cant exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what theyre saying.

Senior litigator at the Institute, Katie Fallow, meanwhile, said that When new communications platforms are developed, core First Amendment principles cannot be left behind.

The First Amendment disallows the President from blocking critics on Twitter just as it disallows mayors from ejecting critics from town halls.

Some First Amendmentexperts, however, werent sure theres a case to be made that the President must unblock the blocked users.Neil Richards, a professor at Washington Universitys law school, specializing in First Amendment theory, told WIREDthat The question of whether the Presidents Twitter feed is a public forum is a more complicated question.

The law here is famously muddled, because its trying to prevent the government from discriminating against people who speak on public streets and parks, but its trying to fight the urge to make everything a public forum.

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Free Speech Group Threatens to Sue Trump if he Doesn't Unblock Blocked Twitter Users - Heat Street