Columbia wrestling

[KeithK]

my concern is that these were group text messages, that were stolen by someone and screencapped then leaked --I think it's one thing if there's any evidence of actual harassment or unlawful behavior, another if it's a private group text (no matter how ill-advised some of the convo may be)

Exactly.

I don't think I change my opinion whether the leaker was a team member who got annoyed or a jilted girl as underskill suggests.

[KeithK]

Does a business have the right to police their environment as to keep it such that everyone can feel comfortable and do their best work? If they have workers who go out to represent the company, can they require that they live up to certain standards and if they don't, they can no longer represent the company?

A university is a business, albeit a different kind of business, but I see no reason why they can't and shouldn't go by those same standards.

I think it's very much reasonable to hold universities to a different standard.  They are a very different type of institution, one which should value freedom of speech.  

I don't think it's generally appropriate to hold private, legal conduct against employees of a business or students.  Whether the law grants a business the right to do so is beside the point.  I can see circumstances where it might be more appropriate - a CEO or spokesman.  But for all that we say things like athletes are representing their school I don't think this rises to that level of exposure.

You are welcome to disagree, of course.

[semsox]

If the mission of a university is to educate its students, then to fulfill this mission the university must strive to maintain a social/cultural atmosphere that's conducive to educating all its students. Part of this is to eliminate harassment of some students by others, which is particularly important if the harassment is against particular categories of students, when those categories have been oppressed historically.

I say this because it's one thing to harass someone, e.g., because they get upset when they're teased, but it's something else to harass someone because of their race, religion, gender, etc. In one case, an individual may realize there's always a chance of being harassed at any institution, but it's something else for someone to know that they attend institution X, they will be harassed simply by virtue of belonging to a particular group.

There are three parts to this:

• harassment
• of groups
• that are historically oppressed

In each case, the seriousness of the harassment, and correspondingly the severity of university response, increases from mere harassment, to harassment of groups, to harassment of groups that have been oppressed historically. None of it is good, and universities should try to prevent all forms of harassment. But their responses should be stronger in cases of harassment of historically oppressed groups.

But now suppose, as may be the case at Columbia, there was no overt harassment, but just "racist, misogynistic and homophobic" texting among members of the wrestling team. If a good case can be made that the team members are using a university-sponsored activity/organization as a way to reinforce their attitudes of denigrating members of historically oppressed groups, then to do everything in its power to make the university a place that's equally welcoming and conducive to learning for all its students, the university must step in and do something about the organization. Otherwise, specific activities and organizations might become associated with specific biases (wrestling is misogynistic, the debate club is antisemitic, student government is white supremacist, etc.). Even in the unlikely event that every group would have its own activity/organization in which it's OK to reinforce bias, equal intolerance and oppressive behavior is something a university should try to prevent. Also, while oppressive talk to others with similar opinions is not the same as such talk to members of the target group, or worse, hostile acts against members of the target group, such talk "among friends" normalizes oppressive attitudes and makes them seem OK, thereby increasing the likelihood of speech acts and physical acts against other students.

Finally, in the "culture wars," things like Columbia's actions against the wrestling team are often ridiculed as "political correctness" and condemned as not only attacking freedom of speech, but also as betraying the purpose of the university as a place for the exchange of ideas. This is really a red herring. Universities are primarily places of learning, and to be conducive to this they must be equally welcoming and "home" to all their students. The Klan member may have the right to say whatever hateful thing he wants on the street corner, but he does not have the right to barge into your house and start shouting it at you. Universities, especially residential universities, are the collective homes for their entire student bodies, and therefore they have the duty to exclude certain kinds of speech. Second, there's a big difference between reasoned debate and unilateral speech acts with no venue or rules to ensure a fair exchange of ideas. There's a big difference between between a psychology class discussing differences in IQ scores among "racial" groups versus students randomly calling other students "ni****" as they walk across the quad. Third, insofar as knowledge involves some standards of truth, universities must make judgements about which ideas merit serious discussion and which don't. Otherwise, they would become like a Doonesbury cartoon in which students in a math class debate if 2+2 = 3. Nothing would ever get done. Finally, there's the elephant in the room. Universities in the U.S. are indeed as much about indoctrination as education, but the indoctrination is subtle and widely accepted. At most universities in the U.S. you can go to business school and learn how to run a capitalist business, but if you want to learn how to run a workers cooperative you're out of luck. (In fact, you're unlikely even to be exposed to the knowledge that there are some very successful workers cooperatives around the world, that there have been social movements to make workers coops the main organizational form in society, or that this was once the main plank in the Republican Party's platform.) If you want to learn about government, you can find entire departments devoted to the subject, but if you want to learn about anarchism you'll be lucky to find a single course. Etc. In other words, the bias and indoctrination are structural and systematic, with virtually no regard for giving an equal chance to all serious alternatives. So beware of those who bemoan universities clamping down on students who call others derogatory names but say nothing about universities subtly inculcating the tacit acceptance of the corporate nation-state as the natural human condition. Such people may claim to be defending free speech, but this is not their real agenda.

I love everything about this post. Well said Swampy

[Jim Hyla]

Does a business have the right to police their environment as to keep it such that everyone can feel comfortable and do their best work? If they have workers who go out to represent the company, can they require that they live up to certain standards and if they don't, they can no longer represent the company?

A university is a business, albeit a different kind of business, but I see no reason why they can't and shouldn't go by those same standards.

I think it's very much reasonable to hold universities to a different standard.  They are a very different type of institution, one which should value freedom of speech.  

I don't think it's generally appropriate to hold private, legal conduct against employees of a business or students.  Whether the law grants a business the right to do so is beside the point.  I can see circumstances where it might be more appropriate - a CEO or spokesman.  But for all that we say things like athletes are representing their school I don't think this rises to that level of exposure.

You are welcome to disagree, of course.

Of course, but I'm not sure why you felt the need to tell me I'm welcome to disagree?

[KeithK]

You are welcome to disagree, of course.

Of course, but I'm not sure why you felt the need to tell me I'm welcome to disagree?

Politeness I guess?

There seems to be a trend these days where people increasingly can't disagree while maintaining civility. So sometimes I make an extra effort to make it clear that I'm happy to debate and disagree politely. Probably less important in a place like this where I know most of the regulars and have been debating things for years (and lord knows you weren't at all uncivil). But good habits.

[Jim Hyla]

You are welcome to disagree, of course.

Of course, but I'm not sure why you felt the need to tell me I'm welcome to disagree?

Politeness I guess?

There seems to be a trend these days where people increasingly can't disagree while maintaining civility. So sometimes I make an extra effort to make it clear that I'm happy to debate and disagree politely. Probably less important in a place like this where I know most of the regulars and have been debating things for years (and lord knows you weren't at all uncivil). But good habits.

I guess my statement was in response to my initial reaction when I read it. I was saying to myself, that of course I can disagree and I don't need anyone's approval to do it. So there's the uncivil response. Then I thought better about that and almost decided to pull the post, but in the end decided to leave it.

I agree with everything you said about civility.

[ugarte]

The offenders were kicked off the team for varying periods. Nobody was, as far as I can tell, punished otherwise. If the names of the suspended players are public I haven't seen them but the players not subject to discipline were wrestling this past weekend.

[ugarte]

The offenders were kicked off the team for varying periods. Nobody was, as far as I can tell, punished otherwise. If the names of the suspended players are public I haven't seen them but the players not subject to discipline were wrestling this past weekend.

The Columbia roster now has only one senior on it.