Harvard Law plan on speech causes stir (wants to limit "offensive speech" on campus)

Boston Globe ^ | 11.19.02 | Patrick Healy

[mhking]

CAMBRIDGE - A Harvard Law School committee announced plans yesterday to draft a speech code that would ban harassing, offensive language from the classroom, a highly unusual step for a law school and a move that runs counter to a national trend against interfering with campus speech.

[mhking]

Black conservative ping

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[Libertarianize the GOP]

bump

[Hodar]

Law school officials said that the ''difficult conversations'' workshops have been a ''work in progess,'' and some students say the results have been mixed.

My favorite saying is "That's almost enough to make a sailor swear". And this is.... appologies to the sailor who reads this, and doesn't swear.... :-P

[KeyBored]

''When they come to ask for a speech code, they should be better prepared,'' Dershowitz said

Dershowitz making sense. Whodda thunk it?

[mhking]

Dershowitz making sense. Whodda thunk it?

Dogs sleeping with cats! It's a sign, I tell ya, it's a sign!

[Bahbah]

''When I hear blacks saying I want more blacks, or liberals saying I want more liberals, that doesn't seem like diversity - that sounds like self-serving pleading,'' Dershowitz said."

Thus causing me to look out of the window to see the pigs flying by.

[Christian B]

The liberals are hog-tied to so many consituencies - it was only a matter of time before they collide. I can't believe the Globe is pointing it all out.

[APBaer]

"speak with greater sensitivity about race, gender, and other potentially hot-button issues.'

Give me a fukking break!
What ever happened to :
"Sticks and sones can break my bones but [the exerise of free speech] can never harm me"?

[billorites]

"Dershowitz making sense. Whodda thunk it? "

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Seriously, debates like this is how students learn to think critcally.

[laconic]

The WSJournal had an article on this the other day; some of the students at Harvard Law are advocating a ban on competitive language which is rather strange since they're supposedly being taught and trained to represent their clients in adversarial situations. Universities are supposed to be about differing opinions and debate on issues, not places where you're surrounded only by people you agree with (the "old" Russia or the current North Korea are model places for this). By the way, the student who wrote the offensive word in his notebook was a Filipino; he said he didn't intend anything other than a note shortcut.

[Billthedrill]

They actually tried something like this on the Stanford University campus a few years ago when Donald Kennedy was president there. Donny-boy was all for it. The students ended up painting a line on the sidewalk around the entire campus. On the inside of the line they printed "campus." On the town side they printed "free speech zone."

The sanctimonious huffing and puffing about "academic freedom" that went on after the code was rescinded (and by the people responsible for the code in the first place) was something to see.

[valkyrieanne]

Boycott Harvard. It sounds like a total waste of time & money.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Could somebody please explain to me why we didn't need campus speech codes in the 70s when I was in college but we do need them now? What exactly has changed? I don't get it.

[Christian B]

There is a virtual consensus among academia that everything we say, think, and do classifies the rest of the world. This "classification" can be very harmful is people aren't taught the limitations and excesses of their own opinions and beliefs. They believe that people are most healthy when they don't allow their own opinions, words or actions to impede on the one-ness of others. And worse, if people aren't taught to respect everyones beliefs (a.k.a pluralism), other people's feeling might get hurt and that is a form of oppression.

[laconic]

I actually agree with Dershowitz on something; I must have caught some Andromeda-type virus.

[lady lawyer]

That is an argument for thought and speech control, pure and simple.

[AnnaZ]

''When I hear blacks saying I want more blacks, or liberals saying I want more liberals, that doesn't seem like diversity - that sounds like self-serving pleading,'' Dershowitz said."

Thus causing me to look out of the window to see the pigs flying by.

 

 

 

[Bahbah]

LOL. That is just great! Huge laugh.