Agree.

It will be seen that, as used, the word "Fascism" is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if "Fascist" means "in sympathy with Hitler", some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word "Fascist" in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By "Fascism" they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept "bully" as a synonym for "Fascist". That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

George Orwell, "What is Fascism?," Tribune, 24 March 1944.

While I think the word has more definitive meaning that Orwell gave it in 1944, I don't think the writer at Harvard has grasped that meaning. His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, I think he is, as Orwell suggests, using the word "facist" to mean "bully."

Fair enough. In either event, their behavior is not excused. And while calling for someone's resignation as occurred in Yale is, yes, protected by the First Amendment, there are a number of adjectives which would also attach--bully, ant-intellectual, entitled.

And let's be clear--it's not fair game. The professor is not going to consider turnabout being fair play and reasonably expect the students acting like complete douchebags to resign from Yale.

And let's go ahead and group all of the speech and activity against that professor.. we can of course agree that spitting on someone isn't an exercise of free speech.

Sally Kohn comes to the defense of the shrieking Yale student. I was always on the fence when it came to Kohn, but after reading this I think she's an idiot.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/opinio...sts/index.html

And just to confirm, if you were on the fence, there are apparently some idiot students at Mizzou behind these protests.

http://www.barstoolsports.com/barsto...ion-than-them/

Yes... the Paris coverage is being used as an excuse by the media not to cover your kerfuffle... morons. I really hope this is just satire.

No more entitled than the students who went crying to Christakis because of the big bad email asking them not to do blackface on Halloween.

You know, it is possible to think that blackface and other offensive costumes are never appropriate under any circumstances, and at the same time to have reservations or concerns about the email sent by Yale administrators. The two positions are hardly mutually exclusive.

Would they be equally concerned about an email reminding students not to cheat on exams? Or reminding students not to rape women?

I just don't see how this reads as anything but white fragility.

When someone in authority assumes you are going to do bad things, it obviously sets your teeth on edge and makes you defensive, no matter who you are or what the thing is. If a mall had on their Facebook page "please park your car between the lines and do not take up multiple spaces" I would say "eff you, mall."

So it's not possible to disagree with what the administrators did, or perhaps with how they did it, without being motivated by white fragility?

I didn't say it was impossible. I said it was highly unlikely, given that administrators send out emails about all sorts of things you should and should not do on a college campus.

I have a really hard time believing that, if a bunch of cheaters were busted and there was a subsequent email about academic integrity, students would complain to their residential college directors.

Maybe there are students who had no idea about recent race-related incidents at Yale and elsewhere, and therefore saw the email as being unprompted, but that speaks to the privilege of those students rather than Yale's overreach.

Thank you.

For those who don't understand all the hubbub about Mizzou, this article might explain it a bit. It does read a bit like someone's thesis, but at least it is fully documented and comes with graphics ;)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b08cda3488f34d

In short, Missouri is a whole different place and comparing it to your typical northern (or southern) school with similar diversity concentrations is not going to explain the racial tension. And assuming the black situation at Mizzou is the same as at similar regional schools like Illinois, Tennessee or Arkansas (all reasonably close and similarly sized) is going to make you think this is all much ado about nothing.

Of course not, because academic integrity and cheating are at the core of the university's disciplinary powers. Who would question that?

Which is one reason why some of us have said we can see how the email here seemed like an implied threat of discipline.

If that's what happened, then yes, it does. But as far as I've seen, we know nothing about the students who expressed concerns (which is not the same as complaining or "crying"), nor do we know what concerns they expressed. We don't know that they were all white students. We just don't know.

It seems that an unwarranted and false dichotomy is being presented: either one supports the email completely and unquestioningly, or one is wrong, and that wrong-ness is motivated by privilege, fragility or the like. Is there absolutely no room for someone to say something like "I agree with what you're trying to accomplish, but I think there may better ways to get there, and I think the conversation needs to be broader"?

I sure wouldn't, but I also wouldn't question that creating a safe environment for students of color is at the core of a university's duties as well.

Scott Woods says it better than I can:

https://scottwoodsmakeslists.wordpre...horrible-goal/

In short, we are WAY past the time for conversation.

Again, a false dichotomy—that concerns about this email mean one is against creating a safe environment for students of color.

It's late; I'll read the Scott Woods article tomorrow, when I can digest a little better.