The university is reiterating its commitment to free expression but indicting that the protestors are violating time, manner, place restrictions and risking campus safety:
A reporter was arrested yesterday but later released. It sounds like charges will not be pursued.
Later in the evening, the students said the administration brought Panera Bread for security but was denying food and bathroom access to students.
They were peeing in bottles.
Some students started to realize they might get arrested while trying to report that one young woman was in danger of toxic shock:
In the end, four students were arrested (three inside and one outside), and all the students inside were given interim suspensions, which means they can’t be on campus and had to leave by 5pm local yesterday.
These Harvard students…did not react well to the report on grade inflation:
“The whole entire day, I was crying. I skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren’t even the best. It just felt soul-crushing.”
“What makes a Harvard student a Harvard student is their engagement in extracurriculars. Now we have to throw that all away and pursue just academics. I believe that attacks the very notion of what Harvard is.”
“I can’t reach my maximum level of enjoyment just learning the material because I’m so anxious about the midterm, so anxious about the papers, and because I know it’s so harshly graded. If that standard is raised even more, it’s unrealistic to assume that people will enjoy their classes.”
A student says harder grading “could take a serious toll on students’ mental health.”
“‘It makes me rethink my decision to come to the school,’ she said. ‘I killed myself all throughout high school to try and get into this school. I was looking forward to being fulfilled by my studies now, rather than being killed by them.’”
“They were cracking up not simply because grades had gotten so high but because they knew just how little students were doing to earn them.”
Harvard faculty recognize that grade inflation has become absurd:
“In 2011, 60 percent of all grades at Harvard were in the A range (up from 33 percent in 1985). By the 2020–21 academic year, that share had risen to 79 percent.”
“Outside observers might still think of grades as an objective assessment of a student’s work, and therefore a way to differentiate between levels of achievement. But many professors seem to conceive of them as an endlessly adaptable participation trophy.”
“College teaching is politically one-sided to an extreme, and until professors change our ways, we won’t recover the trust of the public.”
“Take the teaching of racial bias and the criminal justice system.”
🧵
“Michelle Alexander’s ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’ (2010) shows up in thousands of syllabi,” but the work of one of her leading critics “is paired with it less than 4% of the time.”
Other critics are taught even less.
“Who is generally taught with Ms. Alexander? Works that make hers look moderate. The top three titles are by Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michel Foucault.”
🧵Columbia’s agreement with the federal government includes provisions to ensure non-discrimination in admissions and hiring.
“Columbia shall not maintain programs that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets, or similar efforts.”
“Columbia shall maintain merit-based admissions policies. Columbia may not, by any means, unlawfully preference applicants based on race, color, or national origin in admissions throughout its programs. No proxy for racial admission will be implemented or maintained. Columbia may not use personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity as a means to introduce or justify discrimination.”
“Columbia shall provide the Resolution Monitor and the United States with admissions data…showing both rejected and admitted students broken down by race, color, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests.”
Asked about NPR’s bias in a new interview, Katherine Maher says the “argument about public media being ‘biased’ is a stalking horse” and “having non-white voices and perspectives on air does not make us woke.”
NPR got exactly what it deserved.
“We have always been editorially independent…now we are financially independent.”
“We will no longer have the Congressional funding Sword of Damocles over our heads.”
“We have…the opportunity to leave behind…things that no longer serve our mission.”
“This eviscerates funding for those independent, community-based stations. And for what purpose? Scoring political points by saying you voted against NPR and PBS.”
I wonder if it will ever occur to her that they could’ve averted this by dialing back the bias just a little bit?