Oh, I’m quite convinced that adolescence reaches well into your mid-twenties. But I expect even more from a 25-year-old than from 20-year old.
However, I acknowledge that they are only partially at fault: You don’t get to be that way unless you got treated as a kid even after you turned 15, with real responsibilities so that you can actually learn from your failures and mistakes. It’s unfortunate for these students to face such harsh repercussions, but perhaps they will teach their kids better without being bitter about it.
As I understand it, they actually had to post an offensive meme to the official Harvard group in order to gain admittance in the more vile private group. Once Harvard knew about the private group, they asked the students for an explanation of their involvement and what they’d posted. So some of the conduct was ‘public’ in Facebook terms, not just “you posted it to a group on the internet what did you expect” terms.
I don’t disagree but that’s not what happened here. Harvard asked them to turn over their postings.
The article I saw also said there were 100 people in the private group and 10 had their admission pulled, so it sounds like they did evaluate the broader postings by the students. (Allegedly all of them had to post something offensive to the official class page in order to get into the private group.)
Most workplaces are not particularly comparable to colleges and universities. Your workplace isn’t your primary ISP. You don’t sleep and eat most of your meals at work. (I hope) The flow of money is in the other direction. (I really hope.)
Also, title 9 is broader than most workplace sexual harassment policies.
I’ve never heard of a retroactive pull of accrued credit or earned degree(‘honorary’ degrees, possibly; and potentially if it is discovered that you didn’t earn the degree, but rather plagiarized your way through); and I suspect that the attempt would go poorly; but at least as far back as when I was applying, probably well before, it was always specifically stated that letters of acceptance were conditional.
The concern was usually just ensuring that the senior class didn’t stop showing up or doing any work the second they got in somewhere; so grades were the primary thing they kept an eye on; but reevaluating the personal aspect of your application in light of new data isn’t notably different; nor was it unheard of for people with disciplinary issues too troubling to be kept quiet to run into trouble on those grounds.
According to the article, Admissions offered this rather…frosty…invitation:
“As we understand you were among the members contributing such material to this chat, we are asking that you submit a statement by tomorrow at noon to explain your contributions and actions for discussion with the Admissions Committee.”
If only 10% ended up being axed; it would seem that either this offer(while calculated to do your blood pressure no good at all) was sincere about a willingness to consider anyone who was willing and able to do a competent walk-back when caught doing something stupid; or that the intensity of participation varied pretty substantially; possibly a combination of the two.
Unless your friend was legally bound by confidentiality, then yes, it’s okay. Speech has consequences. It stops being private the moment you decide to share it with someone who’s not bound by confidentiality. If you can’t be certain they won’t share it with your boss or anyone else, then don’t share it with them. In short, pick your friends and confidants carefully and think before you speak or write something.
Quick-and-dirty probability calculation would indicate that there is a 4.8% chance that one of the newly-accepted students fits the same mold as the ones whose admission was rescinded. Those are pretty decent odds.
Don’t want to be fired without cause? Join or form a union. Not sure why so many people in the US are so convinced they should never be able to bargain with their employer. One caveat: unions are like any other democratic type of organization, they are run by the people that show up, so if you can’t be bothered to participate your union will probably go to shit. Maybe I just answered my own question…
To be clear, I was quoting Caddyshack, where a character wanted to go to college but couldn’t afford it, and the rich golfer judge gave him this sage advice.
Nothing wrong with honest, manual labor. Modern ditch diggers who use heavy equipment make more money than me.
