Thursday Links
Turmoil at End of Path From Bed-Stuy to Harvard [NY Times] Report Offers New Details on Shooting of Officer [NY Times] City Contractor Is Charged With Wage Theft [NY Times] In Greenwich, Big Discounts on Big Homes [NY Times] Homeless Move Into Crown Heights Development [NY Daily News] Park Slope Record Store Gets New Home…
Turmoil at End of Path From Bed-Stuy to Harvard [NY Times]
Report Offers New Details on Shooting of Officer [NY Times]
City Contractor Is Charged With Wage Theft [NY Times]
In Greenwich, Big Discounts on Big Homes [NY Times]
Homeless Move Into Crown Heights Development [NY Daily News]
Park Slope Record Store Gets New Home [NY Daily News]
Study Shows Arena Could Cost City Big-Time [NY Daily News]
Albany Throws Bloomy a Rabbit Punch in Coney [Brooklyn Paper]
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and I disagree- that’s certainly your opinion and I have not put this into racial terms- you have. I would say you desire to believe the university undercuts your comment about skepticism whereas my positioin is that if the university had something so copelling that they kicked out the student and denied her diploma, then how is it the police are not showing more interest in her? Let’s not discuss my “incomplete understanding” when yours is hardly more so.
i never said harvard possesses any “immutable facts.” those are your words. and it often takes much, MUCH longer (as it should) for criminal charges to be pressed than for disciplinary measures to be taken at a school.
with graduation imminent, harvard may have needed to, and may have been obligated to pursuant its own disciplinary policies, take the action it took. i don’t know that it was. and you don’t know that it wasn’t. and they’ve said that they can’t discuss it due to federal law and harvard policy. i fail to see what is so surprising or shocking about this. and, in any event, you seem to realize that the outflow of information (both accurate and otherwise) in the duke case contributed to the massive snafu there. so i’m not sure why you’re so sure that more facts right now would be helpful.
it is frustrating not to have the facts, and you can be as skeptical as you like in imagining an explanation why. given the risks to harvard, it seems impossible to me that they don’t actually have actual (non-racially motivated) facts that *they* believe justify what they did, and actual restrictions as to what they can say about it. as i said, you have a right to be skeptical, but, to my mind, the level of skepticism and the reasons offered for it show an incomplete understanding of the variety of motivations and restrictions that may be operating here.
“but it does probably (and, in my opinion, understandably) mean you won’t hear them divulging details or defending their actions with the kind of facts that might satisfy you.”
The case is under investigation. the police themselves haven’t decided anything so how is it Harvard possesses immutable facts that supposedly dictate she should be denied her diploma and thrown out? Think it happened a little too quickly myself. And if her involvement was such as to warrant being thrown out of Harvard, don’t you think the police would be pressing charges too, this being a murder investigation?
sorry fsrG 🙁 on my computer it looks like a q
benson- you will think i am trying to be disengenuous but I honestly can’t say I think that for sure re white guy from tony NJ suburb. Since I agree with you re the Duke case there is one thing- that case played out very publically and very manipulatively (is that a word?).
Not only was it a media circus, but District Attorney was so out of control he was removed from the case and eventually disbarred. But everything fed to the public re that case was deliberately done to manipulate opinion. If people didn’t quite jump up and scream for justice for the players, it was certainly because so much information ( most of it inaccurate or simply untrue)was put out there. And in that case our idea of “jocks” played right into it-the same as racist perceptions play into how this girl is being treated.
The problem with the Harvard case is that information is not being put out there other than very basic facts, and the fact that Harvard is denying her a diploma and graduation ceremony. Right now all we have is speculation and minimal information – other than that, the treatment of the students is very similar and the resulting outcome may be also, if she is innocent.
the race and class elements to this, just like in the duke case, make a very complicated question of what is the “right” thing to do. my guess is that harvard learned a lot from the duke case – mainly, not to say anything, maybe ever, but at least not until much further down the road. those kind of statements might be bad for the criminal case, might expose it even more so to civil litigation, and might, in fact, expose this woman to more harm than she’s already been exposed to, etc. that doesn’t mean that they don’t have an obligation to (or that they did/did not) administer their own disciplinary policies in a consistent, fair and race-neutral way. but it does probably (and, in my opinion, understandably) mean you won’t hear them divulging details or defending their actions with the kind of facts that might satisfy you.
I always wondered about that. It’s hard to tell with the underscore.
BTW – just so you all know – its fsrG
Hi everyone;
I’m back.
I think FSRQ hit the nail on the head in his last post.
Bxgrl, I was wrong to make a presumption about your opinion on the Duke case. However, as I said in my last paragraph, I do see this as a replay of the Duke case, in that everyone is jumping to conclusions prior to any facts being known, and the reason for that is the race of the suspect in question. An honest question: if the person involved in this case was a rich white male from a tony NJ suburb (as in the Duke case), do you think that folks would be rushing to his defense? No they would not, just like PRECIOUS FEW came to the defense of those Duke guys.
fsrq- no, its not surprising and in an odd way he and I were making the same point about public opinion. But by using the Duke case he wound up illustrating that indeed yes a University will take action based on unproven or half baked facts against a student.
I do object to his assuming that MM, cobble and I would not have taken the same position in regards to white boys because they were rich and/or white. That’s an assumption (and a very obnoxious one) on his part, that he made because Duke was not even in this conversation. I see no logic in claiming points for discussions that didn’t happen (unless he was speaking from an alternative reality).
I honestly don’t know what the real situation is regarding Harvard and I am not willing to say the Harvard is racist in this case because we don’t have all the facts. But the story is news, and imho Harvard is doing this girl a double disservice by allowing rumor and innuendo to swirl around her. She’s young. She’s worked hard. She’s intelligent and wasn’t even around when the incident ocurred. Most of the facts seem to be at variance with the whole thing- but one fact does remain. She earned her degree.