REAL LIFE NEWS: POTENTIAL HARVARD STUDENTS AXED DUE TO OFFENSIVE ONLINE POSTS
by Hazed
Students who were expecting to start at Harvard in the fall term have had their admission offers withdrawn after offensive online posts came to light.
Would-be Harvardeers swapped messages on an official Harvard College Class of 2021 Facebook group. Some of the students formed their own sub-groups and it’s one of these that saw at least ten students get the axe.
The group was called “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens” and invited potential members to submit “dank memes”, ie nasty stuff. Some of the memes mocked sexual assault and the Holocaust, and some were racist jokes.
A number of students found the memes offensive and reported the group to the university authorities. The Admissions Committee investigated and decided to withdraw the offers of at least ten people who had posted the offensive stuff.
This is not a free speech issue (see this cartoon for an excellent explanation: https://xkcd.com/1357/). Nobody is stopping the students from posting whatever rubbish they want. However, they have discovered that free speech comes with consequences. Harvard is taking the action because the offensive posts show a lack of “moral character”, although the college was obviously motivated by the bad publicity when the posts came to light. Those attending Harvard are supposed to be the elite, so they should at least have the good sense not to be caught out expressing unacceptable views or behaving like utter pillocks.
The students, meanwhile, have learnt that nothing is ever private on the internet. In future they will also come to realise that stupid stuff you post will follow you around forever!
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/05/harvard_facebook/
