I was just reading a blog post by Will Creeley about the recent revocations of Harvard admission offers. I don’t care very much about the main subject of the post, but:
Having spent the last decade defending student and faculty rights, I’ve learned a couple of things about exactly what type of campus civil liberties violations receive the most media attention. It’s not always what one might expect.
For example, I remember feeling shocked that a student’s expulsion over a Facebook post protesting the construction of a parking garage didn’t warrant above-the-fold coverage. I was amazed that students blacklisted for complaining to administrators about being subjected to mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds, performed by their peers, somehow didn’t go viral and make its way onto every social media timeline in the country. And my colleague Samantha Harris just penned a powerful piece for Vox about the relative media silence regarding Princeton University Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, who has received death threats and been forced to cancel appearances following her Hampshire College commencement address last month.
All of that actually happened, and as far as I can tell, Creeley is not exaggerating or misrepresenting any of it. Yet I have never heard about the parking garage case or the transvaginal ultrasound case. What the fuck?
Admittedly, the parking garage expulsion happened in 2007, but the ensuing litigation went on until 2015.
I think clearly what’s going on is that anything to do with Harvard is going to get more attention than even the most outrageous abuses at Valencia College. But yeah, everyone should read The FIRE for campus free speech cases if you want to hear about all of them and not a weird atypical subset.
I did hear about the transvaginal ultrasound case, but I agree with the above, news about Harvard is bigger than news about any other college.