Canceling Yale

[Dashinka 24,628]

18 minutes ago, laylalex said:

Meant to reply earlier, whoops. And errrrr, back to topic.

 

These places are small-c conservative. If it doesn't help grow the endowment, they really don't care too much. What grows the endowment? Well, a solid and creative investment strategy of course. But also alumni donations, large and small. I get hit up regularly -- almost worse than the all the texts I got from the Bernie campaign!  Anyway, the large donations tend to come from older, more established donors who, by and large, tend to skew Big-C Conservative. It's not much of a guess to think that these donors don't care about BLM -- they're against it, apathetic, or support its aims generally, but wouldn't want anything to change at the place they think of so fondly. I give generously (not multi-million dollar donations, but substantial) with an earmark for student aid, since I believe this is the most important thing the university should be doing with my money -- making an education as accessible as possible to prospective students, regardless of race/sex/gender identity/political bent/ethnicity/etc. I was a beneficiary myself -- even with two parents in the professions, that doesn't mean they could afford full price.

 

Twitter randos don't register on the radar of university in any way that is meaningful, unless those Twitter users have a connection to the community. Even then, one or two outraged students or alumni aren't going to be more than a blip. As they always say, follow the money. The money is flowing from people who don't want the names of these universities changed, and if even a few of these donors cut off the flow of cash, it would be bad for the bottom line. If people tweeting hashtags can figure out how to out-shout guys giving millions of dollars that are the lifeblood of these institutions, I will be truly impressed!!!  

Like I said, personally, I think it would be wrong to cancel history, but who knows what will happen when the student activist actually return to campus and start tagging the statues, and signs?  There is no way you can tell me these schools, not just the Ivies, are turning out good politically conservative graduates.  Additionally, the current attacks on history are indiscriminate, heck, they are targeting statues of former slaves themselves, but that is what you get with a Marxist movement, history must be erased.  Time to go back and reread 1984.

[laylalex 7,293]

I admire your persistence in sticking to your guns in the face of someone who actually has more experience in this area!  

 

Honestly, there were people tagging statues and throwing paint on stuff when I was in college in the mid-2000s. Everybody was incensed about Iraq, there was a lot of shouting and marching and earnest editorials in the student papers (a LOT of earnest editorials) and it was a lot of sound and fury signifying not much at all at the end of the day. It's a college, people do this stuff. Aaaaand there were also plenty of people doubling down on their support for the wars, VERY vocally. Brown has an artsy-fartsy reputation (there was a lot of going to parties wrapped up in silver lame, and talking about Derrida and post-structuralism over red Solo cups of terrible beer) so to some extent it is a liberal place, more liberal than Yale (most liberal of the H-Y-P holy trinity they tell us they are), and waaaaaaay more than Harvard and Princeton. I would not have been a good Harvard student -- I am aware I am mortal and fallible.  But at the same time I knew more than a handful Republican classmates, we talked and argued and irritated each other and then drank together and got over it.

 

September's a long way away, and don't downplay the serious apathy of students who are on campus primarily to learn, get messed up once in a while and bone each other.  I recommend a little light refreshment myself, tends to calm the nerves.  

[Dashinka 24,628]

2 minutes ago, laylalex said:

I admire your persistence in sticking to your guns in the face of someone who actually has more experience in this area!  

 

Honestly, there were people tagging statues and throwing paint on stuff when I was in college in the mid-2000s. Everybody was incensed about Iraq, there was a lot of shouting and marching and earnest editorials in the student papers (a LOT of earnest editorials) and it was a lot of sound and fury signifying not much at all at the end of the day. It's a college, people do this stuff. Aaaaand there were also plenty of people doubling down on their support for the wars, VERY vocally. Brown has an artsy-fartsy reputation (there was a lot of going to parties wrapped up in silver lame, and talking about Derrida and post-structuralism over red Solo cups of terrible beer) so to some extent it is a liberal place, more liberal than Yale (most liberal of the H-Y-P holy trinity they tell us they are), and waaaaaaay more than Harvard and Princeton. I would not have been a good Harvard student -- I am aware I am mortal and fallible.  But at the same time I knew more than a handful Republican classmates, we talked and argued and irritated each other and then drank together and got over it.

 

September's a long way away, and don't downplay the serious apathy of students who are on campus primarily to learn, get messed up once in a while and bone each other.  I recommend a little light refreshment myself, tends to calm the nerves.  

Yes, I know, I am just an uneducated fool.  I am sure the mob/activists will leave these institutions alone like the statues of Lenin.

[laylalex 7,293]

7 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Yes, I know, I am just an uneducated fool.  I am sure the mob/activists will leave these institutions alone like the statues of Lenin.

I'm not calling you an uneducated fool. What I am saying is that I have a little more site-specific background that I hope shines a little light here. I really don't think much of anything is going to happen at Yale or Brown in the fall besides some people getting incensed and shouting, but at least at Brown, that's kind of a well-loved pastime, so business as usual.

[Dashinka 24,628]

Princeton drops Woodrow Wilson's name from school due to 'racist thinking'
 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/princeton-drops-woodrow-wilson-racist-thinking

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

On 6/24/2020 at 8:00 PM, laylalex said:

I admire your persistence in sticking to your guns in the face of someone who actually has more experience in this area!  

 

Honestly, there were people tagging statues and throwing paint on stuff when I was in college in the mid-2000s. Everybody was incensed about Iraq, there was a lot of shouting and marching and earnest editorials in the student papers (a LOT of earnest editorials) and it was a lot of sound and fury signifying not much at all at the end of the day. It's a college, people do this stuff. Aaaaand there were also plenty of people doubling down on their support for the wars, VERY vocally. Brown has an artsy-fartsy reputation (there was a lot of going to parties wrapped up in silver lame, and talking about Derrida and post-structuralism over red Solo cups of terrible beer) so to some extent it is a liberal place, more liberal than Yale (most liberal of the H-Y-P holy trinity they tell us they are), and waaaaaaay more than Harvard and Princeton. I would not have been a good Harvard student -- I am aware I am mortal and fallible.  But at the same time I knew more than a handful Republican classmates, we talked and argued and irritated each other and then drank together and got over it.

 

September's a long way away, and don't downplay the serious apathy of students who are on campus primarily to learn, get messed up once in a while and bone each other.  I recommend a little light refreshment myself, tends to calm the nerves.  

Going to a school does not one give experience in a particular area, particularly when one lives in a particular vacuumy part of society.

[TBoneTX 45,571]

57 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

Going to a school does not one give experience in a particular area, particularly when one lives in a particular vacuumy part of society.

One classic example of this is Rep. Occasional-Cortex.

[yuna628 9,686]

23 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Princeton drops Woodrow Wilson's name from school due to 'racist thinking'
 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/princeton-drops-woodrow-wilson-racist-thinking

I would assume conservatives would be happy about dropping Wilson from anything since he is usually much vilified. Sadly he was definitely quite racist, an anti-semite, and a flaming eugenicist so..

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

I don't think conservatives are on board with the left's woke idiocy of statue toppling, book burning, etc., regardless of whether or not they liked someone.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[laylalex 7,293]

15 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

Going to a school does not one give experience in a particular area, particularly when one lives in a particular vacuumy part of society.

That's actually quite rude and makes assumptions about my experience in life. 

 

As I mentioned before, I have been observing and am now taking part in alumni conversations around the topic which aren't public. These are voices the university listens to, because they depend on us for money. Money is what they care about more than anything else. Personally I do not want the name of the university changed, and I continue to doubt it will be. We have had some buildings change names over the years, but the changes have come from inside the community of scholars, alumni, students, the administration and other parties who are us.

 

The Wilson issue is different -- I remember people talking about it when I was a student. It came to a head in 2015. It's not an issue that suddenly popped up now. Wilson was a horrible human being and what makes it worse is that he was carrying out his anti-American BS in the 20th century. Good riddance, he's an embarrassment.

[TBoneTX 45,571]

6 hours ago, laylalex said:

Wilson was a horrible human being and what makes it worse is that he was carrying out his anti-American BS in the 20th century. Good riddance, he's an embarrassment.

Where's the +1,000 button?

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

7 hours ago, laylalex said:

That's actually quite rude and makes assumptions about my experience in life. 

 

As I mentioned before, I have been observing and am now taking part in alumni conversations around the topic which aren't public. These are voices the university listens to, because they depend on us for money. Money is what they care about more than anything else. Personally I do not want the name of the university changed, and I continue to doubt it will be. We have had some buildings change names over the years, but the changes have come from inside the community of scholars, alumni, students, the administration and other parties who are us.

 

The Wilson issue is different -- I remember people talking about it when I was a student. It came to a head in 2015. It's not an issue that suddenly popped up now. Wilson was a horrible human being and what makes it worse is that he was carrying out his anti-American BS in the 20th century. Good riddance, he's an embarrassment.

No assumptions made, just basing my opinion on the things you have shared with us.  Sorry if that hurts your feelings.

 

Almost like you assumed you have more experience than Dashinka, as I read the posts above again.

[laylalex 7,293]

55 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

No assumptions made, just basing my opinion on the things you have shared with us.  Sorry if that hurts your feelings.

 

Almost like you assumed you have more experience than Dashinka, as I read the posts above again.

I assumed that I had as someone who went to an Ivy in the not so distant past a little more insight into how these discussions are being handled inside the institutions right now and how the alumni are talking about them. I am happy to be proven wrong if he is also a fairly recent Ivy grad. If he's a first-tier Ivy grad, then I am doubly sorry because they expect to receive their due measure of adulation!   

 

My feelings aren't hurt but I thought it was unnecessary to state I live in a bubble. I've made it clear on many occasions that I didn't grow up perfectly insulated from all the shocks of the world, and that I have had times in my adult life when things were quite bad for me. Not that it makes a real difference -- being open to the world, sympathetic, curious and compassionate can do a lot to keep you out of a bubble.  

[Dashinka 24,628]

6 hours ago, laylalex said:

I assumed that I had as someone who went to an Ivy in the not so distant past a little more insight into how these discussions are being handled inside the institutions right now and how the alumni are talking about them. I am happy to be proven wrong if he is also a fairly recent Ivy grad. If he's a first-tier Ivy grad, then I am doubly sorry because they expect to receive their due measure of adulation!   

 

My feelings aren't hurt but I thought it was unnecessary to state I live in a bubble. I've made it clear on many occasions that I didn't grow up perfectly insulated from all the shocks of the world, and that I have had times in my adult life when things were quite bad for me. Not that it makes a real difference -- being open to the world, sympathetic, curious and compassionate can do a lot to keep you out of a bubble.  

What seems clear is that these venerable institutions have very little logic in their decision making process.  They selectively cancel out some names of “horrible” people, and I agree WW was not a good president, or a good leader, but then they maintain names of similar minded folks like E. Yale, etc.  So an active slave trader was not a “horrible” person.  Brown is a different story as it was actually named after an abolitionist although the family including his father and uncles were active in the slave trade.  Whatever these universities do is completely up to them, but hey maybe act with a little consistency.

 

This is from the OP article.

 

Calhoun owned slaves. But so did Timothy Dwight, Calhoun’s mentor at Yale, who has a college named in his honor. So did Benjamin Silliman, who also gives his name to a residential college, and whose mother was the largest slave owner in Fairfield County, Connecticut. So did Ezra Stiles, John Davenport, and even Jonathan Edwards, all of whom have colleges named in their honor at Yale. And then there is Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse code, who was not only pro-slavery but, like Calhoun, thought it divinely ordained and “benevolent.” 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Let's not forget that Ben Franklin owned slaves as well.  Time to fix that nasty $100 bill.