Kyle Kashuv’s life sentence
Kyle Kashuv, a conservative who is one of the young people who became somewhat of a celebrity for speaking out after the Parkland shootings, was recently accepted at Harvard.
And then Harvard changed its mind and rescinded its acceptance.
Why? Because some kindly and helpful soul brought to their attention the fact that two years ago Kashuv had made some racist comments (for which he almost immediately apologized) with some friends in a private text.
Some things cannot be forgiven, apparently (particularly if a person is a conservative). Youthful indiscretion? Growth opportunity? Fat chance. Harvard doesn’t seem to have much faith in its own diversity and tolerance education program, because apparently only those who have been pure of any thoughtcrimes of the racist variety for their entire lives can enter its sacred portals and be subjected to it.
On Monday, Parkland survivor and outspoken conservative Kyle Kashuv announced that Harvard University had withdrawn his admission from the school over the revelation of racist, offensive, idiotic posts written on a private Google document with friends when he was sixteen years old. Never mind that Kashuv [had] apologized publicly for the comments; never mind that his public behavior has evinced no racism whatsoever…
There are ex-convicts who, quite properly, have been admitted to Harvard — they earned forgiveness. There are current students who undoubtedly have said things privately that would shock the conscience. There are likely administrators who have said things when they were 16 years old that embarrass them now.
But no one’s out to get them for their conservative politics, so their youthful indiscretions can be ignored. For Kashuv, it’s one strike and you’re out.
12/ I believe that institutions and people can grow. I've said that repeatedly.
In the end, this isn’t about me, it's about whether we live in a society in which forgiveness is possible or mistakes brand you as irredeemable, as Harvard has decided for me.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
Kashuv also points out that he refused offers, including financial assistance, from other universities when he accepted the Harvard offer. So now he is left in the lurch. He’s a bright guy, and I think he’ll land on his feet.
My two words of advice for Kyle: Hillsdale College.
He doesn’t need Harvard. Harvard is for social justice cogs and bricks in the wall, people like David Hogg. This kid is destined for better things. AND no one can say he didn’t get in!
It’s weird to me that racism is seen an inherently more evil than statism. This despite that one can be a racist and go through life never harming anyone; whereas statism kills. Even if Joe Blow Statist never kills anyone himself, he enables the statists who do kill. (Google “Democide.”)
I agree…Kyle is gonna be just fine. In fact, for the long term, I think he’ll be far better off not attending Harvard. Although he may not realize that just yet.
Education, or credential? I assert that education is of more value, and he’s getting a good start on understanding the difference.
Young Mr Kashuv’s problem for the foreseeable future is how to live in the blinding light of his “celebrity” status. Unlike his other “notable” classmates, he doesn’t seem to seek it with reckless abandon; but he still has to deal with growing into adulthood & surviving the relentless clamour of the crowd looking in on him as through a fishbowl.
I’d agree with those above that he’s got the gifts to handle his circumstances admirably. It’s just going to be more work for him now than if he’d not had to duck bullets in the first place.
At this point, why would he want to go to Harvard? It’s always been a fever-swamp of Marxism, and these days it seems to be nothing but.
Furthermore, I suspect given the circumstances, other schools, assuming they aren’t succumbing to “woke” pressure, might reiterate their previous offers. This absurd unwillingness to forgive thoughtcrime is another way the Left is distinguishing itself from all civilized people.
Marxism is based upon the premise that people can be perfected, and modern American leftism seems to based on the idea that if someone is imperfect, he is already beyond hope.
Did he apologize “almost immediately” after saying them, or “almost immediately” after getting caught?
What does it matter? He shouldn’t have apologized at all.
WTF Manju. Seriously?! Dude just please stop.
Maybe I’m being sensitive as my daughter is getting to her teens but, just please stop hating on kids for being young. It’s like most of you Trump haters don’t even notice the person anymore just the red hat.
Perfect applicant for Oberlin.
He should try Hillsdale or some other college — or even go straight into a career that he thinks he wants.
On the other hand, some lawyer might offer support for him to try to sue Harvard for false advertising, and possibly defamation. The acceptance followed by rejection seems like a false advertising violation; it’s certainly hypocritical.
Tho Kyle claims he doesn’t believe Harvard is inherently racist.
Racism – treating individuals differently because of their race.
Harvard is certainly racist.
Conservatives need to be clear on what racism is, why it’s bad, and show how often the Dem institutions are acting in a racist way.
Yes, Harvard did Kashuv a favor. Attendance would not have been pleasant for him at ‘tolerant’ Harvard.
Manju:
Go back to being a clown, your serious side, such as regards Kyle is cold blooded, almost like a commissar or Red Guard.
hmmm . . .
“Kashuv also points out that he refused offers, including financial assistance, from other universities when he accepted the Harvard offer.”
Actually, that fact might help in a lawsuit. Years ago I worked for a company that hired only graduates from the Ivy league for their professional staff. (I was on the admin side of the company so that didn’t apply to employees like me) Then 9-11 happened. They had a hiring freeze because no one was sure where the economy was going to go.
This hiring freeze included professional folks who had already accepted offers; but, hadn’t yet started. They were given a choice of delaying their start date by several months or they could take a pink slip with a severance package. Imagine that – being laid off before starting work and getting severance pay! Holy Cow!
One of the partners in the company who was friendly to me explained that since these folks had more than likely turned down other offers if the company reneged on the offer it could lead to bad publicity or, worse, lawsuits.
Given that, maybe Kashuv might have some legal standing for a lawsuit. Especially if lawyers can prove that others who have done or said something similar did not have their offers withdrawn.
om:
There’s no “almost” about it, I’m afraid.
Manju parrots the argument du jour on the left. If the party line changes, he changes to follow it. As the left in this country escalates, he escalates. And I doubt he’ll have any difficult rationalizing it to himself, whatever it is that he feels called on to do.
He is not dumb, either.
charles:
I think Harvard’s defense would be that they got new information between accepting him and withdrawing the acceptance, and unless they waited some unusual amount of time between being informed of the new information (his racist comments) and rescinding the acceptance, it could be a successful defense.
According to a 2017 article in the Harvard Crimson, Harvard rescinded the acceptances for 10 students that year because of “obscene memes” on a Facebook group chat they shared. The group was set up after they’d been accepted, though; it wasn’t something they’d done earlier.
So…application packages are now going to include requests for copies of all public and private communications since kindergarten?
Neo – I would add somewhat to your reply to charles, who said, “Especially if lawyers can prove that others who have done or said something similar did not have their offers withdrawn.”
It’s very much like the situation you talked about with social media banning only “offenders” on the right, without ever really explaining what they did that is offensive. Now, we all know that the media & institutional ban on hateful words only applies to conservatives, but maybe there are some judges who would think differently.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/06/17/the-aims-of-leftist-labeling-and-censoring-of-conservative-pundits-as-extremists/#comment-2439622
And remember that Ralph Northam is still governor of Virginia.
PS to Manju:
I have tried to consider your comments, which take a different view of political events from most of us here, as deserving of reflection and research; this one is simply vile political boiler-plate.
If you really believe Mr. Kashuv deserves the opprobrium he has received (and addressed with uncommon poise and maturity, as shown by his letters to Harvard and Tweets to the public), then you are no longer worthy of notice.
The very concept that someone has to apologize for “getting caught” saying ANYTHING AT ALL in a private correspondence, whether at the time or 2 years later or 10 years after that, is itself offensive.
Attacking a minor for indiscretions, or non-criminal behavior of any nature, is beyond offensive.
Who is monitoring YOUR private messages, and would you be happy with us seeing them?
As Shapiro said: “I look forward to tasking my reporters with digging up everything everyone on the admissions committee has ever said. If these are the new rules, so be it.”
Even David French should be able to get behind that response.
Would Harvard and the MSM & internet gatekeepers consider this unacceptable violence? He used some pretty hateful words here.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/48516/biden-suggests-starting-physical-revolution-deal-ryan-saavedra
Gotta hang this on something, and it does involve another “woke ” college.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/448711-oberlin-college-case-shows-how-universities-are-losing-their-way
BY JONATHAN TURLEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/15/19 10:00 AM EDT
Get woke, go broke.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/ted-cruz-can-help-christians-and-conservatives-who-are-pushed-out-of-the-ivy-league/
By JAMIL JIVANI June 18, 2019 3:58 PM
Called it:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/harvard-demonstrates-once-again-that-post-christian-america-is-post-forgiveness-america/
By DAVID FRENCH June 17, 2019 2:18 PM
Not a difference in scale at all: in both cases, a behemoth institution attacked individuals who dared to affront their elite sensibilities.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/college-education-expensive-risk-many-students/
College Evaluation: Did It Help Make Your Child a Better Person?
By DENNIS PRAGER June 18, 2019 6:30 AM
I’ll save you the click-through: Prager says, “No.”
Maybe Kyle lucked out after all.
So…Judging from the response, I’m guessing that the answer to my question is that he didn’t apologize “almost immediately” after making the racist comments?
The “almost immediately” refers to after the comments came to light, or maybe (even worse) after getting his admission revoked?
then you are no longer worthy of notice.
Every child of god is worthy of notice, if only because block isn’t here universally or multiversally yet.
But not every human animal is worthy, some are just zombies or npcs.
He is not dumb, either.
That depends on who the comparison is to.
An ant is comparably dumb when compared to politicians, but if you compare politician’s ability to break/destroy/create with a queen hive, the ants are veritable above average college students.
Manju:
Here’s the question you won’t answer. What did you say to Robert Mueller? Manju, do you still beat your, whatever? The second question was a bonus, just for you.
Watch your back Manju, Yammer wants to give you a wedgie, and talk theology, aka, reading his Vogon poetry.
Theyre doing him a favor – he’s go thru 4 years of constant harassment while the administration looks the other way – time to move on from their H8N
I think that as Manju is interested in the phenomenon of racism, he might be able to define what he means by racism.
I’m quite certain that what I learned to be the definition of racism, i.e., the imputing of pre-determined guilt to someone based on his race and his presumably fixed and inherent behavioral characteristics, is probably not what Manju would mean by racism.
But, as one is bound to notice, the old fashioned definition of racism fits pretty well with the anthropology of the identity politics of the left if one merely (or maybe not) removes the term “guilt”.
Therefore, in order for the term “racism” to be useful to the left, and not seem to be simply something which they themselves take for granted as a matter of fact, some new offence criteria must be developed. One can hardly, for example, celebrate an identity which is presumed to possess an inherent constellation of positive characteristics or moral virtues, as the identity politics left does, without assuming the truth of some of what racists purportedly believe.
On an abstract level, it’s difficult to know who – if you take progressive philosophical anthropology seriously – it is ok to “remove from the scene” and when and why. As a thought problem which uses a notorious Hollywood jerk as an example: if some other white guy in California beats Sean Penn to comatose insensibility because Sean is being an annoying and insulting creep who unwisely (perhaps drunkenly) picks a fight with the bigger guy, and the bigger guy makes reference to Penn’s looks as he beats him down, has the bigger guy somehow committed a racist offence against another white guy by making insulting remarks about Sean’s looks? It’s all very puzzling if you try to look at it through the lens of liberal moral sensibilities.
Liel Leibovitz, Tablet: https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/286715/harvard-is-dumber-than-twitter
Manju:
You know, you and your comments aren’t the center of everyone’s world, and people don’t need to jump when you say jump. Sometimes people don’t even notice what you say. Sometimes they notice it later than you think is your due.
You’re fortunate I still allow you to comment here in the first place. You are a troll, but you’re an interesting troll and you are a good example of certain things the left does and says.
It actually isn’t clear exactly when Kashuv first apologized or to whom, initially. He did, however, apologize very quickly when the comments came out to people other than the original group two years ago—as opposed to the vast numbers of people who don’t apologize immediately (or at all) for something, and who double down on something or deny it.
It would have been kind of strange for him to apologize immediately in the forum in which he made the comments. Who would he apologize to there? The racist comments were apparently a sort of competition in which each person was trying to out-do the others in outrageousness. It seems (at least, from what I’ve read so far) that even the other young people engaged in the competition of racist comments were not being serious about such comments; it was a kind of “can you top this in saying something outrageous and offensive?” competition. It was also a private forum of people who all apparently knew each other (my impression is that it was fellow-students of the same age), so there was no one else there to whom to apologize. It was not a public comment to a member of that race, or a public comment at all.
Kashuv and the others probably thought that was the end of their little game, and there was no need to apologize to anyone at that point because no one was injured.
It’s not bad enough that manju is a troll but now he’s a needy troll.
Notice me, respond to me.
I happen to agree with you by and large, Neo.
That said, I think that it would only be fair, as well as interesting, to require Manju to live by his own ‘meta-principles’, as you might call them.
He may be conditionally free to post provocative and trolling remarks, but only by the standard which he has himself set: you being justified in making his doing so contingent upon his directly answering questions posed to him, and debating the issues raised – on point – until such time as you are satisfied some conclusion has been reached. And, if he fails to do that you can just remove his text while leaving his name, and replace it with a moderator’s note that he has failed to abide the rules.
Now I know I have suggested this before, and that you, if I recall correctly, believed that you did not have the time or the inclination to moderate – ruthlessly – a thread exchange. Not part of your agenda, as I recall.
Nonetheless I would urge you to consider it. If the son of a bitch wants to talk, tie him down in a chair and make him goddamn talk until you are satisfied that he has met the standard.
Maybe Manju will finally be the one to syllogistically prove that conservatives and libertarians owe progressives and their human pets and clients what conservatives and libertarians neither need nor want out of an association that includes progressives.
And wouldn’t that be interesting.
[addendum. Maybe you could appoint someone you trust to do so. Someone you know personally and trust, and who’s probably a touch less ruthless than I am. I did that on another blog and left the leftists squealing. You would not want that I am sure. But you could find someone I imagine.)
Griffin:
Ah, but most trolls are needy, or they pretend to be.
One of the favorite pastimes of trolls is to demand that people respond exhaustively to them and to every single point they make. That’s one of the goals; to tire people out.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/06/kyle-kashuv-harvard-forgiveness/591919/
(emphasis in the original)
In what universe (outside of authoritarian mind-control regimes) does anyone, realizing they made indiscrete or offensive statements in private, deliberately make a public notification thereof, before being, you know, prompted:
“Yoohoo, all you permanently-offended people out there — lookin’ at you in my crystal ball, Harvard! — I think I just said something privately to my friends that might have hurt your feelings if I had said it to you directly, so I’ll just throw this out there and apologize now, because I wouldn’t want you to think I meant to hurt your feelings by saying something that you didn’t see and probably never will see, unless somebody violates my privacy and tells you, so I’ll just tell you first.”
Does anyone at all really believe this furor is about racist texts & Google Docs, and not about his conservative credentials?
Used to be that in the US, “Harvard” was the last word in higher education.
The U. of Michigan was “the Harvard of the Mid-West”.
Vanderbilt, “the Harvard of the South”.
Stanford, “the Harvard of the West” (or maybe “of the West Coast”).
Etc.
Now, it seems that Oberlin is the gold standard:
Harvard seems to be aching to become “the Oberlin of New England”.
Duke, “the Oberlin of the Southeast”.
Rutgers, “the Oberlin of the mid-Atlantic states”.
Evergreen State, “the Oberlin of the West”
Antioch…well Antioch may well be “the mother ship”, actually.
The end of higher education as we know it?….
Though the U. of Chicago seems to be holding its own. Others, as well, one imagines, or rather hopes.
It is, after all, a question of leadership.
One more thing —
I have seen some of the leftish sites post articles complaining that Kyle’s apology wasn’t authentic enough for them, that they didn’t think he really meant it, and was just cynically trying to curry favor with Harvard in hopes of keeping his acceptance.
Well, on the topic of mealy-mouthed mea culpas — the Left ought to know how it’s done.
Which is why they probably can’t recognize a genuine one if they see it.
Is Kashuv being honest about his change in attitude, or not?
I doubt anyone will follow up on to find out, once his 15-minutes-of-fame window is closed; but the Left will keep badgering him as long as they get any clicks from it.
What is it about the Left’s inability to forgive adolescent indiscretions?
They guilt-shamed Romney’s HS “haircut” story; brutally attacked Kavanaugh with false accusations about (alleged) criminal HS behavior; hounded the Covington HS students with deliberately manipulated videos & commentary; and now they scorn a school shooting survivor…oh yeah: the teens were / are all conservatives.
And that doesn’t count the elementary kids they have tormented for eating pop-tarts, holding hands, and objecting to sharing a bathroom with students of the opposite sex, just to name a few.
But MS-13 teen gangsters are just fine in their sanctuary cities.
Aesop, sure, but you got to admit they had a point with that teacher (principal?)* who sent the 1st-grader (kindergartener?)* home and suspended him for three* days because he chewed his PB sandwich into the shape of a pistol.
*I forget the exact details. Whatever, the thing was beyond bogus.
Barry,
Ann Arbor??? I’ll see your U. of Mich. and raise you one U. of Chicago. When I was there it was vying for second place with MIT and CalTech. Stanford running third.
There are those UC’ers and fans who say the words sound good but the U. hasn’t entirely walked the walk.
Somebody brought up the alleged fact that UC is “conservative,” which Richard Epstein — 30 years Prof at the Law School, now Prof Emeritus and Senior Lecturer there — met with a rather derisive snort. Wish I had the link.
Don’t get me wrong. My heart belongs to UC, my beloved alma mater, and I was thoroughly disgusted to learn that Cass Sunstein was long a Prof in the Law School (he and Richard used to play basketball together among other things, I think — for shame, Richard risked getting cooties) and of course they let that good-fa-nottink nebbish Barry-the-Bum darken the halls of the Law School for some reason.