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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   25472 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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How certain are you that you're actually being attacked

What are the consequences for a NYT or New Yorker journalist, or Yale speaker, or children's book author, that refers to white people as a cancer, as goblins, as a deal with the devil?

What are the consequences for a 14 year old that sang along to the wrong rap song in a Snapchat video and is trying to get accepted to college 4 years later? I assume he got in somewhere, eventually. But not his top choices.

What are the consequences for corporate HR departments putting out there "don't hire white people"?

That the powerful conservatives are attacking everyone and that their left wing censorious behavior is justified in defense. They're just as convinced as themselves as you are.

I hear that kind of thing, but up until Trump's re-election they didn't bother providing any evidence. After, they just point at Trump, which I don't find convincing but it's better than a huffed "obviously!"

At best, one might get complaints of disparate impact, but that's a lot weaker IMO than plain-letter discrimination. Alas, they have different moral foundations than I do, and at this point the conversation hits a dead end.

What are the consequences for a NYT or New Yorker journalist, or Yale speaker, or children's book author, that refers to white people as a cancer, as goblins, as a deal with the devil?

It depends!

One thing that most first amendment scholars and libertarians will agree on is that private action and government action are different things. While we should still embrace freedom of speech in private proceedings, there's a difference between say, your boss firing you for your speech criticizing they had an affair and a city council gaveling you down for alleging one of them had an affair.

For a private organization like NYT or New Yorker, the consequences for such speech is on the owners of the private organization. Do they want to fire the employee? They can if they want. Do readers want to boycott over the employee? Also fine.

I would expect the same if someone said blacks were animals or Jews were parasites or anything else. The owner of a private company has editorial control over their company.

What are the consequences for a 14 year old that sang along to the wrong rap song in a Snapchat video and is trying to get accepted to college 4 years later? I assume he got in somewhere, eventually. But not his top choices.

For a public university? There should be none. For private universities it's a more difficult question. https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/private-universities

I would hope they hold themselves to the standards of free speech as they often claim they do, and they should be bound to any promises they make regarding such freedoms but ultimately as FIRE puts it

It is important to note, however, that if a private college wishes to place a particular set of moral, philosophical, or religious teachings above a commitment to free expression, it has every right to do so.

And if you think about it, groups like private Christian/Jewish/Muslim religious universities wouldn't be able to exist if they were legally bound to the same standards as public ones since they would not be able to select off religion as they do.

Again I would hope that private institutions embrace free speech and free expression on their own accord, but they have every right not to.

I hear that kind of thing, but up until Trump's re-election they didn't bother providing any evidence. After, they just point at Trump, which I don't find convincing but it's better than a huffed "obviously!"

I can name two pretty big examples of the top of my head, the targeting of evolution and the targeting of climate science.

I would expect the same if someone said blacks were animals or Jews were parasites or anything else.

Well yes, say anything within 10 degrees of the first and you'll be jettisoned immediately and the company will put everyone left behind through endless punishment sensitivity training. Reaction to the second depends if it was before or after 10/7.

The owner of a private company has editorial control over their company.

This attitude is what turned so many Mottezans away from being principled on this topic, noticing the massive gap between what people say they will do and how they behave in practice. Turns out very few people are really bothered by racism or sexism or discrimination in general, there's several populations that are totally fair targets. Alas, "your rules applied fairly" is not a stable point and assumes people are honest about what their rules are supposed to be.

For a public university? There should be none

The Harvard kid was more famous but it happened at NC State too. No consequences for the university afaict, and I haven't turned up the kids' names to see if they went elsewhere.

And if you think about it, groups like private Christian/Jewish/Muslim religious universities wouldn't be able to exist if they were legally bound to the same standards as public ones since they would not be able to select off religion as they do.

Are they allowed to select by religion? Hmm... looking at FIRE's page I may have been remembering that CLS v Martinez case, that student groups at public universities can't. Vaguely recall some other exception but maybe not.

I can name two pretty big examples of the top of my head, the targeting of evolution and the targeting of climate science.

I'd consider the the evolution complaint petty in comparison, but fair enough.

This attitude is what turned so many Mottezans away from being principled on this topic, noticing the massive gap between what people say they will do and how they behave in practice. Turns out very few people are really bothered by racism or sexism or discrimination in general, there's several populations that are totally fair targets. Alas, "your rules applied fairly" is not a stable point and assumes people are honest about what their rules are supposed to be.

See the issue otherwise is that editorial control is removed for business owners. Take that LGBT cake incident a while back. If business owners do not have editorial control under the first amendment, then the bakery would likely not have had legal protection over what speech they can and not produce for a client.

Edit: Or even worse, imagine you have an employee go on TV and start insulting your customers. Your customers stop buying from you, but you can't fire the employee. You are compelled to give him a job no matter how much he sabotages your company because to do so otherwise would be violating his free speech, despite the fact that it's your private company!

Are they allowed to select by religion? Hmm... looking at FIRE's page I may have been remembering that CLS v Martinez case, that student groups at public universities can't. Vaguely recall some other exception but maybe not.

Yes, student groups at public universities are not the same as a private religious university.

I think the difference boils down to few people really thinking it is appropriate to treat universities, even private ones, like private companies. Considering how a university generally winds up hosting a large part of its students' entire lives, they are really more akin to landlords, power companies or ISPs, whose "editorial rights" to choose and un-choose their customers are greatly circumscribed.

(Before you call gotcha there, yes, I think it should be possible to force Christian, Jewish or Islamic universities to admit gay students. I think this should be especially possible if such universities become in any way dominant; I'm not so bothered by a single low-tier small Islamic school practicing full Sharia law, and wouldn't be bothered if there were a handful of designated low-prestige SJW schools that require any white students who join to undergo a humiliation ritual either, in the spirit of conservationism)

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