Patterico's Pontifications

6/17/2019

Harvard Rescinds Acceptance of Parkland Survivor Kyle Kashuv Due to Racist Writings at Age 16

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:59 am



Kyle Kashuv is one of the Parkland shooting survivors. Unlike many of the survivors, he remained against gun control. According to Ben Shapiro, Kashuv’s academic qualifications were extraordinarily impressive:

Kashuv was ranked second in his class, with a weighted GPA of 5.345 and an unweighted GPA of 3.9; he scored a 1550 on his SATs.

He applied to Harvard and was accepted. Then some folks upset about his acceptance found things he wrote in a group study chat at age 16, with the n-word all over them.

Now Kashuv’s acceptance has been rescinded.

Ben Shapiro says:

This is, to put it mildly, gutless. 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. Is the new standard that if you said something on a private message board when you were 16 years old that we should deny you the possibility of a degree at a top college, so long as those who join you on that message board decide to out you?

It appears it is the new standard.

Sorry, Kyle, but Harvard utterly rejects any form of bigotry and discrimination, except of course against Asians. Then it’s totally cool. If at age 16 Kashuv had mocked Asians as overly studious and hardworking, Harvard admissions officials would have swooned.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

170 Responses to “Harvard Rescinds Acceptance of Parkland Survivor Kyle Kashuv Due to Racist Writings at Age 16”

  1. A college like Harvard with a very low admission to application ratio would be very wary of rescinding an acceptance based on something like this. They’ll have now have every super-mom of a rejected applicant paying to investigate every accepted students for any sign of teenage stupidity. To be accepted at Harvard now is a license to have your private conversations scoured and your past friendships investigated.

    Xmas (eafb47)

  2. And one must wonder, to what degree is Kashuv’s anti-gun control stance responsible for this? Of course, no one is coming out and saying it, but I can’t help wondering…

    Gryph (08c844)

  3. Place yourself in the shoes of the Harvard administration. Announcing “we decided to let this guy in despite his racist writings” would have blown up the campus.

    At a personal level I feel sorry for him for doing something so stupid that had such damaging consequences. But if you were making the decision at Harvard, do you want to offend a sizeable fraction of the community and set off (probably) weeks of bitter protests and recriminations to save this one guy from the consequences of an indefensible act? It’s one thing to take a stand for what’s right. It’s another to take a stand for what’s wrong.

    He put the school in an impossible position – once it became public he was toast.

    Dave (1bb933)

  4. This is the new reality….and why social media sucks. This is not to condone any silliness that may have come out of this young man’s mouth…or off his hand….but where does this stop….and how do these institutions fairly apply this new sensitivity standard? The continued message is to put NOTHING on social media….because it rarely helps you….and can significantly harm you. People are way too much into other people’s crap….and are surprisingly vicious. Who brings such things to an admission board’s notice? Shame on them…if shame was still a thing…

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  5. Perhaps a case of what goes around comes around

    Kashuv and Ben Shapiro listed MSNBC’s sponsors in reaction to a tweet in which Kashuv was attacked by journalist and author Kurt Eichenwald. One sponsor, Proactiv, removed its MSNBC advertisements in response.[24][25] Eichenwald apologized to Kashuv, clarifying that he was not an MSNBC contributor at the time. Eichenwald has not been an MSNBC contributor since February 2018.[26][27]

    Kashuv and Shapiro also pushed for a boycott of Vanity Fair following a series of emails he sent to Shapiro. Vanity Fair issued a statement saying that Eichenwald is not a contributor.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Kashuv

    kishnevi (9ce8ca)

  6. Is Harvard really worth the money spent for a degree there?

    kishnevi (9ce8ca)

  7. Is Harvard really worth the money spent for a degree there?

    I doubt the quality of the education is any better than a top-tier public university.

    You’re paying for the brand.

    Dave (1bb933)

  8. Poor kid. Harvard is a top school and it was the school he wanted to attend. For Harvard to wait until the last minute makes it very hard on him, and inevitably very public.

    DRJ (15874d)

  9. The continued message is to put NOTHING on social media….because it rarely helps you….and can significantly harm you. People are way too much into other people’s crap….and are surprisingly vicious.

    Probably safest not to look at or – god forbid – touch any female classmates, either…

    Dave (1bb933)

  10. For Harvard to wait until the last minute makes it very hard on him, and inevitably very public.

    He was not planning to start school until September 2020, so he does have time to apply somewhere else.

    It’s unclear if a public university could (or would) deny him admission on the same grounds.

    Dave (1bb933)

  11. “Place yourself in the shoes of the Harvard administration. Announcing “we decided to let this guy in despite his racist writings” would have blown up the campus.”
    Dave (1bb933) — 6/17/2019 @ 8:49 am

    Racism has no place at Harvard, other than admissions policies that target Asians and Caucasians.

    Munroe (e1b049)

  12. That reference to him starting in 2020 is probably a mistake by the Office of Monotony and Exclusion. He was supposed to be a part of the Class of 2023, and here’s his own tweet on the matter
    https://twitter.com/KyleKashuv/status/1140611008798629888

    kishnevi (9ce8ca)

  13. “Life is unfair.” – John F. Kennedy, Harvard graduate of 1940

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  14. Dave is right. Colleges and universities do not exist for the benefit of the students. They exist to provide an easy living to the faculty and administration. Harvard has dozens waiting in line for this kid’s spot who’ll fulfill their needs without any trouble.

    nk (dbc370)

  15. “Place yourself in the shoes of the Harvard administration. Announcing “we decided to let this guy in despite his racist writings” would have blown up the campus.”

    No, not really. Harvard lets in open racists all the time. Suddenly gaining a conscience on this one is simply the first step down a very slippery slope.

    “At a personal level I feel sorry for him for doing something so stupid that had such damaging consequences. But if you were making the decision at Harvard, do you want to offend a sizeable fraction of the community and set off (probably) weeks of bitter protests and recriminations to save this one guy from the consequences of an indefensible act? It’s one thing to take a stand for what’s right. It’s another to take a stand for what’s wrong.”

    Yes, it’s absolutely WRONG to accept a student who said things that might offend people in a private chat after he apologized and his acceptance based on all other standards was already accepted. Why are you so suspiciously moralistic and high-mindedly RIGHT!!! and WRONG!!! concerned about Harvard’s position on this issue?

    “He put the school in an impossible position – once it became public he was toast.”

    The only possible position is “If Harvard can’t stand up to the mob when it comes to admissions what reason should anyone have to believe it stands up to the mob when it comes to grading, education, or credentialing?”

    Boulevard (93026c)

  16. That reference to him starting in 2020 is probably a mistake by the Office of Monotony and Exclusion. He was supposed to be a part of the Class of 2023, and here’s his own tweet on the matter
    https://twitter.com/KyleKashuv/status/1140611008798629888

    He says it himself in the email to the diversity office.

    It’s entirely possible he could enter in Fall 2020 and graduate in 2023. I entered in Fall 1980 and graduated in (December) 1982…

    Dave (1bb933)

  17. Colleges and universities do not exist for the benefit of the students.

    I think the decision is defensible on the good of the students. Kashuv isn’t the only one, you see.

    Dave (1bb933)

  18. Dave,

    Every other school can deny this kid admission for exactly the same reasons. Many of them will. I don’t the solution to the social media mob effect, but we may need to start thinking about it. Boycott Harvard graduates?

    Appalled (13d5a5)

  19. I think the decision is defensible on the good of the students. Kashuv isn’t the only one, you see.

    That’s what Caiaphas said!

    nk (dbc370)

  20. One of the Florida privates should go above and beyond financial aid wise with Kashuv and also out-bid the Ivies and out-of-state privates – e.g. build up something on par with Duke and Vanderbilt.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  21. Every other school can deny this kid admission for exactly the same reasons.

    Seems like content discrimination if a public university holds it against him.

    Allahpundit has an interesting article over at HotAir (and quotes this post by Patterico).

    Two years ago, Harvard rescinded the admission of ten applicants in the Class of 2021, based on obscene Facebook messages involving pedophilia, anti-Semitism and racism.

    The same article notes that Harvard took no action against another online group of incoming students from the Class of 2020, where racist and anti-feminist jokes were posted.

    Allahpundit makes the case for forgiveness, links a video by the faculty dean who was terminated last month for representing Harvey Weinstein, and concludes:

    Harvard’s slowly ridding itself of the Bad People, one terrible decision at a time.

    Dave (1bb933)

  22. I wonder if Allahpundit posts in the comments here (under another pseudonym?)

    How could he resist? (Especially given the state of the comment section on his own blog…)

    Dave (1bb933)

  23. Went to his Wikipedia page. High school kid with a Wikipedia page should tell something in and of itself. After the Parkland shooting, he became a very prominent pro-Republican/pro-gun advocate. On a Florida governor’s commission, photographed in the Oval Office with Trump and the First Lady, among other things. The Anti-David Hogg. This X-Box trashtalk (I didn’t even know you could do that) was what a lot of people were looking for to knock him down with.

    nk (dbc370)

  24. On a Florida governor’s commission, photographed in the Oval Office with Trump and the First Lady, among other things. The Anti-David Hogg. This X-Box trashtalk (I didn’t even know you could do that) was what a lot of people were looking for to knock him down with.

    When you play a game of thrones you win or you die.

    (Yes, I binge-watched the whole series last month…)

    Dave (1bb933)

  25. It’s actually a very American thing. The power of public opinion. It goes back to the Founding and before.

    nk (dbc370)

  26. Harvard still sucks. The elite are supposed to be above the baying of the mob.

    nk (dbc370)

  27. You’re paying for the brand.

    What you are really paying for is the access to the alumni network, though the brand is certainly helpful.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  28. I’m guessing Trump will threaten Harvard with tariffs unless they readmit the guy.

    What kind of gangster is he if he can’t even protect his own people?

    Dave (1bb933)

  29. I would love to see Kashuv do a two-year hitch in the military as an enlisted man and then find a school that doesn’t put such a heavy premium on virtue-signaling. One of my big regrets in life is that I went to college at 18 instead of going into the service and doing some growing up there first.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  30. Don’t you mean “vice-signaling”?

    Dave (1bb933)

  31. I’m guessing Trump will threaten Harvard with tariffs unless they readmit the guy.

    What’s interesting is that the Massachusetts left keeps threatening to tax Harvard (and MIT, BU, BC, Wellesley, Amherst, Williams, etc.) on their endowments. So far, the colleges have managed to fight off this ridiculously bad idea with help from the few remaining conservatives in the Bay State. Perhaps Trump should announce his support for the idea of taxing endowments, get his minions to come onboard, and really make Harvard (and the rest of the schools) sweat it out.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  32. One of the problems of hate speech is that it has a public, communal impact, deriving from a context of bigotry and inequity. If you’re part of the community that has historically benefited from said bigotry and inequity, you are not going to experience the full impact of hate speech in the same way as someone who’s part of the targeted community in question.

    So it makes sense that, other than knowing that other people disapprove of the language, Kashuv seems to demonstrate little to no understanding of the communal impact of using racist and homophobic language like that. He, like many, would probably scoff at the notion that it could have helped him to humble himself and seek education from the community of those who were targeted by his language, to understand the impact and make any necessary restitution. Instead, he tried to go it alone, and got to the end of that line.

    I think if he had been able to humble himself in this way, he would have had a better shot at a different outcome.

    TR (2c5752)

  33. He, like many, would probably scoff at the notion that it could have helped him to humble himself and seek education from the community of those who were targeted by his language, to understand the impact and make any necessary restitution.

    Well, he contacted the Harvard diversity office to ask how he could make amends, and they sent him a useless response.

    OTOH, you are right that he did not really address himself to the students and other people that his words were hateful toward.

    Dave (1bb933)

  34. Crap! He was sixteen, talking with people he thought were his friends. Not burning crosses on anybody’s lawn, or painting swastikas on synagogues.

    nk (dbc370)

  35. Yes we know ethics is what associates with the campus, that Zuckerberg graduated from, but we know don’t we that if the words don’t fit the narrative, the prestige press, will shape them, and then call you a public person,

    narciso (d1f714)

  36. Even there, his posture is certainly not one of ‘how can I make amends?’ so much as ‘problem already solved; nothing to see here’. To anyone wondering how much he’s actually learned, he gives absolutely no reason they can trust he’s the new man he claims to be.

    TR (2c5752)

  37. ^^in response to #33

    TR (2c5752)

  38. he comes from a campus, where the administration all the way to the bureau, protected the punk that made hogg hogg all the limelight, they don’t want anyone but zampolits in their graduating class, but it’s a private institution, like Oberlin college,

    narciso (d1f714)

  39. Even there, his posture is certainly not one of ‘how can I make amends?’ so much as ‘problem already solved; nothing to see here’. To anyone wondering how much he’s actually learned, he gives absolutely no reason they can trust he’s the new man he claims to be.

    He was a kid who said something stupid and offensive online.

    As a culture we really need to get better about the outrage culture.

    Time123 (6e0727)

  40. Ultimately this is largely the result of bill ayers, dissolving the people, and electing a new one, how else do you get a witless wonder like ocasio cortez,

    narciso (d1f714)

  41. #34, I’m sure by now, he’s learned to be more careful with his language. The question is, does he have a heart for why it was wrong? I’d like to think he does, and I’ll bet Harvard would too, but I’m not sure that comes through if he hasn’t been in relationship with the communities he impacted with his language.

    TR (2c5752)

  42. it’s a lesson only say the right thing acceptable to cnn and MSNBC, that were flacking for Israel and Petersen, and trying to frame the nra, for the failures of the school administration, the fbi and the department of education,

    narciso (d1f714)

  43. 39: As a culture we really need to get better about the outrage culture.

    I agree with this. And I think being humble after f–king up is one of the necessary ways to accomplish this, as receiving someone well when they are.

    TR (2c5752)

  44. last week, sockpuppet central, the intercept accused heshmat of being an mek drone, and per kangaroo court rules, twitter depersoned him, they restored him until next time, proving only being a slavish toady to the mullahs, keeps you in good standing,

    narciso (d1f714)

  45. was it “-ah” or the hard “r”?

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  46. Hillsdale College is the perfect choice for him, IMHO.

    Pat* (950457)

  47. only the right attitudes need apply:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/17/politics/buttigieg-us-probably-had-a-gay-president-interview-trnd/index.html

    I don’t know why they want to claim james Buchanan, but have it sport,

    narciso (d1f714)

  48. ” how else do you get a witless wonder like ocasio cortez,”

    same question except Donald Trump

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  49. or hamas fanboi matt yglesias, one of the journolisters, now at think regress, which is having a bit of a hick up,

    narciso (d1f714)

  50. Ugh. His letter reads as sincere to me, and it’s not uncommon for teenage boys to play with each other by trying to compete in offensiveness, without actually meaning anything by it.

    We have to be willing to accept genuine repentance and learning.

    Harvard f*d this one up.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  51. Buchanan was never married. He lived for an extended period with another man, and there are letters in which third parties referred to the other man as Buchanan’s “better half” and as Buchanan’s “wife”.

    There’s further evidence from Buchanan’s letters which can be read as implying gay relationships, but which could also mean something less salacious, such as “I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them.”

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  52. well that’s the only one who comes to mind, but what does that have to do with the price of bread?

    narciso (d1f714)

  53. it’s hard not to see this as a pattern, in light of current events, remember how they trumpeted hogg’s admiission to the class,

    narciso (d1f714)

  54. I’m sure by now, he’s learned to be more careful with his language. The question is, does he have a heart for why it was wrong? I’d like to think he does, and I’ll bet Harvard would too. . .

    Where I think you go completely off the rails is in your notion that Fair Harvard would dearly love to have a reconciliation with Kyle Kashuv so that they can readmit him. But the ugly reality is that short of renouncing pretty much everything Kashuv has stood for since the shooting at his school and suddenly becoming pro-gun control and pledging to be super wokedy-woke-woke, Harvard knows that the braying mob comprised of faculty and student “activists,” who have almost nothing else to do with their time, would do everything in their power to run him off campus. And Harvard is so craven, so cowardly, that they don’t want the hassle.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  55. and how many other colleges will follow suit, to set an example of what constitutes crime think

    http://www.journal14.com/2019/06/15/more-reparations-nonsense/#comments

    narciso (d1f714)

  56. I am positive that the internal discussions centered around the question whether black students would feel “safe” were Mr. Kashuv admitted. And the answer was no.

    He seems to hold out hope that the decision could be reversed with a public outcry. But it won’t be. He has been “cancelled” and the woke crowd is thrilled.

    Patterico (b7c54e)

  57. it’s just as well, ben shapiro had to hire private security to speak, and was being disparaged as an alt righter, something tim pool pointed out, and hence was deplatformed,

    narciso (d1f714)

  58. Interesting that Harvard appears unable to recognize that people mature out of and away from the dumbassery of being 16 after being told that we need to recognize that a woman who was incarcerated for killing her child is changed. A woman whom Harvard ended up denying entry because of how conservatives might react:

    Michelle Jones is not like other PhD candidates rolling up to New York University this year. Firstly, she only got out of the joint two days before school started. Secondly, folks at Harvard are still arguing over whether they should have admitted her. And thirdly, when she was still a teenager, she killed her 4-year-old son and buried his body in the woods.

    There’s the story of the plucky young woman who got two degrees while incarcerated… A paper she co-authored was published in The Journal of the Indiana Academy of Social Sciences in 2014. It won an award from Indiana’s historical society.

    Then there’s the story of the teenage mother who got pregnant at 14, was beaten by her mother while carrying the child and gave birth to Brandon, a child with a disability. Before his first birthday, court records show, her baby was taken from her for three years and lived with his father and paternal grandmother. Not too long after she regained custody, in 1992, she left him behind for the weekend when she went to an out-of-town theater conference. He was never seen again. His body has never been found. A friend later testified that Jones told her she thought she might have beaten him to death. Brandon’s paternal grandmother testified that Jones had said “she didn’t want to raise a freak.”

    The final story is about Harvard, famous for being as difficult to get into as prison is to get out of. Jones applied to the history and American studies departments. Both departments looked on her application favorably, but two American studies professors flagged it for further examination. The professors were worried that she had soft-pedaled the seriousness of her crime. One professor was unwise enough to tell the New York Times that he was concerned they’d get attacked by conservative news media outlets and that “if this candidate is admitted to Harvard, where everyone is an elite among elites, that adjustment could be too much.”

    So there you have it, race, class, motherhood, responsibility, redemption, forgiveness and a sprinkling of the extremes of liberal elitism all rolled into one big ball of highly emotive wax. Jones’ story offers everybody something to object to and something to be inspired by, no matter their political leanings.

    Mostly we should forgive Jones because continuing to punish a woman for something heinous she did while a teenager will not help that woman’s murdered child in any way. It will not bring him back or make his life more precious. Nor will it help future Brandons…

    More detail on Harvard’s decision to rescind her acceptance:

    Harvard College granted Jones an offer of admission. She was one of 18 students selected from a pool of 300 applicants to enroll in the school’s history program for graduate students. But after two professors flagged her file for administrative review, the Ivy League decided to rescind its invite.

    One of those professors was John Stauffer. In an interview with The New York Times, Stauffer claimed fear of jeopardizing the school’s image led them to reverse their decision.

    “We didn’t have some preconceived idea about crucifying Michelle,” Stauffer said.“But frankly, we knew that anyone could just punch her crime into Google, and Fox News would probably say that P.C. liberal Harvard gave 200 grand of funding to a child murderer, who also happened to be a minority. I mean, c’mon.”

    “At a time when an overt white supremacist is in the White House, surrounded by other white supremacists, Harvard folded to white supremacy,” she continued. “Harvard’s racist, sexist decision also comes at a time when 60 million voters, most of them white, decided to forgive a racist sexist.”

    Dana (bb0678)

  59. And Harvard is so craven, so cowardly, that they don’t want the hassle.

    I think you mean “so practical”.

    It will create anger, bitterness and division, and the guy was in the wrong, whatever you think about his attempt to apologize.

    I remember a similar situation not that long ago, with the Asian chick hired by the NY Times who had posted a lot of hateful things on social media (she claimed in response to similarly toxic attacks on her). She, too, apologized for the insensitivity and inappropriateness of her remarks, promised to sin no more, etc. And I don’t recall too many people here singing “kumbaya”, or applauding the NYT for its “courage” in hiring her, back then…

    Dave (1bb933)

  60. come on now, yale admitted the Taliban’s spokesman didn’t they, Princeton admitted mousavian, who materially misrepresented iran’s nuclear program, to their fellow’s program, so their standards are flexible,

    narciso (d1f714)

  61. There are no small speech crimes.

    There are small speech crimes online – on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Tumbler, on YouTube, on many blogs, and he hasn’t been kicked off any of them, and people are almost never punished for what they do on other platforms, but there are no small speech crimes in real life.
    and there is no statute of limitations, no ex post facto law prohibition, and little allowance for age.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  62. How long will this go on?

    Until they go after the wrong target, like what what happened with Senator Joseph McCarthy and the army in 1954, or until the tables are turned and it starts to get used against the instigators (that maybe being the best way to end it) as happened with Robespierre in 1794 during the French Revolution.

    Of course in this case, the politically correctness Inquisition doesn’t have any governmental power.)

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  63. If he had been in favor of gun control, or just kept quiet, none of this woold have happened, because nobody would have tried to do discredit him by paying someone to do opposition research.

    Harvard could wind up rewarding blackmail.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  64. 44.

    narciso (d1f714) — 6/17/2019 @ 11:41 am

    the intercept accused heshmat of being an mek drone, and per kangaroo court rules, twitter depersoned him, they restored him until next time,

    Proving that, online, there are small speech crimes.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  65. I’ll tell you who might feel unsafe at Harvard. Chinese students from the PRC who might get contacted by their government.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  66. RIP Gloria Vanderbilt, 95

    Blueblood, blue jean heiress; ‘poor little rich girl’ has flown The Coop.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  67. For many years many conservatives referred to liberals and democrats as commies and treated them as such. Gary kaultbaum does this on his radio show everyday. Well now liberals democrats say if we are commies conservatives or nazis and will be treated as such. what goes around comes around get used to it.

    lany (dd902e)

  68. Didn’t something similar happen about 2 years ago at Harvard where there was a group chat amongst admitted students that got a bunch of admissions rescinded?

    The thing for Harvard is that they turn away thousands of qualified applicants each year. No need to take someone on when there is just as qualified an applicant waiting in the wings.

    Nathan (8a2fed)

  69. #34, I’m sure by now, he’s learned to be more careful with his language. The question is, does he have a heart for why it was wrong? I’d like to think he does, and I’ll bet Harvard would too, but I’m not sure that comes through if he hasn’t been in relationship with the communities he impacted with his language.

    He was a KID when he wrote it. He’s still basically a KID as he’s writing his apology. This is nuts.

    Time123 (b4d075)

  70. She, too, apologized for the insensitivity and inappropriateness of her remarks, promised to sin no more, etc. And I don’t recall too many people here singing “kumbaya”, or applauding the NYT for its “courage” in hiring her, back then…

    That’s a huge stretch, Dave. For one thing, the women to whom you refer was an adult who had made her remarks in her early 20s, not a teenager who had made his remarks before peach fuzz first sprouted on his face. Also, she was hired by the NYT to be an opinion writer, writing editorials that go out under the NYT’s collective name. In other words, her disgusting behavior tells us exactly what kind of person the NYT wants shaping its official opinion. If I recall correctly, my opinion at the time was that the NYT can hire whomever the hell they like, but the hiring of this woman was proof positive of the ugly totalitarian leftist leanings of their editorial board.

    Kashuv, on the other hand, is not being hired to shape Harvard’s direction. In fact, theoretically he was being invited to pay money to attend the school in order to take direction from Harvard, with the school theoretically helping him grow as an individual. But you hit upon an interesting reality in the modern SJW world: in some ways, it is the institutions of learning themselves that now take instruction from their students. W.B. Yeats pegged this phenomena a century ago:

    Where, where but here have Pride and Truth,
    That long to give themselves for wage,
    To shake their wicked sides at youth
    Restraining reckless middle age?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  71. Mao’s mob.

    NJRob (44b7b6)

  72. “remarks before peach fuzz first sprouted on his face”

    He was 16 at the time of the chat logs. I dunno about you, but I was at least occasionally shaving at that point. This is also assuming that he was super unlucky and the logs in question are the only time in his life that he had a “heated gaming moment.”

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  73. “He was a KID when he wrote it. He’s still basically a KID as he’s writing his apology.”

    He was no angel.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  74. No dog in this hunt.

    But from the reading, apparently the only reason this young man found it necessary to ‘apologize’ for his comments was because they were discovered and made public; outed from a ‘group study chat’- [what the hell were they studying to generate the language in his post to begin with?!] So unless there’s similar evidence he posted/wrote/recorded something rescinding/regretting etc., in the time before this was publicized, seems he is more embarrassed and sorry he was caught– and for the consequences.

    It’s a hard lesson.

    Young Shapiro’s angst over ‘a new standard’ seems odd as it’s a very old one, merely expressed in a fresh medium. Quill inner thoughts into a private diary and leave it on a park bench, somebody you didn’t want to see it will find it and read it. Spew some hate slurs into a microphone connected to your secret taping system in the Oval Office, somebody else will eventually hear it, ‘out you’ and you end up helicoptering off the South Lawn of the White House, suffering the self-inflicted consequences of being shot down by your own words.

    Unless you’re Trump. [Had to make a piece of this about him!] 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  75. “remarks before peach fuzz first sprouted on his face”

    He was 16 at the time of the chat logs. I dunno about you, but I was at least occasionally shaving at that point. This is also assuming that he was super unlucky and the logs in question are the only time in his life that he had a “heated gaming moment.”

    Davethulhu (fab944) — 6/17/2019 @ 1:59 pm

    Dave, I’m not saying he’s an angel. I don’t think being an angel is the requirement for higher education. I don’t think it should be. I’m saying that kids do and say dumb stuff. They make mistakes that they won’t make 10 years later. I know I was a much better person at 26 than at 16. I don’t think being a 16 year old racist asshole for shock value should render you unacceptable for higher education. I think we should give a lot of latitude to the argument that young people make mistake and should be given the opportunity to learn and do better.

    If it turns out that he was a member of the Klan or that this is a current behavior I’ll reconsider. But no one has presented that information.

    So I don’t think pulling admission this late in the process is at all an appropriate response. I think Harvard messed up royally. It’s their right to do so but it’s disappointing.

    I hope they have the grace and maturity as an organization to recognize that correct their mistake.

    Time123 (6e0727)

  76. No dog in this hunt.

    But from the reading, apparently the only reason this young man found it necessary to ‘apologize’ for his comments was because they were discovered and made public; outed from a ‘group study chat’- [what the hell were they studying to generate the language in his post to begin with?!] So unless there’s similar evidence he posted/wrote/recorded something rescinding/regretting etc., in the time before this was publicized, seems he is more embarrassed and sorry he was caught– and for the consequences.

    It’s a hard lesson.

    DSCA the part bolded is nuts. He said dumb racist stuff 2 years ago. That’s 10% of his life. 16 to 18 encompasses a lot of changes. If he though about it at all he probably felt embarrassed and hoped it would never come up. Your expectations of a teenager are silly.

    Time123 (6e0727)

  77. I dunno about you, but I was at least occasionally shaving at that point.

    Have you seen him? I doubt the young fellow has shaved more than maybe a half-dozen times in his entire life.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  78. FWIW I had the same position when people found photo’s of Trayvon Martin dressed like a thug or sending tough sounding text messages.

    Kids. Make. Mistakes.

    I’m not saying mistakes should be free from consequences. I’m saying having your admission pulled this late is extremely harsh.

    I think more appropriate consequences would be some shame, and having to learn why & how being a racist asshole can cause actual harm, regardless of if there was any harm caused by the statements in question.

    Grabbing a dumb choice and using it define them for years after is ridiculous.

    How young would he have to be before you’d think ‘shame and education’ would a more appropriate response? 15? 13? 10? If a six year learns the N word and records racist YouTube video to be funny are they no longer a good candidate for higher education?

    can you give me a general rule that applies both to people you like and people you don’t like?

    Time123 (6e0727)

  79. Your expectations of a teenager are silly.

    Exactly.

    “Now that I have been granted admission to Stanford, let me acknowledge how sorry I am that two years ago I got ridiculously drunk on a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 which I stole from a local convenience store. I further apologize for vomiting all over the back seat of Mary Frances Anderson’s Toyota Camry, and for trying to cop a cheap feel off of Elena Sanchez as we were listening to that Katy Perry song. I make this sincere apology out of a sense of deep contrition, and if any further stories of my youthful misbehavior come to light I want it to be known that I already feel guilty about them, even if in the intervening years I have forgotten all about them.”

    That’s quite a ridiculous expectation for a 19-year-old.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  80. I am positive that the internal discussions centered around the question whether black students would feel “safe” were Mr. Kashuv admitted.

    I don’t claim to be positive, but I’d guess it was probably centered around whether the decision to let him matriculate would be perceived as a slap in the face to Harvard’s black students by the administration.

    Dave (1bb933)

  81. 81. No one gives a greasy brown s**t if Asians or whitey feels slighted in the same manner. The hypocrisy here is on full display.

    Gryph (08c844)

  82. 68. Isn’t Anderson Cooper a Vanderbilt scion?

    Gryph (08c844)

  83. Isn’t Anderson Cooper a Vanderbilt scion?

    He’s her son.

    Dave (1bb933)

  84. @83 Yes. Hence “… flown The Coop.”

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  85. 84. Figures. Even a name like “Anderson Cooper” screams BLUEBLOOD!

    Gryph (08c844)

  86. “Young Shapiro’s angst over ‘a new standard’ seems odd as it’s a very old one, merely expressed in a fresh medium. Quill inner thoughts into a private diary and leave it on a park bench, somebody you didn’t want to see it will find it and read it. Spew some hate slurs into a microphone connected to your secret taping system in the Oval Office, somebody else will eventually hear it, ‘out you’ and you end up helicoptering off the South Lawn of the White House, suffering the self-inflicted consequences of being shot down by your own words.”

    “Teenagers blowing off steam with friends who later get bribed for their stories on a private gaming chat (assuming some admin at Microsoft wasn’t feverishly searching for all previous saved chats under Kyle’s name and selling it to the highest bidding oppo researchers following his rise to fame) is the same as leaving your unfinished copy of The Turner Diaries on a park bench or directing your underlings to hide evidence in a public investigation.”

    Yeah, I don’t think I or anyone else of good will shall ever be sorry for calling DCSCA a lying, filthy Communist.

    Boulevard (c7dede)

  87. As an adult, Alger Hiss betrayed his country: but the Mass. Bar reinstated Alger Hiss;

    UCLA happily took in adult communist Angela Davis;

    other Universities happily took in adults who as adults, were 70’s radicals that wish they would have bombed more.

    But a 16 year old that said stupid things…. He’s the one to be excluded.

    Never Trumpers will tsk tsk what Harvard did to this kid, and let it go at that.

    Hopefully, Trump will institute a cap on federally funded loans that can be used at institutions with endowments over 1B, or something else.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442)

  88. Props for Anderson Cooper for overcoming the privation of his upbringing to miraculously get accepted to the Dalton School and then Yale, and somehow be able to launch a successful career in national television news. They ought to make an inspirational movie about him.

    (And yeah, that’s sarcasm.)

    JVW (54fd0b)

  89. @77.Silly? No it’s not; not really, perhaps making excuses for them is what’s ‘silly.’ In his ‘group chatting’ he could have simply posted something along the lines of ‘well, that was a stupid thing to say when I was high/drunk, etc.,’ or whatever. Our expectations of a “teenager” aren’t ‘silly’ at all; we permit them to drive cars riskin the life and limb of others; 50 years ago this summer ‘teenagers’ broke into homes and committed the ‘Manson Murders’; We’ve trained ‘teenagers’ to manage multi-million dollar weapons systems in combat and go to war for our country- and some even start computer companies and massive media platforms. And back in the day, some picked up muskets and fought Britons, confederates and yankees. So no, don’t think it’s ‘silly’ at all to expect better actions from “teenagers.”

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  90. No one gives a greasy brown s**t if Asians or whitey feels slighted in the same manner.

    Asian-Americans make up 5% of the college-entry age population in the US, and 22% of Harvard’s entering freshman class…

    I am 100% opposed to discrimination of any kind. But it is unfortunately a fact that if minority students of any kind (and this includes women in STEM) do not have peers and mentors like themselves who they can identify with, they are much less likely to succeed.

    Dave (1bb933)

  91. @79. ‘extremely harsh’

    See #13.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  92. Their school – their rules. But if they’re discriminating against conservatives, then maybe we should take a look at their tax exempt status. Certainly, Harvard is rich enough to pay taxes on its endowment income and lose its IRS charitable deduction.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  93. Hello I just got excluded by Harvard’s “Office of Inclusion and Divinity” – my views didn’t conform.

    LOL

    rcocean (1a839e)

  94. They ought to make an inspirational movie about him.

    Not the best look to slag on a guy the day his mother dies.

    His father died when he was 11, and his older brother committed suicide while he was in college.

    He started his journalism career reporting freelance from Burma with a forged press pass.

    Dave (1bb933)

  95. well certainly about ayers, doehrn, boudin, there was a recent one who will be released from the brinks job, if joanne Chesimard, hadn’t skipped town to cuba, there’d probably be an administrative track for her,

    narciso (d1f714)

  96. 91. I didn’t say anything about discrimination. We’re talking about Kashuv’s behavior making black students feel “unsafe.” Who cares about the safety of whitey? Or Asian students? You don’t have to be a minority to be unsafe. Women complain about feeling unsafe all the time, and they are roughly 50% of the population worldwide.

    Gryph (08c844)

  97. it’s about gun control, more accurately the dunblane or port Arthur, that cnn tried to make of parkland, everything else is just filler,

    narciso (d1f714)

  98. Asian-Americans make up 5% of the college-entry age population in the US, and 22% of Harvard’s entering freshman class…

    And what percentage of National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists and finalists do you suppose they represent? I assume the program doesn’t want to keep those types of statistics.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  99. Dsca, are trying to be a troll? I said that I thought the punishment was extremely harsh given what we know and you respond that life is unfair? So you agree that it’s not a fair response, but you’re okay with it anyway? What’s the logic there?

    Time123 (d54166)

  100. He started his journalism career reporting freelance from Burma with a forged press pass.

    I’ll bet he was desperate to find work in order to pay off his student loans.

    But you’re right that I should probably let Anderson Cooper be while he mourns his mother. I regret my comment.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  101. We’re talking about Kashuv’s behavior making black students feel “unsafe.”

    Actually that’s not what we’re talking about.

    Patrick (and now you) are the only ones to bring up safety.

    Dave (1bb933)

  102. @99. The response is actually a quote from a Harvard grad.

    Life is unfair.

    He learned early.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  103. Boulevard is Steppe Nomad.

    DRJ (15874d)

  104. No doubt some of the “people” who dug this up and smeared him with it are celebrating tonight. It’s not every day you trash the hopes and dreams of someone you hate because they argued against you.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  105. My ire isn’t with Harvard — I would never have expected the to act differently. It’s with the rabid political mob that thought exposing these unfortunate comments was the way to attack his pro-2nd Amendment attitudes.

    This is what happens when you let tribal partisanship become your ethical guide.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  106. @80. JVW, weren’t you arguing with angst several months ago on another thread over how much this generation of ‘kids’ have become a bunch of sloppy minded slackers? If memory serves, both DRJ and I suggested w/confidence the kids will do alright in the end.

    It’s a tough break for this kid; a hard life lesson in this day and age; part of the broader education he’ll get but he will get a good education- and likely the scholarships he seeks and a sheepskin from a good school if that’s what he wants.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  107. @106. So what you’re saying is this comes down to the usual conservative whine and bitter dregs.

    He could always apply to Eureka College; an alumni of that modest institution went fairly far and ended up have a lot of Harvard grads working for him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  108. JVW, weren’t you arguing with angst several months ago on another thread over how much this generation of ‘kids’ have become a bunch of sloppy minded slackers?

    Uh, believe about him what you will, but I hardly think Kyle Kashuv counts as a “sloppy-minded slacker.” I’m not sure whether there is a point in your comment or if you are just in search of a strawman to burn down.

    But I am interested to see that you are down for the “hey, he’ll do just fine at another school that isn’t Harvard” argument. This of course ignores the fact that Harvard’s actions have now labeled Kashuv as an irredeemable budding young racist which will affect his applications at other schools. Also, coming as late as it did, he’s probably screwed for landing a position at any competitive school for this coming fall. But hey, what’s another year out of a young man’s life, right?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  109. It’s with the rabid political mob that thought exposing these unfortunate comments was the way to attack his pro-2nd Amendment attitudes.

    The geek in me is quite curious about exactly where the info came from, and how it was retrieved from such an obscure, 18 month old source.

    Knowing very little about the provenance, I could speculate that one of his classmates, perhaps even someone who lost a friend in the attack, did it because they see him as betraying the victims who were murdered, or even worse, getting admitted to Harvard thanks to the notoriety he gained at their expense.

    To us it’s tribal politics, but it would be deeply personal to those who lived through the massacre.

    Dave (1bb933)

  110. @109. WW2 disrupted a lot of young men’s lives, too. But hey, what a few years out of a young man’s life, right?

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  111. Also, coming as late as it did, he’s probably screwed for landing a position at any competitive school for this coming fall.

    Read the documents. It is scant consolation, but he was not planning to start school until Fall 2020.

    Dave (1bb933)

  112. Knowing very little about the provenance, I could speculate that one of his classmates, perhaps even someone who lost a friend in the attack, did it because they see him as betraying the victims who were murdered, or even worse, getting admitted to Harvard thanks to the notoriety he gained at their expense.

    It should be no surprise that Broward County is Judas country.

    nk (dbc370)

  113. WWII impacted virtually every young man’s career. They didn’t have to explain where they had been for 4-5 “missing” years. As JVW said, this young man will be haunted by this for the rest of his life.

    Where is your Scarlet Letter movie quote, DCSCA? It goes on this thread.

    DRJ (15874d)

  114. You know who is going to potentially be hurt by Harvard’s newfound sensitivity to the possibility that the teenaged actions of an admitted student makes other students fearful for their safety? Minority males are probably the biggest group with something to lose. Imagine that we find out that some 18-year-old kid from Long Island has a vague MS-13 connection in his past; for example, perhaps he at one point used some MS-13 slogans on Twitter or expressed satisfaction that the gang had killed a sworn enemy from another area gang. Is all that it takes for his admission offer to be rescinded is a handful of students to attest that they would be afraid of having him on campus?

    Or to take another example of unintended consequences, imagine a young woman who charged a fellow student with sexual assault when she was 15, but later recanted and admitted it was an attempt to get attention from her parents. She keeps her nose clean for the rest of her high school career and ends up being admitted to Harvard. Can Harvard men say that they live in fear that she will bring false accusations against them and thus demand that her admission offer be rescinded?

    Of course, that’s a trick question because no one can imagine Harvard being consistent in how they apply this principle across various demographic groups who have intersectionality cred.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  115. I would never have expected the to act differently. It’s with the rabid political mob that thought exposing these unfortunate comments was the way to attack his pro-2nd Amendment attitudes.

    I suspect his willingness to be a prop in Trumpworld, and get involved in GOP state politics, was a lot more motivating to the mob.

    Kishnevi (3cee37)

  116. Had Scott Petersen done the right thing, remember him, there wouldn’t have 14 dead,

    Narciso (9cdaa3)

  117. @77. Your expectations of a teenager are silly.
    @80. Exactly.

    Silly? Exactly?? Here’s to the exacting silliness of ‘teenagers:’ 

    GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS BY TEENAGERS  [listed by age]

    10 – Mark, author of the Gospel of Mark, witnesses the arrest of Jesus and develops the first Gospel.
    12 – Blaise Pascal had secretly worked out the first twenty-three propositions of Euclid by himself.
    12 – Jesus analyzes Scriptures for the experts in the temple in Jerusalem.
    12 – William “Willie” Johnson earned the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Seven Days Battle and on the Peninsula Campaign during the American Civil War.
    13 – Joan of Arc was inspired and led France five years later to victory over the English in the Hundred Years War; was martyred at age 19.
    13 – Anne Frank began writing her diary, later published as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.”
    13 – Bobby Fischer wins the “Game of the Century” in Chess, by sacrificing his Queen to gain advantage in position.
    14 – David slays Goliath.
    14 – Ismail founded the Safavid dynasty and became its “shah” (military and spiritual ruler)
    14 – Mozart wrote the opera, “Mitridate Rè di Ponto.”
    14 – Nadia Comaneci “achieved in her sport what no Olympian, male or female, ever had before: perfection.”
    14 – St. Theresa of Lisieux rejected by Bishop Hugonin, pleads with Pope Leo XIII so she may enter the Carmelites. Became Carmelite nun at age 15.
    14 – Bernadette Soubirous (St Bernadette of Lourdes) has a vision of the Virgin Mary
    14 – The publication of Charles Schulz’s first drawing of a dog, which became an inspiration for his cartoon strip Peanuts about a dog named Snoopy
    14 – Aaron Swartz develops RSS. Swartz would go on to contest the private ownership of data by trying to liberate millions of academic articles from a corporation.
    15 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini creates a sculpture of the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence in 1614.
    15 – Jack Andraka developed a new method to detect pancreatic cancer.
    15 – Louis Braille invented the Braille system.
    15 – Christopher Paolini writes the first draft of his Eragon trilogy which is published when he is 19.
    15 – Tiger Woods becomes the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur Champion in golf history.
    16 – Jean-François Champollion, can speak a dozen languages and delivers a paper on the Coptic language to the Grenoble Academy. By 20, he can speak another 13 languages and at 32 he deciphers the Rosetta Stone.
    16 – Boy sailor Jack Cornwall, of HMS Chester, is awarded a posthumous VC for gallantry at the Battle of Jutland.
    16 – Taylor Swift releases her first studio album, which peaks at #1 on the US Top Country Albums chart.
    16 – the average age of 58 homeschooled teenagers who founded Conservapedia, so that the light of truth would continue to shine and darkness would not overcome it.
    16 – Franz Schubert wrote his First Symphony; having already composed songs, chamber pieces etc.,
    16 – Sun Myung Moon writes Crown of Glory.17 – Cassie Bernall defended her faith in front of an atheistic gunman at the Columbine massacre, and was martyred for it
    17 – Georges Bizet wrote his Symphony in C of which is heard frequently today.
    17* – Mary accepts God’s will to conceive Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and gives birth nine months later.
    17 – Shawn Fanning develops the first large-scale peer-to-peer file sharing program, Napster
    17 – Private 1st Class Jacklyn H. Lucas, United States Marine Corps, earned the Medal of Honor five days after his 17th birthday during the Iwo Jima battle in World War II; he was a Marine for three years.
    17 – Mendelssohn composed his Octet, widely considered the best of its genre. He had already written 12 string symphonies by age 14.
    17 – Young Tom Morris won the 1868 Open Championship, and remains the youngest ever winner of a major golf championship. He went on to win again in 1869, 1870 and 1872; effectively four consecutive victories as the Open was not contested in 1871.
    17 – Pele scored six goals in four games in the 1958 World Cup, including perhaps the finest goal ever in the finals, leading Brazil to the championship.
    17 – Malala Yousafzai became the youngest ever recipient of a Nobel Prize in 2014. Her Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded with Indian child rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi. Malala was barely 11 years old when she began championing girls’ education in Pakistan, writing a blog (Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl) which chronicled her hope to keep going to school and her fears for the future of the province of Swat. She was critically injured in a failed assassination attempt on Oct. 9, 2012, when a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and shot her in the head.
    18 – Lila Rose, a UCLA student who had been homeschooled, goes undercover and does a stinging expose of an abortion clinic.18 – Shawn Goldsmith from Long Island has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts.[17]18 – Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus), later published when she was 21.
    18 – Garry Kasparov, considered the greatest chess player ever, won the U.S.S.R. championship.
    18 – Tiger Woods wins the U.S. Amateur Championship at the TPC at Sawgrass, becoming the youngest winner ever.
    19 – Captain Albert Ball, VC, MC, DSO & 2 bars, commences his career as a fighter pilot. By the time he is killed, aged 20, in 1917, he has become one of the First World War’s greatest air aces, accounting for at least 44 German aircraft.
    19 – was the average age of front-line US service personnel fighting to defend democracy in Indochina during the Vietnam War.
    19 – Evariste Galois applies group theory to the unsolvability of polynomial equations, before his death in a duel at age 20.
    19 – Babe Ruth began playing for the Boston Red Sox, in what would become the greatest baseball career in history.
    19 – Kirani James won the first Olympic gold medal for the small nation of Grenada, as the first non-American to run 400 meters in less than 44 seconds.19 – John D. Rockefeller starts a new company, turning an enormous profit in its first year, and became the most influential businessman in history.
    19 – Steve Jobs begins collaborating in electronics with Steve Wozniak in electronics, and developed the personal computer within two years.
    19 – Mark Zuckerberg commercializes Facebook, which later became the leading social networking system on the internet.
    19 – Jim Ryun broke the world record for running the mile.
    19 – Bill Gates co-founds Microsoft.
    19 – Pete Sampras wins his first of 14 Grand Slam titles, at the U.S. Open
    19 – Ginny Thrasher wins the first gold medal for the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympics, in a firearms competition.
    20 – Carl Friedrich Gauss makes his first mathematical discoveries, which will lead to the completion of “Disquisitiones Arithmeticae”, his magnum opus, at the age of 21.
    20 – Willis Carrier invents modern air conditioning.
    20 – Trevor Bayne, who had been homeschooled, became the youngest driver to win a Daytona 500 race.
    20 – Tim Tebow, who had been homeschooled, became the first sophomore and also the youngest person to win the Heisman Trophy. 

    – source, https://www.conservapedia.com/Great_Achievements_by_Teenagers

    Yes, Conservapedia, no less… oh my.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  118. Of course, that’s a trick question because no one can imagine Harvard being consistent in how they apply this principle across various demographic groups who have intersectionality cred.

    I don’t think that’s their duty.

    They should apply it in whatever way is best for the institution they work for.(*)

    It’s their job to make decisions based on that, not what makes themselves feel good.

    (*) Applying the rules in a brazenly unfair or capricious manner would not be best for Harvard. But they haven’t done that. At least *10* people had their Harvard admissions yoinked for similar social media idiocy just two years ago.

    Dave (1bb933)

  119. @114. Doubtful. Only if conservatives politicos keep using it as a barb. Cold fusion needs an inventor so his future looks bright.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  120. Mozart wrote the opera, “Mitridate Rè di Ponto.”
    That’s their example?

    Mozart wrote a lot of great music as a preteen and a teenager. He also wrote a lot of boring, not very inventive, music in those years. Mitridate is an example of the second type.

    Kishnevi (3cee37)

  121. @121. Gee, you outta contact Conservapedia and out them.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  122. This is the same school that removed a faculty dean because he represented someone in court that people at the school did not like. Regarding Kashuv, David Brooks put it well:

    Moral formation is not like learning math. It’s not cumulative; it’s inverse. In a sin-drenched world it’s precisely through the sins and the ensuing repentance that moral formation happens. That’s why we try not to judge people by what they did in their worst moment, but rather by how they respond to their worst moment. That’s why we are forgiving of 16-year-olds, because they haven’t disgraced themselves enough to have earned maturity.

    Something’s really wrong there.

    Paul Montagu (a61762)

  123. 16 – the average age of 58 homeschooled teenagers who founded Conservapedia, so that the light of truth would continue to shine and darkness would not overcome it.

    Snorfle. Also snicker and titter.

    nk (dbc370)

  124. French also put it well:

    But can’t an educational institution understand that children are different from adults and that a truly enormous amount of growth can occur in a short amount of time — especially when that growth is spurred in part by enduring horrific trauma? Harvard has had the ability to watch Kyle more than virtually any other student in its freshman class. It’s seen him operate in the white-hot glare of public debate over one of the most contentious issues in American life. To the extent that any freshman is a known quantity, Kyle is known — and he’s known to presently conduct himself with unusual patience and dignity.
    My oldest child is 20. I have an 18-year-old son. I’ve spent most of the last decade around teenagers, and I know how much they need guidance, forgiveness, and grace. I know how much a person can grow, and I know that adversity and mistakes are often the catalyst for growth. But woke culture has forgotten those lessons. Woke culture treats a teen like an adult and tries to crush his public reputation when his character is still in in its infancy.
    Let’s not pretend that Kyle is anything other than a victim of the culture wars. Had he not stepped forward after Parkland as a conservative spokesperson, he would be in no one’s crosshairs. He would have been allowed to make a mistake. At its heart, the attack on Kyle isn’t about making Harvard safe from racists. It’s not about protecting anyone. It’s about politics.

    Paul Montagu (a61762)

  125. nk (dbc370) — 6/17/2019 @ 5:15 pm

    They themselves have said it,
    And it’s greatly to their credit.

    Kishnevi (3cee37)

  126. @124. LOL, well, that’s ‘Conservapedia’ for ‘ya. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  127. Well I found aspirational and apolitical,

    Narciso (9cdaa3)

  128. Snorfle. Also snicker and titter.

    You’re a bad person.

    (I’m tellin’ Harvard about you!)

    Dave (1bb933)

  129. Can I make amends by burning a flag?

    nk (dbc370)

  130. DSCA, you dodged my question.

    Do you feel that Harvard’s response is unfair? Are you OK with it anyway?
    Seems like you dislike this young man for some reason. Is it just that he disagrees with your policy preferences?

    Time123 (7332de)

  131. @110. It came from the kid’s head and keyboard, Dave.

    @109. “I hardly think [KK] counts as a ‘sloppy minded slacker.’

    Yet he posted the ‘sloppy minded’ comments which are genesis of his predicament.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  132. @131. No, have not. And #118 is a solid, valid response to your assertion of ‘silliness.’

    End of story.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  133. “At least *10* people had their Harvard admissions yoinked for similar social media idiocy just two years ago.”
    Dave (1bb933) — 6/17/2019 @ 4:41 pm

    Not similar circumstances. Those ten made the comments after they had been admitted.

    Munroe (6329fc)

  134. @133 I’m sorry I don’t understand your answer. Are you saying their response is fair or unfair? Are you ok with it if you feel it’s unfai?

    Time123 (7332de)

  135. I thought the correct “Ben Shapiro answer” was “Their College – free market”. Guess not.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  136. Not similar circumstances. Those ten made the comments after they had been admitted.

    Read the letter:

    “If you engage or have engaged in behavior that brings into question your honesty, maturity or moral character.”

    As far as Harvard’s stated policy is concerned, they are exactly the same circumstances.

    Dave (1bb933)

  137. But he was honest about what he had said and he sincerely apologized. These show he currently has both maturity and moral character. The post-admission examples show the opposite.

    DRJ (15874d)

  138. 137. Again I ask, do you honestly believe these same standards would be applied to a black applicant?

    Gryph (08c844)

  139. 110. Dave (1bb933) — 6/17/2019 @ 4:24 pm

    The geek in me is quite curious about exactly where the info came from, and how it was retrieved from such an obscure, 18 month old source.

    I didn’t stumble across anything yet – and it’s a very good question – but it became public a few weeks ago, and it seems like it was an anonymous leak. Harvard already wrote to Kyle Kashuv on Friday, May 24 – three weeks ago – that they were condering rescinnding his admission, ad you can see – even if Kyle Kashuv didn’t quite understand – that what they were concerned about was that it was a forgery, or that he’d been impersonated.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/opinion/harvard-admission-kyle-kashuv.html

    The leaked excerpts were from both text messages and a collaborative Google doc. I don’t know, somebody might have bene hacked. Or some students might have been questioned – and perhaps blackmailed themselves into providing more information if they didn’t turn him in. This is what we have to consider. This was probably not another Parkland student doing this on his own.

    The excerpt we’ve seen happened like this:

    He was studying for the A.P. U.S. History exam with some classmates online. Around midnight they began posting childish things. Kashuv’s comments were repulsive — blatantly racist and anti-Semitic. He wrote the N-word 12 times and then explained that he was good at typing that word. “[P]ractice uhhhhhh makes perfect.”

    There wold have been, say, half a dozen people who saw it, and they did things too.
    Knowing very little about the provenance, I could speculate that one of his classmates, perhaps even someone who lost a friend in the attack, did it because they see him as betraying the victims who were murdered, or even worse, getting admitted to Harvard thanks to the notoriety he gained at their expense.

    To us it’s tribal politics, but it would be deeply personal to those who lived through the massacre.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  140. Knowing very little about the provenance, I could speculate that one of his classmates, perhaps even someone who lost a friend in the attack, did it because they see him as betraying the victims who were murdered, or even worse, getting admitted to Harvard thanks to the notoriety he gained at their expense.

    I don’t think it was actually that way at all. Somebody was blackmailed into providing the quotes, or they, or the Google docs account, wae hacked into. The fact that it took so long is also evidence that this was an opposition research effort that somebody probably paid people to do, not a “whistleblower.”

    If a student had done this on its own we would probably know who it was.

    And we do know some students who publicly came out against him.

    I think by the time Harvard wrote to him he has admitted it, because Kyle Kashuv apologized on Twitter on Wednesday, May 22. Maybe HArvard was still worried aout the off chance that he had been impersonated.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  141. On May 16 he resigned from his position as director of outreach for Turning Point USA, without giving a reason. There may have been some people disturbed about him, and we may know who leaked at least one thing (a female classmate named Ariana Ali.)

    The New Yorker ran a story in May:

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/the-parkland-provocateur-kyle-kashuv-prepares-to-graduate

    “The more prominent he got, the more I was bothered by his hypocrisy,” Ariana Ali, one of Kashuv’s classmates, said about him recently. “He pretends to be this God-fearing, squeaky-clean type, but everyone who knows him knows that’s not who he really is.” Who he really is, according to Ali, is a bigot. According to another classmate, Kashuv “used the N-word frequently,” both in text messages and in person. A different classmate said, “He was obsessed with ranking which women were most attractive, by race. Out of nowhere, he’d go, ‘Wanna hear my racial ranking system?’ ” Political disagreements are one thing, Ali said, “but Kyle’s behavior was way, way over the line.” Ali had several more anecdotes attesting to this. She also, as they say, had the receipts.

    On Twitter, Ali posted a video of Kashuv and some of his classmates chatting on a Google Doc in December, 2017. They were supposedly studying for their A.P. American-history midterm, but, around midnight, the review session went off the rails. At first, the attempts at humor were innocent enough. (On one page, the names of the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party were changed to “Fed boyos” and “Demdem Reppy swag.”) But Kashuv’s contributions were more unhinged. He referred, in capital letters, to “my jewish slaves.” Elsewhere, he wrote the N-word eleven times in a row. “I’m really good at typing” the word, he explained. “Practice uhhhhhh makes perfect.” The same day that Ali put the video out on Twitter, Kashuv posted a statement announcing his resignation from Turning Point. A few days later, he tweeted another statement. He acknowledged having used “callous and inflammatory language,” but he didn’t apologize. A Turning Point spokesperson called Kashuv’s comments “unacceptable” and “un-American.” (Kashuv declined to comment.)

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  142. So it looks like he had stopped doing that kind of stuff after he had a chance to become someone prominent after the Parkland shooting, but not for internally motivated reasons.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  143. TGhis was one of the last things Kyle Kashuv write before he was exposed as a bad person:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/school-shootings-student-grief-gun-control-politics

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  144. 143. So? Do you believe Kashuv would have been under this kind of scrutiny if he was black? If he had not become someone prominent (for whatever reason), what chance would he have had to be admitted to Harvard at all?

    Gryph (08c844)

  145. A very good chance. He has an astronomical GPA and SAT score. Second in his high school graduating class. Extra points for being a “survivor”.

    nk (dbc370)

  146. 146. Reality checks: Astronomical GPA and SAT scores, even along with salutatorian status, don’t give you a very good chance of Harvard acceptance. They give you the same chance as every other salutatorian with high GPA and SAT scores, which is to say not all that hot. If you’re not a legacy or extremely wealthy, you’d better have something else to set you apart — like being part of a politically correct racial minority, or maybe a prominent school shooting survivor.

    Gryph (08c844)

  147. Kyle Kashuv said on Twitter on May 22 that it was “a few years ago” but it was less than 18 months before. He also said non June 17 it hapepned “a few months” before the shooting. It was two months before the shooting and one and a half years ago

    According to the Daily Beast his announcement that he was leaving Turning Point USA came a few hours before the screenshots became public. (they didn’t give anything like that as the reason, and therefore probably would have been an attempt to prevent them from becoming public.

    But heavy.com says his resignaton came after.

    https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/kyle-kashuv

    He’s not being very honest about this. He became aware of these comments? It should be he became aware they were becoming known. Or he could say he was reminded of them. He immediately apologized? Immediately when? He was acting like he just heard of it.

    He also says that “political opponents” and former classmates began writing Harvard urging it to rescind his admission.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  148. 148. So do you think it’s not true that political opponents and former classmates wrote Harvard begging them to rescind his administration? Do you think that all else being equal, Kashuv would have had the same treatment over this if he were a black kid saying shockingly tasteless things about “honky whitey?”

    I mean, come on — he admitted to doing what he was accused of. Just how much more honest do you think he should be before he can be forgiven for this? I guaran-damn-tee you that there have been people accepted to, and graduated from, Harvard with far more ethically shady backgrounds than Kashuv who happened to be lucky enough — for whatever reason — to not be called out on their behavior.

    Gryph (08c844)

  149. Let’s call it what it is, people. Let’s take a good look at the elephant in the room and then let’s name it:

    Kyle Kashuv had his Harvard acceptance rescinded because he doesn’t fit the narrative of the “mass shooting survivor.” That’s really what this is about, plain and simple. It’s not about words you can find in any number of hip-hop albums. It’s not about youthful indiscretions. Kashuv’s first and biggest mistake was thinking he could go to Harvard after speaking out against gun control. The rest is just smoke, mirrors, and excuses.

    Gryph (08c844)

  150. 117. Narciso (9cdaa3) — 6/17/2019 @ 4:38 pm

    117.Had Scott Petersen done the right thing, remember him, there wouldn’t have 14 dead,

    There was an article not long ago in the New York Times about Scot Peterson.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/us/scot-peterson-parkland-shooting.html

    Although he isn;t giving any interviews, his defense, true or not, (aside from any possible claim of no responsibility) appears to be that he didn’t know where the shooting was coming from; that he thought it could be a sniper firing from outside of the building; and that he heard only a few shots.

    (He might have thought it was from outside the building because, not realizing that the shooter nt could be a recent former student at the school, or a current one, he might have thought that the shooter didn’t know about the unlocked door that was unlocked shortly before school ended for the day, and so couldn’t have gotten in; and the limited number of shots would also have made him think of a sniper, which would mean that so long as nobody showed himself, nobody would get hurt; and that he couldn’t help till he found out where the shooter was and by going out into the open without knowing where the shooter was, he might only be making himself a target.)

    And he touht the fore alarm cae from the gunfire.

    “I was trying to figure it out,” he told the Post reporter. “I was scanning for the shooter, looking over the windows, the sidewalk, the rooftop. I thought maybe it was a sniper like in Las Vegas. I just didn’t know.”

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  151. 150. Gryph (08c844) — 6/18/2019 @ 6:48 am

    Kashuv’s first and biggest mistake was thinking he could go to Harvard after speaking out against gun control.

    That Harvard knew.

    But he couldn’t do it with somehing very uncomplimentary in his background. He had to be close to squeaky clean, unless he really knew how to cover up. And his dissembling and his groveling when this came out didn’t help. He even tried the argument that Harvard had had slaveowners on its faculty in the past.

    But he himself gleefully went after Scot Peterson without considering natural cowardice and that he might have a defense. (not knowing where the shooter was, or what kind of shooting it was.)

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  152. I agree with Sammy at 152. If you want to go swimming in shark-infested waters, don’t have any bleeding wounds. Or, if you want to run the marathon in the Olymics, don’t have blisters on your heels. Gryph is correct that admission to Harvard requires every advantage and there’s no room for disadvantage.

    nk (dbc370)

  153. 153. Correction: There is no room for politically incorrect disadvantage. If Finkelman’s criteria for what constitutes a “bad person” was applied evenly at Harvard, there wouldn’t be enough of a student body left to form a single study group.

    Gryph (08c844)

  154. Dude! Take a deep breath.

    Actually, Sammy has given us a lot of background information that I was not aware of and which has put the situation in better perspective for me. For one thing, that someone named Ariana Ali, that’s A-l-i, is a prominent, or the principal, snitch. I already knew Kyle’s parents were Israeli Jews. So there’s an additional “tribalism” now visible.

    nk (dbc370)

  155. 155. I’m not disputing the truth of any of the links Finkelman posted here. What ruffles my feathers more than anything else is his description of Kashuv as a “bad person” as if somehow that absolves Harvard of charges of hypocrisy. By those criteria, bad people are admitted to Harvard all the time.

    I believe it was William F. Buckley who said,

    I would rather be governed by the first 2000 in the telephone directory than the faculty of Harvard University.

    Gryph (08c844)

  156. Nk, I was waiting to have that confirmed, which would be the answer to rcocean’s dig at Ben Shapiro at #136 (my Karnak the Magnificent answers would have all of:

    a.Co-Religionist;
    b. Kashuv has a cute sister or cousin;
    c. Kashuv lives in South Florida, so Ben gets to sample his true fetish, Latinas, on trips

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  157. 157. And let’s make another thing clear: I am not accusing Harvard of violating the law, or some sort of longstanding publicly stated policy. I am accusing Harvard of applying different standards for some than they do for others. “No room for disadvantage” indeed. But it is an advantage to be black when you’re applying for Harvard. And it is plainly a disadvantage to speak out against gun control.

    Gryph (08c844)

  158. No sammeh he had encountered the shooter before and had done little. Of course it would have interfered with promise program

    Narciso (4cb598)

  159. Narciso, that’s true, but totally irrelevant to what Sammy was saying–which is that Petersen claims he didn’t know, when the shooting started, who or where the shooter is. And while the latter part (where) is doubtful (there is a cliche in military writing that soldiers “run to the sound of the bullets”), the former part (who) is highly likely.

    kishnevi (0c10d1)

  160. From what Sammy posted, it seems even more like that this was a hit originated by one of his classmates. Apparently the “study group” included at least one person who was put off by the language being used and created a record of it. Remember this was before the shooting and before Kashuv’s emergence as a political lightning rod. Whoever recorded that stuff at the time didn’t like him for some other reason (possibly because he was a bigot, maybe for completely unrelated high-school stuff – it could be virtually anything).

    A second possibility is that one of the participants in exchange recorded it because they thought it was funny at the time, and then released it out anger at Kashuv for his political stances after the shooting. But from what we’ve seen, the person who recorded it went out of their way to document not only what was written, but the identities of the participants. So I think the first scenario is more likely.

    The suggestion that somebody was hired to blackmail his classmates to rat him out is unhinged. Yes, the guy was a irritant to gun control enthusiasts, but he was not that important or visible to anyone outside Parkland. The person who did this didn’t need to be hired or blackmailed.

    Dave (1bb933)

  161. 156. Gryph (08c844) — 6/18/2019 @ 7:45 am

    I’m not disputing the truth of any of the links Finkelman posted here. What ruffles my feathers more than anything else is his description of Kashuv as a “bad person” as if somehow that absolves Harvard of charges of hypocrisy. </blockquote I didn't mean that at all. I borrowed that expression from Dave @129 and I used it because it was more accurate and fairer and kinder than what they would probably say at Harvard. It would be fair to say he was exposed as…just simply a bad person.

    And I don't really think he is, or was, all that bad, in the scheme of things. And I didn't mean that therefore, he should be excluded, or that there should be no repentance allowed. Just an acknowledgement that this was terrible behavior, and he was capable of it, but it is wrong.

    154.

    If Finkelman’s criteria for what constitutes a “bad person” was applied evenly at Harvard, there wouldn’t be enough of a student body left to form a single study group.

    If the attribute of strict judgment prevailed, ad there was no mercy, goes an old Talmudic statement I think, the world could not stand. Which is why we need Yom Kippur.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  162. I think (and thanks to Sammy for the additional information, as it catalyzed my thinking in the matter), Harvard thought that they had admitted a Milo type in the the school.
    Someone that was demonstrably disingenuous and (as others said) he only did this only 18 months ago, so his “in the past” narrative and his “heartfelt” apologies seem pretty prefab and media focused.
    I think he’s a sly, media savvy kid who had an agenda they did not want to deal with and the administration probably felt he wanted to use his position at the school to “disrupt the PC mob”™.
    So, I think they figured he was only going to go there and use his presence there to raise his personal visibility and get himself some gigs as the conservative kid from Harvard and they did not feel like being used.
    It seems to me to be the simplest explanation.
    And – fair or unfair, it’s their call.

    TomM (954e56)

  163. Dave @157.

    Apparently the “study group” included at least one person who was put off by the language being used and created a record of it.

    The Google.doc file might have been abdaoned, but not deleted, and available for some time, because that’s maybe he default, so it could have been captured after he started to becoe famous, in March, 2018. But it doesn’t seem to be availabnle now, because, when this started to leak, in the middle of May this year, Kyle Kashuv indicated that he couldn’t determine what he had said, which I think is true. (I don’t buy that he has no memory of it. Especially since he gave a description of what they were doing.)

    There was a news article today in the New York Times that names the publicizer (not at the first opportunity, but further down in the article) She isn’t commenting much but she did communicate by Direct Message (which means private on Twitter) to the New York Times.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/us/parkland-kyle-kashuv-harvard.html

    Ariana Ali, the former schoolmate who posted video of the messages on Twitter, declined to elaborate on Monday beyond praising Harvard’s rescinding of Mr. Kashuv’s admission offer.

    “He’s being held accountable, & I think the consequences were necessary,” she said in a direct message on Twitter.

    Interestingly, the New York Tmes describes one of his critcs ass” a far-right activist, Laura Loomer.”

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  164. The New York Times has some quoyes from Kyle Kashuv today:

    “In the same document, I said a bunch of anti-Semitic stuff,” he acknowledged. “That’s not who I am. My parents are Jewish. I’m Jewish. I go to synagogue every single week now — I’ve been going the past few weeks.”

    Who I am: That sounds like plagiarism.

    ..The past few weeks: Points for honesty, although maybe, after saying he went every week, he felt he couldn’t lie about that, because every statement wuld be fact checked, so he admitted in advance that this was only since this “scandal” exploded, but he didn’t acknoeledge any kind of connection between teh two.

    It is interesting he would type some things of an anti-semitic nature. Really trying to fit in, I guess, or to look totally callous. (the others probably didn’t know he was Jewish, although probably disaffiliated.)

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  165. FWIW, Ariana Ali probably made one, if not more of Kashuv’s lists (google and image, you’ll thank me later).

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  166. 163, urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 6/18/2019 @ 11:25 am

    163.FWIW, Ariana Ali probably made one, if not more of Kashuv’s lists (google and image, you’ll thank me later).

    What do you mean by Kashuv’s lists?

    Sammy Finkelman (9974e8)

  167. The lists Kashuv was alleged to have created, where he ranked females (by looks I would presume), see your own post #138 that references the New Yorker article where A. Ali makes the assertion. No hijab worn, is actually a petite attractive girl whose features stand out in the “a third, a third and a third (white/black/hispanic)” ethnic landscape of South Flirida.

    urbanleftbehind (18d1a3)


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