• @KnitWit
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    18824 days ago

    Thanks for the 4 years tuition though!

    I could see them barring them from walking for their degree, but to hold it completely is messed up. Bullshit that ‘the corporation’ overruled the faculty vote.

    • @Etterra
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      7024 days ago

      And that’s why nobody should ever go to a fot-profit school.

    • @spamfajitas
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      5724 days ago

      The fun thing is that people say “I graduated” or “I’m graduating” but it’s technically more correct to say “I am being graduated (by the university).” I might be mixing it up a bit, but the idea is that the university always has the final say over whether or not you get that important piece of paper at the end.

      One of my teachers in high school taught us this, but I never actually thought I’d see it in action. It’s cruel.

      • @[email protected]
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        3523 days ago

        Which is bullshit. If you got the grades and paid your tuition, a university should not be able to withhold your degree. They can ban you from the graduation ceremony, but that’s it.

        It is crazy that a university hold such power over someone.

        • @jaybone
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          1623 days ago

          Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

        • @UnderpantsWeevil
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          23 days ago

          Harvard doesn’t give grades. You either pass, fail, or pass with honors, more or less entirely at the whim of your professors.

          It’s much more of a social club than a school, and being denied a degree is more akin to having your country club membership revoked than your credentials refuted.

          It’s almost pro-forma, as the real benefit of attending Harvard is rubbing shoulders with the children of billionaires. The goal is to find someone willing to become your financial patron, not to hold a piece of paper confirming that you did all your homework.

          If these kids are on the outs with the school board, they’ve already been blacklisted by anyone that matters.

    • @[email protected]
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      2323 days ago

      Headline is misleading. The article notes that they arent necessarily withholding them permanently, but because they are going through the disciplinary process, and so currently not in good standing, they can’t get them at graduation.

      • @IndustryStandard
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        1523 days ago

        Similar to Israel telling Palestinians that they can’t have a state “right now” and have to come to “agreeable” terms first.

        If there is no term given it means permanently.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 days ago

          But they did “give the terms”: they are not in good standing right now, and when the disciplinary action is complete then a final decision will be made.

          • @IndustryStandard
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            023 days ago

            As long as the students are not allowed to graduate the headline remains correct.

            • @[email protected]
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              -123 days ago

              It might be technically correct because bar does not necessarily mean permanently, but it implies that, and your claim that it means permanent is definitely false, especially if you’re basing it on the logic you used to claim it’s permanent.

              • @IndustryStandard
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                -123 days ago

                Technically are permanently barred unless overturned. But the title never used the word permanent.

                • @[email protected]
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                  023 days ago

                  Technically are permanently barred unless overturned.

                  The articles notes that they are not in good standing because they are in the process of disciplinary action. So considering this is not a ruling against them that needs to be overturned. If you have some kind of evidence otherwise, I would like to see it.

  • @Duamerthrax
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    13424 days ago

    This is what happens at Harvard when you try to do good. Look at their alumni. Filled with IRL super villains.

    • @Viking_Hippie
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      2924 days ago

      Super villains and comedians. Sometimes combinations of both, as in the case of BJ Novak.

      • @TrickDacy
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        423 days ago

        BJ Novak is a supervillain…?

        • @Viking_Hippie
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          1423 days ago

          Nah, just being silly lol.

          The REAL Harvard educated comedian who’s also a super villain is Conan O’Brien, of course 😉

          • @A_Random_Idiot
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            623 days ago

            How dare you insult the 11th president of Finland like that.

            • @Viking_Hippie
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              123 days ago

              I’m just going by his own admissions about his alter ego “superhero” Whirligig and his general self-description on Needs a Friend 😁

        • @bill_buttlicker
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          123 days ago

          I have actually heard, from someone who has worked with him, he’s extremely difficult to work with.

        • @Viking_Hippie
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          223 days ago

          I don’t do (letter period letter period). It’s a conscious style choice.

    • @[email protected]
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      1123 days ago

      I will reluctantly admit that there are good activists who come from Harvard. I work with some and know of many more. But the vast majority is just like you describe

  • @[email protected]
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    6523 days ago

    Look, the most important voices are the non-scholastic billionaire donors. Why would you care about the opinions of those engaged in pedagogy? This is a business, not a school!

  • Veraxus
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    4824 days ago

    Vile. I hope those students sue those bigoted, genocidal pigs into the dirt.

    • @[email protected]
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      2424 days ago

      Ah, technically no grounds for lawsuit. Protesting on the institution’s private property was against their code of conduct. Hopefully people start withdrawing support for Harvard, leading to declining business.

      • @Maggoty
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        723 days ago

        Lol bullshit. This board decision is literally unprecedented. Even in the face of previous student protests. It’s a complete rug pull after a massive time and financial investment. I can’t remember the name right now but that’s 100 percent actionable in US courts.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 days ago

          It certainly doesn’t sound actionable, but if it is grounds for lawsuit because the faculty was overruled then I would be very supportive.

          Whether the board have overruled faculty before or not doesn’t change the code of conduct which existed even before the protests, or the institution’s ability to make decisions on ending business with students over their actions on the institution property. The fact that the school haven’t acted against students in previous protests says nothing of their authority to do so.

          • @Maggoty
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            223 days ago

            Found it, it’s called Promissory Estoppel. Basically the University has not done this before and that creates a reasonable expectation, both because of a lack of precedent and because the majority of their marketing is that people who do the work and pay the money will get a degree.

            • @[email protected]
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              -123 days ago

              That term refers to a defense of breaking a contract’s terms, so I suppose you could use it to describe students breaking the code of conduct with the expectations that it wouldn’t be enforceable as long as the students can demonstrate resulting financial harm in court.

  • @[email protected]
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    4024 days ago

    If a dropout from Harvard starts a company doing literally anything then I would like to invest, please.

    • @Viking_Hippie
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      2124 days ago

      Dude. You just said you wanted to invest in Facebook 😬

        • @Viking_Hippie
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          1024 days ago

          Yeah, but you’d be profiting from a platform that has repeatedly enabled genocide and other human rights violations, election fraud and the like. And Zuckerberg shows no sign of ever letting them stop as long as it continues to drive engagement and therefore be profitable.

          Do you really want that blood money?

          • @stanleytweedle
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            123 days ago

            Every dollar you earn or spend has blood on it, not to mention the blood dripping from whatever device you used to write that comment. Kind of selective to shit on facebook stockholders like they’re uniquely culpable for the harm unregulated capitalism facilitates.

            • @Viking_Hippie
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              23 days ago

              Not uniquely, but worse than most, since FB knows the problems, knows exactly how to fix them and actively chooses not to in order to maximize profits.

              Not to mention that I happen to consider things like genocide and ethnic cleansing the worst of all crimes, which makes abetting those worse than the crimes of most other companies.

              Fact is that Facebook is one of the most powerful entities in the world, more powerful than many if not most countries and they’re knowingly abusing that power for profit.

              There’s nothing weird about holding them more accountable than for example a company with shoddy wages and working conditions. That’s of course unacceptable too, but it’s nothing compared to the atrocities of Facebook.

              • @stanleytweedle
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                since FB knows the problems, knows exactly how to fix them and actively chooses not to in order to maximize profits.

                Yeah FB is totally unique in that regard- lol.

                They’re just big and public and make a lot of news that you’ve heard about. Dig deeper into the financial system and you’ll find you live in a blood fountain theme park and you’re covered in it too. But I know some people can’t feel good about themselves without feeling morally superior to someone else so I guess if shitting on FB stock in particular is what you need who am I to deny you ;)

                • @Viking_Hippie
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                  123 days ago

                  Again: genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Huge scale election fraud. Basically contributing to the demise of civilized society on hundreds if not thousands of occasions.

                  I know that basically all big companies are awful in one way or the other (usually several), but there is such a thing as differences in scale and there’s no doubt that FB is one of the worst of the worst.

          • Echo Dot
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            -723 days ago

            If you’re basing your financial decisions on moral standings there’s going to be a lot of companies you can’t invest with. I’d argue that in order to be successful you have to unfortunately invest with unsavory people and companies.

            Some of the most profitable companies in the world will be Banks that hid Nazi gold, companies who underpay their workforces, and manufacturers who use child labor in China.

            Obviously I wouldn’t invest with them, but I also don’t have any money to invest. You find me a morally aware investment banker, should be a fun search.

            • @Viking_Hippie
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              223 days ago

              If you’re basing your financial decisions on moral standings there’s going to be a lot of companies you can’t invest with

              Obviously.

              I’d argue that in order to be successful you have to unfortunately invest with unsavory people and companies

              Whereas I’d argue that that’s a poor excuse for knowingly profiting off of suffering.

              Some of the most profitable companies in the world will be Banks that hid Nazi gold, companies who underpay their workforces, and manufacturers who use child labor in China.

              Which is why people who value ethics higher than wealth hoarding try to not do business with those companies when it’s avoidable.

              You find me a morally aware investment banker, should be a fun search.

              By definition impossible since stock trading is inherently immoral as it’s a fake wealth casino for the rich with (usually negative) real world consequences for everyone else.

              • Echo Dot
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                23 days ago

                I’d argue that that’s a poor excuse for knowingly profiting off of suffering

                It’s not an excuse it’s a justification

                I feel like you’ll miss him the point. You’re expecting people who don’t share your values to share your values. Why would they do that?

            • @Dasus
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              023 days ago

              I’d argue that in order to be successful you have to unfortunately invest with unsavory people and companies

              “I know that I’m gonna have to do sns support non-ethical things. Straight up genocides even. But I personally don’t care, because I want money so I can pretend that ‘I’ve made it’”

              You find me a morally aware investment banker, should be a fun search.

              " Hey, I’m just in the slave trade because it’s so damn profitable. I would love doing it morally, but you try to find me a moral seller of slaves! "

              • Echo Dot
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                023 days ago

                Yeah that’s exactly what they think. I’m only pointing it out I don’t agree with it.

      • @[email protected]
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        -123 days ago

        Imagine an alternate timeline where you owned 12% of Facebook in 2003. Everything that happened still happens, except now you have money and some other facebook investor has a little less.

      • @TaterTurnipTulip
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        323 days ago

        That is hilarious. “I got an MBA from Harvard but totally believe I can get a 500-1000% return on my investment”

        • @UnderpantsWeevil
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          I mean, over a career, that’s practically trivial. The $300-500k you pay in tuition can quickly be recouped when your starting salary is in the $200-400k range and only goes up from there. You’ll be doing far better as a Harvard grad than a trade school apprentice. And if you’re an aspiring SCOTUS judge or Fortune 500 CEO, there’s few places that offer you better prospects. After that, the sky’s the limit. 1000% ROI is conservative.

          But just getting into Harvard requires a certain exceptional resume and social standing. Bush getting into Yale and Kennedy getting into Harvard are less the exception than the rule. The MBA is just the way you signal to people not immediately familiar with you that you’re “in the club”.

          But if you run off and spit in the face of American Imperialism, clearly someone at the Harvard admissions board made a mistake.

    • @A_Random_Idiot
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      -723 days ago

      Nah, To many republicans sucking Russian Dick for McCarthyism to be doing anything but spinning furiously in its grave.

      • @rektdeckard
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        1123 days ago

        This is the New McCarthyism, there’s a different enemy now didn’t you hear?

  • Onno (VK6FLAB)
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    3324 days ago

    I can just see an alumni from another institution waiving their fees just to go after Harvard for this “decision”.

  • @m13
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    3124 days ago

    Removed by mod

  • @KnitWit
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    2023 days ago

    My read on the article was that this was the corporation tipping their hand on how that process was going to play out, but I could certainly be wrong. read to me like the faculty voted for them to graduate, but this was the board vetoing that and affirming that they were still to be dealt with, and that the consequences were going to be grim. Hopefully that’s not the case.

    • @[email protected]
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      924 days ago

      I don’t even think you have to go that far. You paid money, you earned grades, you graduate. It’s almost like a contract?

      • @Viking_Hippie
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        124 days ago

        Islamophobic discrimination, breach of contract and just generally being a bunch of reactionary Zionists who learned the wrong lessons from dystopian sci-fi are far from mutually exclusive, you know…

  • @Warjac
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    1024 days ago

    So they aren’t being given their first amendment rights… Oh boy I can’t wait to see how this plays out at other companies.

    • @the_joeba
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      3224 days ago

      Harvard isn’t a government funded organization, so the first amendment doesn’t apply. Hopefully the students find a way to sue based on the college’s own rules though.

      • @[email protected]
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        724 days ago

        Well, technically, they do receive some government funding but the terms of the funds being allotted don’t include adherence to the first amendment. It’s not an entity controlled by state or federal government directly.

        • @[email protected]
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          424 days ago

          Then all gov’t funding should stop immediately.

          If a business doesn’t want to follow the Constitution, it gets zero tax dollars.

          Btw as a Canadian I’m amazed that private businesses have this option at all. It makes no logical sense.

          • Dran
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            Businesses “follow the constitution” here. The nuance is that the first amendment (freedom of speech) explicitly only applies to consequences from government. As a private corporation, the people running Harvard have the right to their own speech, in this case: a policy denying graduation, without consequence from the government.

            I in no way endorse the speech that Harvard is expressing, but I do have the right to impose my own consequences on them for it (I.E not supporting things they do financially, disparaging them in an online forum like Lemmy, etc). The constitution prevents the US government from punishing Harvard for these actions in the same ways, unless a law has explicitly been broken.

          • @[email protected]
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            223 days ago

            Okay but if a dude spends his stimulus package on a down payment for a vehicle then does the Government get to tell him how to use it? Government funding doesn’t equal control in the USA, the terms of the funds were agreed upon long before it was received.

      • @Warjac
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        I should like to think the law sees this a violation of the right the students have. Because to me if a private organization that has the power to give you a degree as you’ve paid for it’s services and proven yourself as competent and that degree is recognized by employers, the government etc. Then it should have no right to impose it’s values on people while withholding the end product of their use of services provided in the first place.

        Anything otherwise would imply the organization can supercede the government. That would mean cases like this could come from other organizations that prop up would-be government functions and cause a ton of chaos.

        I would understand if the protest was a major violation of the rules or it was intended to be a riot or some such other violent event but if my source for what happened is correct then that’s not the case and this whole thing is a petty squabble coming directly from the board of Harvard.

  • @StaySquared
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    23 days ago

    Good ol’ United States of Israel. Once the Global South becomes the new world order, the global power, chit is gon’ get really real.

    I wonder when Americans, or better yet, the citizens of the world will ever realize that… the only form of protest that works is BDS.

    Money is their god. Disrupt their money and they will listen.

    • @[email protected]
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      723 days ago

      What do you think they were protesting for? Divestment from Israel. Student activist groups have been successful in getting universities to divest, other activists are pressuring their local governments to divest. I agree with the thrust of what you’re saying, although “United States of Israel” is exactly backwards. But I think you lost the thread at some point

      • @StaySquared
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        23 days ago

        Think about it. The chomos in the U.S. Government are protecting Israel and Zionism by trying to push anti-free speech laws against its own citizens. The U.S. Government is directly threatening the ICJ/ICC with sanctions for warrants against Netanyahu and other top officials.

        Look up BDS laws in the U.S., states like Florida make it illegal to promote/support BDS.

        In May 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that prohibits businesses from supporting BDS policies against Israel to do business with the state. The legislation also requires businesses to divest their holdings in companies that boycott Israel.

        I feel it… our politicians have blackmail material against them by the Mossad/Israel by actors like Jeffrey Epstein. Israel operates fully by deception. It is in their nature to.

        • @[email protected]
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          Mossad is just an extension of the American CIA. I think what you’re picking up is the larger project of imperialism and imperialist interests that govern both the US and Israel. Israel isn’t in charge of the USA, it’s the other way around, but only because the USA is the seat of international imperialism. I’m not denying those connections you’re making, i dont even deny that they make some sense, but I think you are missing the forest for the trees.

          That’s not me down voting you BTW, I don’t use them

          • @StaySquared
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            -423 days ago

            I don’t see how the U.S. in is charge of Israel. When our government churns out tax dollars and gives it to Israel for their military/intelligence, (free) healthcare for their citizens, firearms for their citizens, economic assistance etc… pretty much we’re Israel’s wage slaves. At gun point, income is taxed, then sent to another part of the world to give those people comfortable lives. More comfortable than the lives of the actual people who are giving them that comfortable life.

            • @[email protected]
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              223 days ago

              Like I said its the larger imperialist project. After WWI, Britain broke up the Ottoman empire and divided it up into all these different regions based on what worked for the British. Even back in 1918 they had already picked out that strip of land on the Mediterranean as strategically essential to keeping the whole middle east destabilized so that the abundant resources could be controlled by western interests. At this time, GB was still the heart of global imperialism, it was where capitalism was born and global finance was invented and perfected. it was the world’s colonial juggernaut, and now the feudal classes of Europe were in their death throes.

              The imperialists knew they wanted to have control of this land but had the foresight that old school military occupational colonialism was too messy. Better to just buy out a layer of administrators to create a ruling class to rubber stamp western interests in the region. This is the way colonialism works now but back then it was still pretty new. There needed to be westerners in this strip of land to convert it into the headquarters of imperialism in the middle east. Enter the Zionist project, Jews who were looking for a national identity, who had basically internalized centuries of antisemitism, that there was nowhere in Europe for the Jews. The British linked up with the Zionists and started moving people into the region end masse.

              But less than 30 years later, after WW2, Britain was a bombed out flaming pile of rubble and the USA was an ascendant super power. Russia had just suffered 20 million+ casualties and the invasion left little of the forced industrialization under Stalin that made it possible for Russia to turn the tide of the Nazi’s wave of mass destruction. The US on the other hand stayed out of the war until they realized that the USSR was actually starting to win, at which point the USA mobilized to the western front, and used the military effort and patriotic support to carry out their own super mass industrialization. The US was flush with capital, so the interests of imperialism shifted from Britain to the USA. And the project that had begun with the British changed hands. Well, not really since it was the same people working for the same interests, only the national character had changed.

              See you’re saying that the Israelis own the USA because the USA sends tax dollars to Israel. I’m saying that both the USA and Israel (and GB, basically the whole world) are all owned by a capitalist imperialist ruling class. The Israelis benefit from our taxes, or at least the leaders of Israel benefit, but the capitalists benefit from a perpetually unstable middle east whose own domestic national ruling class keeps wages low and resources free for foreign investment and international markets.