Prosthetic Conscience wrote: claim " students sought to redefine the terms "respect", "safety" & "welfare" in an attempt to cancel out various opinions" when it seems to have been about the university calling for "respect" rather than "tolerance"
No, it's correct. There's bugger all in the Telegraph about redefining those terms. Read the damn thing again.
False:
Telegraph wrote:The argument began in March. Under pressure from the Cambridge student union, university authorities decided to introduce a new “statement on freedom of speech” that, in true Orwellian fashion, did the opposite of what its title suggested. It would have required that everyone on campus, scholars, speakers and students, “be respectful” of “differing opinions” and “diverse identities”. What this “respect” should entail was not defined, but it is clear that it would not mean respecting the “differing views” of Cambridge fellows like Noah Carl, who was fired last year for defending sceptical attitudes towards immigration and arguing for free scientific inquiry into genes and intelligence. The new policy, for example, listed various grounds on which the university could ban speakers, including the idea that they might threaten the “welfare” of anyone on campus, again without defining what this meant.
Alarmed at the implications, a philosophy don called Arif Ahmed decided to take a professional risk. He was already on the advisory council of an outfit called the Free Speech Union (as am I), but he had not yet done anything to attract special attention from woke activists. Nonetheless, he set about gathering 25 signatures from fellow academics needed to force a vote on the matter. Doing so was not easy. Academics were afraid of being attacked by the same mob who had gotten Dr Carl fired. Eventually, however, he reached his target.
He and his allies tabled amendments to the policy, replacing the demand for “respect” with a requirement for “tolerance”, deleting the list of reasons to ban speakers and replacing it with a commitment to allow all speakers so long as they didn’t break the law, libel or harass anyone. At this point, Cambridge could have decided to negotiate. It would have been a straightforward matter for the university council to endorse the uncontroversial idea of “tolerance” or else solicit the views of its faculty and students outside the coterie making the decisions. Instead, the council dug in.
Months later, Cambridge finally staged the vote. The result, thought to be unprecedented in its 800 year history, was a monumental defeat for the university bigwigs. Out of nearly 1,700 academics who voted, just 162 supported the new policy. Over 200 voted for no change and 1,316 voted to introduce the tolerance policy proposed by Dr Ahmed. His allies ranged from radical feminists to Christian conservatives, libertarians and old-school Left-wingers worried about the free speech rights of university staff. If vice chancellors were MPs, then Cambridge’s Stephen Toope has just become the Michael Portillo of the academic world.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:It's not a "campaign to cancel Homer". You're making shit up again. It's a campaign to broaden the curriculum.
If you repeat this too often, you might actually convince your own self.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:I'm saying that a school, of which you'd never heard until the Wall Street Journal whipped you up into a froth of conservative reactionary wailing and chest-beating about the fall of Western civilization, has the right to set its own English curriculum without ridiculous strawmen being set up from across the Atlantic. Get a sense of perspective, for god's sake. If more schools decide to drop the Odyssey, then they should talk about it - in the schools.
Frothing at the mouth with insults just demonstrates your desperation.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:Trashy "slippery slope" arguments will get you nothing but laughter.
You argued that 1 US school cancelling Homer is not a big deal, how many schools is a big deal? or is it "Spiderman is better, lets cancel Homer"? You going for dismissing it as nothing, or agreeing with them? Have you even made up your mind?
Have you considered your own actions and how you are proving people's concerns merely by asserting these cheap excuses, in the service of what cause? The cause of "I don't like it, let's remove it". Is that the standard you are aiming to normalise?
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:And that's the point. You understood incorrectly.
it's also the opinion of SOAS's appeal panel.
Again, calling them 'Lawyers for the State of Israel' is misleading. This is why this thread is a steaming pile of shit. You're doing it on purpose now. So what if there were lawyers involved? With yearly fees that he wanted back of around £20,000, it's understandable that he'd want some legal advice on it.
UKLFI=UK Lawyers for Israel.
UKLFI wrote:Mr Lewis’ complaints about the toxic atmosphere during his time at SOAS from 2018 to 2019 included the following examples:
On 01/03/2019 an email was sent from the Student Union (SU) to all students stating that “yesterday there were a group of external individuals, … apparently filming a piece on how SOAS is an antisemitic institution.”
The email continued: “We are sending round this statement to reaffirm our commitment as a Students’ Union to our Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel Policy (BDS), which passed in March 2015. SOAS SU was the first UK Students’ Union to vote for and support the BDS campaign launched in 2005.” Mr Lewis said that this was an abuse of the SU’s power and was intended to make a political statement at the expense of Jews and Israel.
Those who are Jewish or pro-Israel on campus are labelled and referred to as ‘Zionists’. The term is used as an offensive, antisemitic blanket term to label anyone with a Jewish connection who advocates a position that might be to Israel’s benefit; to them Zionism in general is akin to fascism and racism.
Antisemitic graffiti can be found on campus lockers, antisemitic symbols and statements can be found scribbled or scratched into desks in the library and on the walls of bathroom stalls.
There is a large sign in the window by the door of the main SOAS building proclaiming SOAS’s support for BDS.
The "antisemitic" examples cited in the UKLFI website is fair to assume that these are the worst they could muster.
Your splitting hairs has the only purpose to evade/muddy the actual points. Your exaggerations, evasions and disingenuous attitude are far worse than anything I may have misunderstood. You 're not even interested in discussing this because there is no way to justify it.
This person left the uni on his own accord because he could not handle being called a "Zionist" by fellow students and because the Student Union of SOAS supported the pro-Palestinian BDS campaign well before he even joined the uni. He left and then asked for his money back, the uni gave him £500, he then got the UKLFI(UK Lawyers for Israel) to press the university with -what seem to me as- charges of antisemitism and the University decided to settle for £15000 compensation instead of taking this any further. There is absolutely no exaggeration on what I said nor any intention to mislead readers which is what you are accusing me of since you have no way to justify these nonsense and your only argument is to attempt to shoot the messenger. I also linked to the article for people to read.
This is precisely what happened to the T.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:It's not just "when discussing" and "the political opinions of students"; it was the atmosphere where students verbally attacked and insulted him, Calling a Jewish person a Nazi is in no way similar to calling a country fascist. You know this very well (hint: the PoFo rules about insulting people v. institutions or ideas), but in your determination to produce the most hysterical PoFo thread ever seen, you're just spouting bollocks after bollocks now.
Why is the University responsible for the political opinions of its students regarding an apologist for the criminal actions of the State of Israel against Palestinians? Criminal actions highlighted by several UN resolutions and Human Rights organisations?
Reality:
UKLFI wrote:Those who are Jewish or pro-Israel on campus are labelled and referred to as ‘Zionists’.
Why is that insulting and why would the uni be liable for students describing another student as a "Zionist"?
Is the university liable to compensate the students that this person called "antisemitic" and likely "Nazi" too?
Prosthetic Conscience wrote: and there were antisemitic symbols around the place.
Which ones and where?
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:Strawman.
The Canadian-Jewish student demanded that support for BDS be removed because he claims that such a support is "antisemitic". He took issue with a sign declaring that support and he took issue with the official SOAS SU endorsement of BDS.
It is not a strawman to ask you why do you believe that the SOAS University should have demanded from its student union to remove the official support from BDS in order to accommodate the political feelings of a Jewish student or else be termed "antisemitic" and face legal threats & sanctions?
Intimidating BDS supporters in the UK is also part of the reason that Jeremy Corbyn got cancelled.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:You have an obsession with the word "Trumpard". It's your word; I didn't mention Trump at all. You protest too much. If you think that me disagreeing with your posts creates an environment that oppresses everyone else, then you really have lost all understanding about what a discussion forum is.
I don't at all, you are pretending not to understand the analogy. You are misrepresenting me and frankly doing all those things you are frothing at the mouth that I am supposedly guilty of.
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:No, I didn't ignore them; I said
For instance, as a Jew he was accused of covering up Israeli war crimes and called a "white supremacist Nazi".
Of course you did, you totally ignored the examples cited in the UKLFI website and instead went with an unsubstantiated one that is not actually even mentioned in the examples cited by the UKLFI. Even if this is true why is the University liable for damages for the political opinions of their students? You have not answered, but rather opted for insults and misrepresentations.
At least you've stopped saying that replying to your own posts was a "strawman". This whole thread is a hysterical over-reaction to and exaggeration of minor incidents in a few local instances. It's a re-run of 90s Tories shouting "it's political correctness gone mad!" at anything which disturbs their rose-tinted memories of their own childhoods.
That's just
your opinion. You are the only one going into a hysterical overdrive slinging insults and mud but no actual argument.
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...