Harvard board bars 13 pro-Palestine student protesters from graduating, overruling faculty
Harvard University’s governing board rejected an effort from faculty Wednesday to allow a group of 13 students sanctioned due to their participation in pro-Palestine protests to receive their degre…
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
