Re: Yale's Culture
Ursula, you referenced the Title IX lawsuit being brought against Yale. Some more background, for those interested, is here and here.
As a recent graduate (on campus for the DKE incident) and someone who’s written about Yale’s sexual culture in the past, I feel obligated to make two comments: (1) The DKE chants of one year ago were evil and reflective of a real problem in Yale’s sexual culture, and should have been swiftly punished by the university. (2) The claims of the plaintiffs in the Title IX lawsuit against Yale are ridiculous.
The inability of most participants in the debate to see the two truths simultaneously is very modern.
The reason the DKE chants were evil is that they manifested a conception of sex in which women are instruments, rather than humans. DKE, simply put, chanted sexually immoral ideas. They were not actually making credible threats of violence, nor did any serious person at Yale seriously interpret the chants as such.
The claim that Yale exhibits a climate of violence against women is frankly incredible. (As Yale students are asking each other: Who are you going to believe -- the plaintiffs, or your own lying eyes?)
So why do the plaintiffs feel the need to pretend that Yale does?
My theory is modern moral insecurity: Moderns feel uncomfortable condemning anything unless it is a violation of rights. So the logic in thinking about a thing like this inevitably goes: the DKE chants, we know viscerally, were wrong; a thing is wrong insofar and exclusively insofar as it intrudes upon rights; ergo, the DKE chants must have violated rights. Just how they violated rights is rationalized afterward, in claims about a ‘climate’ that interferes with students’ ability to study, etc., because they feel so threatened all the time.
A morally confident culture could think about the incident this way instead: ‘The DKE chants were a public proclamation of a sick understanding of sex. The University has an obligation to inculcate decency in its students. So Yale should have privately and swiftly reprimanded DKE. Yale can do this, even though -- in our first-amendment abiding country -- the DKE chanters didn’t break any laws and so no litigation is proper.’
But until the world adapts a more mature moral vocabulary, we’ll hear all incidents of public vulgarity and immorality discussed as personal grievances against an exaggerated ‘climate of x,’ ‘implicit violence,’ etc., which can only be mended through lawsuits. All this, rather a discussion in terms of good and evil, virtue and degeneracy, of Yale’s sexual climate as a whole, a discussion which would implicate “Sex Week,” the syllabi for several courses, and every weekend dance (trust me) as much as it would the incidents on which the lawsuit is based.
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Dec '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Repeat after me:
Sticks and Stones may Break My Bones, but Words will Never Hurt Me.
Jul '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
So, if I understand you, the complainants so abhor moral judgment that they have to skip right across the spectrum to criminal violation of their civil rights?
Nov '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Far too many years ago at my university, frat boys would line up in front of sorority houses and rank each and every pledge with cards labeled from a 1 to a 10. Intimidating and annoying as it may have been at the time, it was nothing compared to the crew of New York City construction workers I had to walk by 4 yrs later on the way to work...
I not only survived these exasperating moments, but managed to extract from them some amusing "cocktail hour anecdotes."
Are we making much to do about nothing?
Edited on Apr 9, 2011 at 10:04pmJun '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Sounds to me as if Yale's "sexual climate as a whole" is long overdue for some examination. If a lawsuit is stretching it, that's probably because the administration is too cowardly to admit their culpability & someone is looking to change the culture in any way possible. Even tossing out the lawsuit is a victory, I suppose, because the depravity has been exposed and the administration is sweating. I would guess that applictions may drop next year.
Elizabeth, I can't believe you think your classmates had the right to rank you and fellow students. Attendance at any college is a privilege. All colleges should encourage and enforce respectful and reasonable codes of conduct. If racially charged remarks were held up on cards to taunt minority kids, the frat idiots would have been tossed. Why is misogyny OK?
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Matthew, this is great. I completely agree and while it is so obvious now after you've pointed it out, your premise had not occurred to me before. I especially like your point that there doesn't seem to be any legitimate avenue for discussing "virtue and degeneracy" or virtue versus degeneracy. It's troubling.
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Matthew, you are right on the money. The larger problem is the notion that anything which consenting adults do is all right -- that morality is a product of consent, that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong but thinking makes it so.
The older moral vision, best represented by Aristotle, would assert that what the frat boys did would have merited reproach had they done it where no woman could have heard their words, had each one chanted the same words in the privacy of his study. Such a way of thinking about morality is, of course, unacceptable -- for it might lead to the conclusion that there is much that the plaintiffs in this case consent to and participate in that is far more disgraceful than anything known to have been done by these young men.
Every year or two there is a scandal of this sort at Yale, and every year or so the administration displays its incapacity to think in genuinely moral terms. Remember the young woman who purportedly got herself pregnant multiple times and aborted the foetus multiple times so that she could write her senior essay on the subject? If not, see this.
Edited on Apr 10, 2011 at 7:41amApr '11
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
"So why do the plaintiffs feel the need to pretend that Yale does [exhibit a climate of violence against women]?"
I don't think this has anything to do with "moral insecurity." I'm sure people were justifiably offended by the chanting. But this is an attempt to coerce/encourage Yale to impose restrictions on fraternities. The ultimate goal is to ban fraternities on the campus and this lawsuit may lead to it. This is part of the larger attack on masculinity and on male-only associations and space.
The chanters behaved childishly, boorishly, and perhaps in a manner that brings ill-repute to Yale (I'm not sure about that last one, Yale has brought itself plenty of ill-repute over the years -- does this really tarnish it further?).
But the ruling proggy orthocracy is using this incident to further its misandrist agenda.
Dec '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Ding ding ding! We have a winnah!
Any excuse, however contrived, is sufficient.
Believe it or not, some young men are jackasses, and need to be rebuked by their elders to straighten up. Sometimes they need a good whoopin' as well, to make it stick.
Years ago, this is what fathers and older brothers did. However, since feminists have pretty much made fathering and mentoring a thing of the past, they get to deal with the jackassery when it occurs. Reap what ye sow, IMO.
Hasn't anyone noticed that things like this don't happen at schools with more traditional structures and cultures?
You didn't see this sort of thing (from the guys or the girls) at the engineering school I went to, because the fraternities policed themselves, and the girls stood up for themselves when jackassery occurred. It was a self-regulating situation, no need for federal judicial intervention.
May '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Women do not want men to treat them as special and when men do as they are asked the women complain even more and with more ferocity.
But it could be that the problem here is affluence. Kinsey held a theory that the two groups with the most casual attitudes toward sexual mores were the very poor and the very rich. The poor can't afford the amusements of the middle class and the rich are bored by them so they both seek release through sex and hypersexual behavior.
Jun '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
"However, since feminists have pretty much made fathering and mentoring a thing of the past, they get to deal with the jackassery when it occurs. Reap what ye sow, IMO."
So all women should pay the price for the nutty feminsts' actions? But that is beside the point. Your premise is flawed, I believe. I personally don't know any men who have been cowed by radical feminists and no longer act as fathers and mentors.
"Women do not want men to treat them as special and when men do as they are asked the women complain even more and with more ferocity."
I don't even know how to respond to this ridiculous statement....
And quoting the quack Kinsey? Come on!
Nov '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Sticker, I think I failed to express myself properly. I suppose nobody has the right to "rank" (or at least in such an openly rude manner on a college campus), but in a world rife with so many serious issues, I chose to ignore this "prank" and move on with my education. (And if it makes you feel any better, my pledge class turned the tables and set up our own ranking system)!
And I don't think that in this particular instance, I ever felt threatened by any feelings of misogyny.This was simply a little blowing off of steam by a bunch of hormonally-charged young turks!
I sometimes feel sorry for kids in college today (particularly those much-maligned lacrosse players at Duke). Although an education is an expensive privilege, it seems as if surely, students should be given just a wee bit of slack to enjoy some hijinks (politically correct or not).
Edited on Apr 10, 2011 at 9:26pmNov '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
My collegiate experience exactly.
Sep '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Like Dennis Prager often says, "the Left thinks legally, the Right thinks morally."
May '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
I don't know about "immoral," I really stop at uncivil. I suppose civility is a subset of morality but frankly I think even your characterization of the situation assigns too much import. I stand as well by my assertion that 30 years ago something similar might have happened but absent videophone and Internet it would have been dismissed and forgotten.
This is not to excuse the boorish behavior. But Yale is a private institution and free to create whatever rules it wishes. Surely if these young men had written in their applications to Yale that "no means yes," (much less that "yes means anal") they would never have been granted admission. So Yale should be willing to act as harshly as it likes -- even to banning fraternities . There is no lack of ability of men to congregate at Yale and if the administration's action goes too far? Well the market will correct for that.
The fact of the lawsuit is outrageous of course. But so is the lack of leadership that allowed it to progress to this level in the first place. There should be shame all around starting with President Levin for presiding over such nonsense.
Dec '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
No, all women should stand up for themselves, and be grown-up and thick skinned enough to let insults roll off their backs without the aid of a federal court.
It seems to me that there is some sort of misconception about human rights out there in the ether, that postulates that everyone can and should go through life without ever being insulted, belittled, or otherwise verbally maligned.
As always though, reality and theory are radically divergent. If you expect to go through life without ever being insulted, you are going to live a very unhappy existence.
To me, this is yet another symptom of what is wrong with liberalism and leftists in general. They still believe, like little children, that if you wish and want for something hard enough, it will come true.
They wish with all their might that people would become perfect and that endless supplies of free money would rain from the sky, and because they wish it, in their minds it is reality.
Conservatives grow out of this phase somewhere around the age of eight.
For examples of the cowed and useless males that feminism hath wrought, watch that idiotic video that was posted a few days ago, or go watch a set at your local poetry coffee bar (with bongo accompaniment). Or for useless males of a different stripe (though still created through feminism and leftist ideals) go look at any inner city neighborhood, and count the number of boys who have fathers in their lives.
Edited on Apr 11, 2011 at 12:49amNov '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Gosh, can anyone have any fun anymore? Where are all of the fans of Animal House?
Jun '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
" The fact of the lawsuit is outrageous of course. But so is the lack of leadership that allowed it to progress to this level in the first place. There should be shame all around starting with President Levin for presiding over such nonsense."
Yes. I doubt those who brought the suit expcted to win in court. They used the legal system as a means of shining light on a problem that wimpy administrators would not address. It's just an arrow in their quiver.
"No, all women should stand up for themselves, and be grown-up and thick skinned enough to let insults roll off their backs without the aid of a federal court."
Give me a break. If you paid a quarter million $$ for your daughter to attend Yale, you would think it OK to have to walk by groups of vile frat boys holding signs up about their right to have anal sex with her? That's something you merely categorize as an "insult????"
Yale and many schools will shut down student protests or clubs and activities that the administration deems unsuitable. Like my brother's Right to Life group at Rutgers. It's selective enforcement of standards.
Jul '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
You've really hit on something here. The academic/proggy world has reduced their moral toolbox to a single hammer. So now everything has to be a nail.
Jun '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Many posters here are don't seem to buy into the idea that a "climate" exists in every college. Hence the quotes. Whether it be a Hillsdale, a Yale, or an Animal House situation like that found in I Am Charlotte SImmons, an administration plays a critical role in enforcing civil behavior & fostering the college's climate. Yale has not just turned a blind eye, they have encouraged the coarsening of male/female relations with curriculum choices, women studies kooks, and decades of mocking traditional gender roles.
I'm puzzled, and a bit distrubed, that posters would make sweeping claims about women wanting this twisted culture to exist! Or throwing out flip comments that a woman just needs to develop a think skin.
Really, do you think that a black man in 1960s Mississippi just needed to develop a think skin against verbal threats? Do you think that the Wisconsin governor's family just needed to develop a thick skin when protestors were gathering outside his house and taunting his wife & son with threatening signs? Would you be OK with the men in your neighborhood holding up signs about having anal sex with you, your wife, or daughter?
May '10
Re: Re: Yale's Culture
Elizabeth Dunn
Gosh, can anyone have any fun anymore? Where are all of the fans of Animal House? · Apr 11 at 3:16am
They didn't have frats when I was in college and we had plenty of fun. They emerged when the drinking age was raised. They are all about having a space off-campus to allow undergraduates to drink. Don't know how you solve for that one.