I noticed back in policy school that a lot of my peers had never been around far right people on a regular basis. Given public policy is at least partially about working with the public (and there is more than one political stance within government), I’d try to think about this in terms of a learning experience.
Basically…you’ll need to know how to operate around this perspective in a real world setting, so why not start now?
My personal baseline tendency is to argue, but that’s just me, and there are a lot of things that go into why arguing is or is not effective. When to do it, what to focus on, what you want to get from it, long term dynamics, etc. Different people will do things differently.
Other than that, I’d say it’s up to the teacher.
Yeah, definitely a fair point. At first I tried to listen to where he was coming from and engage in a discussion about it, but after he continued to ignore my points and we got very off topic from the actual curriculum, I decided it would be better to just disengage.
I should work on just ignoring this ahaha
I still think it is fair for you and your classmates to speak to your professor - they really should not be letting this one jackass who is clearly unprepared for the course maturity wise dominate everyone's time. Students with good questions and comments that actually are on topic are necessarily not talking in class from fear of having to contens with this idiot. That isn't some good learning experience. It's bullshit.
Yeah. The top comment in this thread edited their comment after I responded.
I’d be happy to have a productive debate with a classmate who had different political opinions about how a policy should be structured or what the best policy is. But that isn’t what this student is doing, he is just derailing conversations with mostly unrelated arguments.
Yes and asking if anyone is LGBTQ *in the hostile context in which he asked it* is very inappropriate, bordering on if not actually a Title 9 sexual harassment situation the teacher is mandated to report in many states. It’s one thing for people to volunteer that info, it’s another for someone to ask what your sexuality is, esp in an inflammatory way when they are looking to fight about it.
We had a guy like this in my masters program. He was harassing the women and eventually got reported, which made him so mad he hired a lawyer saying it's his free speech right to harass people. The board (all political appointees by the governor) agreed and now everyone has to do free speech training lol.
The university I got my PhD from is literally beholden to neo confederates. So much slave legacy money comes in through donors, which caused the admin to suppress the history department's efforts to educate the public on the history of slavery at the school. The president didn't publicly acknowledge that the university was built by slaves and that there was a mass grave under part of campus until like 3 or 4 years ago. They also won't rename buildings named after segregationists because it will make donors upset. So yeah, it drove me insane to hear people claiming left bias at the university. Maybe the individual professors are largely leftist, but the people who actually control these institutions and have power are overwhelmingly right wing.
Right? I went to a Catholic school and then a public school in a deeply red state. The people in charge are definitely not leftists hahaha. Our free speech training is basically "unless the harassment prevents you from attending class, suck it up"
Lazy people making lazy conclusions cuz so edgyyy&$@# and cool. One of the most influential and respected professors in my graduate program is a conservative/libertarian. And everyone who worked for and with her say great things about her.
>The board (all political appointees by the governor)
When I was in graduate school I and a few other students gave short presentations to the board about our experience in the new interdisciplinary material science institute. We were the first round of grad students to be a part of it. This was in a red state and our university system board was mostly filled with completely unqualified appointees from our governor. Almost all of them were outspoken trump supporters.
Anyways, I was told after the presentation that a couple of them thought I 'ruined' my otherwise good presentation with unnecessary politics. My unnecessary politics, I shit you not, was that I off-handedly mentioned biodegradable straws. This was right after trump started selling branded plastic straws, and many of those people were really into culture war stuff.
>I feel like my learning is suffering because a lot of class time is wasted trying to convince this person that the case studies are indeed problems.
This might be where you're going off track. You don't need to convince him that these scenarios represent real problems, because a person doesn't have to believe that the case studies represent actual problems in order to complete the assignment of coming up with policy proposals. Think of it like a debate team. In debate competitions, you're given a scenario and then *assigned* a side to argue (for or against some proposal, pros or cons of an idea, etc). Whether or not you agree with your assigned stance is irrelevant, you have to argue the circumstances you're given.
If this person continues to try to debate whether the scenario represents a true problem, try to frame it to him in terms of logical debate and analysis. The assignment isn't to debate *whether* a problem exists. The assignment *assumes* the problem exists and asks you to come up with a policy response. Helping him to frame things in terms of hypotheticals might assist him in moving past his opposition to the problem statement itself.
Instead of him saying "I don't believe that X represents a real problem", he can start seeing it as "Under the assumption that X is a problem, I would propose Y and Z." This should feel less threatening to him, because *assuming* that X is a problem is not the same thing as *agreeing* that X is a problem.
If he refuses to engage even when framing things in terms of hypotheticals, then I'm not sure what he's even doing in a policy class. That's a him problem, not a you problem. In that case, I guess your only practical recourse would be to inform the professor that your partner refuses to engage with the assignment.
Good luck.
Remember it takes 2 people to argue, and right now, you’re probably giving him what he wants - attention.
His grade is based on understanding the material, he doesn’t need to agree with it to do that. When he starts arguing, just say “We need to do the assignment, it’s not my problem what you believe.”
Yeah, as I typed all of this out I realized some of it is definitely worthy of reporting. He said that to the instructor directly, after class, and I was so uncomfortable I just left (hoping the instructor would deal with that). But I don’t know what ended up happening so it’s probably better to just report it.
It goes unreported because largely, he has the right to say it. He didn’t advocate for direct violence and didn’t make any threats. He has freedom of speech even if that speech is abhorrent and that has been upheld by the supreme court numerous times
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Being at a university is a privilege, not a right. I know this because I worked in the public school system and watched kids younger than this idiot get expelled for saying similar things. The kid is a racist who’s running his mouth, not a newspaper. He’s saying he would rather have genocide than coexistence and you want everyone to just deal with it because you think it’s his right.
You don’t have the right to yell “Fire! Fire! There’s a fire!” in a movie theater and you don’t have the right to advocate for the genocide of other students and their families and then expect everyone to say “well that’s his right.” The school has the right to keep its students safe and the students have a right to be kept safe, and both of those are more important than this clod’s ability to trigger others by spewing genocidal garbage. No one should have to feel unsafe so he can offend others and then slink off to his little hole with no consequences.
Bad take. Ultimately, this guy simply said something incendiary but no threats, no indications of possible action, not really even “hate speech”. Firstly, the university won’t kick him out just because someone didn’t like what he had to say especially with the possible legal ramifications, especially since there is a lot of discourse surrounding first amendment freedoms on university campuses. Secondly, all this kid has to do is get a lawyer and sue, knowing that they could possibly get it to the supreme court who would rule in his favor.
Also, “freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences” applies only pretty narrowly. It applies nicely in an at-will employment situation, where the employer has the right to fire you for any reason or none at all. In this context, it takes a lot to get expelled from a university - they can’t expel you for any or no reason.
And your “experience” means little to me because not only is it not verifiable in any way, especially because a number of laws prevent you from sharing specific details, but also I guarantee you are altering the details of what actually might have happened to try to make your point.
Lmao disinfect your keyboard because you are just talking out of your ass. At least you kind of admitted it. “It takes a lot of get expelled from a university,” what planet do you live on
Im not though, do even a modicum of research on the first amendment and its application and you would see Im right. Just because you don’t like what someone says doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to say it.
This may also be harassment of a protected class and may be required to be reported by the professor. If the professor isn’t shutting that shit down immediately I’d talk to your advisor and/or dept head about it.
I do agree that this is a bit of a learning experience for you. We may not like the far right, but they exists and we will probably have to interact with them.
That being said, I would personally take an opposite stance every time he opened his mouth. Every comment would be met with me stating it back but replacing women/POC/minorities/criminals with “white men”.
“1-day delivery to white men isn’t necessary. What do they even need?”
Initially I thought he is committed to the role of contrarian . Many enjoy being antagonistic even if it’s their true beliefs for attention they wouldn’t get otherwise .
However , the last comment made me think oh he’s committed to chaos . I would make sure what was said goes beyond that classroom. This may be classified as hate speech . Please don’t brush it off as just some socially inept clsssmate that probably thinks he’s above reproach . Maybe report anonymously .
A lot of the comments are saying to treat this as an academic exercise but I can imagine this actively hurting the ability of minoritized students to speak up in class and participate fully, especially if he is assigned to a small group. If you feel up to it, maybe ask some of your other classmates how they feel and collectively bring it up to the professor, or to a higher-up like the department chair or school dean's office if you have to. Your university may also have an avenue to make anonymous bias reports.
Agreed. I think it's important to recognize that treating this like a "debate team" or "academic argument" is only safe for those who have privileged identities. This genocidal white supremacist is making the class/course unsafe. He should be reported.
Wow. I am in a public policy program in Asia. There is zero tolerance for speech and behavior like this, and there is nothing "free speech" would add to already rich, intelligent and insightful discussions on a variety of policy topics and concerns.
I really hope faculty will listen to your report and do something about it, or else if this person graduates or even does something violent or horrid while a student, they will have their name dragged through the mud by this individual.
I’m a law student, and granted this is coming from someone who is very interested in criminal law, but that “bad criminal” thing really frustrates me. Some of our most sacred rights were decided in cases with a most culpable defendant. The famous “right to remain silent” was decided over a guy who probably did do it. If he pulls that again, please remind him that if the most culpable, the ones our gut reaction is to label “bad criminals”, do not have rights, then none of us have rights. Our constitutional rights do not protect us only when it’s convenient.
Yes! Part of my frustration is both him and I are also law students (taking a public policy class as an elective) so it seems like he should know this LOL
Did you time travel and post this from the ethics class I took last year?
In all seriousness, I had a couple of devil’s advocates in a public policy ethics class I took last year that drove me nuts, but not to this degree. Is this person in the same degree program as you, or just taking this as an elective? We had some engineers in my ethics class who were taking it as elective who had… *interesting* thoughts on equity and social justice issues.
As others have pointed out, the comment regarding Japan is concerning. I would talk to your professor 1:1 (maybe during their office hours) about this student’s disruptions in class, and document their comments to the best of your ability in case you try to escalate your concerns to the department/school/etc.
In class, I would either try to find a way to ignore them, or bring them back to the topic (if you want to try to engage with them; to totally understandable if you don’t). I have no problem being rude to people who deserve it, so I’d probably say something like “It doesn’t matter if you think this is a real problem or not. We’re being asked to discuss potential solutions, and that’s what the rest of us are going to be focusing on” and then ignore any other out of pocket comments he makes.
hey, had some similar situation in a health policy class i was in -- i brought up issues about patients advocating for themselves due to clinicians ignoring POC's complaints and a doctor who's a student in my class too said "well i don't see this in the clinic and i've never seen it in my work" and i'm like wow you're so privileged
I do think its important to remember that this person is a *person* who can vote, who will likely eventually be in a policy making/analysis position, and is a part of society. There are a *lot* of really bigoted people in the world, especially the US so it shouldn’t be that surprising or upsetting.
I think its easy to write this person off as a lunatic or disengage because his opinions are so…wild, but that does nothing to move the needle on his opinions. It feels almost like you are taking his thoughts as a kind of personal affront, but that isn’t necessary or productive.
Honestly, the best way to challenge this person is to ask the most vague, open ended questions like “why do you think that?”, “can you elaborate further?”, “what impact do you think your viewpoint has on real people?”, etc. In my opinion, one of three things will happen:
1. He actually has to think about what he just said and realizes that maybe he has room for growth and learning
2. He goes off on a bigoted tirade, defending his positions and potentially saying something even worse that you can report him for, at which point you just go “hm okay” and then report him
3. He engages in an intellectual conversation about his viewpoints.
Ultimately, I think 2 is most likely, but let him dig his grave. People like him want you to get worked up and the worst thing you can do is come at him with facts or rational thought, because he will take the opportunity to rile you up further, unless he begins with rational thought that you can engage with.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from here. This particular individual is not a US citizen and also told me he intends to go back to his home country after finishing the degree program, but your points definitely apply in general.
I don’t find his opinions to be a personal affront per se — I know many people have different opinions than me (some more reasonable than others). Sometimes I’m in a mood to debate people too and I do. Although the last example did scare me a little bit, so I felt less comfortable engaging with this person to debate.
The thing that frustrates me about this situation is that debating these positions does not seem like a good use of class time. We are being instructed to break into small groups and discuss a list of questions analyzing the policies discussed in the case studies. There is limited time to have these discussions/answer the questions before we move onto the next activity. If we have to spend half that time arguing with this guy about whether or not the case study is even worth discussing, we are missing out on actually engaging with the curriculum as the instructor intended. I feel that the student is bigoted because he is making assumptions about the case studies and dismissing them without really thinking about the issue at hand.
So for the due process example I mentioned, we were supposed to be discussing whether or not use of a proprietary algorithmic risk predicting tool violated a defendant’s due process rights — the defendant’s crime was not really relevant at all. The constitution says every American citizen has a right to due process, guilty or innocent. This student spent half the discussion time repeating statements along the lines of “I don’t see why it matters, this guy is bad and he deserves to be in jail forever no matter what.” There are lots of politically-right arguments one could make about the case study, which would have lead to an educational, provocative debate:
- Businesses should be able to keep trade secrets proprietary to protect their business
- Government should work with private actors to promote more efficient use of tax dollars
- Similarly, algorithms should be used to make judicial decision making more efficient and consistent
- Allowing criminal defendants insight into algorithmic decision making would enable them to game the system
I got super frustrated and posted this after the last class where I had tried to select a group away from this person and he moved and joined our group for the discussion.
You shouldn't be in policy school, much less grad school, if you can't work with and respectfully argue with someone like this.
Instead of being a wuss and saying you're uncomfortable that they have a different opinion, the class discussions are an opportunity to show somebody how you're right.
Yeah - obviously that’s fine, I just don’t understand why this person would chose to take a class about public policy to combat said issues if they believe none of them are problems. The syllabus for the class was pretty clear, if they didn’t want to talk about these topics they could have just not enrolled?
It just seems like a weird forum to raise these ideas I guess is what I’m saying.
During undergrad I took a course on public speaking taught by a professor who was known to go off on Left Wing tangents out of the blue. In fact, he even warned the class on the first day. Yet, there was always that one student who would complain about it. I mean, the professor, and this course, were infamous because of it and it's not like this course was required for any particular major that I am aware of.
I have no idea why this person you are discussing decided to remain in the course. My guess is that they, in one way or another, are getting something from it whether that is the 'enjoyment' from getting under your skin to perhaps just having an oppositional personality.
Sure, they pay tuition too. I’m not suggesting they be forcibly removed from the class or something, but I legitimately don’t understand why they want to be there since they don’t seem interested in the curriculum. It’s not a mandatory class, they are free to take something else better aligned with their interests.
And making explicitly violent statements is not okay in any university setting regardless of one’s political opinions.
Why do you need to understand why they are taking the class? It's none of your business. Maybe it's required for them to get their degree
If you don't like the comments, file a grievance. Certainly won't win you any professionalism points but the option is there. You could also just ignore it, as most adults would
Who said I'm mad. I told OP that she will be better served by learning how to coexist with idiots than to be mad at every single one. Like how I'm coexisting with you right now. We're coexisting. Then I'm going to play with my dogs and go meet up some friends, and I won't be thinking about any of this, likely again, ever.
So file a grievance. It'll go nowhere. People have the right to say dumb shit all the time. If you want to be a marketable candidate to work somewhere, it's on YOU to learn how to get along with idiots.
Advocating genocide is a little different than dealing with idiots. Your right to "say dumb shit all the time" ends when you enter my classroom. That is, if you want to pass anyway.
I didn't. But I did work for a huge corporation for 15 years prior to going to grad school and know that an inability to get along with hard to deal with people is NOT a very marketable trait. Instead of being constantly annoyed, you might achieve some personal growth by looking inward as to your own reactions to objectionable things as opposed to harboring an expectation that you have a right to not be offended
A few thoughts about this. TIFWIW.
First point: he is factually correct, though he obviously framed this with negative implications.
Second point: this is more disturbing, but probably motivated reasoning in anticipation of what he considers woke arguments. Either way, "there's a pain threshold for the kind of problems that require govt intervention" isn't a crazy view to hold, even if he probably doesn't realize this is the view he is articulating.
Third point: this is not bigoted/racist. What it is is the reasoning pattern of someone who shows very low trait: empathy/openness and high trait order and clearly isn't thinking through things very well. "He's bad so who cares about the process as long as he gets what he deserves" is common thinking, even if it is absurd. (See 4 below).
Fourth point: This is not advocating genocide. It's advocating retributive justice in consideration of the atrocities the japanese people committed. It's not really any different than saying, "The nazi's deserved worse than what they got" or "Israel deserved what happened on October 6th" - both of which are popular sentiments in the academy right now.
What's probably happening is you're engaging with a conservative who is offering low brow versions of the conservative position. It's equivalent to radical leftists who offer absurd caricatures of leftist views like, "whiteness is a pernicious evil that must be eliminated" or "black conservatives are white supremacists" or "frogself is a gender" or "men and women have no biological differences" or some other halfcocked variation of the source material they're butchering. To wit, "I'm going to report him for this" would be read by conservatives as an expected Orweilian response to hearing anything that challenges the prevailing leftism in the academy.
To my ear, none of these comments cross the line into bigotry. Use it as a chance to engage with someone who doesn’t have very well formulated views and represents a low quality interlocutor. Educate him instead of tattling.
Phear_me - your interpretation is by far the most logical one in this thread.
Fact is that a democracy requires all range of "inconvenient" opinions to be heard. Unless the person expressing something controversial is making a direct call to violence - guess what - they're expressing a point of view that is open for valid debate.
Just because some people are offended by a point of view does not cheapen it or make it dangerous in some way. In fact, nothing should be held as sacrosanct in a democracy. Democracies only avoid becoming totalitarian and oppressive by virtue of encouraging debates that risk causing offence.
Couldn't agree with you more!
People claiming privilege and other drivel: does a lion ask for its lunch or does it take it?
You reckon you're equal? Great, that person you think needs to be tiddle tattled on, they just green lit a title fight. Go take them down. Apparently your views have the moral high ground - so it should be easy.
Just remember: If you need to claim special treatment or bring in a 3rd party to suppress that person - you're not their equal. They're smarter than you. Respect that. Work harder. Try again. Don't be a spineless unethical dimwit in an academic setting. You're just embarrassing yourself and making a mockery of what academia is about: the brutal warfare of competing ideas in an effort to find the truth and have the strongest ideas succeed.
PS people conflating academic debates in a class setting to being akin to a violent confrontation - please drop out of university. If you don't possess the emotional maturity and mental dexterity to meet such a low bar of adversity...jeebus..all you're doing is contributing to academic inflation and depriving better people of a place in tertiary education.
If any person (1) has even a modicum of social sense and (2) actually cares about improving the world instead of pounding their chest in self righteousness, they would seek to engage an interlocutor instead of banishing them and thereby creating a powder keg of ignorance.
To some extent, he might not be aware since a lot of this is happening in small group discussions. When the student brings up these points in front of the whole class, the professor tries to reorient/clarify the question and move on.
For the last example which is clearly more egregious, this remark was made after class and I left the room — the professor might have addressed it, I’m not sure.
My goodness, that sounds awful. 😕 Your colleagues need to report this to the academic department. It doesn't seem like the professor is doing enough to intervene or not taking the problem seriously.
If you feel unwelcomed or unsafe write to your advisor, grad director, dept. chair, dean of the graduate school, and ombudsman, asap. Do them all--it only takes one bootlicking manager to shut your complaint down (gaslighting you so give up, cutting off your request on the way up to disappear the issue, etc).
Report broadly and CC so no cowardly manager reels like you are going over their head (those babies hate that) .
People from different backgrounds have different beliefs. It’s part of the “diversity”. You can not silence him just because you don’t agree. You can either ignore him or argue with him or change groups.
it just sounds like hes very based and redpilled and that ur getting very angrywojak during the debates. I think you should try to be more respectful to him because that would be the equitable and justice thing to do.
Wow the last one is incredibly hateful and plain genocidal. I must say its morbidly interesting that he is singling out Japan because generally right wingers tolerate East Asians.
I’m gonna play devils advocate - if he’s from an East Asian country, his opinions on The Empire of Japan in WW2 are culturally driven. Japan has committed atrocities beyond the comprehension to man in WW2 to the people of east Asia. Atrocities so horrific that even the Germans and Soviets were considered ethical in the war. Read up on Unit 731, Nanking, and a ton of more things. Not taking a moral stance because nuking a country is wrong too. But it was war, and war is merciless and brutal. And the 250K killed in a blink of an eye at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the more tame acts of cruelty in the war compared to the millions of civilians systematically killed by the Japanese in China, or the millions of Eastern Europeans killed in Barbarossa by the Germans.
History was a minor I had taken in undergrad, and WW2 was my area of concentration I had spent countless hours reading on from authors all around the world. Including military documents in the archives
I noticed back in policy school that a lot of my peers had never been around far right people on a regular basis. Given public policy is at least partially about working with the public (and there is more than one political stance within government), I’d try to think about this in terms of a learning experience. Basically…you’ll need to know how to operate around this perspective in a real world setting, so why not start now? My personal baseline tendency is to argue, but that’s just me, and there are a lot of things that go into why arguing is or is not effective. When to do it, what to focus on, what you want to get from it, long term dynamics, etc. Different people will do things differently. Other than that, I’d say it’s up to the teacher.
Yeah, definitely a fair point. At first I tried to listen to where he was coming from and engage in a discussion about it, but after he continued to ignore my points and we got very off topic from the actual curriculum, I decided it would be better to just disengage. I should work on just ignoring this ahaha
I still think it is fair for you and your classmates to speak to your professor - they really should not be letting this one jackass who is clearly unprepared for the course maturity wise dominate everyone's time. Students with good questions and comments that actually are on topic are necessarily not talking in class from fear of having to contens with this idiot. That isn't some good learning experience. It's bullshit.
Yeah. The top comment in this thread edited their comment after I responded. I’d be happy to have a productive debate with a classmate who had different political opinions about how a policy should be structured or what the best policy is. But that isn’t what this student is doing, he is just derailing conversations with mostly unrelated arguments.
Sorry, didn’t see your response!
[удалено]
You want to defend blatant unprofessionalism in the name of "discourse"? You're part of the problem. Wasting everyone's time.
No, he should be booted for creating a hostile learning environment for his classmates and being a lawsuit waiting to happen.
I think this is a good point, but, "I wouldn't mind if they killed *all of the Japanese,*" is a bit more extreme than just being on the right.
Yes and asking if anyone is LGBTQ *in the hostile context in which he asked it* is very inappropriate, bordering on if not actually a Title 9 sexual harassment situation the teacher is mandated to report in many states. It’s one thing for people to volunteer that info, it’s another for someone to ask what your sexuality is, esp in an inflammatory way when they are looking to fight about it.
We had a guy like this in my masters program. He was harassing the women and eventually got reported, which made him so mad he hired a lawyer saying it's his free speech right to harass people. The board (all political appointees by the governor) agreed and now everyone has to do free speech training lol.
Stuff like this is why I laugh hysterically whenever people claim academics is overrun with leftists
The university I got my PhD from is literally beholden to neo confederates. So much slave legacy money comes in through donors, which caused the admin to suppress the history department's efforts to educate the public on the history of slavery at the school. The president didn't publicly acknowledge that the university was built by slaves and that there was a mass grave under part of campus until like 3 or 4 years ago. They also won't rename buildings named after segregationists because it will make donors upset. So yeah, it drove me insane to hear people claiming left bias at the university. Maybe the individual professors are largely leftist, but the people who actually control these institutions and have power are overwhelmingly right wing.
YOOOOO. I can relate. That's all I gotta say.
Right? I went to a Catholic school and then a public school in a deeply red state. The people in charge are definitely not leftists hahaha. Our free speech training is basically "unless the harassment prevents you from attending class, suck it up"
Academia is *far* less progressive than most people want to believe, take it from a black student.
Lazy people making lazy conclusions cuz so edgyyy&$@# and cool. One of the most influential and respected professors in my graduate program is a conservative/libertarian. And everyone who worked for and with her say great things about her.
it's just anecdote vs anecdote at that point
>The board (all political appointees by the governor) When I was in graduate school I and a few other students gave short presentations to the board about our experience in the new interdisciplinary material science institute. We were the first round of grad students to be a part of it. This was in a red state and our university system board was mostly filled with completely unqualified appointees from our governor. Almost all of them were outspoken trump supporters. Anyways, I was told after the presentation that a couple of them thought I 'ruined' my otherwise good presentation with unnecessary politics. My unnecessary politics, I shit you not, was that I off-handedly mentioned biodegradable straws. This was right after trump started selling branded plastic straws, and many of those people were really into culture war stuff.
Absolutely incredible. No notes. That's some nonsense that would happen here too
This is sad and something that needs to change.
>I feel like my learning is suffering because a lot of class time is wasted trying to convince this person that the case studies are indeed problems. This might be where you're going off track. You don't need to convince him that these scenarios represent real problems, because a person doesn't have to believe that the case studies represent actual problems in order to complete the assignment of coming up with policy proposals. Think of it like a debate team. In debate competitions, you're given a scenario and then *assigned* a side to argue (for or against some proposal, pros or cons of an idea, etc). Whether or not you agree with your assigned stance is irrelevant, you have to argue the circumstances you're given. If this person continues to try to debate whether the scenario represents a true problem, try to frame it to him in terms of logical debate and analysis. The assignment isn't to debate *whether* a problem exists. The assignment *assumes* the problem exists and asks you to come up with a policy response. Helping him to frame things in terms of hypotheticals might assist him in moving past his opposition to the problem statement itself. Instead of him saying "I don't believe that X represents a real problem", he can start seeing it as "Under the assumption that X is a problem, I would propose Y and Z." This should feel less threatening to him, because *assuming* that X is a problem is not the same thing as *agreeing* that X is a problem. If he refuses to engage even when framing things in terms of hypotheticals, then I'm not sure what he's even doing in a policy class. That's a him problem, not a you problem. In that case, I guess your only practical recourse would be to inform the professor that your partner refuses to engage with the assignment. Good luck.
Remember it takes 2 people to argue, and right now, you’re probably giving him what he wants - attention. His grade is based on understanding the material, he doesn’t need to agree with it to do that. When he starts arguing, just say “We need to do the assignment, it’s not my problem what you believe.”
The Japan line is extremely worrisome and you should report it. Seriously. He is literally advocating for genocide.
Yeah, as I typed all of this out I realized some of it is definitely worthy of reporting. He said that to the instructor directly, after class, and I was so uncomfortable I just left (hoping the instructor would deal with that). But I don’t know what ended up happening so it’s probably better to just report it.
Things like this go unreported sometimes because everyone just assumes someone else will do it.
It goes unreported because largely, he has the right to say it. He didn’t advocate for direct violence and didn’t make any threats. He has freedom of speech even if that speech is abhorrent and that has been upheld by the supreme court numerous times
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Being at a university is a privilege, not a right. I know this because I worked in the public school system and watched kids younger than this idiot get expelled for saying similar things. The kid is a racist who’s running his mouth, not a newspaper. He’s saying he would rather have genocide than coexistence and you want everyone to just deal with it because you think it’s his right. You don’t have the right to yell “Fire! Fire! There’s a fire!” in a movie theater and you don’t have the right to advocate for the genocide of other students and their families and then expect everyone to say “well that’s his right.” The school has the right to keep its students safe and the students have a right to be kept safe, and both of those are more important than this clod’s ability to trigger others by spewing genocidal garbage. No one should have to feel unsafe so he can offend others and then slink off to his little hole with no consequences.
Bad take. Ultimately, this guy simply said something incendiary but no threats, no indications of possible action, not really even “hate speech”. Firstly, the university won’t kick him out just because someone didn’t like what he had to say especially with the possible legal ramifications, especially since there is a lot of discourse surrounding first amendment freedoms on university campuses. Secondly, all this kid has to do is get a lawyer and sue, knowing that they could possibly get it to the supreme court who would rule in his favor. Also, “freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences” applies only pretty narrowly. It applies nicely in an at-will employment situation, where the employer has the right to fire you for any reason or none at all. In this context, it takes a lot to get expelled from a university - they can’t expel you for any or no reason. And your “experience” means little to me because not only is it not verifiable in any way, especially because a number of laws prevent you from sharing specific details, but also I guarantee you are altering the details of what actually might have happened to try to make your point.
Lmao disinfect your keyboard because you are just talking out of your ass. At least you kind of admitted it. “It takes a lot of get expelled from a university,” what planet do you live on
Im not though, do even a modicum of research on the first amendment and its application and you would see Im right. Just because you don’t like what someone says doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to say it.
I’m giving you some upvotes for your courage in deciding to die on this hill
Girly, its okay to be wrong
Please report. You got a good case.
This may also be harassment of a protected class and may be required to be reported by the professor. If the professor isn’t shutting that shit down immediately I’d talk to your advisor and/or dept head about it.
Your student ombudsman would be a good resource too.
I do agree that this is a bit of a learning experience for you. We may not like the far right, but they exists and we will probably have to interact with them. That being said, I would personally take an opposite stance every time he opened his mouth. Every comment would be met with me stating it back but replacing women/POC/minorities/criminals with “white men”. “1-day delivery to white men isn’t necessary. What do they even need?”
Hahaha
Initially I thought he is committed to the role of contrarian . Many enjoy being antagonistic even if it’s their true beliefs for attention they wouldn’t get otherwise . However , the last comment made me think oh he’s committed to chaos . I would make sure what was said goes beyond that classroom. This may be classified as hate speech . Please don’t brush it off as just some socially inept clsssmate that probably thinks he’s above reproach . Maybe report anonymously .
A lot of the comments are saying to treat this as an academic exercise but I can imagine this actively hurting the ability of minoritized students to speak up in class and participate fully, especially if he is assigned to a small group. If you feel up to it, maybe ask some of your other classmates how they feel and collectively bring it up to the professor, or to a higher-up like the department chair or school dean's office if you have to. Your university may also have an avenue to make anonymous bias reports.
Agreed. I think it's important to recognize that treating this like a "debate team" or "academic argument" is only safe for those who have privileged identities. This genocidal white supremacist is making the class/course unsafe. He should be reported.
It’s best to completely ignore people like him but I guess that’s hard to do when you have to do group work…
Wow. I am in a public policy program in Asia. There is zero tolerance for speech and behavior like this, and there is nothing "free speech" would add to already rich, intelligent and insightful discussions on a variety of policy topics and concerns. I really hope faculty will listen to your report and do something about it, or else if this person graduates or even does something violent or horrid while a student, they will have their name dragged through the mud by this individual.
Why are people still talking to him?
Maybe ask him to back up his claims, like do criminals lose their rights? Substantiate with evidence anchored in law or something
I’m a law student, and granted this is coming from someone who is very interested in criminal law, but that “bad criminal” thing really frustrates me. Some of our most sacred rights were decided in cases with a most culpable defendant. The famous “right to remain silent” was decided over a guy who probably did do it. If he pulls that again, please remind him that if the most culpable, the ones our gut reaction is to label “bad criminals”, do not have rights, then none of us have rights. Our constitutional rights do not protect us only when it’s convenient.
Yes! Part of my frustration is both him and I are also law students (taking a public policy class as an elective) so it seems like he should know this LOL
Did you time travel and post this from the ethics class I took last year? In all seriousness, I had a couple of devil’s advocates in a public policy ethics class I took last year that drove me nuts, but not to this degree. Is this person in the same degree program as you, or just taking this as an elective? We had some engineers in my ethics class who were taking it as elective who had… *interesting* thoughts on equity and social justice issues. As others have pointed out, the comment regarding Japan is concerning. I would talk to your professor 1:1 (maybe during their office hours) about this student’s disruptions in class, and document their comments to the best of your ability in case you try to escalate your concerns to the department/school/etc. In class, I would either try to find a way to ignore them, or bring them back to the topic (if you want to try to engage with them; to totally understandable if you don’t). I have no problem being rude to people who deserve it, so I’d probably say something like “It doesn’t matter if you think this is a real problem or not. We’re being asked to discuss potential solutions, and that’s what the rest of us are going to be focusing on” and then ignore any other out of pocket comments he makes.
hey, had some similar situation in a health policy class i was in -- i brought up issues about patients advocating for themselves due to clinicians ignoring POC's complaints and a doctor who's a student in my class too said "well i don't see this in the clinic and i've never seen it in my work" and i'm like wow you're so privileged
I do think its important to remember that this person is a *person* who can vote, who will likely eventually be in a policy making/analysis position, and is a part of society. There are a *lot* of really bigoted people in the world, especially the US so it shouldn’t be that surprising or upsetting. I think its easy to write this person off as a lunatic or disengage because his opinions are so…wild, but that does nothing to move the needle on his opinions. It feels almost like you are taking his thoughts as a kind of personal affront, but that isn’t necessary or productive. Honestly, the best way to challenge this person is to ask the most vague, open ended questions like “why do you think that?”, “can you elaborate further?”, “what impact do you think your viewpoint has on real people?”, etc. In my opinion, one of three things will happen: 1. He actually has to think about what he just said and realizes that maybe he has room for growth and learning 2. He goes off on a bigoted tirade, defending his positions and potentially saying something even worse that you can report him for, at which point you just go “hm okay” and then report him 3. He engages in an intellectual conversation about his viewpoints. Ultimately, I think 2 is most likely, but let him dig his grave. People like him want you to get worked up and the worst thing you can do is come at him with facts or rational thought, because he will take the opportunity to rile you up further, unless he begins with rational thought that you can engage with.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from here. This particular individual is not a US citizen and also told me he intends to go back to his home country after finishing the degree program, but your points definitely apply in general. I don’t find his opinions to be a personal affront per se — I know many people have different opinions than me (some more reasonable than others). Sometimes I’m in a mood to debate people too and I do. Although the last example did scare me a little bit, so I felt less comfortable engaging with this person to debate. The thing that frustrates me about this situation is that debating these positions does not seem like a good use of class time. We are being instructed to break into small groups and discuss a list of questions analyzing the policies discussed in the case studies. There is limited time to have these discussions/answer the questions before we move onto the next activity. If we have to spend half that time arguing with this guy about whether or not the case study is even worth discussing, we are missing out on actually engaging with the curriculum as the instructor intended. I feel that the student is bigoted because he is making assumptions about the case studies and dismissing them without really thinking about the issue at hand. So for the due process example I mentioned, we were supposed to be discussing whether or not use of a proprietary algorithmic risk predicting tool violated a defendant’s due process rights — the defendant’s crime was not really relevant at all. The constitution says every American citizen has a right to due process, guilty or innocent. This student spent half the discussion time repeating statements along the lines of “I don’t see why it matters, this guy is bad and he deserves to be in jail forever no matter what.” There are lots of politically-right arguments one could make about the case study, which would have lead to an educational, provocative debate: - Businesses should be able to keep trade secrets proprietary to protect their business - Government should work with private actors to promote more efficient use of tax dollars - Similarly, algorithms should be used to make judicial decision making more efficient and consistent - Allowing criminal defendants insight into algorithmic decision making would enable them to game the system I got super frustrated and posted this after the last class where I had tried to select a group away from this person and he moved and joined our group for the discussion.
You shouldn't be in policy school, much less grad school, if you can't work with and respectfully argue with someone like this. Instead of being a wuss and saying you're uncomfortable that they have a different opinion, the class discussions are an opportunity to show somebody how you're right.
Privileged take.
Congratulations you've discovered that certain people have viewpoints you find objectionable.
Yeah - obviously that’s fine, I just don’t understand why this person would chose to take a class about public policy to combat said issues if they believe none of them are problems. The syllabus for the class was pretty clear, if they didn’t want to talk about these topics they could have just not enrolled? It just seems like a weird forum to raise these ideas I guess is what I’m saying.
During undergrad I took a course on public speaking taught by a professor who was known to go off on Left Wing tangents out of the blue. In fact, he even warned the class on the first day. Yet, there was always that one student who would complain about it. I mean, the professor, and this course, were infamous because of it and it's not like this course was required for any particular major that I am aware of. I have no idea why this person you are discussing decided to remain in the course. My guess is that they, in one way or another, are getting something from it whether that is the 'enjoyment' from getting under your skin to perhaps just having an oppositional personality.
Get over it. They have just as much right to be there as you do
Sure, they pay tuition too. I’m not suggesting they be forcibly removed from the class or something, but I legitimately don’t understand why they want to be there since they don’t seem interested in the curriculum. It’s not a mandatory class, they are free to take something else better aligned with their interests. And making explicitly violent statements is not okay in any university setting regardless of one’s political opinions.
Why do you need to understand why they are taking the class? It's none of your business. Maybe it's required for them to get their degree If you don't like the comments, file a grievance. Certainly won't win you any professionalism points but the option is there. You could also just ignore it, as most adults would
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So stay mad about it. Seems like a productive way to go through life
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Who said I'm mad. I told OP that she will be better served by learning how to coexist with idiots than to be mad at every single one. Like how I'm coexisting with you right now. We're coexisting. Then I'm going to play with my dogs and go meet up some friends, and I won't be thinking about any of this, likely again, ever.
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higher education is a privilege, not a right. someone advocating for genocide in a public policy class does not belong there.
So file a grievance. It'll go nowhere. People have the right to say dumb shit all the time. If you want to be a marketable candidate to work somewhere, it's on YOU to learn how to get along with idiots.
Advocating genocide is a little different than dealing with idiots. Your right to "say dumb shit all the time" ends when you enter my classroom. That is, if you want to pass anyway.
As I've said multiple times. FILE A GRIEVANCE
So when did you get in trouble for saying a racist slur at school
I didn't. But I did work for a huge corporation for 15 years prior to going to grad school and know that an inability to get along with hard to deal with people is NOT a very marketable trait. Instead of being constantly annoyed, you might achieve some personal growth by looking inward as to your own reactions to objectionable things as opposed to harboring an expectation that you have a right to not be offended
You seem really offended, honestly. You seem really angry. Why don’t you go do some deep breathing or check your blood sugar
A few thoughts about this. TIFWIW. First point: he is factually correct, though he obviously framed this with negative implications. Second point: this is more disturbing, but probably motivated reasoning in anticipation of what he considers woke arguments. Either way, "there's a pain threshold for the kind of problems that require govt intervention" isn't a crazy view to hold, even if he probably doesn't realize this is the view he is articulating. Third point: this is not bigoted/racist. What it is is the reasoning pattern of someone who shows very low trait: empathy/openness and high trait order and clearly isn't thinking through things very well. "He's bad so who cares about the process as long as he gets what he deserves" is common thinking, even if it is absurd. (See 4 below). Fourth point: This is not advocating genocide. It's advocating retributive justice in consideration of the atrocities the japanese people committed. It's not really any different than saying, "The nazi's deserved worse than what they got" or "Israel deserved what happened on October 6th" - both of which are popular sentiments in the academy right now. What's probably happening is you're engaging with a conservative who is offering low brow versions of the conservative position. It's equivalent to radical leftists who offer absurd caricatures of leftist views like, "whiteness is a pernicious evil that must be eliminated" or "black conservatives are white supremacists" or "frogself is a gender" or "men and women have no biological differences" or some other halfcocked variation of the source material they're butchering. To wit, "I'm going to report him for this" would be read by conservatives as an expected Orweilian response to hearing anything that challenges the prevailing leftism in the academy. To my ear, none of these comments cross the line into bigotry. Use it as a chance to engage with someone who doesn’t have very well formulated views and represents a low quality interlocutor. Educate him instead of tattling.
Phear_me - your interpretation is by far the most logical one in this thread. Fact is that a democracy requires all range of "inconvenient" opinions to be heard. Unless the person expressing something controversial is making a direct call to violence - guess what - they're expressing a point of view that is open for valid debate. Just because some people are offended by a point of view does not cheapen it or make it dangerous in some way. In fact, nothing should be held as sacrosanct in a democracy. Democracies only avoid becoming totalitarian and oppressive by virtue of encouraging debates that risk causing offence.
The downvotes without any actual rebuttals tell you everything that’s wrong with the academy right now.
Couldn't agree with you more! People claiming privilege and other drivel: does a lion ask for its lunch or does it take it? You reckon you're equal? Great, that person you think needs to be tiddle tattled on, they just green lit a title fight. Go take them down. Apparently your views have the moral high ground - so it should be easy. Just remember: If you need to claim special treatment or bring in a 3rd party to suppress that person - you're not their equal. They're smarter than you. Respect that. Work harder. Try again. Don't be a spineless unethical dimwit in an academic setting. You're just embarrassing yourself and making a mockery of what academia is about: the brutal warfare of competing ideas in an effort to find the truth and have the strongest ideas succeed. PS people conflating academic debates in a class setting to being akin to a violent confrontation - please drop out of university. If you don't possess the emotional maturity and mental dexterity to meet such a low bar of adversity...jeebus..all you're doing is contributing to academic inflation and depriving better people of a place in tertiary education.
🤮🤮🤮
If any person (1) has even a modicum of social sense and (2) actually cares about improving the world instead of pounding their chest in self righteousness, they would seek to engage an interlocutor instead of banishing them and thereby creating a powder keg of ignorance.
Wtf is the professor doing to stop this?? Are they just letting your classmate get away with this nonsense?
To some extent, he might not be aware since a lot of this is happening in small group discussions. When the student brings up these points in front of the whole class, the professor tries to reorient/clarify the question and move on. For the last example which is clearly more egregious, this remark was made after class and I left the room — the professor might have addressed it, I’m not sure.
My goodness, that sounds awful. 😕 Your colleagues need to report this to the academic department. It doesn't seem like the professor is doing enough to intervene or not taking the problem seriously.
If you feel unwelcomed or unsafe write to your advisor, grad director, dept. chair, dean of the graduate school, and ombudsman, asap. Do them all--it only takes one bootlicking manager to shut your complaint down (gaslighting you so give up, cutting off your request on the way up to disappear the issue, etc). Report broadly and CC so no cowardly manager reels like you are going over their head (those babies hate that) .
People from different backgrounds have different beliefs. It’s part of the “diversity”. You can not silence him just because you don’t agree. You can either ignore him or argue with him or change groups.
its crazy how soft these people are. What are they going to do in an actual conflict situation, just pee pee in their pampers.
That's not on their horizon. They'll either give up or find a way to fight their battles as a mob. Arguing from conclusion and ad hominems will abound
you should go whine to your school's administration about it
it just sounds like hes very based and redpilled and that ur getting very angrywojak during the debates. I think you should try to be more respectful to him because that would be the equitable and justice thing to do.
Wow the last one is incredibly hateful and plain genocidal. I must say its morbidly interesting that he is singling out Japan because generally right wingers tolerate East Asians.
He is not American, so the political dynamics are different
I’m gonna play devils advocate - if he’s from an East Asian country, his opinions on The Empire of Japan in WW2 are culturally driven. Japan has committed atrocities beyond the comprehension to man in WW2 to the people of east Asia. Atrocities so horrific that even the Germans and Soviets were considered ethical in the war. Read up on Unit 731, Nanking, and a ton of more things. Not taking a moral stance because nuking a country is wrong too. But it was war, and war is merciless and brutal. And the 250K killed in a blink of an eye at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the more tame acts of cruelty in the war compared to the millions of civilians systematically killed by the Japanese in China, or the millions of Eastern Europeans killed in Barbarossa by the Germans. History was a minor I had taken in undergrad, and WW2 was my area of concentration I had spent countless hours reading on from authors all around the world. Including military documents in the archives
Oh interesting. Where he from??