This is fine but I think people should put more emphasis on acting on these values instead of declaring them. People will notice things quickly, there is no need to tell them all the time.<p>It reminds me of companies sending e-mails about innovation and agility while often acting exactly the opposite way. Just do it and people will notice soon.
To the people who are complaining about this sort of thing: where do you draw the line on free speech on college campuses? For instance would you want universities to allow students to use racial slurs, <i>with malice</i>, in classroom discussions or paper, without any disciplinary consequences?
The 'science isn't optional' part is a nice addition to the usual fare, but this is ultimately still the usual fare. And I think what bothers me about this stuff is that it sets such a low bar for human society. We reject hate. That should go without saying.<p>If you <i>are</i> going to say it, there's a lot more you should say too: What precisely "hate" is, how to identify it, how big of a problem you think it is, and how it should be handled when it's found. <i>Not</i> saying these things implies that hate is a much bigger problem than it actually is.[1]<p>What we really have here is quasi-religious rhetoric. Evil, hate, demons, and so forth. Who doesn't believe? Simply omit your name below so we all know who you are.<p>[1] Some (still quite limited) discussion on this point: <a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/" rel="nofollow">http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo...</a>
Eventually activists are going to run out of categories in desperate and urgent need of stalwart defense. At some point it becomes simply a laundry list of fashionable trends in sociology.
Is it too much to ask that universities allow a free market of ideas, without drawing subjective lines categorizing them as "good" and "bad"?
This is stupid college drama, an online petition so lazy it doesn't even bother to link to announcements it is complaining about.<p>Seriously, what the fuck HN? This wouldn't have been tolerated even a couple of years ago.