I love the stuff at the end about how people should think about whether they are actually being selfless or if they are acting selfishly (and, perhaps, participating in harming the very people they claim to be concerned with).
However, I don't find your argument about the desierability of punishing these protestors very persuasive. Ultima…
I love the stuff at the end about how people should think about whether they are actually being selfless or if they are acting selfishly (and, perhaps, participating in harming the very people they claim to be concerned with).
However, I don't find your argument about the desierability of punishing these protestors very persuasive. Ultimately, when we punish people we make their lives worse and, except for the most horrible offenders, deny society benefits they might have contributed in the future.
This is, unfortunately, often necessary to achieve a deterrent effect (and sometimes to prevent those disposed to bad acts from doing so again by imprisoning them but not really relevant here). But whenever it's not necessary to achieve that deterrent effect why make anyone suffer?
In this case, while it may be true that in some formal sense the violators were on notice, in the practical sense that's relevant for deterrence they really weren't since this kind of behavior has long been tolerated for progressive causes in our higher education system. In this case, it seems to me that virtually all the deterrence can be achieved with a forward looking statement.
Fair points, and I’ve gone back and forth myself on this issue when it has come up on the past—e.g., Yale and Stanford. But I agree with you that going forward, anyone who does anything similar should be punished; they were on notice.
Notably, the protesters came back to the Chemerinsky on Thursday night, but they didn’t go on the premises. I believe they chalked the sidewalk and protested from the street.
I love the stuff at the end about how people should think about whether they are actually being selfless or if they are acting selfishly (and, perhaps, participating in harming the very people they claim to be concerned with).
However, I don't find your argument about the desierability of punishing these protestors very persuasive. Ultimately, when we punish people we make their lives worse and, except for the most horrible offenders, deny society benefits they might have contributed in the future.
This is, unfortunately, often necessary to achieve a deterrent effect (and sometimes to prevent those disposed to bad acts from doing so again by imprisoning them but not really relevant here). But whenever it's not necessary to achieve that deterrent effect why make anyone suffer?
In this case, while it may be true that in some formal sense the violators were on notice, in the practical sense that's relevant for deterrence they really weren't since this kind of behavior has long been tolerated for progressive causes in our higher education system. In this case, it seems to me that virtually all the deterrence can be achieved with a forward looking statement.
Fair points, and I’ve gone back and forth myself on this issue when it has come up on the past—e.g., Yale and Stanford. But I agree with you that going forward, anyone who does anything similar should be punished; they were on notice.
Notably, the protesters came back to the Chemerinsky on Thursday night, but they didn’t go on the premises. I believe they chalked the sidewalk and protested from the street.