[217] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: What can we do?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ray Jones)
Fri Apr 27 02:04:45 2001
To: Zhelinrentice L Scott <zlscott@MIT.EDU>
Cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU, ifc-talk@MIT.EDU
From: Ray Jones <rjones@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: Zhelinrentice L Scott's message of "Fri, 27 Apr 2001 00:28:28 -0400"
Date: 27 Apr 2001 02:04:13 -0400
Message-ID: <ppwpudyzxnm.fsf@PIXIE.MIT.EDU>
Zhelinrentice L Scott <zlscott@MIT.EDU> writes:
> A few years ago the MIT extropians got in trouble for their
> mass mailings which degraded minorities and women based on lies.
Actually, officially they were reprimanded for making an unauthorized
mailing. Of course, this was after administrators(*) decided not to send
out an 8 page brochure the Extropians had submitted for inclusion in
the ASA activity booklet sent to freshmen. The ASA _had_ recommended
that their booklet be sent out.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V117/N30/bextop.30n.html
The Extropians were (procedurally) in the wrong for sending an
"unapproved" mailing, but I question whether their brochure should
have been excluded in the first place (particularly in direct
contradiction to the ASA's recommendation). The fact that the
administration rejected their pamphlet is quite disturbing, since it
was almost surely because it expressed views contrary to what the
administration wanted presented to freshmen.
NB: I haven't seen the packets (the one that did go out, and the
Extropians') in question. If someone still has them, I'd actually
like to see what did go out.
> Any how there are hate crimes cropping up at universities across
> the country, and I wanted to post the question:
>
> What can we do at MIT to prevent, curb, and discourage hate crimes?
Definitions of "hate crimes" vary widely, to the point of being
arbitrary. Moreover, the idea that if a person commits a crime with
"hate" as a motive, rather than some other reason (greed, envy,
stupidity), they should be punished can't help but invoke questions of
freedom of belief, and equality under the law.
Probably the best course of action is to discourage crime.
Finally, trying to link the Extropian mailing and "hate crimes"
together is disingenuous. For one thing, the mailing hardly rose to
the level of a crime. For another, you're putting words in their
mouths (or at least thoughts in their heads) by assuming their
motivation was racism.
Ray Jones
(*) Quoting the Tech, "a group of individuals including [Kathryn]
Willmore and [Margaret] Bates."
