If YOU could give a big FU to the Ivy league, or stiff enema to their agenda, what would you say?

[Oro]

I'm not kidding. This is your chance.

Harvard is soliciting my bio/thoughts for the every 5 year "Red Book." It's a thing.

I have to be polite, but it's also possible to be direct. Here's what I'm inclined to publish. This will be in a big FU to 2k grads and administrators.

In 2024, I am looking very forward to renewing lapsed connections with so many of the very fine people I know well from not only '89 but the classes of '87 to '90.

I will, however, be doing that individually and not under the Harvard Banner. I have over the last seven to 10 years begun to feel uneasy with being associated with Harvard - a position I would never have thought possible. But here we are. It began with the racial preferences in the admissions process; I observed that, first hand, working with HU Admissions and interviewing for several years. I made an awkward personal moral accommodation with that, hoping for the best. My mistake. I knew it was wrong, and the US Supreme Court said so this spring.

The culmination was the screeching moral vacuum Harvard leadership as shown in light of the massacre and pogroms against Jews, both abroad, and close to home. Our generation has made many leadership mistakes; I will no longer be part of them; I had for so long thought being under the Harvard Banner made me immune; I now weep at that ignorance.

I will find a way to take monies I would have spent on my own visit for the reunion, or donations, and re-direct to promoting racial equity in education and for victims of anti-semitism. I will, though, reconnect with those valued friends I have missed dearly over the years.

Give me tips of other ways to, politely, express my disgust with the racism and moral indifference Harvard and the rest of the Ivy league has shown to our society, and the co-religionist Jews that are our brothers and sisters.

Don't hate Harvard in all this silliness. I and older grads will sort it out - I hope. If we do not, then - please I beg you - burn it down.

PS -

Read More

 

[Certaindeaf]

I'm not kidding. This is your chance.

Harvard is soliciting my bio/thoughts for the every 5 year "Red Book." It's a thing.

I have to be polite, but it's also possible to be direct. Here's what I'm inclined to publish. This will be in a big FU to 2k grads and administrators.

Give me tips of other ways to, politely, express my disgust with the racism and moral indifference Harvard and the rest of the Ivy league has shown to our society, and the co-religionist Jews that are our brothers and sisters.

Don't hate Harvard in all this silliness. I and older grads will sort it out - I hope. If we do not, then - please I beg you - burn it down.

PS -

Mention money, like how you're not going to give them a dime now specifically because of these despicable acts.

 

[Oro]

Mention money, like how you're not going to give them a dime now specifically because of these despicable acts.

I don't have big money to give, but whatever *very* few thousand I would spend on myself to travel back east, or give as a small joint donation, will go to anti-racist (and I mean that in the true sense) or anti-semitic causes. And I did say that.

I am no power maker or mover/shaker. But I'm just so disgusted with our academic (MANY places) response to this (and grooming, and so many other things), that where I can raise my voice effectively and be heard, I will. Or symbolically shift a few dollars, I will. We all should.

I am not trying to shame or guilt anyone on this forum. I'm just sharing how I feel because, honestly, this is one of the few places an honest person can speak up and not be smacked down. I value that. I should kick a few of the dollars to this forum and I guess come end-of-year when I do that, I will.

Normally what I have done in the past is kick 5% of anything I sell on the forum to it, but I have not done that in a (long) while and I need to get back to that or kick up; my bad on that.

LoL, this post/thread just made me realize I've been freeloading on the forum here 2/3 years despite paying in the past. So it will cost me more money than I thought.

 

[TTSX]

They'll probably open the envelope, see there's not a $20 in it, then round file. I don't think that's much of an exaggeration.

Educational institutions are no longer about education. They're only about money and the amount they care about your opinion is directly proportional to the size of your check, preferably in the millions. And if it's not in the millions, they'll spend their resources chasing someone who WILL give it to them. You graduated, they got your tuition and to be honest you're probably dead to them anyway in every aspect other than formality. Which again, will only go so far as the size of your donation.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I graduated from the school of business, PSU.
I don't write them letters but perhaps I should since it's the epicenter of disgrace.

 

[TNThomas]

I find it very unfortunate that the education system is often used as a platform to voice personal optinions, especially ones of hate. At its core, that is not the purpose education. It really is that simple. More colleges and public schools need to keep their opinions private, and neautral, and not allow their grounds to be dominated by one side of thinking or the other. Too many people talking/voicing their opinions, and not enough people working to find solutions to their frustrations.

 

[Provincial]

I would be careful when using the word equity. I think you are really talking about equality, as is treating everyone fairly and equally. Not in the sense of rules, but in the sense of giving everyone a fair chance. The word may be interpreted in ways you do not intend, since it is a buzzword for Progressives.

Not many people realize that giving someone a fair chance involves more than fixed "rules" that guide decisions. It involves figuring out how to give someone a chance to succeed using discretion within your powers. Sometimes it involves bending or breaking rules to achieve success. This is different from changing rules to give the appearance of "equity" and not true success.

"I will find a way to take monies I would have spent on my own visit for the reunion, or donations, and re-direct to promoting racial equity in education and for victims of anti-semitism. I will, though, reconnect with those valued friends I have missed dearly over the years."

I, too, am concerned about the recent actions of college faculty, administrators, and students. They show a dangerous level of rejection of intellectual process. Higher education used to be focused on leaning how to gather facts and use intellect to determine truths. This doesn't seem to be happening now.

Most people believe that the "Burning of the Books" was done by Nazi operatives, but it was actually done by college students, acting in ways very similar to recent "demonstrations."

It seems that dangerous times are upon us.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I find it very unfortunate that the education system is often used as a platform to voice personal optinions, especially ones of hate. At its core, that is not the purpose education. It really is that simple. More colleges and public schools need to keep their opinions private, and neautral, and not allow their grounds to be dominated by one side of thinking or the other. Too many people talking/voicing their opinions, and not enough people working to find solutions to their frustrations.

Many schools of higher education have a ratio of administrators greater than that of students.. before even counting actual instructors. In the old days you might have heard of "student to teacher" ratios of 1-25 perhaps.. very common. Now the number of "overhead" is probably 1-.8. Notice the decimal.
Anyway, it's a massive money grabbing boondogle with geopolitical ramifications.

 

[Longwalkhome]

It's unfortunate that higher education has become the $18 McDonald's Big Mac, overpriced and not worth the time in line to buy it. America is run by the highly educated out of our universities, look around at what they have done to the country.

 

[Aero Denezol]

@Oro I have walked the Harvard campus maybe 5-6 years ago. I was surprised there are several monuments commemorating Harvard students that fought and died in American wars. You don't see those types of monuments in Eugene or Corvallis. Anyway I'm curious how Harvard went from these solemn markers to the current anti-Semitic America hating hippie trash.

 

[Oro]

@Oro I have walked the Harvard campus maybe 5-6 years ago. I was surprised there are several monuments commemorating Harvard students that fought and died in American wars. You don't see those types of monuments in Eugene or Corvallis. Anyway I'm curious how Harvard went from these solemn markers to the current anti-Semitic America hating hippie trash.

I had ROTC friends on campus when I was there; in fact I resigned a Naval Academy appointment to go there, and joined again later. It wasn't at all unusual when I was a student. This was pre-9/11 and I imagine it wasn't TOO different then. Not ALL students are like this of course. I've interviewed applying students in the recent years, 2010 to 2016 or so. Lots of VERY good young people.So the total portrait is not all like that. The sickness is in a small group, but disturbingly also in the leadership/governance.

Historical detail I recall. In the civil war so many students volunteered they had their own regiment they made up 1/2 or more of it IIRC. Fought from '61 all. The way to Appomattox. Paul Revere (yep, his grandson) was Colonel and killed at Gettysburg, they were right in the middle of the line facing Pickett's charge. After the war they built a huge "Memorial Hall" to it. We had lunch there most school days when in the Yard, took major exams and held big classes in the theater. Had to walk by all those guys' names each time. Pretty inspirational.

 

[Oro]

I thought some people here would find this as interesting as I always did. Sorry for the history lecture but, hey, that's what I do. LoL.

I remember the number of the "Harvard Regiment" - the 20th, not because it was the Harvard Regiment, but because it was the same number as the Maine unit that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain commanded at Gettysburg. He was the Bowdoin professor who quit his teaching job to volunteer as a private in '61. He held the Round Tops at Gettysburg and only his bayonet charge kept the Union flank from being turned. He rose all the way to Major General and Grant respected him so much he had him personally receive Lee's sword when he surrendered at Appomattox. I always thought he was one of the most interesting soldiers in American history (and there are a lot of course). If he had not held the Round Tops, some Texas and Alabama units would have turned the Union left and rolled up the whole position on Cemetery Ridge. There never would have been a "Pickett's Charge" as they would have won the battle without it, and Gettysburg would have gone the other way, with seriously unknown consequences.

20th Mass. was also critical in the battle just like the 20th Maine. When Pickett's charge pierced the wall at the cemetery, it was a Vermont unit on one flank and then the Harvard Regiment on the other that turned into them and met the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" (as it was later famously called) and stopped them hand-to-hand. They took about 30 or 40% casualties IIRC and that was equally spread from privates all the way to the Colonel (Paul Revere).

I've always found that pretty fascinating. The first years out of college I lived in DC and a few weekends each summer I'd ride my motorcycle up to Gettysburg or Antietem and walk a different part of each battlefield on different weekends.

If you are into history, looking at Gettysburg from the unique perspectives of the 20th Maine and 20th Massachusetts is very, very interesting.

 

[Certaindeaf]

All interesting but if I may seem so bold, Oregonians really never cared about the civil war save academically.

 

[L84Cabo]

I don't follow Harvard but can only assume they have taken the standard left wing Marxist University position of promoting such absurdities as safe spaces, 72 genders, that men can have vaginas and women can have penises, failing to protect female spaces like bathrooms and gym changing rooms from biological males, failing to protect women's sports from biological males. I mean there must be a hundred other things beside what you have listed that they should be nailed for. And I'm not saying to nail them for all 100...but certainly some of them deserve mention.

 

[Ruger Rich]

All interesting but if I may seem so bold, Oregonians really never cared about the civil war save academically.

I most often agree with you. However, this time I must back up. I'm an Oregonian and also am ex-Army.
I spent a year at Ft Monmouth getting a fine Army education that allowed me to make a very decent
living when I got out. On two different occasions I took a weekend and visited Gettysburg, by myself.
It's a memory I'll take with me when I leave here. One was in the fall and I was near alone there. The
grass where Pickett made his charge was now brown and long with a breeze blowing enough that
the grass seemed almost to be waves at the ocean shore and I shivered as I thought that's the way
those Rebel soldiers moved to their death. The statues and the ghosts were there and so was I.

 

[monkeybutler]

Stiff enema huh? Interesting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not sure in this case.

Why am I supposed to be upset with Ivy League schools, again?

 

[WAW44]

I'm a Penn grad (engineering/Wharton) and while I agree with your sentiment, I'm also realistic that, since I'm not in the 1% , any action I may take, or opinion I would state about Penn, means diddly squat to that institution.

So, life goes on …

 

[Certaindeaf]

Stiff enema huh? Interesting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not sure in this case.

Why am I supposed to be upset with Ivy League schools, again?

They seem to be antisemitic hypocrites.

 

[Provincial]

Stiff enema huh? Interesting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not sure in this case.

Why am I supposed to be upset with Ivy League schools, again?

Because Ivy league graduates are a disproportionate portion of the individuals in government that determine how the government will treat it's citizens (subjects), both directly as part of the government and in advising the government.

For example, Merrick Garland: "Garland attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. "

 

[monkeybutler]

Holy fook.