Cortney covered this earlier this morning. Kyle Kashuv, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting and Second Amendment rights supporter, had his Harvard acceptance rescinded. He went on a lengthy Twitter thread about the controversy. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Kashuv made some racist remarks in communications he thought were private…when he was 16 years old. Kashuv didn’t prevaricate or obfuscate what he had done. He didn’t try to pivot or downplay it; he admitted it. He informed Harvard after members that are associated with the alt-right revealed these communications:
In subsequent messages Kashuv explained how he had even reached out to Harvard's Office of Diversity and Inclusion, who sent him a warm message in return thanking him for his apology and telling him they were "looking forward" to connecting with him upon his matriculation…
[…]
He also admitted he has no clue what to do now.
"I had given up huge scholarships in order to go to Harvard, and the deadline for accepting other college offers has ended," he explained.
1/ THREAD: Harvard rescinded my acceptance.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
Three months after being admitted to Harvard Class of 2023, Harvard has decided to rescind my admission over texts and comments made nearly two years ago, months prior to the shooting.
I have some thoughts. Here’s what happened.
2/ A few weeks ago, I was made aware of egregious and callous comments classmates and I made privately years ago - when I was 16 years old, months before the shooting - in an attempt to be as extreme and shocking as possible.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
I immediately apologized.
Here is my apology: pic.twitter.com/eI38ziiQE8
3/ After I issued this apology, speculative articles were written, my peers used the opportunity to attack me, and my life was once again reduced to a headline.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
It sent me into one of the darkest spirals of my life.
4/ After the story broke, former peers & political opponents began contacting Harvard urging them to rescind me. Harvard then sent this letter stating that Harvard "reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission" and requested a written explanation within 72 hours. pic.twitter.com/RfEQCvjgDX
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
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Wherein a bunch of adults decided to excoriate a teen over a bad, stupid joke he made as an even younger teen in an attempt to ruin his life bcse of 2A disagreement. The idea of repentance and forgiveness is dead in our society. It isn’t about persuasion, it’s about destruction. https://t.co/5TRzrCCSbo
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 17, 2019
NEW RULE: Everyone will be retroactively adjudicated for their past childhood sins and made to pay the price now.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 17, 2019
Harvard University caving to the demands of Laura Loomer is the worst crossover event in history https://t.co/zNYFd1qqzh
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) June 17, 2019
Kyle made a full apology, cooperated 100% with Harvard and even reached out to the diversity office to see what he could do about settling ppl’s nerves about what he wrote, privately, *when he was 16.*
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 17, 2019
Welcome to the future. It’s a social sewage treatment plant. https://t.co/MelOf1uGPs
Very curious if @Harvard will now accept and then reject all students who they convict of committing thought crimes while in high school via nonsense with friends. I already know the answer is dependent on whether those students believe in leftist gun control.
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) June 17, 2019
63-year-old harvard administrator googling “is kashuv an oriental name”
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) June 17, 2019
This isn’t about what @KyleKashuv said when he was 16 (and apologized for). This is about using that as a pretext to punish him for what he says now. And everyone knows it.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) June 17, 2019
What they rely on is that decent people won’t stand up to the mob for fear of the mob turning on them.
Dear adults,
— Carol Roth (@caroljsroth) June 17, 2019
If you come across a kid or teen who is saying or doing something offensive, etc., your job is to help teach them why it’s wrong and how to do better and help them grow, not to try to ruin their lives.
Conservatives torched the decision, seeing it yet another case of left-wing institutional bias, some even mocking the Ivy League’s anathema to its other perceived enemy: Asians. Yet, one progressive reporter, Michael Tracey, once again finds himself shooting inside the ship, seeing the more sinister slice of this fiasco that doesn’t revolve around Kashuv’s political leanings. He sees this as a disturbing trend in surveillance, noting the lengths parents go to monitor their children’s’ social media activity.
It's insane and oppressive to rescind college admission on the basis of "offensive statements" teens made on social media. In order to gain admission to elite institutions, teens now have to be career-minded, perfect little angels beginning at childhood https://t.co/aI0u1eZ7ky
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
The "offensive statements" were made in what the teen apparently assumed to be a private venue. Imagine if your BS sessions with friends at age 16 were all entered into the public record, and used to change the course of your entire life trajectory. School-marm surveillance state
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
The affected individual is a conservative but that's immaterial. (Almost) everyone makes stupid, "offensive" statements as teens when they're sitting around BSing with friends. Only difference now is that the statements are preserved in an electronic record
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
Our elite feeder institutions are training kids to be terrified of ever transgressing social taboos, even in private, for fear of compromising their life prospects. If those are the types of people you want dominating elite society, congrats, that's what you're going to get
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
If a black 16-year-old got caught making allegedly "offensive" statements on Snapchat or something -- say, "fuck the police" or "kill pigs" -- my reaction would be 100% the same. And if your reaction would be different, maybe self-reflect on what exactly you're objecting to
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
Kids are being conditioned to expect that their private affairs will be surveilled and held against them -- by universities, parents, future employers... everyone. That's ultimately more troubling than anything related to this specific incident https://t.co/kZpOrPsIRo
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
Recently I heard some parents describe the lengths they go to monitor their teen's private communications, without the teen's knowledge. All texts, social media, etc. -- the parents had surreptitious access to. They even track the teen's precise locational movements. It's nuts
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
The US has never been safer, but parents have seemingly never been more paranoid about surveilling every aspect of their kids' lives under the guise of "safety" -- when there's really no threat to speak of. The same invasive, privacy-destroying mindset afflicts elite institutions
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 17, 2019
“Kids are being conditioned to expect that their private affairs will be surveilled and held against them -- by universities, parents, future employers... everyone,” he wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread. “That's ultimately more troubling than anything related to this specific incident.”
Tracey also noted that many teenagers say stupid things. I’ve certainly been guilty of that; you probably have as well.
“Imagine if your BS sessions with friends at age 16 were all entered into the public record, and used to change the course of your entire life trajectory. School-marm surveillance state,” warned Tracey. He aptly noted that these institutions are brutally enforcing this ethos of authoritarian political correctness and they’re making sure these kids know that from an early age—and this applies to their parents as well. It’s a clever and pernicious covert war on free speech. Tracey then throws an identity politics curveball into the mix:
If a black 16-year-old got caught making allegedly "offensive" statements on Snapchat or something -- say, "f**k the police" or "kill pigs" -- my reaction would be 100% the same. And if your reaction would be different, maybe self-reflect on what exactly you're objecting to…
I can bet the mortgage that liberals, especially white liberals, wouldn’t be as furious. Attacking a black kid like that would be…racist. Hey, these are their rules.
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