And for what? For being dumb, stupid boys. Seriously, are there any other kinds?
No matter.
Some would argue that this isn’t political correctness run amok so much as it is a sense of decency for these young men in short supply. We’ll come back to that.
Don’t forget Harvard is the institution whose faculty voted no-confidence, in part because, a previous President, Larry Summers, had the temerity to utter an incorrect opinion when he said maybe the aptitude of women for engineering and science was lacking, compared to men.
Perhaps innate differences existed between the sexes. Oh no! Not palatable, not politically correct: hey-ho Summers has got to go!
So Summers resigned. If he had been a sniveling surrender-cheese monkey weasel he could have blamed his intemperate words on it being a Friday, a more relaxed, laid back, let-the-banter-fly kind of day – especially after noon – but he didn’t. More power to him – although he tried to squirrel out of what he said a little bit. He said his talk was a “purely academic exploration of hypotheses.”
Yet somehow, miraculously, he survived the politically correct Harvard University harassing him out of Dodge. He He-Manned himself to becoming a managing partner in a hedge fund company, became a sought-after public speaker on matters financial for heavy hitting investment firms and, incredibly enough, even was deemed employment-worthy of Barack Obama’s White House when he was hired as the Director of the United States Economic Council.
Wow - even oh-so politically correct Barack Obama isn’t as politically correct and hidebound as Harvard.
Speaking of dumb and stupid - and intentionally misleading - the soccer kids have nothing on Liz Mineo’s article in the Harvard Gazette titled: Fear among some immigrants. Apparently illegal aliens (called undocumented immigrants in the piece, which is analogous to calling a store robber an undocumented shopper) are afraid because they might get in heck for BREAKING THE COUNTRY’S CITIZENSHIP LAWS. Immigrants come to the USA legally. They have nothing to fear.
Sigh.
Back to booting the boys for being boors.
The first paragraph should be edited for clarity. These guys are out because other Harvard soccer sorts, back in 2012, were into rating the fairer sex for their physical attributes.
Which brings up an ethical conundrum that Harvard clearly missed the boat on. (Didn’t most of us sentient souls, in the past few decades, come to an unspoken, yet fairly firm, understanding and agreement that offspring today shouldn’t pay for family and friends and strangers mistakes of yesterday?)
So 31 soccer team boys-becoming-men (one from Mexico, a guy from Germany, and a bloke from Nigeria) have had their successful season stopped because of a few, maybe many, perhaps all - of that 2012 team being engaged in acts (both verbal and pictorial) of analysis and assessment, of debate and deliberation, that resulted in thinking and looking and reporting on female footballers the “wrong” way. They should have, judging by Harvard’s treatment of Summers for his thoughts on variances between XX’s and XY’s, chromosomeically chatting - viewed and deemed the women exactly the same as themselves.
(Let’s leave apart from this discussion of how Harvard bigwigs would countenance separate soccer leagues for girls and guys if no innate, intrinsic differences can be found between the two.)
Here is the counter argument: Many argue that this isn’t political correctness run amok so much as it is a sense of decency sadly in short supply for these young men and thus the cancellation of the remainder of the 2016 season is warranted. Especially so, Harvard avers, because this rating “scouting report” atrocity carried into, and was carried on by, the 2016 team and worse yet – the boys "were not immediately forthcoming about their involvement..."
It is not clear whether all the boys of the 2016 took part. The phrase “team members” is used which means a plurality but doesn’t necessarily mean the whole team. But if guys who didn’t take part, had enough members in its group to form a squad – why wouldn’t they be allowed to play out the season? Why should they be punished for something they took no part in?
For its part, some of the women from the targeted soccer team went whole-hog, reaching for the outer limits in describing their pain. They declared they were “beyond hurt.”
What is beyond hurt? Agony maybe, pain probably, wretched-wrenched-kvetched certainly. But why doesn’t the word, hurt, do? Are they that soft, that tender, that incapable of handling ignorance - and malice - and the slings and arrows of outrageous remarks cast their way? Given that they played competitive sports and went to a university, even if it was Harvard, surely they should have enough backbone, grit, guts, and balls to put up with tawdry, tacky, crude, lewd, rancid, puerile, sexist stupidity and nonsense.
For its part, the men’s soccer team is “beyond disappointed” in having the season cancelled.
As for punishment what does cancelling the season teach – especially for those on the team that may have had NOTHING TO DO with this?
So the men are done - but now they’re totally going to beyond bummed out. For having ignorant, impure thoughts, they have to be purified via re-education school! “The Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response will work to “further educate” the men’s soccer team specifically and student-athletes generally...”
Here’s another kick in the teeth. While rude boys are being punished, Harvard will protect criminals (illegal aliens) attending its school.
That’s beyond ignorant. It’s immoral. And illegal.