More than a thousand Harvard students walked out of their commencement ceremony yesterday to support 13 undergraduates who were barred from graduating after they participated in the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard. Asmer Safi, one of the 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters barred from graduating, says that while his future has been thrown into uncertainty while he is on probation, he has no regrets about standing up for Palestinian rights. “This is an ethical stance that we’re taking,” Safi says. We also hear from history professor Alison Frank Johnson, one of over 100 faculty members who voted to confer degrees on the 13 seniors, who describes Harvard’s punishment of them as an “egregious departure from past precedent,” as was the board’s subsequent overruling of faculty. “We hoped then that the Corporation, as it has always done in the past, would accept our recommendations for degree recipients and allow the 13 to graduate, which they chose not to do.”
More than a thousand Harvard students walked out of their commencement ceremony yesterday to support 13 undergraduates who were barred from graduating after they participated in the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard.
Asmer Safi, one of the 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters barred from graduating, says that while his future has been thrown into uncertainty while he is on probation, he has no regrets about standing up for Palestinian rights.
That’s not quite virtue signaling. He isn’t proclaiming support of a good cause or expressing some distinct moral correctness, he is condemning a single perspective and common response in these posts. After all, we can infer his stance, though he makes no claim towards his beliefs, all we know is what he is against. It’s a petty distinction, though I feel it helps move it away from virtue signaling.
But no, few things are inherently bad. Our interpretation and our meaning(s) behind our words or actions make them that way. Which is why people tend to fall heavily on one side of a discussion or another.
edit: I see I am getting some downvotes. I am happy to take criticism on this take. No easier way to learn than to challenge oneself to listen and then do.
Do you consider virtue signaling to be inherently bad? Because I’m pretty sure his comment also qualifies as such.
That’s not quite virtue signaling. He isn’t proclaiming support of a good cause or expressing some distinct moral correctness, he is condemning a single perspective and common response in these posts. After all, we can infer his stance, though he makes no claim towards his beliefs, all we know is what he is against. It’s a petty distinction, though I feel it helps move it away from virtue signaling.
But no, few things are inherently bad. Our interpretation and our meaning(s) behind our words or actions make them that way. Which is why people tend to fall heavily on one side of a discussion or another.
edit: I see I am getting some downvotes. I am happy to take criticism on this take. No easier way to learn than to challenge oneself to listen and then do.