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Comment by chriszf | Hacker News Reader

I had another 9 students inside, and the talk was worthwhile for them. Furthermore, the problem was not with the organizers (who were generous and accommodating) or the speakers (who were similarly generous), but with the venue. Nothing would have been solved by protesting: I'm not important enough that anyone would have noticed.

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You would have demonstrated that moral authority is on the side of the student who was wronged. It doesn't matter whether or not they change their policy, what matters is that you went along with excluding a student for no reason.

EDIT: Sorry, this came off a bit too personally. I'm a teacher too and I got angry when I read this story. I'll just say more generically that it is easily possible (and justifiable) for a student to feel alienated after a situation like this, especially if they feel like their educator didn't stand up for them. Whether or not "standing up for them" involves canceling the entire trip is a contextual issue, and I really don't know if it would have been a good idea in this case.

I don't get the teacher-blaming here.

Imagine you're a student in that class; you're stoked to see this talk, but one of your classmates can't get in. You feel terrible but you've been looking forward to this. If the teacher decides to "stick it to the man", you and 8 other of your classmates miss out and possibly become bitter towards the excluded one because of Yelp's security measures.

His having to direct her to the nearest transit might seem cold, but he was responsible for all of those students, and he was trying to offer them an experience they would grow from. I would have been incredibly bummed if I were her, but it wasn't anyone in her group's fault and they shouldn't have missed an opportunity to learn because the teacher decided he wanted to take some sort of personal, "Yeah, well I'll show you!" stand.

What kind of students are we talking about here? I assume they're not explaining how Pinterest is scaling to eighth-graders. If we're talking about adults here -- and apparently just 10 of them --, why not let them quickly huddle together and figure it out?

Regardless of age, I'd assume they'd rather take notes [on her behalf] than not attend.

I think this is not so much teacher blaming as wishing to put additional pressure on Yelp for being terrible dickheads, via those teachers. If nobody ever stands up to bullies they just keep doing their thing.

I understand why you disagree, but I don't think there's an obvious right answer here, it sucks either way. I don't think you're in a position to pass judgement unless you were actually there and knew the students personally. What if this would have made the rest of the class resent the one student? That would be a far more damaging outcome in my mind.

Isn't this the kind of mentality that is 'dangerous'?

"Why vote, I'm just 1 vote. It's not going to make any difference."

And you said you're not important enough that anyone would have noticed? So all the 'unimportant' people, when faced with difficult choices, should just roll over and go with the flow? (Not saying you made the wrong/right choice, but your reasoning is off.)

While you had to weigh a group of students' benefit from the talk against 1 missing out on some talk, this also could've been an opportunity for you to teach your students to a different kind of lesson.

I hate to say it but leaving a student alone waiting is pretty shitty.

I agree. This is the place to take a stand. It seems minor and annoying, but when we overlook minor violations like this, they soon evolve into major ones.

Another option would be to leave with the student, and let your other "kids" stay if they want to.

That's a pretty shitty experience, to be the only one who can't get in and have to walk away alone. A little solidarity would have gone a long way.

And it was worthwhile enough to tacitly agree to such a policy?

Edit: read your comment in a separate post. It would have been worthwhile not to abridge all the context out of your story.

Your problem is actually with the organizers. You don't care a bit about random venues except for where organizers of events you are likely to attend decide to use them, I would guess. Therefore, if you have a problem with the venue, you should take it to the organizers, and take it up with them at the time, e.g. by leaving with your student, because wrangling the venue is what they're doing as organizers setting up an event.

Other venues are much more reasonable about this sort of thing. I have a friend who is banned from all Microsoft buildings, including non-Microsoft events hosted by Microsoft. He was informed clearly in writing, and knew the reason for his being banned. That makes Microsoft-operated venues more appealing (on at least this axis) than Yelp ones, since organizers of an event can't be sure that attendees will actually be able to enter. In the Microsoft case, at least a person seemingly knows whether they can attend.

What if they refused to let her in because she was black?

Here they are practically claiming she is a terrorist. The principle is the same.

By sending her out you validate their discrimination, which is based on falsehoods and lies.

  What if [..]

We can all sketch awful situations in which the appropriate course of action is obvious. This is not one of those cases.

  By sending her out you validate their discrimination [..]

No, you acknowledge they have authority in the situation.

You should give the venue a negative review on Yelp.

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