Comment by FD3SA | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FD3SA | Hacker News Reader

This is absurd. Ignoring the ever loosening definition of sexual harassment combined with its increasingly retroactive application, what does the man's academic work have to do with these allegations?

Do the excellent lectures he's put online to help millions of students suddenly become illegal material, akin to child pornography?

I find it ironic how the new "politically correct" legions behave increasingly like a subversive fascist movement. "Incorrect" thoughts and opinions become illegal taboos, and alleged "criminals" are assumed guilty without trial.

The irony resulting from the escapades of these so called "social justice warriors" would be comical, if the results weren't so tragic. Walter Lewin's lectures are an incredible resource for the entire world. Taking them down because of alleged misconduct is the height of absurdity. MIT is harming millions of students worldwide who don't have access to any other resources.

The time has come to stop these modern witch trials, and return to a sane legal process. Particularly, innocence until proven guilty.

Not as absurd as you equating private decisions by a privately-run educational institution with legal process. MIT is within its rights to do anything it likes with material it publishes.

MIT is harming millions of students worldwide who don't have access to any other resources.

As we all know there are no other resources available for learning physics on the internet. Surely this heralds a plunge back into the dark ages.

edited for typo

> Not as absurd as you equating private decisions by a privately-run educational institution with legal process.

I just wanted to repeat this bit for emphasis.

MIT does not wield the state's authority. Only the state can effect censorship; private choices are not enforced by state power.

MIT is under no legal obligation to continue to endorse a professor who used his position there as a platform to harass others. I don't see where you're getting "illegal" or "criminal" out of this. (And "without trial" seems like an odd way of describing what the linked article indicated was a pretty thorough internal review.)

Personally, I find a measure of real justice in MIT punishing Lewin for degrading the MIT name by taking what steps they can to deflate his academic legacy. It's the only leverage they have, and it's powerful.

MIT is under a moral obligation to act in the interest of its students, learners worldwide, and science in general.

And on that, we agree.

> Particularly, innocence until proven guilty.

This is how courts work.

This is not how humans work.

Are you suggesting that no action can be taken against anyone by anyone for any reason until a court proves the charge? That's nuts. I am allowed to conclude that someone is guilty or not in my own estimation. Unless I'm a juror it has no force of law, but I can assume someone's guilty without trial NO PROBLEM. Obama's guilty of suppressing evidence of torture. Bush's cronies are guilty of torture. Neither will be tried for any crime. How exactly is my opinion a problem? Should I wait for a court to validate it, or what? Courts can be completely, hilariously, 100% in the wrong. Plessy v Ferguson. Citizens United (arguably, anyway).

As a person, I have freedom of association. If I think someone's a rapey asshole because someone came to me with an accusation, it is -well- within my rights to sever ties. Likewise, OpenCourseWare has no particular obligation to host this guy's stuff.

Nobody is stopping him hosting it himself if it's so useful, or CC licensing it, or handing it to Archive.org. MIT isn't stifling anyone. There is no persecution here.

I say this as someone who 1) probably wouldn't want to watch his lectures due to this but 2) think they should still be available for people who would find them useful. It's too bad MIT decided to take it down. But they're big boys and can make the decision on their own.

Are you suggesting that no action can be taken against anyone by anyone for any reason until a court proves the charge?

I'd settle for "proven by anyone, anywhere", honestly. (In general, obviously not relevant to this instance!)

Society is way too trigger-happy about believing any amount of muck about a person regardless of how flimsy the accusations may be, especially given the current media climate. Not judging someone badly until whatever attack on their character is reasonably proven (empirically, not legally) is the only decent thing to do.

All that said, even if there was photographic evidence, timestamped logs released to the public so that there was no doubt he did what he was accused of, pulling down educational content because of that strikes me as a terribly backwards thing to do.

Yes, idiocy. It likely has more to do with fear of liability rather than political correctness thoguh. I imagine some future student going through "emotional distress" reading works by a "predator" and suing the MIT for millions.

"Particularly, innocence until proven guilty."

Well they performed a review and appear to have found him guilty

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