What did he do that was so bad.
He said a few words.
That isn't proof he is a racist.
You have to look at his actions.
Did he have any history of being av racist.
If not this is about free speech.
103
@John It's about a private college deciding whom they feel is worthy of being on their campus. End of story.
113
@John
even if he isn't, it shows poor judgment. what wonderful expression of truth or opinion did he share that is more "free speech" than socially negative hate speech?
39
@John - When people show you who they really are, believe them. That said, the person was 16 at the time and should not be judged on a solitary incident they appear to be contrite about. As pointed out, this is not about free speech, it's about the right of Harvard to not admit, or expel, someone they believe to not have the moral character befitting a Harvard student.
45
I don’t always agree with David Brooks, but he is spot on this time.
We all get that Harvard has perhaps the most selective and competitive entrance process in the US. One hiccup, and you’re crossed off the list. However, Harvard’s Dean and admissions board come across as narrow minded and self righteous. They want perfection on anything politically correct and visible to the public. The very honest truth is that even the best of us fall short.
It’s their loss. Kyle Kashuv is a stud. He would have “made them proud” someday.
194
@Scott Smith
Your absolutely correct! I do not like most of Mr. Brook's opinions but Harvard has succumbed to the pressure of SJWs and it is their loss if they can be swayed so easily. Clearly Harvard College is no longer the pinnacle of higher education.
15
@Scott Smith This was not an issue of "political correctness". This kid's moral base is irretrievably off the rails His racial slurs are over the top and should offend liberals and conservatives alike. He has no entitlement to taking up valuable space in Harvard's incoming freshman class to the detriment of a more deserving, balanced student who may or may not have as high a GPA or SAT score. Moral character is as much a relevant criterion as academic scores.
82
@Scott Smith To refrain from using slurs and speaking vilely of a group, even "anonymously", is just what "good" people do, not a matter of "political correctness" at all. And at 16, I knew that difference -- because good educators and classmates at school were examples and models different from my own racist father.
** Political correctness is just a popular term for some to bash when they want to behave like jerks.
87
As a Harvard Graduate, I am deeply saddened by the complete and utter lack of backbone at Harvard. Harvard has caved to the radical Left and what Hillary Clinton called the "politics of personal destruction." Who among us at 16 years of age didn't say or even think stupid, reprehensible things? Of course what he said was stupid and terrible. He apologized, and he is only 18 years old. Don't we think he can mature? And isn't this the Harvard that is being sued for discrimination against Asians? Let's not look to Harvard for any time of moral leadership in our country.
288
@Jason McDonald I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I never used the N-word twelve times, even as a kid.
169
@Jason McDonald - Or, maybe the admissions committee knows what it takes to succeed at Harvard, and they look for candidates who possess the moral character, academic ability, and maturity necessary to make it there. They aren't in the business of raising children. There are lots of qualified kids who apply, and most don't have this on their resume.
Your personality is generally set by age three. It's interesting to me that someone went out of their way to make sure Harvard knew about this. Makes me think it wasn't an isolated incident, but maybe more of an example of who he is generally. Stephen Miller comes to mind. But maybe not.
He'll probably bounce back with a show on FOX anyway.
85
@Jason McDonald, conservative or liberal, racism and sexism are dehumanizing, and too many people have gotten away with both for far too long. These issues may not effect the people who feel that this student should have been allowed into Harvard regardless of his ugly remarks, but they affect me and many, many friends, relatives, acquaintances and strangers who are people of color and female. He outed this information himself; Harvard did not air this. He aired it hoping to embarrass the College and share his contrition after publicly announcing that he’d been accepted, as if looking for a way to save face. Until he demonstrates through his future actions that he has changed, it looks like he is “spinning” this in the media by releasing the information.
Harvard made the right call.
102
"Knowledge comes by memorizing information" ??!!?? Really David?
22
"Kashuv’s comments were repulsive — blatantly racist and anti-Semitic. He wrote the N-word 12 times and then explained that he was good at typing that word. “[P]ractice uhhhhhh makes perfect.”
He should have tortured a cat instead -offline !
Either way he's a sick lil puppy.
You want redemption -see a a priest or a shrink.
20
Jeez, Brooksie. Matching up this racist punk kid with Aeschylus is quite a stretch, even for you.
27
It seems to me, given the extraordinary attention this matter is receiving, that both the student & the institution should take a little more time to decide their ultimate actions. First of all, making an ethical decision demands that ideology be eliminated as an consideration. It is troubling that on-line behavior is used to retroactively reverse a decision that has already closed off other opportunities. Students are required to meet a complex schedule of deadlines in order to gain access to these opportunities. There is a significant arguement to be made that the institution comply with those deadlines as well. Once the decision is made to admit a student, that decision should not be reversed without due process, which apparently did not happen in this case. With regard to on-line posts, how many other admissions have been rescinded based on late discovery of on-line information? What are the published standards advising applicants of the conditions by which their admission can be withdrawn after other deadlines have passed? Using racist language is far removed from actually denying opportunity based on race. Just as actual sexual battery is a quantum leap beyond viewing on-line porn in evaluating sexism, a comparable distinction between on-line racist speech and actually committing a racist act needs to be recognized. However Harvard proceeds from this point, it has substantially diminished its public stature with this ideologically motivated punishment.
7
I think Kyle will become a recipient of wingnut welfare after this opinion piece, although I suspect he already has had help from conservative operatives. He’ll be fine.
18
Considering that Harvard’s most esteemed alumnus, Obama, was pushing weed at sixteen I didn’t realize their standards had increased to such nose bleed heights!
10
This is not an isolated incident. According to the Harvard Crimson campus newspaper offers of admission to at least 10 other members of the incoming class were rescinded due to the posting of obscene or racially insensitive memes and comments on a message board for admitted students.
26
Beautifully done. I had similar ruminations about Justice Kavanaugh’s 16 year old offenses and Governor Northam’s somewhat less youthful insensitivity. What defines character is how we each respond to our worst moments. We all have had some if we have lived. I am troubled most by the adult reaction of JUstice Kavanaugh to his youthful misbehavior. Rather than acknowledging his immaturity as a young man, he chose to further humiliate his victim by asserting implicitly that she was either a liar or emotionally unwell (remember the spectacularly patronizing remarks about how his daughter was praying for his accuser?) — and then by, in my view, apparently making obviously disingenuous claims, under oath, about his immature yearbook references to the very type of drinking and sexual behavior that his victim claimed. This seemed to me to show bad character as a 50 something year old adult which was truly disqualifying for the post in a way that his mere youthful misbehavior was not.
24
"Knowledge comes by memorizing information and is measurable by G.P.A."
Information comes from memorization. Knowledge is the ability to take information, organize and formulate it, and then synthesize the ressult to create new knowledge. It's learning how to learn. Information is a bunch of data. Knowledge is Power ~Francis Bacon
16
I certainly don’t agree with Kashuv’s politics and the racism and anti-semitism are disgusting. But he was 16 and he wasn’t blasting it out on social media.
Harvard is setting a terrible precedent as a leader of higher education. They are embracing the divisiveness in the country rather than trying to heal it. What an opportunity missed and what a terrible thing to do to a kid.
8
Better to have sinned and repented, than not to have sinned at all?
1
Ahhh David, I like you. You seem like a reasonable conservative voice in a time where everything seems extreme. I read your column and watch you on PBS. That being said Mr Kashuv isn’t being imprisoned he’s just being denied a spot at Harvard. Young Black and Brown kids are held responsible for their actions at very young ages. For example: Trayvon Martin, The Exonerated Five, Tamir Rice, etc. etc. His actions were reprehensible he’s paying for them. In the long run I believe he’ll be fine. Other children are not so fortunate.
37
I did stupid things when in high school myself but thankfully these were isolated incidents done on a whim, without much thinking, and never repeated.
In this case this was not a matter of few racist postings done on a stupid whim, he was quite persistent over time in this activity. He also was active on alt-right web sites.
My understanding is he knew exactly what he was doing.
24
I often agree with Brooks or at least see his point, but this is not one of those times.
It says a lot that the right can't find a cleaner martyr than Kyle Kashuv.
9
I am Jewish. I was once 16. It was decades ago but never did I use slurs like he did. Go Harvard!
26
David Brooks would like us to believe that Harvard is a meritocracy. It is not. Mr. Kashuv was admitted because it helped Harvard's brand. He's been disenrolled because now he hurts Harvard's brand.
The only mystery here is why any of us should care about fairness or unfairness to Mr. Kashuv. We should be concerned about the wholesale selling of spots at top Universities and the clubby corridors of power from which those of us who have nothing with which to buy our way into Harvard--neither money nor notoriety--are disenfranchised.
12
As a mother of two teenagers I worry that my kids will put something out into the digital stratosphere that they will later regret. Were they to do so, they would face consequences. Kashuv made extremely vulgar and inflammatory statements to his classmates. He may or may not have learned about how wrong these statements were but now he faces consequences for his actions. Very often, the pain of consequences is the impetus for a moral awakening.
17
A beautiful editorial, thank you. How many of us are "morally humble"? I think that's where it has to start; I work on it whenever I'm reminded that being humble is foundational while being right is transactional. Thanks for the reminder, David.
3
The kid responded (to getting caught) by asking Harvard to tell him what he could do to be a better person - not by taking the responsibility to figure that out himself. I hope he takes initiative to become a better person in the future. Right now, it appears that he does not deserve to go to Harvard, notwithstanding whatever entitlement he feels to the contrary.
15
Interesting to note that many of the people lauding Harvard's decision to rescind admission to a teenager for poor judgment and questionable character are the same people that would support "Ban the Box" type state laws prohibiting private employers from discriminating against convicted felons by rejecting them on the grounds of their criminal history.
Apparently the standards for forgiveness and imparting second chances are very selectively (and politically) applied.
14
Harvard should have welcomed the opportunity to educate this young man to a different path and been an inspiration to him, rather than being politically correct. I hope he goes to a great university
10
When exactly did the pursuit of education become a matter of morals?
3
This isn't 1970s. It's 2019 and he should have known it was wrong well before the age of 16. I DID grow up in the 1970's, listening to one parent using racial slurs about most minorities found in Chicago, using some of the words this kid did. I was eight (!), and it was 1977, when I started to realize my Dad had a problem, and was being blindly unfair and unkind to certain types of people. And that was without "PC" culture to raise our social awareness of the toll language and stereotypes have taken on minority groups. My dad has evolved and is regretful of his younger self, but honestly, shouldn't this country just be DONE shepherding white people through this evolution of moral character? We've figured it out already....get on board, or face the consequences. He may have a high GPA, but seems to have a low EQ (emotional quotient). Harvard has the right to reject a student that couldn't understand these simple truths by age 16.
20
"The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy."
What?
Merit for what? Being black, not being Asian, throwing the ball well, having the right parents, contributing enough money, going to the right schools?
Anyway, if Harvard doesn't want me, I don't want Harvard. Very simple. Go elsewhere.
But a glaring double standard on display: Joy Reid continues to sit at MSNBC after her homophobic comments about which she lied and later barely, if at all, apologized, comments made as an adult. And this kid with a brain that isn't generally complete until 24 gets taken to the woodshed? Kind of disgusting, liberal hypocrites.
6:10 pm EST Tue
11
So you equate msnbc with Harvard? I don’t really see that as clear reasoning.
3
Harvard Shmarvard. Worthless swamp land ever since the Wurst Haus closed.
5
Kyle is a racist far right believer in high powered assist rifle rights. Still!
He denies danger and espouses scape gloating racism and Jew hating.
When he’s held accountable he plays the victim trying to get into Harvard
Hey maybe we should make him president fits in perfectly
6
David Brooks, I think you should sponsor Kyle Kashuv's admission to the University of Chicago, your own Alma Mater. Further, you should commit to underwriting the entire cost of Kashuv's four years at UC. Then, you can report back to us on how your investment in Kashuv's redemption has paid off.
20
There are a lot of smart kids never write the N word to begin with (even as a joke) dying to get into Harvard.
18
"The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy"
Unless you're Asian, of course.
6
Would the NY Times have made this a front-page story if the university concerned were any one of hundreds of universities other than Harvard? Maybe the reporting says something about an excessive attention the NY Times gives to a connection with Harvard.
6
Harvard is competitive and this mattered.
Hey Brooks, what if he were a Palestinian instead of Israeli sending off comparable screed?
12
Kids like Kyle Kashuv do not deserve to go to Harvard University. They need to learn take responsibility for their actions first.
4
Let me remind readers that when a 16 year old black kid commits so much as an infraction, white America treats him like a grown man and a monster. Without thought, White America condemns him–often times for life, into a harsh, unapologetic penal system. That is, if he wasn't killed by police first. White America will excuse their racism by choosing to further degrade everything he is about by chastising and deriding his parents, his neighborhood, his school, his clothing, his hair. With!Out!Hes!i!ta!tion! White America tries everything they can to revoke his right to exist.
This is not about moral character this is about moral relativism.
Truth is, if this boy gets treated half as unfairly (for his outright hateful words) as the black kids do? He will still enjoy enormous advantage and privilege in his adult life.
18
Those who arrive by the 15-minutes of fame rule, depart by the 15-minutes of fame rule.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
4
Is it just me, but it seems obvious that there's a correlation between his racist and anti-Semitic texts and his conservative viewpoints.... . Just more denial by the right in America.
Way to go Harvard!
11
What if you were Black or this student was referring to your child? It is a harsh decision,but life is full of them. Sure,as a teenager,anyone of us could make stupid comments or bad decisions, but at age 16 you should know better than to make racial slurs.
11
Well said.
1
Yeah, that's how the Allies won WWII. We wisely gave Fascists an opportunity for redemption.
6
This was no youthful indiscretion, but a a character revelation. Even at 16, one knows better. At my Queens Catholic high school in the 1960s, after the school admitted a few black students, some white students formed an organization they named SPONGE, or the Society to Prevent Negroes Getting Everything, although they used a different N-word. Many of us were appalled and protested; we even started an alternative newspaper when the school's refused to print our protest letters. The point is, many of us kids knew better. Tough luck, Kashuv.
20
Does anyone else think it’s kind of gross that he used the Parkland shooting to weasel his way out of this?
11
Why do so many commentators seem to know that in
his heart, Mr. Kashuv is a vile character ?
Perhaps they should read more teenage texts/emails/messages
to put matters into perspective.
Who decided it was fine for African Americans to use the
"N" word in rap songs, public and private speech but no
other human may use it ?
Who are these "Thought Police" .
For those who think Harvard Freshman should not
be exposed to such a vile person, I can only say
grow up and open your eyes.
Life is not college and college is not life.
Meanwhile Harvard openly and privately discriminates
against Asian applicants and the Liberals who worry so
much about Snowflakes being forever damaged should they
encounter Mr. Kashuve, worry not a whit about why so
many overly qualified applicants are turned down because
of their ethnic backgrounds.
Hypocrites All.
2
Why is it that the GOP is always telling us to look past the racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia of its members? When will they start reflecting what makes GOP policies so attractive to groups like Turning Point USA, The Proud Boys, The Klan, and other racist and fascist organizations?
11
I read what this student wrote. Pretty ugly racist stuff. He didn’t just step a little bit over the line. He stepped way, way over the line with the stuff he wrote, including typing out the n-word over and over and over again and trying to make a joke out of it. He’s obviously remorseful that he got caught and that he is losing his admission to Harvard because of what he wrote (as anyone in his position would be), but is he really a different person now who truly renounces racism? None of us know the answer to that. The burden of proof is on him. Harvard is under no obligation to give him the benefit of the doubt.
19
just another "old boys school"....
2
Its precisely this mercy and forgiveness always afforded to young white men by old white men that results in 16 year old boys behaving like entitled little sociopaths. Lets break the cycle.
19
By disinviting this student, Harvard has taught him the greatest lesson of all. Don't write anything on the internet, not even comments to be published on nyt.com :)
6
Ousted by Harvard, and the sensitive and caring people who gave us:
Ted Cruz
Henry Kissinger
Bill O'Reilly
William Kristol
Al Franken
Antonin Scalia
Jeffrey Skilling
Bernard Law
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
6
The kid was a jerk. Harvard would never have admitted him had it known. There’s no real reason to think he’s truly changed either - he adores the racist Donald Trump for heavens sake. Good call by Harvard, Give that spot to a deserving student of color.
11
"The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy."
How can you or anybody say this with a straight face?
Look on the bright side; becoming embittered at the liberal elites who kept him out of Harvard due to his racist writings will be a great way to start off his career as a Conservative. Maybe he can get a guest column at Brietbart?
6
David Brooks pretends that Kyle Kashuv is simply a decent Parkland kid who merely held a different opinion on how to deal with mass shootings at schools--a sort of conservative version of Emma Gonzalez,.
Not quite. After Kashuv "sincerely" apologized for his multitude of racist rants, he became a front man ("front-boy") for Turning Point USA, a rabid, crypto-fascist student organization run by Charlie Kirk and financed by the legendary right-wing billionaire, Foster Friess, (the same Friess who explained that when he was young, girls would put aspirins between their legs as a contraceptive.) One of Kashuv's colleagues at TPUSA was Candace Owens, a black woman thought slavery produced happiness and has only praise for Hitler.
Turning Point USA specializes in spying on "left-wing" professors in order to get them fired. It also enjoys using ghost voters to manipulate college elections. Recently, dozens of its members quit and accused TPUSA of unrelenting raciial harassment.
No surprise that Kyle Kashuv is a hero to David Brooks, and his acolytes in the comment thread.
After all, what could be more conservative--run your racist mouth, over and over, and then express shock that Harvard doesn't want you. The first lesson conservatives learn is, How To Be Victim, No Matter What.
17
16 is old enough to know not to use the hate-filled language this young man did. Honestly 7 is old enough. It was certainly old enough for my children. I applaud Harvard’s decision. The school understands the distinction between a developing brain and racism. Yes there is free speech but there are also consequences to what one says. I hope his contrition is real and not just a ploy to get into Harvard. But given that he wasn’t contrite until he got caught, I do wonder.
9
If everything I said or wrote at the age of 16 were available for the public to see, modern day society would have fed me to the wolves. The pervasive idiocy that flourishes in the under-developed brains of 16 year old boys is perhaps only matched by the idiocy in a 15 year old. We learn and we grow. No matter how mature we may have been (or perceived ourselves to have been), I doubt that any of us were free from cringeworthy and insensitive behavior.
Harvard does what Harvard wants in this situation, and who cares? He'll learn his lesson, go to a good school, and, with some skill and luck, become successful. What matters more is our ability to forgive a kid who isn't proud of a terrible mistake he made during a private, sleep-deprived conversation while elbow deep in the socially toxic environment that is teenage life in America. Let's take a good look at our own mistakes at that age before we condemn others.
3
If I were you, Mr. Brooks, I'd be worried about my own opportunities for redemption.
You're 57. You've been saying things for years that don't reflect well on your ability to examine the facts, or reason critically.
You went to University of Chicago, a school arguably every bit as academically prestigious as is Harvard. You're not the person to argue that the opportunity of a great education automatically makes someone better.
13
Its always fascinating to me that racists never think to apologize until they are caught. And the apology is most sincere when there are real consequences.
My loved ones, my friends, at any age, have NEVER used that kind of ugly language. It’s NEVER just a “joke”. I NEVER heard it at home. It didn’t come from nowhere. Mr. Brooks, you don’t need to feel sorry for the student. He has a future on Fox News.
10
How about racist language, even two years old, is a bigger tell about a person than their GPA?
It would be far more alarming if they weighed his comments less than his grades. Wouldn't, in this insanely competitive academic and hate-filled world, rather see any college take a person who does not, even for an evening, share racist hateful language, than a kid who didn't work hard enough on a final exam. Give me the student with a B average who doesn't have a mean bone in his/her body and doesn't tolerate racism - PLEASE.
6
What about the TPUSA membership?
I would have recommended revoking admission based on that fact alone. Harvard did the right thing in my opinion and their action will most likely not be regretted.
5
I'm a public middle-school teacher, and am well aware that young people do stupid things. The 12/13-year-olds I teach have only half a working brain by that age, and it's not the better half. Part of my job seems to be forgiving my students for doing stupid and objectionable things.
That said, I believe that Harvard made the correct choice. If young Mr. Kashuv has really learned from what Mr. Brooks calls "his repulsive comments", then good for him. He's a bright, hard-working young man who will without a doubt wind up being educated at a first-rate college or university.
But these days in the United States we're very short on personal accountability, and it is my belief that our present state of affairs is largely because of that lack. Mr. Kashuv is being held accountable in a small way for having done a very objectionable thing. It's a small start, but it is a start.
10
Actions have consequences. This kid learned a good lesson early in life thanks to Harvard's actions.
6
You learn from your mistakes when you face consequences from them, not when they're totally absolved. Look at Trump - he's never faced a serious consequence in his life, and he's incapable of recognizing his own failures. He acts like he can't lose because, so far, his failures haven't had a major impact on his life.
6
This isn't 1979 and his comments aren't from twenty years ago. I'm 58 and in my lifetime it has not been acceptable to use "the N word" (albeit I was born and live in Canada so maybe users of that word get a pass in different parts of the USA?).
Contrition is cheap when it comes after discovery.
5
I'm sure the kids will thrive at Liberty University.
4
The whole point in striving to go to a place like Harvard is so that later in life you can say, I went to Harvard. Otherwise, just another money/privilege/status con.
I’d like to hear what people would think about a school rescinding an offer given to a black student who was found to have posted comments or song lyrics using the n-word.
Unfortunately, those who fail to shame 'n' shun in a timely fashion get shamed 'n' shunned themselves. It's that old Reverse Golden Rule: Do unto others before they do unto you.
No one should use that kind of language. Use of the N word is endemic in teens of all backgrounds and races - music is rife with it. However, using offensive language is not indicative of lack of moral grounding or future infamy. Surely Harvard is full of students that use the N word on a daily basis. The school should accept him on a probationary basis. Harvard shouldn't take the moral high ground when they have produced some very notorious graduates.
Ted Kaczynski
Jeffrey Skilling
Amy Bishop
Rajat Gupta
Matthew Martoma
John Thain
Dan Halutz
2
In rejecting Kyle Kashuv, Harvard grasped the opportunity to seek redemption for the sin of admitting Jared Kushner.
Harvard is on the true path to wisdom, Mr. Brooks. Too bad you're too busy pontificating to notice real spiritual growth.
1
Can’t he go to Trump University? The greatest university in America? Oops.
3
Bravo David Brooks. I follow you in this paper and Fridays on NPR. Among journalists you appear to be singly involved with the soul. Not a preacher but a man who thinks.. a lot. Harvard can continue to be regarded as the highest achievement to which a student can inspire. But it’s sanctimonious attitude belies what keeps it doors open. Who was it that said: “the quality of mercy......
An attentive fan and supporter
2
On this one, David gets it right.
1
This kid should eschew college altogether and audition for FOX.
He'd be a shoo-in.
3
Harvard's mission is education, and education has both a moral and an intellectual dimension. The decision to rescind Kyle Kashuv's admission had to have been very difficult for Harvard. But there are some levels of in-your-face moral depravity that must seem too challenging to correct. Kashuv's campaign for guns in schools and his repeated appearances before organizations whose roots are more than entangled in a history of American racism--think, e.g., Turning Point USA -underscores that Kashuv's offensive and puerile racism of three years ago continues to live on in his mind and behavior--maybe because he oppotunistically has found he enjoys and benefits from his new notoriety.
In any case, admission to Harvard is a very competitive process. There were many other very talented applicants from all kinds of ideological backgrounds without the weight of Kashuv's moral baggage. Harvard apparently decided they had a better chance to grow morally and intellectually under the ministrations of a Harvard education.
3
I would have pushed this out before it "surfaced". If he had become a different person, he would have been the one to say this is what I was and this is who I am now. The result may have been the same- Harvard rescinding their offer of admission, but he would have made his case. The question of whether he learned or is still learning from this experience is still there regardless of his political views. Had he been ultra liberal and done the same actions, he still should have put this out himself and not tried to "hope" it would surface. Even those of us not smart enough to pass Harvard's selection process, know that something on the Internet is there forever.
3
Parkland was a horrific tragedy and NO child should ever have to say they survived such a thing. That any child can even function after surviving something like is amazing.
However, many conservatives have bashed fellow Parkland student, David Hogg, for pulling the "victim card" and showboating. But isn't that what Kashuv is doing by saying he's a different person, "especially in the aftermath of Parkland"?
Unfortunately, Kashuv's remorse somehow doesn't feel genuine, and his expectations of such entitlement as entrance to Harvard seem a bit transparent.
5
Using celebrity to campaign against common sense gun regulation, and for even more human slaughter device access, IS a moral choice. Let him apologize for that and get back to us.
8
@Mike Holloway
Excellent comment !!!
2
Mr. Brooks,
You seem to be making quite a few assumptions when it comes to this young man's character. What leads you to believe that "He’s handled himself with an earnest sincerity."?
In addition, I find interesting your rhetorical conclusion:
"It’s hard to know if Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments, but if he has, wouldn’t Harvard want a kid who is intellectually rigorous and morally humble? Wouldn’t it want a student who could lend a hand to all the perfect résumé children who may not have yet committed a disgrace, but who will?".
What proof do you have that he is "morally humble" and that he "could lend a hand to all the perfect résumé children who may not have yet committed a disgrace, but who will?".
Finally, how can you be so sure that there are "children who may not have yet committed a disgrace, but who will?".
You are, obviously, entitled to your opinion, however you are making too many assumptions.
11
I have 3 grand children who have been in high school during the time of trump, bullying, racism, law breaking, guns carried into schools has increased exponentially as Trumps racism, bullying and selling of guns as a problem solving tool for your fear of others goes unchecked and no one holds him accountable for the damaging cultural environment in which our children are being raised. These kids are not ignorant, they are very aware. With every freedom there is a responsibility. When we do not address that responsibility we do a disservice to our children.
5
By the way, you’ll be glad to know that Liberty University explicitly prohibits this type of speech, and imposes penalties ranging from verbal warning to expulsion.
Maybe they need a lecture or three on progressive refusal to allow speech to breathe free?
They also fine you fifty bucks for getting caught at a dance, so Kevin Bacon just better watch out.
6
Kashuv can find redemption at his local community or state college. He has no entitled right to go to Harvard and Harvard has every right to not admit someone who has demonstrated such poor judgment, empathy, and maturity. He is not going to jail, or being denied a chance to still get an education, but he is facing appropriate consequences for his behavior. Maybe some day he'll understand this better. Where is the second chance for black kids like Trayvon Martin? Oh, too bad, they don't get one.
11
Why has Harvard not taken down the names of the slave owners? Vassal, etc.? I know nothing really about this kid/guy. Totally wrong on what he was saying. Having worked in corrections, I hear that word all the time by the Black inmates and cringe when I hear it. I wish they would not use it. But Harvard has its own skeletons but wish to ignore it!
1
"It’s hard to know if Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments, but if he has, wouldn’t Harvard want a kid who is intellectually rigorous and morally humble?"
It is indeed hard to know if Kashuv is repentant, or if he is insincere and unrepentant. That uncertainty should be enough to revoke his admission and give some other deserving applicant the chance of a lifetime. Why should Harvard gamble on Kashuv?
7
I’m glad Harvard did rescind Kashuv’s acceptance. We currently have many racist, sexist. bigoted, misogynistic males running our federal, state and local governments. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, for one, is currently attempting to start a war with Iran to divert attention from trump, Kris Kobach is a white supremacist whom trump hired to prove that bazillions of non citizens voted in the last presidential election.
Harvard will have no problem filling that vacancy with a deserving student who is not a racist.
6
Sorry! Harvard is an earned privilege. Not a right. 95% of AMAZINGLY QUALIFIED "kids" must execute Plan B. Too bad Kashuv squandered 5+ GPA for one (do we KNOW just 1??) night of poor judgment. How did his cohorts react? Did they correct him, out him, or .. enjoy his "ish" but exercised presence of mind not to jeopardize their college futures?
What about "good kids" who DRINK + DRIVE just ONE time but .. kill inocents. What about 1 night of UNPROTECTED SEX resulting in INCURABLE disease or unwanted pregnancy? ... CONSEQUENCES can't always be walked back!!
If Kashuv is half the man he, Trump + his 300K followers likely think he is ... he'll thrive no matter what school he ultimately attends. Many ultra-successful folk went to non-ivies .. so we know it isn't end of the/his world.
He has an elevated platform. He's subject of NY Times article + major TV news outlets. This could be his springboard to doing good in the world.
4
As a rich white male I am happy to see rich white males held to a higher standard.
3
It’s not just the internet. Look at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh. These dumb things we do as young people have an inconvenient way of surfacing at just the worst moment, social media or no social media. Brooks asks an important question, how much leeway should we allow for stupid, unthinking teen behavior? I really don’t know. But I do know that if stupid, unthinking behavior is just shrugged off then even more stupid and unthinking behavior will follow. Whether Harvard has made the right decision, the fair decision, the truly ethical decision I do not know. But I do know that Harvard’s action does make the point, to young people and to the rest of us, that actions have consequences. And that’s a very good thing for all of us to remember.
8
I see conservatives trying to make this kid into a martyr because he had his admission to Harvard rescinded for making racist comments. Just so I get this straight, am I hearing these conservatives saying they are in favor of "entitlements"... so long the "entitlement" was promised to a white male?
4
After reading this piece it’s obvious that Mr.Brooks never took the time to do any research,otherwise he would have mentioned Mr.Kashuvs attacks on the actress Alyssa Milano on the night of March 15th of this year.His collaboration with Jack Posobiec a known political troll and subsequent trolling of Professor AlanRosenblatt Of American University.Mr.Kashuv has not demonstrated any actions of true acts of contrition.It was only when he got caught that he wrote his letter.When his actions are of the quality of people such as Derek Black backed by actions and sincere acts of contrition can we move on and forgive.
6
IMO, this recent decision is about moral grandstanding and nothing about education. And I agree with Brook's that it is far better to educate than humiliate. Seems this is a PR moment most of all, made for the gotcha culture.
As an alum (grad, though, so not the real deal in Harvard's view), I can promise you the campus isn't a collection of angels gently drifting amongst one another. I had someone deface a 65-page paper I wrote, leaving handwritten insults all over the front page, claiming I had no right to the topic. I have no idea how they knew about or got my work. My professor had left it in my open mailbox -- but, uh, do Harvard people really go reading other people's papers left in mailboxes? Apparently so. So much for moral high ground.
1
What interesting thoughts. Racism in any form is awful. As Christ said", He that is without sin, cast the first stone." Harvard Med School does have a neurology depatment that could tell these decision makers that the male brain is not completely formed at 16 in regard to judgement. Have they noticed the average 16 year old male driver has had an accident in his first year of driving? Cheaper insurance policies accrue at 25 for males. Essentially all male medical interns and first year lawyers are 25 to 26. Sometimes cutting someone a little slack is a good idea. History's great hero of racial equality, honest Abe, failed repeatedly in his economic and political efforts prior to his presidency. The voters cut him some slack even under the attacks of the media that were substantial. Perhaps this failure in a contrite young man should be forgiven.
1
Harvard is afraid of its students. It is afraid of being a thought leader. It is run by a committee of bland non-thinkers. It's days of glory are over except among those "right-minded-same-thinkers-who-hate-by-feigning-victimhood."
1
It seems odd to me that one can apologise for previous juvenile behaviour and have it not accepted. Are we in the era of the Spanish Inquisition? I would never have expected them these days.
1
in this case, his derelict behavior is persistent.
5
@The Falcon
You speak like the Spanish Inquisition.
When I first read this story, I felt a bit sorry for Mr. Kashuv. He, like most of his generation, grew up within the constant, indulgent gaze of the internet. I could understand how a teenager could get caught unexpectedly, goofing around with friends, and say some impolitic things.
But this is not that. This young man was living a political life, working for Turning Point USA, speaking at the NRA and advocating for less gun control, even after the MSD HS disaster.
Before that, apparently, he was running around telling anyone who would listen how he rated young ladies' attractiveness based on their skin color.
It's good he wont be rewarded with Harvard for his choices.
He'll survive, and if this doesn't provoke some change his heart, he'll learn that words have real-life consequences.
13
One's uncertainty as to whether Kashuv's moral redemption is genuine is exacerbated by the fact that lots of applicants would say nearly anything to get into Harvard, as the admissions committee is doubtless aware. They've apparently decided to put more weight on how the kid acted when there wasn't a lot of pressure or attention on him than on how he did when the stakes were quite high. Harvard has a lot of experience with that kind of thing, and it's hard to criticize them for deciding on that basis.
8
Sin is always an opportunity for redemption just as repentance is necessary for sanctification, but Harvard is not salvation and amendment of life is not a quick and easy journey.
1
Kyle is being punished, at the age of 18 for something he said when he was 16. His argument is that he should not now be held responsible for something he did two years ago. Two years ago he was immature, and now, that he is mature he regrets what he said. How long are we to be held responsible for our past actions? "I'm not the man now, that I was then", is a common defense used by those seeking leniency. Unfortunately we are eternally connected to our past by an unbroken line in time and our past is part of who we are today. I sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh. Should he be held responsible for something he did at the age of 18 when he is 54, and has led a good life since that time? What about the man who at the age of forty is arrested for a conviction of armed robbery he committed at 18? At the age of forty he is mayor of a small town, a responsible father, member of the church, and coaches little league. Given the short span of time elapsed since Kyle made repeated racist comments, I think Harvard's decision is just. I hope he will succeed in life despite the poor choices he has made in his youth, as many others have.
4
A long time ago, I was 16 - as were my several friends. We were all guilty of doing incredibly stupid and outrageous things. Some things were done simply for the outrage, with no more thought behind it than that. But we all grew up and are now productive, well-meaning adults who are repulsed at some of the things we did. We improved with age. It's part of the maturation process. While one doesn't need Harvard more than any other school to mature, and certainly not all teenagers do something as heinous as this teenager did, he should not be unduly punished for displaying the ugly side of being 16.
1
@Jim
Many of us did things during our youth that we would not repeat, however he does not seem to have learned anything. He seems to be unrepentant. So, he is not being "unduly punished for displaying the ugly side of being 16".
5
I don't get this excuse. I wasn't doing stupid things when I was 16. I didn't drink, smoke, or take drugs. I was a good student. My major hobby was playing guitar. I don't buy that every 16 year old boy is a total idiot with no self-control.
9
Character is built by making amends even though you might not be forgiven. And not going to Harvard never killed anyone.
7
I find it telling that in such a diverse school, no students of color have come forward to vouch for his character. On the contrary, some have stated that he was quite free with racial slurs on other occasions as well. I think Harvard acted properly in withdrawing his offer. His apology appears entirely self-serving. He simply wants to avoid the consequences. How sad that so many “conservatives” are rallying to his defense. They, not Harvard, are preventing him from learning the right lessons from his mistakes.
9
If living through the Parkland School Shooting didn't put Kyle Kashuv on a path to re-considering his thoughts and actions, Mr. Brooks, what possible impact do you think Harvard might have had on him?
Consider your own colleague, Ross Douthat. Harvard seems to produce at least its share of graduates who become even more, not less, full of themselves, as a result of the experience.
7
Everybody has made mistakes as bad which means this is not about the kid; it's about Harvard.
Harvard decided - for good reasons or not - that they could not handle the situation (of his admission) and canceled it.
The situation which arose will have to be handled elsewhere.
1
As an alumna, I have interviewed close to a hundred incredibly deserving applicants to Harvard over the years. Precisely one of those kids was admitted. To all these folks who seem to feel so oddly compassionate towards what they brush away as adolescent hijinks, I would ask where they then draw the line. Hindsight is exquisitely 20/20 when a coveted college acceptance is on the line. Why do I doubt that this kid planned to bring a sincere spirit of reconciliation and remorse along with his twin XL sheets? There are SO MANY equally well-deserving candidates out there, many of whom managed to achieve extraordinary scores and grades while also (magically!) managing to avoid racist discourse. This boy can choose to go elsewhere. The other glaring point here is that his dead classmates have no such luxury of choice. I am proud that my alma mater is willing to take a stand against this kind of hate speech, no matter how old the perpetrator may be. Indeed, as Brooks nobly and cringily notes, "Sometimes sin is an opportunity for redemption." It's also sometimes an opportunity to learn consequences, and a private university is in no way beholden to hand out redemption to kids who think it's funny to insult their black classmates. Case closed in my opinion.
25
Mr. Brooks quotes Aeschylus as follows: “Even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” The translation he quotes is by Edith Hamilton and is infamous for making Aeschylus seem a Christian before there were any Christians. The word “grace” in that translation conjures up the idea of Christian grace, but in Aeschylus’ Greek the word is “charis” and simply means “favor.” Another translator, George Theodoridis, renders the word as “gift,” thus cleansing it of Christian overtones. More seriously, the word “God” (capitalized, no less) in the translation quoted by Brooks is, in Aeschylus’ Greek, plural: Aeschylus does not say “God”: he says says “gods” (daimonon). That same Christianizing translation was famously quoted by Robert Kennedy when he delivered to a Black audience the news of Martin Luther King’s death, and the audience naturally reacted as if he were quoting the Bible (“grace . . . God”) It’s a very pretty translation, to be sure, but we must not call it Aeschylus.
9
Mr. Brooks, perhaps there is much simpler explanation for Harvard's decision. Maybe, just maybe, the Harvard admissions committee wasn't convinced of his sincerity. Overt racism and anti-Semitism, particularly when there is an assumption of privacy, are rarely the mistakes of youth, but rather a framework of thought built upon specific beliefs. Mr. Kashuv is clearly intelligent and studious, which rules out the more common excuse of ignorance for his postings. I appreciate that Mr. Kashuv was underage, but his comments suggest much more than simple immaturity, and do indicate a much more serious problem with his moral character.
11
The conservative outpouring of support for this undisputed racist in the name of rehabilitation and reformation is not surprising at all. Conservative political philosophy usually rejects principles of reformative justice in favor retribution. That's why our prisons are mercilessly filled with people who's only real crime was being born in the wrong neighborhood with the wrong skin. Many of them never get a meaningful education, before or after their crime - and conservative defunding of their schools makes sure of that. They do not get a red carpet job offer out of high school or college. Rather they get overpoliced from school to prison. But for a white kid who gets caught for his racism, it is too cruel a punishment for him not to get to go to Harvard! Why? Because he's been rehabilitated and become a better person?! So the real conservative philosophy is apparently that a right to education and the right to a new beginning after a "moral misstep" apply to whites, but no one else. It's the same utter hypocritical hogwash that has come to dominant conservative politics. The Twitter echo chambers that are propping up this poor, helpless racist white kid are a reminder that no tenet of conservatism - not even so-called fundamental justice -- is so iron clad that it cannot be compromised to advance white privilege, especially if it means perpetuating more toxicity in our country's political dialog.
10
I wish the NYT comment section came with a wrap sheet for every anonymous poster so that before they condemn someone for what they did when they were SIXTEEN, we can see the entirety of the body of work that was their teenage years and early 20s. Every word, every text message, every private interaction you had.
4
To Charlie Portland ME: I've said "... some completely idiotic thing ..." testing boundaries of free speech and listeners' tolerance. Sure! But never hurtful and hateful speech because my character does not allow such and because although I have a right to my ideas, I do not have the right to hurt others. My rights end at the tip of the other person's nose, so to speak.
Times change and norms, and on we go with the impact of technology on human life, but what hurts still hurts, and hate and evil remain hate and evil!
I am 100% behind Harvard's decision in the Kashuv matter despite the mistakes (support of slavery and its aftermath) Harvard has made over the years. Harvard's withdrawal of Kashuv's acceptance sends a very loud message to those who would seek to use the nearly indescribable respect an Ivy league university degree confers for disrespectful purposes! Thank God guts and bravery have not disappeared totally from the American scene!
2
This is a bit rich coming from Harvard, famous for its racist admission practices. So, a bit rich, too, for Brooks to call Harvard Admissions the "epicenter of the meritocracy," unless race is merit. Harvard has staked out its course for the far edge of prog schooling over the past several years in an unmistakable way, so it's hard to see this as much of an exception. Harvard is at the leading edge of prog purifying and punishing.
I know nothing about Mr. Kashuv, but I do hope that he follows the path laid out by Mr. Brooks here. To know how idiotic and cruel one can be, to know human fallibility in oneself, and so to have the wisdom and grace to forgive for others--that's something one probably wouldn't learn at Harvard.
He will look back and thank Harvard for saving him. If he has any intellectual merit he is far better off striking it on his own without the having the crutch of a Ivy League degree. Forget Club Harvard and let yourself be challenged in the real world.
2
I read what he said and it was despicable and violent-- and shared in a Google doc. (What are these kids thinking?) Has he grown and changed? Maybe. Was he able to give evidence of such growth, other than just say he has changed? Did he take complete ownership of his wrongdoing, or was there some deflecting?
And the main point- Harvard isn't saying anything, as they should not. Is it possible that they have seen more evidence than what has been shown? Have they spoken to school personnel? Have other students come forward to give more examples? How much of a pattern was this?
We have no way of knowing- and that is my point. We need to get off the "outrage train" and stop judging from afar. I guarantee if Harvard did not rescind his admission there would be other people outraged about that decision. FYI, Harvard rescinded offers just a year or so ago for racial slurs used in a supposedly private forum. So, they are being consistent.
We should all hope this young man takes his punishment and learns from it. He can still go to another college, excel and apply there for grad school.
1
Knowledge comes by memorizing information?
You're describing Siri, Cortana, or Alexa, not a 21st-century student. The days when you could design academic examinations that merely tested a student's ability to regurgitate information ended with the advent of Google Glass, smartwatches, and Bluetooth technologies. Today's students need to be able to use information they learn in the classroom to analyze novel problems. Your smartphone can't do that. Yet.
Maybe David needs to take a college class again. (He might also learn that wisdom does not renovate hearts; cardiac surgeons do that job.) Let Harvard make their own decisions with the information they have. I'm sure that they are not as worried about missing out on an Einstein as they are about almost admitting another Kaczinsky.
Still, this was a fine piece of 19th-century moralizing. Keep up the work! As the revered moralist David Hume once said,"We fancy the peace of society to be at stake in every decision concerning [morality]; and 'tis evident, that this concern must make our speculations appear more real and solid, than where the subject is, in a great measure, indifferent to us."
1
Not getting into Harvard is not the end of the world. He'll be fine, and have learned something humbling about the world, and about expectations of privacy. Maybe Harvard could forgive him, but what about the minority students who attend, or who didn't get in? That it's okay to accept a kid who really loved typing the N-word until he got caught and apologized profusely. I say this is an important lesson for him.
210
@edv961
I agree completely. This has not ended his future. It has changed his future, and hopefully for the better. There are many that wish to be so fortunate. Hopefully he really thinks about them.
13
@edv961 Listen to rap or go into "certain neighborhoods" and report back on all the bad people you found who must be shunned for life because they do so without being a punk kid showing off with nasty language among other youth. He was status-seeking then among his peers, must like Harvard is to this day. He should be happy to avoid that institution of once intellectual prowess, but no more.
4
I don't think Harvard should have rescinded his admission IF his repentance struck them as sincere. Only they know whether it did...to them...sound complete. I would have erred on the side of keeping him at Harvard.
Mr. Brooks has no evidence that Harvard's decision shows "a misunderstanding of how moral character develops.” It’s mere speculation, and it's implausible. Here’s another, more plausible hypothesis, to think about: when racism costs people something, perhaps they will rethink their racism, perhaps they will learn that racism is unacceptable to some, because it’s unacceptable, period. When racism costs people nothing, perhaps they will think that no one who really matters really has a problem with racism, and perhaps they will think that it isn’t really wrong. Rescinding the offer of admission is not the same thing as failing to forgive. Rescinding the offer is a way of attaching consequences to immoral, unacceptable behavior. This strikes me as “how to build moral character 101.” Brooks gets an “F” in my grade book.
10
For all those arguing that this is a free speech issue, I should remind you that Harvard also has the right to express its freedom of speech. By rescinding this kid's acceptance, Harvard is expressing its values and its disgust for people it deems to have low moral character, lack of foresight, and an inability to thrive in the highly diverse environment that is his future. Harvard rejected thousands of kids with inflated high school grades and 34 ACT scores. Not only is this kid a dime-a-dozen, but his political and racial views make him a pariah in the real world these days. This kid could not get hired on to a police force in the Bay Area these days. There are many institutions and organizations that are aggressively competing for the best and brightest minds out there, and that requires selecting from all communities, including communities of color. The diverse workforce this kid will encounter will shock him to his core. He will not be comfortable with his co-workers, and his co-workers will not be comfortable with him.
This desire for extremely conservative, or even racist people to be accepted by liberal and diverse institutions and organizations baffles me. I guess they seek to have credibility conferred upon them by these places. I suspect that most of the people here advocating for this kid are over the age of 60. You should know that this kid's (and your kids') future will be severely limited by his 1950's attitude toward people of other races and religion.
7
When I was in grade school two sisters from the Eastern Bloc entered my class. They were bullied mercilessly day in and day out for having the “wrong” clothes. Children jeered at them, saying they smelled. Even then it was clear to some that discrimination not only is wrong but interferes with learning. Age isn’t an excuse in the Harvard case. Racism isn’t a lack of maturity; it is a learned behavior.
Harvard has the right to say all conduct interfering with the educational environment and damaging its reputation - plagiarism, abuse, antisocial behavior etc. - is grounds for dismissal or non-admittance. For every student who has the time and means to indulge in online antics there are a hundred busting their behinds to achieve and make a difference.
If the student had accepted the University’s decision and reflected on his own failure quietly one could believe he had learned his lesson. Going public and receiving support from people who are pushing the utterly groundless fantasy of the “liberal elite” is a continuation of behavior outside the realm of academic endeavor.
5
This should not be up for discussion. Racism is simply not going to be tolerated. That this child would do this says much about his family and how he was raised.
Conservative (racists) can't hide behind free speech. Yes, you are free to be a racist.
And yes, decent institutions can judge you based on your exercise of free speech if you are exercising your right to be a racist - that is part of the right to free speech entitled to decent people as well as racists.
2
I'd have a much easier time buying this young man's contrition for his past racist statements if he weren't still associated with Turning Point USA, a faux-grass-roots organization that's finding itself embroiled in a new racism controversy seemingly every single week (an association he only relinquished this past week after Harvard's decision came to light). TPUSA may not be Aryan Nations, but association with it is still a black mark in my book. And while I doubt anyone at Harvard really feared Kashuv would burn a cross or hang a noose on campus once enrolled, they may have seen him as the kind of person who'd go seeking controversy by inviting someone like Milo Yiannopoulos or Ann Coulter to campus just to make a scene. I hope Kashuv is truly contrite and reflective on his past bad decisions, and if he is, I hope he finds an opportunity somewhere to learn and thrive. But I'm not willing to bet any money on that, and I don't blame Harvard for not being willing to either.
200
@Doug Gillett - I'd say he's less likely than ever to be contrite, and less likely than ever to dissaociate himself from any organization that would stand by his side and defend him against a mob that wants his head on a platter. Just look at these comments!
Social media amplifies moral outrage, and the outsize reaction of the public to the failings of a 16 year old are likely to make him a hardened, angry man. I don't defend his choices, but he's a kid, and we are adults. We should know better.
5
EXACTLY!
Something tells me that Mr. Kashuv will be just fine in this world, whether or not he receives an undergraduate degree from Harvard.
However, I will say that as a 16 year old high school student, I knew better than to ever speak (or write) such vile, offensive, and hateful words. And I imagine that most of us who are 16 or were once 16 know that as well because our parents, teachers, peers, and others taught us from an early age that words can be powerful and that we should treat others as we would want to be treated, no matter their gender, religion, or skin color.
I hope that Mr. Kashuv's story serves as a lesson for otherwise smart and accomplished kids to conduct themselves with the maturity, empathy, and kindness that this world needs more of.
3
I believe Harvard certainly has the prerogative to withdraw an admission offer, and though Mr. Kashuv won't be attending Harvard next fall, hopefully he'll learn from the experience and apply himself in another fine college or university.
But the the article raises other questions.
Would this be looked at any differently if it was a public or less selective private college that rescinded his admission? Could a pubic institution even do that?
And how often does this happen at other colleges and universities?
All kinds of biases inform admission committees' decisions, but I'm frankly more concerned when deserving young men and women of color and from challenging backgrounds miss the chance for a great education due to being displaced by less deserving applicants due to circumstances beyond their control..
It may be an idea to take some time now. It's been a traumatic couple of years with the shootings, the Harvard application fiasco, and the press. Travel here and abroad, gather a couple of unique work experiences. It will bring a lot of growth and healing. May the wind be at your back.
1
I would respectfully disagree with David. The reason involved is too egregious. If I were Harvard (or were a student at Harvard), I would not want him for a class mate. In our society, he crossed a very egregious line.
It is not just that he said the unpardonable. He also, thereby, lost a certain degree of credibility of character. I am glad that (he says) he has foresworn such language. But I do not know whether to believe him. I am also somewhat dubious that he has made himself something of a poster child over this.
But in any case, what is so very wrong with Harvard deciding they don't want him?
2
All of these kids are told to be aware of what they post on social media because colleges and prospective employers will potentially find it. It is nice to think of moral development as growing over time, but I have also seen people who get away with reprehensible things tend to continue that behavior of expecting to get away with things (as our president demonstrates repeatedly). Furthermore, talk is cheap. Has this student demonstrated any behaviors that would lead one to believe that he has changed?
1
WOW! There you go again, David, painting an incomplete and totally misleading portrait of Kyle Kashuv's racism and bigotry and omitting any reference to his misogyny, all so that you can make the argument you want to make. Shame on you.
3
This is bad, even for David Brooks.
7
Naturally Brooks's years of endless moralizing conclude with a double standard for a white kid.
8
He said some racist stuff and got his Harvard invite rescinded.
If he was black and eating Skittles he could be dead. So, there's that.
7
He'll still be able to get a good job as Presidential Press Secretary, or at Fox News or Breitbart. Perhaps he can go to a "for-profit" college like the one's Betsy DeVoss champions. What wrong with those schools? Some are even religious.
7
No one, not even the really really smarat ones, is entitled to a Harvard Education.
1
Remember that that one year that Harvard accidentally swapped the admission and denial letters? David Brooks wasn't writing about how Harvard should have let those kids in that it sent acceptance letters to because their grades at 16 weren't good enough. I mean, sometimes bad grades in High School are an opportunity for redemption, but not typically at Harvard. So the kid was super racist in High school, I'm sure he can find redemption, but he can find it at a state school like every other kid that messes up in High School.
2
This far from pushing out a kid with conservative views. It's repeated racism, sexism and God know what else.
He has become a tool of the far right movement.
He has the brains to get an Ivy League education, but not the temperament or moral fiber.
He'll be fine wherever he goes, and will probably still e racist and sexist.
He didn't fall into a trap. He created it himself.
3
Thank you, David Brooks, for presenting a Voice of Reason in this unfortunate business. And I mean unfortunate for everyone.
Harvard's backtracking denies the very nature of it's purpose: education.
If you can't learn from your adolescent errors, you can't learn from anything.
Harvard has just declared itself in favour of not being able to learn.
5
@AN AMERICAN ABROAD unfortunately, this kid is still an adolescent. Turning 18 does not magically remove racist bones. Hopefully the sting of rejection will be every educational for him. Racists don't seem to wake up until they are denied opportunities due to their racism. If he got away with it, he would never learn.
1
This mistake is not like failing at starting up a business.
Racism detracts and disqualifies.
We can never be sure if Kashuv has truly changed or if he has merely learned to not publicly express toxic beliefs.
Harvard has thousands of candidates with the same or better test scores but without serious character flags.
2
One huge signal that Harvard’s decisions has sent to the youth at large....
Practice all the free speech you want to your heart’s delight, but know this, hate-speech against minorities, “the others”, would not be accepted or tolerated anymore.
Second, be careful what you throw out there into the realm of cyberspace and social media. Consequences are not any different from meat-space ( real life).
Third, this can be a precedent setting a future pattern not only other education institutes but other professional organizations.
This may be the way forward for diversity to flourish, learn to be accepting— not merely tolerating.
1
As a Harvard graduate, on the one hand, the school does not want to be seen as closed off to people with non-dominant viewpoints. On the other hand, lately that fear has caused my school to grant honors and fellowships to professional liars like Sean Spicer and Corey Lewandowski. I think the majority of Harvard alumni, like me, were disgusted at the honors bestowed on those two hacks, and that outcry may have had some impact on this decision.
But if Harvard is concerned about providing a factually good education to its students, then maybe it should be culling its faculty of people who have been almost perfectly wrong about matters of fact for the past 25 years. Consider every issue of any import during the period these kids have been alive (and before). Climate change ("It's a hoax!"); Clinton '93 budget (its tax hikes would destroy the economy!); 1990s government shutdown; Clinton impeachment; Kosovo War ("we're running out of Tomahawk missiles!"); Wall Street deregulation; Al Qaeda; Bush tax cuts paying for themselves; Iraq invasion; October 2008 bank bailout (Rs voted against it); Obama stimulus (it was gonna cause hyperinflation and destroy the budget!); ACA (it was gonna cause hyperinflation!); Obama tax hikes (they'll destroy the economy!); Trump tax cuts paying for themselves...
Maybe Harvard would be doing the next generation a big favor if we kept Republicans completely out of the syllabus. Talk me out of this - is there ANYTHING they've gotten right since 1993?
4
Calm down David. This youngster did not apologize until caught, two years later.
A sixteen year old knows right from wrong. If he was truly sorry he would have apologized at some point along the way, when he “grew.” But he never did. After they are caught, many people apologize, too late.
Now, he is given a new chance to prove in the future he has, in fact, changed. There are other colleges where he can learn and flourish as earned.
Our nation needs to stand against bigotry, strongly, as we did in the 60s, to reverse the growing anti-semitism, racism, homophobia, and all dimunitions of human rights.
6
I suppose it has already been noticed, but why would we expect Harvard to cut its cookies differently for any given cookie. After all, those who admit people to Harvard aren't interested primarily in moral development. This is not one person forgiving another, this is an institution that has its "reputation" to consider. That is, its reputation for cutting certain cookies. So, I suggest that Kyle Kashuv get over his racist and ethnic slurs, I'm certain Harvard has, and simply count his experience as part of a well rounded education and that he proceed to seek it whole elsewhere. After all Harvard is not the only school of higher learning by any means. Someone here mentions that they graduated from Howard. May I humbly suggest Howard as a possibility.
1
This young man has a GPA over 5 pts. And he doesn't know that wearing a MAGA hat and going to meet Trump makes him look like his GPA is around 2.0 or less?? Then the posts he made prior to wearing the $45 waste of money hat make him sound like his GPA is even lower than 1.3. Perhaps Harvard suspected someone took the test for him aka. the college admissions scandal.
6
If he was racist two years ago, he is racist now. Apologies are meaningless when it comes to this level of hate, and childishness is no excuse for racism.
A Harvard education is a privilege that would likely propel him into high levels of government and/or industry. If we want to stop propagating structural racism, we need to stop propping up known racists.
Give someone else a chance: a woman, a minority, someone who hasn't expressed racist views in the past two years. There are enough racist white men in the power structure as it is.
4
Will Harvard accept or return donations to every donor who is found to have made a biased remark or is guilty of an act of bias during their life beginning at age 16? What if Kyle Kashuv were the son of a wealthy or powerful donor or of the head of admissions?
Yes, Harvard has a legal right to rescind acceptance to the school but it cannot claim to be based on the university's moral standard unless it applies in all areas of acceptance least the school could be judged guilty of bias and hypocrisy.
3
@ML accusations of bias and hypocrisy: always the last resort of those defending racists. Seems a bit ironic.
I dated a guy who went to Harvard undergrad. Graduated with honors. He was finishing up at Harvard Law when I knew him. Very, very smart. His favorite joke was "Hire the handicapped. It's fun to watch them work." I heard that and some of his other smart remarks like "the black jellybeans always stick to the bottom" on what I decided was our last date.
5
Did he ever say "sorry" to the people he wrote about?
I didn't think so. It's always "this isn't who I am".
Almost no one knows how to apologize anymore.
4
Forgiving and forgetting are too simplistic for racist comments. It has nothing to do with being a conservative or liberal. Harvard undoubtedly has always accepted both applicants. I would suggest that he takes a year off doing services in communities to understand how hurtful his comments were even if they were made two years ago. One's moral compass should be well defined when one is 16 especially if he is so bright.
1
According to his classmates, Kyle had a reputation for this type of language, beyond what is seen in the documents that have been offered as evidence of his racist writings. This was not a one-off of a teenage boy trying to impress his peers with his edginess. And his comments about Harvard having had slaveholders and such involved in the university are the kind of finger pointing that reveals a deep reluctance to come to terms with his own disgusting inner self. He's not really taking responsibility, and whining is not morally humble.
3
I agree with your overall points about Harvard and Mr. Kashuv. And you seem to be making them starting with a valuable argument about moral learning. But then you write that, “In a sin-drenched world it’s precisely through the sins and the ensuing repentance that moral formation happens.” This central assertion pushes aside the rest of your arguments and leaves me confused. I think you substitute writ for reason and leave us stranded. I suggest you could say rather that in such a world it is “sometimes” how moral formation happens, say that in such a world it is how moral formation “can happen”. But then what? Your assertion gives us St. Augustine and Rasputin, Siddhartha and Donald Trump in equal measure with no understanding of how they became one kind of force or the other. There is no mechanism, no insight. We live in a world of sin and sinful people; some repent, some become moral, some become moral through repentance and some become moral by current action but never repent of past sin. The world is full of repentant frauds and people who repented into a destructive moral lesson. How are we to understand or predict any of it? Your argument seems to peter out as a high sounding commonplace without substance or predictive value. But I do think Harvard needs that kid.
His postings are being circulated publicly. Please read them. The Harvard admissions issue is the least of his worries going forward.
1
Why is it Harvard's job to offer him redemption for his sins? Let him go to synagogue for that. Getting into Harvard is a huge privilege and he lost that privilege because of his behavior. I think this has taught him the biggest lesson of all... there are serious consequences for inappropriate behavior.
1
Hard to believe somebody that could write something so blatantly ignorant and then compound it by posting it in a public forum would be able to assemble a GPA that impressive.
Too bad for him this all happened after the elite college bribery scandal broke open, there might have been some "remedies", available to him that don't exist at the moment.
So sad, I'm going to have trouble sleeping tonight thinking about how this poor boy's future is now in such shambles.
1
Mr. Brooks's excellent article overlooks something important: there are lots of places besides Harvard where a young adult can get an excellent education. Mr. Kashuv may be offended or hurt by Harvard's revocation of his admission, but there are many first-rate colleges that would surely admit him. The timing is probably not good now, and I don't know (i) what other colleges have accepted him, (ii) whether those acceptances are still outstanding, and (iii) whether he can start somewhere else for the fall semester. But with talent good enough to be accepted by Harvard, he surely could start at another college a year from now if that is necessary.
And he might be doing Harvard a favor by telling its admissions staff that there are plenty of alternative choices available to their applicants. And please don't think I disapprove of Harvard. I even used one of their commas in the prior paragraph.
@Andy. your comment overlooked something important: that this kid is a racist who should not be allowed to attend any elite university.
Hmm...by eight years of age, we find the child to be reasonably in a state of cognition, i.e., the ability to understand right from wrong. By sixteen years of age, surely so--- particularly when endowed with impressive intellectual heft. But judgement, now that's a different story. We have here a young man, so impressively bright, and in an era of blazing social media, who goes online and writes material which is at least foul if not worst in nature. I agree with other commenters here. He has the potential to provide a rigorous conservative counterpoint on campus, a positive addition. But there are other indications that this young man may be moved in another direction. I fully support with Harvard's decision--the red flags are here and admission to our nation's most elite university is a privilege--not a right based on academic achievement alone. Indeed, this may be his greatest life lesson alone.
1
He only apologized when he was caught. Only slightly better than Justice Kavanaugh. Words and speech have consequences.
4
Being judged for what you did a year or two ago is the the fate of *all* high school seniors. Well, okay, not the really rich ones, but still, its pretty much just the nature of the thing.
3
Something similar happened at my high school. In the 8th grade, a girl formed a group whose sole purpose was to bully one of her classmates. The girl said some nasty things (though nothing anywhere close to the n-word). Eventually, both the girl and the classmate were admitted and set to attend the same private high school. Somehow, the high school saw comments this girl had made in instant messages. It rescinded the offer.
The high school, for its part, made the decision in order to protect (1) the classmate and (2) its own culture. The classmate, whom I graduated with, expressed pain and horror about the whole episode. I felt terrible for her. I remember being relieved and grateful that the school rescinded the offer--the girl surely would have been a nightmare to have as a classmate.
My high school, like Harvard, made a choice to protect its own culture and the student body as a whole. It was a hard result, but it was also the right choice.
6
For everyone defending this kid - you are on the wrong side of history
There are plenty of kids that didn’t do this that should go to Harvard. Harvard is not a public utility- it can do what it wants.
There has not been 1 second in my life where I contemplated doing what that kid did. Not one second. There is not one second my kids would think to do that.
It is such a foreign concept to do what that kid did that I almost think of him and the people that see it as childish as from another world.
There is nothing childish about what he did - it’s completely systematic in the world he is part of.
I’m sickened by any of this defence of him and looking forward to his redemption
8
@DMB thank you for your virtue.
1
Let's examine the analogy of the D in math: Brooks suggest the D a couple of years ago is exemplary of poor performance in a required skill and thus a reasonable discriminator for admissions decisions. But, Mr. Brooks states racist comments openly shared with classmates at the same time should be grounds for allowing redemptions. Let's extend the parallel a bit by saying that the D is uncovered now, after admission. Does Harvard rescind admissions? Well, with math, it might depend on evidence that the D was not reflective of the student's current performance, was an aberration, which the student had addressed, say, by having performed excellently in subsequent classes. The student would need to show evidence that they had redeemed the D. For Mr. Kashuv's racist remarks, we have no such evidence. Instead, we have apologies and promises to do better next time (apologies that came only after the information was revealed and when an important benefit was at stake). Would that work in math? No. The student would have to provide evidence. Mr. Kashuv is now being presented with that opportunity for his racist statements and behavior: go forward, work towards redemption. Do whatever he believes the Harvard diversity office would want him to do. Then, re-apply (at Harvard and elsewhere) with evidence that the behavior was an aberration and not promises for future behavior.
2
We have become a society intolerant of mistakes and unbelieving in people's ability to change. To change is not an easy process and to change basic beliefs usually requires extreme trauma. This young man is 18 years old and in the two years since he made his unacceptable comments he has undergone one of the worst traumas in life, totally unexpected violence and the realistic fear of imminent death. He has earned the right to prove that he has genuinely changed, that this trauma has changed him (and his classmates) in irrevocable ways. Our ability to grow and to change is a constant in most people's lives. In a teenager it is an inevitable part of growing up and creates a lot of angst in the best of circumstances. It is not a matter of free speech, it is the right to grow into being an adult and the plethora of mistakes we make along the way. As an institution whose main purpose is education with a mostly teen and early 20s clientele, Harvard is denying this young man's ability to change and its own responsibility to help shape the minds and characters of its students. It has put the political beliefs of its staff above the duty to educate and the ability of people to change. It is a sad day in the history of this great institution.
1
It’s not a sad day, it’s about time an institution like Harvard publicly stands up for things that matter and it makes the news. First, this situation is not unique, and more importantly, second: it’s OK for us adults to forgive him but it doesn’t mean he should go to Harvard.
1
@Amy Meyer
Fair enough that people can change, but is learning from being racist and antisemitic better than getting it right the first time?
I don't think so. And Harvard has many in the latter category to choose from.
1
I'm reflecting on George Carlin's iconic monologue: "the seven words you can't say on TV," That now seems impossibly quaint. I grew up knowing that some words were forbidden, and, like most of my age-mates, took every opportunity we could to say them. Now, seeing and hearing them everywhere, I still feel the same inhibitions.
What I have learned from this, and other experiences, it that when something is forbidden, it becomes seductive to the young, and with maturity, the reasons for the prohibitions become clear.
If we had social media when I was young, I cringe to think what might have been following me around for the rest of my life. I am sure that no amount of contrition on my part would guarantee my redemption, no matter how well I had lived.
Is social media a time machine for the self-righteous?
2
Guess what kinds of words weren’t on Carlin’s list?
And by the way, his point wasn’t that language is harmless. It was that words describing sex and pooping were harmless.
What does Harvard think this is going to teach this student.... I believe it will reinforce and harden this individual (and those of us who are hearing about this issue) against them and those who used to espouse tolerance and forgiveness to provide an example for him to reframe his ideas.
1
Ah- but it’s not about what it will teach *this* student. It’s what it will teach *future* students.
2
Teaching this student how to deal with and correct his racism is not Harvard’s responsibility. Harvard’s focus here is to select the best student body that it can.
3
Many Times readers (incl. opinion writers!) are nuts -- I'm convinced of it.
Out of *thousands* of comments, I don't see any asking what this episode says about our concept of meritocracy & the type of "excellent" student if breeds. As W. Deresiewicz and Alfie Kohn (just TWO days ago in a NY Times op-ed!) have been arguing, hyper-ambitious & competitive achievement conformists-machines systematically impaired from empathy/moral development, & here we have a case in point: a "5.435765" student with the moral bearings of a white supremacist, & virtually no commenters are connecting this episode with the Deresiewicz-Kohn thesis -- which is that Kashuv doesn't evince this kind of psychology "despite" being a very strong student, but rather, extremely consistently with that status.
Why do I say "NYT readers (incl. opinion writers) are nuts"? Because they so compartmentalize their reading that they don't connect another story's insights still in the current paper with the story being addressed, no matter how relevant.
Again, spelling it out: the Kashuv story is a clarion expression of what passes for academic "merit" ("5.43567768") & what's wrong with it. And I specifically include Times opinion writers in this because I know they are reading this comment, wont "recommend" it, yet will publish a near-identical version of the argument in coming days, a pattern seen all the time: these writers mine the comments for ideas/inspiration, & the ones with zero "likes" get replicated.
2
Many Times readers (even columnists) are nuts -- I'm convinced of it.
Out of *thousands* of comments, I don't see any asking what this episode says about our concept of meritocracy & the type of "excellent" student if breeds. As W. Deresiewicz and Alfie Kohn (just TWO days ago in a NY Times op-ed!) have been arguing, hyper-ambitious & competitive achievement conformist-machines systematically impaired from empathy/moral development, & here we have a case in point: a "5.435765" student with the moral bearings of a white supremacist, & virtually no commenters are connecting this episode with the Deresiewicz-Kohn thesis -- which is that Kashuv doesn't evince this kind of psychology "despite" being a very strong student, but rather, extremely consistently with that status.
Why do I say "NYT readers (incl. opinion writers) are nuts"? Because they so compartmentalize their reading that they don't connect another story's insights still in the current paper with the story being addressed, no matter how relevant.
Again, spelling it out: the Kashuv story is a clarion expression of what passes for academic "merit" ("5.43567768") & what's wrong with it. And I specifically include Times opinion writers in this because I know they are reading this comment, won't "recommend" it, yet will publish a near-identical version of the argument in coming days, a pattern seen all the time: these writers mine the comments for ideas/inspiration, & the ones with zero "likes" get replicated.
1
A revoked Harvard admission may be the very thing that initiates the development of wisdom in this young man.
9
I am happy for David experiencing his personal spiritual enlightenment. However, with his new found spiritual self, he seems to be forgetting one of the most important aspects of spirituality; humility. I suggest David consider himself less a proclaimer of sins washing over us, and more of a contemplator and reporter of the good washing over the world. Harvard is not the culprit here. The epidemic of mass shootings are. Until we face that fact, the denouncing and shunning will continue.
2
Another reason to warn your kids of social media.
Dont use it folks.
THere no proof this was anything more than a very young guy testing out the waters in terms of shock value.
And there is no proof that this is anything less than a very young guy who is deeply flawed racist.
But either way, social media destroys lives.
1
Google docs and text messages are not social media.
Interesting that a kid who has "conservative" views (and knowing what he's done, I'd call them "backwards") is also all in to maintain the "gun rights" which is code for unrestricted, uncurbed machine guns and magazines access for anyone who has a murdering thought, whether it's a passing fancy or a mental disorder, while he felt it was ok to entertain himself using racial and ethnic slurs. From my 60-year old perch, I've see those things usually go together: social intolerance and the thirst for weaponry. He must have picked all this up at home during his formative years and I simply don't believe in his miraculous moral rehabilitation -- especially as he still openly holds his backward views on guns, meaning he has not evolved at all. I say bravo for Harvard for pro-active weeding out the damaged minds undeserving the honor of entering the nation's most venerable teaching institution, where the other, pliable young minds could be infected with the ugliness already residing in Kashuv's.
3
"Is there no such thing as privacy?"
No. Students need to know they leave a digital footprint that can easily be found, even if the content has been deleted. Live and learn, though in this case, the learning won't be at Harvard.
7
Let's stop pretending people really change, at least to the extent of major about-faces. It's a comforting story, but largely to the advantage of those who grow up, as most of us do, to better conceal our natures and our past.
A line from Jane Austen seems apt: "I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up." And, though the speaker is too polite to say so, vice versa.
7
Words have consequences. An excellent lesson for this lad.
7
I have to wonder if your comment and other similar ones would have been the same had the kid come out in favor of stricter gun laws OR had the kid been an African American. Perhaps not you, but for many of the commenters here, there is no doubt in my mind, that their answer WOULD have been different...
and that’s sad...
1
Harvard, aside from exposing its own form of bigotry, has lost the very thing it professes to believe --- a teaching moment, and we have lost the ability to accept repentance and forgive. The teaching moment --- Kyle says he has changed --- how that change was engendered in him is that moment from which his once-to-be classmates would learn. If we do not accept those who have changed their views the entire prison reform system is built on a lie, as are some many other social initiatives. And even if he has not changed as claimed --- would not open discussion --and refutation be within "mission statement" of an institution of higher learning.
4
Despite being somewhat left-leaning, I do consider myself a centrist or moderate on many issues. Once again, I agree with David Brooks. He is a voice of reason in a polarized political climate. What better time to learn from your mistakes than adolescence, but the lesson needs to be redemption, so that he will advocate for toerance
3
David Brooks is the voice of reason from the conservative perspective but that doesn’t make him reasonable. He always finds a way to champion conservative talking points. It’s like hunters claiming to be conservationist and always being on the opposite side of conservation.
1
Free speech? Or rather, fighting words. I'm past the point of giving people free rides, or free speech, who use fighting words, words with a (very) freighted history to make their points, such as they may be.
As for Mr. Brooks' idea of redemption... Sigh
5
@HapinOregon
And the dweller at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will be there four more years...
A side note to high school and college students: Bad things happen on Google docs late at night, when you're all wanting to procrastinate while cramming for exams. Judgment goes completely out the window. Stay away from group Google docs in the wee hours. Your life can change in an instant.
3
I'm glad that they made this decision. While it's unfortunate that this young man has made this so called "innocent mistake", it is about time that the younger generation realizes that there are consequences to your actions. Man Up.
5
It's been decades since I would have thought of creating any type of relationship between "Harvard" and "wisdom," unless, perhaps, "wisdom" were to be qualified with "smug."
8
Vintage David Brooks: Nothing more central to his mission as a columnist than to lecture us all on how the moral character of earnest, sincere, privileged young white men will be clouded by society's failure to apply "mercy and rigorous forgiveness" when confronting their racism. In Brooks World, consequences are always, and only, for the poor, black and brown.
14
@willibro,
At least Brooks has morals, unlike others among us.
Thank you.
Obviously, Harvard wants to create a sterile politically correct environment for teaching and learning. It could have admitted Mr. Kashuv and then re-educate him during freshman orientation as many institutions of higher learning do now to their incoming white male students, making them apologize for their white privilege and accept responsibility for the wreckage of their toxic masculinity before they are allowed to mix with the other students. Thank you.
4
@Southern Boy
You mean re-educate like in Chinese Re-orientation camps?
Last time I checked, Harvard was a private institution. Any conservative complaining about what they do is blasphemy. But, hey that never stopped them from wanting to infringe on the rights of women and minorities. I wonder if we would have seen this oped if the kid was not a white male?
2
I have tried to respond to people saying that this kid is a racist with the observation that just because the kid used some nasty racist language does not necessarily make him a racist. It's an unfortunate fact of life that teenagers use shocking language all the time including the n-word. They usually have better sense in public. But Kyle used bad judgement in private on a google doc that was leaked by people who wanted to destroy him and Harvard validated those disgusting tactics. I don't know why the nytimes refused to publish my previous comments making the same point.
2
If you get on the Internet, NOTHING is private.
And if you apply to Harvard, you better understand that the competition is so tough that small things can make or break your app.
4
No, Mr. Brooks.
We judge all college applicants on what the did when they were 16, like getting a d in math.
And we judge them also by what they did last month-
In speaking at the NRA meeting in Indianapolis in May, Kyle kasuv said that there were a multitude of things that led to the massacre at Parkland, but "none of them have to do anything with a gun."
That's not a political position, or an arguable opinion. It's just incorrect.
Writing a speech to defend blatantly false statements surely indicates a lack of honesty, maturity and moral character.
It certainly does not exude moral humility.
I hope with age comes wisdom for Mr. Kashuv.
6
You do understand that you’ve just argued that he should be kept out because you don’t like his politics, right? And that this is what one expects of right-wingers, not liberal humanist types?
1
I know nothing about what is in Kyle Kashuv' heart and mind, but I do not believe one should be condemned forever because of "original sin." Unless you believe one can never change (and thus believe you should just toss away the key on everyone in prison), then the possibility of "redemption" should not just be considered but should be encouraged. It is worth noting that one of the most effectively liberal Justices of the Supreme Court, Hugo Black, had previously been a member of the KKK.
I expect there is not a candidate for President who, had there been the ever-present recording devices and internet garbage dumps that are now currently available back when they were teenagers, would pass muster now as never having said something that would currently seem troubling or worse.
Personally, I have more faith in the credibility and reliability of those who learn from mistakes than those who claim to never have made any.
Again, I know nothing of Kyle Kashuv's actual current beliefs, but I do know that Harvard has recently been suffering from a craven, unprincipled pursuit of policy by "politically correct" mobocracy.
If Kashuv has genuinely learned from his previous actions, then Harvard may be doing him a favor by pushing him to a more tolerant college.
As to my comment regarding Harvard, see the Times article, "Harvard Betrays a Law Professor — and Itself"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/opinion/race-identity/harvard-law-harvey-weinstein.html?searchResultPosition=9
2
@Steve Fankuchen
Your opinion could have ended with the first part of your first sentence "I know nothing about what is in Kyle Kashuv' heart and mind" and not wasted any of our time. Or actually it would have been preferable not to write your opinion period. Thank you.
1
What this article doesn't mention is that Kushov was also affiliated with Turning Point USA, a student organization that is known for supporting white supremacy behind a front of attractive, young, and well-dressed conservative activists. On its website, it declares itself as anti-Muslim, among other things. Members of the organization at my Southern university have advocated against human rights for African children, against free public education, and for the nuclear destruction of Middle East. While not proof of an ongoing pattern, Kushov's affiliation with Turning Point indicates a potentially skewed and racist worldview.
Conservatives at Harvard? Of course--students need to be exposed to differing opinions in order to grow. Racists at Harvard? Turning Point activists? No. Certain stupid, ignorant views are not okay if you're going to be given the privilege of attending the world's best university.
8
While Turning Point is your typical pack of well-funded righties connected to the Heartland Institute, I don’t see where their website declares that they, “anti-Muslim.”
And the more of these kinds of comments I see, the less I like the spectacle of trying to deny people admission based on their politics. Let the righties play that game.
We are spozed to have a little faith in our principles, ya know.
I have actually pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd, and so am eminently qualified to speak on this matter.
I believe Harvard’s action was correct in intent, wrong in execution. Mr. Kashuv has apologized, but he has not made amends, and he needs the opportunity to do so.
The letter from Harvard might better have said:
“At this time, we are rescinding your acceptance as a member of Harvard’s Class of 2023 and placing you in a two-year probationary status, acceptance of which is, of course, entirely voluntary on your part. We ask that you use the next two years to demonstrate conclusively development of an appropriate level of intellectual and moral maturity. Then, if you still seek a Harvard education, we invite you to resubmit your updated application, this time for the Class of 2025.”
2
There is a big difference between acting out racism, and just saying something.
Harvard and other Ivy League schools have a policy of accepting unqualified legacy students (relatives of alumni). They started it many years ago when "too many" brilliant Jewish kids were edging out rich WASPs for admittance. That is institutionalized racism. This brilliant (although misguided right-winger) kid said some stuff. He probably learned it from his racist parents, unfortunately, and wasn't quite ready to rebel against them. It's nothing compared to the elitist history of America's ruling class, epitomized by Harvard, to continue their legacy of being completely out of touch. Harvard has the right to reject him, but they also have the moral obligation to atone for their own sins.
2
If what he did wasn't so bad, why didn't you have the guts to write the actual word he used -- and used repeatedly?
7
"It’s hard to know if Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments ...."
I'd say so.
Maybe that's why Harvard took the action it did. Maybe it felt, as I do, that Kashuv's apology was more self-serving than credible. Maybe it wanted to help build his character by making sure there was a consequence.
2
To the contrary to what Brooks is saying, Harvard is helping this young racists a moral lesson: actions have consequences.
4
I am pretty liberal. Regarding Mr. Kashuv's position regarding gun rights, my belief is the exact opposite of his. I believe that as a nation and people we need to re-think the 2nd Amendment, which was added to our Constitution with the idea of avoiding the political risk, possible tyranny, and certain expense of a standing army by maintaining an effective civilian militia instead. But his position regarding the 2nd Amendment, and his political views are beside the point here.
Is there anyone here, anyone who reads this newspaper, who did not do something at the age of 16 that he or she now regrets? Something that he or she wishes, deeply, could be forgotten or somehow removed from everyone's memory? Especially from our own memories? It would be a different matter if the young man was not repentant. He is.
What Harvard has done here is to give the lie to its very purpose. To educate. To broaden and deepen an individual through experience and wider knowledge. To challenge previously held beliefs and opinions intellectually. To help, even insist, that young people mature and develop their character. And yes, to require that young people examine their past and current mistakes. This is what happened to me during my college experience. So even though I do not hold similar political views with Mr. Kashuv, I don't believe that he should be denied the opportunity to learn and mature at Harvard because he wrote something stupid at the age of 16.
4
It's a shame he can't go to Harvard, but he'll be Ok, just like the rest of us who go somewhere else, like a great state school. David is right, though, it isn't fair. But there are consequences to actions and that is a life lesson, too.
5
When I was 16 I certainly wasn't Harvard material but I don't remember making reams of racist remarks on a Google Doc. Of course this was more than a quarter of a century before Google was incorporated in the proverbial garage in Silicon Valley. Life was simpler then. More or less. It was the Cold War, and the violence and racism of the 60s and 70s far exceeded what we have today. But I was just a kid. I don't think my views at that tender age were or are particularly relevant in the year 2019.
As for this teenager. It sounds very tragic that Harvard is going to rescind its admission based upon private conduct when he was 16 years old. Everyone needs time to grow up. Is Harvard going to fire faculty members who had extreme views when they were 16? Any Stalinists or anarchists or fascists lurking at Harvard from when they were adolescents? I am sure there must be, simply by statistical probabilities.
Harvard may be acting on other information it has not made public. Perhaps this adolescent's mind and behavior is much darker than he seems. But without some evidence of that I just don't understand the logic or morality of the Harvard President's decision other than he is under pressure from the doctrinaire left.
Let him in. Everyone has a right to have been a floundering 16-year-old. Not everyone is Harry Potter!
They can kick him out later, after all, if a pattern shows itself.
2
Sorry David Brooks; you are misguided or dishonest. As a high school teacher for forty-two years (and a regular human in a sea of people who strive to lead moral lives), I can assure you that most people don't become better humans as a consequence of reformation after living "sin-drenched" lives! Few are modern clones of St. Augustine. Most people make countless daily decisions to be honest, thoughtful and compassionate. Your own misplaced concern for this rich kid who chose to garner national attention at the expense of Parkland families who suffered such grievous loss is misplaced.
6
If Harvard's admissions committee knew about Kashuv's remarks when considering his application, they might well have considered them disqualifying and moved on to the next applicant.
To revoke his admission ex post facto, though, seems unwarranted. Also, it's never a good idea to throw the proverbial first stone.
Unhhh.... last time I checked, all colleges judged their applicants by what they did when they were 16.
11
Oh, please! Harvard is a private institution, free to change its decision on the basis of new information.
Like our president, both Brooks and Kashuv are examples of the Right's perpetual victimization psychosis. There are plenty of other excellent schools (that are just not Harvard). With his grades, I'm sure Kashuv will find one that will accept him and his explanation of his behavioral failings.
Instead of his whining PR campaign, he needs to accept responsibility for himself and move on.
3
There is absolutely nothing defensible about what Mr. Kashuv posted online. But I think he’s being singled out unfairly due to the fact that he has been a vocal proponent of the 2nd Amendment. Compare his behavior now to that of David Hogg who has also been admitted to Harvard and who has repeatedly leveled profanity laced tirades and insults against people with whom he disagrees. Mr. Hogg has never once apologized for his ad hominem and vulgar attacks. I have no doubt that the reason he is not facing the same ramifications is because he has the “correct” opinion on the issue of gun control in the eyes of Harvard’s administration. As for Mr. Kashuv’s use of the N word, if the penalty at Harvard is now having one’s admission rescinded, then the administration needs to go ahead and expel the entire student body. They will, of course, never do that because they’re not serious about the issue. Again, there is nothing about using the N word which can be defended. It is a horrible word. But who hasn’t used it before? Any person who says they haven’t is lying. President Obama used it on camera while he was in office for crying out loud. I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that he’s used the word numerous times throughout the course of his life. Mr. Kashuv needs to realize and think about what he did. But to say that Harvard is applying a double standard here is a gross understatement.
@FreedomisPriceless
"Again, there is nothing about using the N word which can be defended. It is a horrible word. But who hasn’t used it before?"
I have only heard it uttered once in my life, by one of the most racist people in a very small town. I have never heard it uttered again except in the media.
I guess it's not a big deal in your circle but if I were to use that word, refer to people like that, I'd lose a lot of friends and probably my job.
So, a lot of people haven't.
While what Kashuv did out of immaturity was repelling and abhorrent; apology and repentence are the starting point for redemption. Jesus said it best. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
There are plenty of unseemly characters who have donated money to Harvard. Is Harvard going to return those donations?
1
Forgiving is one thing. Absolving with no consequences is another. At 16 I went to college (1941) knowing that words can kill. We were even then speaking out against racism,and anti-semitism. Refusing this young man entry into Harvard does not send him to an internment camp or torture.
4
The Parkland's students' victory against the NRA in the Florida legislature is that now a person has to be old enough to drink before they can buy an AR-15.
The law also allotted money to arm teachers, taxpayer money going to the gun industry.
3
The New Yorker's short piece on young Mr. Kashuv (back in November) already raised the kinds of red flags that have taken Harvard Admissions' folks more than half a year to respond to.
3
If only the Central Park Five had so many people willing to forgive.
8
Dearest David
I worked with the range of HS students for 32 years in affluent suburbs and in NYC. Sixteen year old mistakes include lying, cutting classes, underage drinking/drug use, cheating in a test, bullying and using social media in stupid ways. What it is not is the hate filled communications by the student Harvard rejected. I concur that we all need to learn from mistakes but we also need to learn that some lines can’t be crossed and while you may be sorry there are consequences. Sadly the behavior and actions by the POTUS demonstrate that immoral actions are rewarded I am old school and know in my heart there will be consequences.
4
Interesting to see the commentary, with so many feeling entitled to tell Harvard what it should do. Harvard is Harvard, it can do whatever it wants. No one here knows what this boy's application looked like, especially in comparison to all the other (surely) competitive applicants of various backgrounds. How many 'not racist' applicants were there? Probably a lot. How do you know this boy actually felt regret, and wasn't just trying be persuasive? You don't. You can decide if you would forgive or not forgive, but your opinions on what Harvard should do in this case are irrelevant.
3
Harvard's acceptance rate this past year was 4.5%. Any flaw in an applicant's grades, extracurriculars, moral character, etc, is considered when admission decisions are made. Nobody is entitled to go to Harvard -- students who apply know it's a long shot and that less than 1 in 20 people get in. Had Harvard known about Kashuv's use of racist, sexist, and antisemitic language before they made decisions, he never would have been admitted. Tens of thousands of applicants don't get in for imperfections when they were 16 years old -- poor scores on standardized tests, low GPAs, lackluster extracurriculars, etc. All universities assess students by their actions in high school. The process has always been unforgiving, and if it isn't going to be forgiving of low grades, low scores, or any other potential issues with applicants, it certainly shouldn't be forgiving of racism in high school.
7
I have a Harvard PhD, and must agree with David Brooks on this one. Since Kashuv had qualified for admission otherwise, and since he had gone through a truly life-changing experience AFTER making the racist comments, his sincerity should not be doubted. it seems that Harvard missed an opportunity to help the further moral development and education of someone who could have become an influence for good.
3
Funny how we select our narratives. Whenever a black or underprivileged person transgresses, Brooks--and all his like-minded folk--veer instinctively to the narrative of personal responsibility and moral righteousness. When the transgressor is a white person of privilege, all of a sudden he whips out his pen on forgiveness and the uplifting power of redemption.
11
What a ridiculous opinion piece. I was very fortunate to be accepted to UPenn, where I recently finished my undergrad. Fortunate. It was not my right to go there. Certainly there were many well-qualified, brilliant, candidates who applied in the same year as I did but did not get lucky in the admissions process. It was a privilege to attend such a school, and nothing about any of my qualifications prior to attending would have given me any right to feel slighted if I was not accepted. In fact, I was rejected across the board at every other comparable American school I applied to, as were many of my friends who I still believe were much better qualified than I was at the time. That was not a slight against me or any of the highly-qualified friends I looked up to. It is simply reflective of the incredible competition to attend such high institutions.
Moreover, had I expressed such terrible racism and inhumane views as the student mentioned in this article here, it would have been the University's moral duty *not to* accept me. His youth is not an excuse. That should not even have to be said: such grand institutions should only accept the best of us. Those actions very clearly evidence that he is not deserving of the spot, over absolutely anyone who has not said such things. Any arguments about the possibility of his personal change miss the point. Others would not have to change to meet an minimum acceptable moral standard. They may be deserving. He is not.
8
Kyle has done and said many terrible things since. I've seen him on twitter for the last couple years, he's a terrible human being. He advocated for arming teachers, went to a shooting range soon after the shooting, and even supports Donald Trump. He's not Harvard material.
4
The problem here, as it often is, is that while Young Mr K apologized one is left with a question was he apologizing only because he got caught. Had he come out before the hateful comments were exposed one would believe that this was more sincere, that he had independently discovered his misdeeds. Here just like every adulterous pol who begs forgiveness with the poor wife forced on the stage with him, one is left with that nagging doubt. Which is the real person?
Frankly, I do believe that Harvard should have talked to the youth and hopefully discover whether he did repent of his sins, but it obviously is within its rights.
@Jennifer S
Count me among the people that think we need to forgive young teenagers (even privileged ones, even conservative ones) their momentary outbursts of unacceptable, immature behavior. Every teenage boy I ever knew or raised had a few. Now the internet documents them, which is the only reason we are discussing this. Who thinks no student currently at Harvard ever uttered an ethnic slur as a teenager? Sixteen-year-olds don't understand the power of those words, they don't understand how the internet is going to come back and bite them in the hindquarters, they don't completely understand anything. No, he shouldn't have used that word, I hope somebody stepped in and straightened him out the moment it happened, but show me a teenage boy who has never made a mistake at least that bad, then gone on to become a respectable citizen. A lot of growing up happens between 16 and 18. The phenomenon that needs considering here is that the internet appears to have killed his future.
1
Mr. Brooks, kids don't deserve a pass on racism. As a Puerto Rican high school student in Brooklyn, I suffered far too much racism at the hands of other white students. Their meanness and the hurt it caused has lasted a lifetime.
To a person, every single one of those individuals is still a vehement racist today both on a personal level and on a systemic level in their support of Trump. We tend to excuse, readily forgive and give a pass to whites who express racism (or commit outright crimes) while we disproportionately punish people of color for a whole spectrum of real or imagined offenses. You sir, in your opinion, are part of that culture that has oppressed people of color for centuries in America. You can wax philosophically and be magnanimous because you obviously have no "skin" in the game. I wonder if you appreciate the luxury you enjoy.
I support Harvard's right not to subject other students to hate that they will bear for the rest of their lives. We've given white society centuries to stop promoting or excusing racism. Enough is enough.
3
"many people seem to think that the way to prove virtue is by denouncing"
"hard to know if Kashuv has learned"
"wouldn’t Harvard want a kid who is intellectually rigorous and morally humble?"
Kyle Kashuv is proud of a video displayed at top of his twitter since Feb. He does not merely confront or give understandably strong opinion; instead he aggressively harasses and denounces Scot Peterson, who cannot leave the elevator.
After many insults, he informs Peterson that Peterson must live with his actions for the rest of his life. Obviously so. And of course Kashuv is traumatized. Still, the length of the attack and the act of recording it to proudly post (display his virtue) don't show a person who is trying to learn from mistakes.
Racist postings are not victimless; they are related to violence committed against non-whites and they cause fear of one's daily surroundings. Is there any sign that Kashuv intellectually understands this or feels compassion to those who read such words? If he hasn't apologized for the effects of his actions, it is not "hard to know" whether he has learned humility.
A 16 yr olds actions are apparently unforgivable,no redemption possible. Virginia's top 3 political leaders actions are just swept away and forgotten. Nothing to see there. Hypocrisy and double standards depending on whims of the day.
1
Absolutely correct Mr. Brooks. Not only are young minds not mature enough but who among us is not guilty? Furthermore shall this transgression follow this young person for the rest of their life?
Of course not. That’s what the Internet is for.
Kyle, do yourself a favor, go to a humble State school and learn as much as you can. To heck with Harvard. They are the last people who should sit in judgement.
Sure words matter but your example as a fine young man is better, going forward. Put this behind you, worship God, and be the best person you can be.
2
Conflating a real world objective issue for college admissions with religious precepts is at best a solipsistic mistake
Sin is based solely on the mandates and mythology of ancient Mid-east Abrahamic religions and isn't even relevant to the issue at hand
Why should a young man like this, or his greatest influencers - his parents, be so quickly forgiven? No. What he said was really messed up. Harvard did the right thing. Forgiveness is not owed to gross racist white male privledge. I know it seems like it is, based on the history of our country. But we're finally waking up to the fact that this behaviour does come with consequences. How else can someone so privledged and spoiled learn? Hasn't that been the probelm all along? Men like him getting away with this bigoted behaviour while still reaping life's top rewards? He will still go on to thrive, as privledged white men do. No one is taking that opportunity away from him, unlike the way we have for minorities and women.
1
When you speak with the specific intent to generate maximum shock value, and successfully choose the most offensive words possible in order to do so, it's sort of hypocritical to ask for a free pass when the elite club you're trying to join--known the world around for being thin-skinned on some topics--turns out to be shocked and offended.
2
Repentance of sin does not free one from consequence.
3
Harvard's decision was about limiting headaches for Harvard.
This young man, being a thoughtful and outspoken conservative, is bound to be seen as controversial, if not outright "dangerous" by the pearl-clutching, witch-hunting "liberal" Harvard community. It was just a question of when, as a student, his old and disgusting Tweets would be dug up.
He was right to be called out for those Tweets by Harvard. He was right to be ashamed and penitent. And yes, Harvard has the right to choose not let him in, anyway.
But does anyone - anyone - wonder whether Harvard would have made such a decision if the would-be student was someone of color who had viciously and grotesquely bashed white people, say someone like the NYT's own Sarah Jeong? THAT is at the heart of the complaint about how this one young man's case was handled.
2
@Livonian
They weren't tweets. Kashuv thought they were private communications with like-minded people. That doesn't make them OK but it isn't like he broadcast this stuff or anticipated that anyone outside his group would see it.
That said, I'm not that torn up about what happened. I'm sure he's disappointed but he'll be fine.
1
I'm in agreement with Mr Brooks. What surprises me is how many NYT readers are not.
Reading their comments, and seeing the hundreds who recommend their comments, I think "He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone."
Whether it's Harvard trying to stifle conservative voices on campus or trying to protect the fragile psychs of its students, it stinks like rotten fish.
1
@usarmycwo
I'm not sure that it's appropriate to disparage the fragile psyches of Harvard students while agreeing with Brooks that it's just too bad Kashuv can't go to Harvard. Why do they have to be the ones to toughen up? Life isn't fair sometimes and it can't always be non-white people who bear the brunt of that.
Forgiven, sure.
But since when is forgiveness a determinant of admission for Harvard, a private university.
The same conservatives, who believe a cake shop, A CAKE SHOP, can discriminate against LGTBQ people, and not seek any forgiveness for their bigotry, now rail against Harvard wishing to discriminate against a misogynistic, racist teenager.
And yes, he's both, the article failed to mention his comments on women he made at the same time.
Culpability and guilt, yes, he went back and tried to erase the comments. He knew he made them and knew they'd look bad.
6
I consider myself a "liberal" and welcome the idea that Harvard is a "liberal institution". But the expulsion of student Kashuv, as detailed in the Brook column is, at best, a strongly "reactionary" act - to be strongly condemned by by "liberals" and "conservatives".
2
I'm sorry, but 16 is well beyond the age where a teen should know that racist or derogatory comments about any group are out of line. I have absolutely no problem with any university using a 16 year old's comments as factors in their admittance
2
Mr. Brooks is on the wrong side on this issue. It is time that someone stand up and say we do not want those that say racist comments to get a pass.
Not getting admission to Harvard is not the end of the world as there are other good colleges this man can go to.
I am a Democrat, but I really thought Bill Clinton got a pass on his lies. Accountability for these should not be one sided only.
We have become a nation that George Washington would be ashamed of.
2
Racism kills. A clarion call must be sent out across America that these thoughts and this language will not be allowed in the public space. Young people who commit arson or murder or even lesser offenses who are not white often feel the full weight of this society’s wrath. Young people should be forgiven. Not getting into an elite college is hardly any punishment at all for a middle class white youngster. Let him learn well from his mistake. But make no mistake. This kind of language can be and has been murderous for minorities in this country and around the world. This is no joke. Hate speech is not only antisocial. It should be illegal. I wish this young man well. I’m certain he will do well. Wisdom often takes a lifetime to learn and is not infrequently painful to acquire. It sounds like he is off to a good start.
3
We assume, his internet indiscression was a one-off slip late at night encouraged by close friends who would not shame him. It is equally plauable that his slip illuminates a deeper racism that he usually conceals. How can we decide? Surely not by Harvard premptively expelling him without a formal hearing. One might assume Harvard’s impetuous action was more motivated by its desire not to become, yet again, a target of public criticism had they honored their decision to admit him.
Young black men have been told for years, there are consequences for your actions. Indeed, for young black men, there are sometimes consequences for actions they never took (q.v. the Central Park Five).
Admission to college is all about past actions. I have no sympathy for Kyle Kashuv - he'll land on his feet. And maybe he'll have taken something away from this experience.
5
And yet, the governor of Virginia, who was actually photographed in black face, still has his job. Yes, Democrats are excused, while Republicans/conservatives are vilified at every opportunity the left sees fit.
2
Here's the deal, Harvard does have a horrendous past of being affiliated with slave owners and segregationists etc and if people find that morally repugnant and cannot go to school there, that's perfectly within their right. As an institution, Harvard has every right to rescind this admission for whatever reason they see fit, and this is an exceedingly understandable one.
Oh, also, the answer to all the questions in the final paragraph is no. Nope and nope. You want Harvard to feel sympathy for an outed racist? What sort of message does that send to the other students of color there? This kid has a great GPA and SAT right? He can strike out his luck at some other institution.
Oh, come on David. I'm sure there are other students out there with impressive GPA's who spew racist epithets online. Why not let them have a chance at Harvard?
I big part of becoming an adult is facing the consequences for your actions and mistakes, picking up the pieces, and moving on.
1
"Wouldn’t Harvard want a kid who is intellectually rigorous and morally humble?" asks David Brooks. "Wouldn't it want me?' one can't help thinking he means. The answer appears to be: no, no it wouldn't. Neither might it believe the world is "sin-drenched," at least not since the seventeenth century, and finds the question of redemption less than intriguing ... or relevant when it comes to admissions. After years of drab op-ed sermonizing from intellectually rigorous and morally humble "conservatives" like David Brooks, Harvard may have just seen enough.
I truly like (I would sat love, but that would take perhaps, a more personal relationship with him) what David has shared with us about his personal growth, moving from me, me, me, to we, we, we. But dear boy, the sin thing ("in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.") has got to go. Even a small amount of the humility that David has suggested we need, would show us immediately that we are not in a position to define sin and evil; and it is this definition of sin as the unchanged fact of existence, that keeps us from changing the actions and behaviors that we call sin and evil. As sin, we believe these things as immutable, and therefore not open to change. This label, and it is a human label, has to go for real change to occur. We can work toward inclusion of all, instead of exclusion of some, as racism is attempting. But we are getting there, and perhaps one day we will see that the central claim of Monotheism, you are a creation of God, will finally convince us to give up our love of sin, (and it is only our love of it that makes it seem real). That instead of humility being defined through the admission of sin, it will be the realization that humility means, that there is a great power of Love that works through us. It is time for the grownups to claim their power, snatched by the childishness and smallness of our so-called elite thinking, empowered to decide what is sin and what is not.
I think when I was 18, 40 years ago, I had, on rare occasions, already taunted people who were different, picked on people weaker, made fun of people who were disabled, old, weird, strange, female, or not male enough, from foreign countries, from places near or far. I called my parents names, I disobeyed teachers and counselors, and drove my mom's car on the expressway without a driver's license. I got into a four car crash in front of their house at 14. And I pushed my brother down the stairs in a sleeping bag when he was two or three.
But none of this ended up on Youtube, or was recorded on FB or expressed on Twitter, and for that I am very lucky. Who knows, I might have been denied a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court or admittance to Harvard.
1
There was an Air Force Academy marching song about a group of Nazis that rape an inkeeper's daughter. It was catchy. It was funny. It had a refrain of "taboo, taboo".
If you are in the presence of an Air Force Academy graduate who went to the Academy in the 1990s, then you are in the presence of a man who most certainly sung that antisemitic marching song on a daily basis among dozens of others, and who almost certainly went on to have an honorable career. A man who would never consider himself an antisemite and probable isn't. Many of the cadets who sung it were Jewish. All of them were Kyle Kashuv's age or above.
When you condemn Kashuv the man for his private racist joke rant at 16, before underdoing the worst experience of his life and graduating with an astronomical GPA, remember that he did it for the same reason every AF Academy cadet did it.
Because violating taboos is extremely fun when you are not actually getting anyone hurt. And because you don't expect the whole damn world to judge you for it later, as if that moment were forever now and your private audience was in the fact the entire damned world.
Let him in.
2
@Michael B. English I was sixteen once. In the dark ages - lates 1960s. Never used the n-word. Wasn't anti-Semitic, either. Probably because I was Jewish. And I suspect that some of my classmates were gay, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't terribly hard.
My kids - millennials - never once used the n-word (as far as I know) and also were not, and are not, anti-Semitic. Lots of gay friends. No question of acceptance and support, and some were even best friends. It's not terribly hard.
1
Oh, once again David, you arrive at an explanation of behavior that is so solid.We should all review what we said and did at 16. Thank you for your compassionate voice that I am also finding in my nightly reads of Second Mountain.
I want to say that as a 16 year old joining a Roman Catholic convent, I began the second mountain and climbed the first alongside. It was and is a grace. Now, some 40 years after leaving, I continue my dual mission and fill blessed for my paths.
Nobody is entitled to be admitted to a school. The learning experience of students in college is more than just academics: it is also includes the experience of interacting with other students who can have a different culture, race, or religion than their own. Harvard made a decision not to admit a kid who feels entitled and uninhibited to throw highly charged racial and anti-Semitic slurs around amongst his pals. Most likely such a person is not someone who would positively add to the learning experience of his other students. A single letter of apology written after being caught is not meaningful. Hopefully the kid will learn from his experience and pursue his dreams elsewhere.
2
Harvard has a powerful brand to protect and a long wait-list of over-qualified applicants. This decision was a no-brainer, it burnishes their reputation among social justice warriors and fosters the impression that they are doing all they can to make the campus environment inclusive and filled with students who will not offend others. He is a very easy PR win for them and of course no one need ask whether they have held the other invited students to this level of scrutiny because they do not have to show consistency in their admission process (ask Asian-American students about that), despite their receiving boatloads of grants from the Federal government for research etc.
3
Quite frankly, what this country needs is more people finding that there are consquences for their behavior, and if you are old enough to be heading to college, you are old enough to learn that lesson.
Increasing numbers of self-interested and manipulative people are counting on others' forbearance to go through life flaunting norms and rules that make our society a more civilized place to live.
Harvard evidently feels that "forgiving" Kashuv displaces another student who might better reflect the University's values. Good for them. There are other schools where Kashuv can find an "opportunity for forgiveness," and odds are this disappointment will be far more beneficial to his character development in the long run than giving him a pass for his abhorrent comments.
Anyone who has attended parochial school, especially decades ago, is well familiar with denouncing and shaming. Forget Aeschylus and remember Nietzche: "What does not kill me makes me stronger."
1
This is awful. I can't believe Harvard would rescind this kid's admission and that so many commentators here are preaching holier than thou proclamations of his eternal damnation. How many of you haven't at one time or another said some completely idiotic thing that you would later take back if you could? The kid wrote this with friends goofing around late at night. He was 16. How many of you didn't test the boundaries of free speech in your own youth? Sure, what he wrote is reprehensible. Unfortunately, social media has now made it that what ever is said in jest sticks with you for life. It was a mistake. He apologized. He hasn't been obviously racist since. Moroever, let me add, just listen to the rap these kids take in every day. Kenrick Lamar, multiple grammy award winner, friend of Barack Obama..uses the "N" word over and over and over again in his critically acclaimed music. These kids grew up listening to him, and to all the other foul-mouthed rappers who have made that word the equivalent of "baby" in 70s pop music. So, late at night, joking around, tired from studying they shout it out in a joke, and this kid, in the assenine manner of a teenage boy, writes it in some social media post. And condemns himself for life?? Really???
We have to distinguish what is truly racist and hateful, from the joking rantings of a kid...we all were kids once. Weren't we? Can't we forgive?
153
@Charlie Sure, and Harvard can choose to rescind his admission. It's not a binary.
37
@Charlie the kid has a reputation for saying these things. He apparently he would go out of his way to share his ranking of female students based on their race. This kid felt entitled to act as he did amongst his peers, showing off for their approval. This kid didn't use the "N" word for artistic license and social commentary - he used it as a means to demean and diminish. Such a person would not add positively to the learning experience of his peers.
60
@Charlie Thank you so much. You speak for me. This is about more than a Harvard admission. It's about our society, that has become so censorious when it comes to certain demographics, that it is willing to sacrifice children who appear to commit sacrilege.
And we all know that had a child with different politics, of another demographic, had said equally heinous things about less protected groups, poor whites for example, that child would never lose his Harvard slot.
19
I agree with Mr. Brooks. The point is not whether someone is racist or feeling unapologetically entitled. There have always been people like that in America. The point is that we are a divided nation and we must sometimes learn to forgive and to be willing to hear a different view.
1
I thought the liberals are for people having a 2nd chance.
So, a convicted felon shall never be given a 2nd chance for a job, a new life. etc...?
3
@John D
A convicted felon has to pay the price -- in jail time, fines, community service, or some other form -- before having the opportunity for a second chance. This kid made some reckless "jokes" at 16 and was rejected by Harvard. He got off easy. Some people have been prosecuted, lost jobs, or otherwise suffered severe consequences for their reckless use of social media.
Everyone should remember this: You don't put anything in writing -- not a text, an email, a blog post, a comment -- that you wouldn't want made public, because there's a good chance it will be. That's a hard lesson to learn.
4
As a former professor & dean, who went to that other school in New Haven, after turning Harvard down (I grew up in Cambridge), I think David Brooks has it right, not Harvard University. This young man will do just fine elsewhere, and also in life.
4
The true test of character is not what you do when the world is watching; rather, it is what you do when you suspect none are. Not only did Kyle Kashuv write horrible things when admissions officers may not see, he did so when his peers around him clearly would.
Yes, Kyle Kashuv may be a different person now, hopefully more aware of the pain words like his can cause. But the fact that he only confronted those words once they had consequences casts doubt on whether he truly is sincere. Maybe Kyle Kashuv is "morally forming" as Mr. Brooks claims, but to me, it seems like Kyle Kashuv is trying to save his place at Harvard.
People must learn through sin and repentance, but that does not mean sin should not have consequence. And Kyle Kashuv has not done anything in my mind to prove that he is "intellectually rigorous and morally humble."
4
"The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy." After all that has been revealed about the college admissions process of late, that's the guess about where the epicenter of meritocracy is? Sounds like this young man was a high-profile, "clean" conservative, who would add some diversity in a sense, until he was a high-profile, "dirty" conservative. There are thousands of students qualified to go to Harvard, ten times if not more the number of slots, and many more than actually even apply. It is certainly not a meritocracy but merely a selection process, somewhere between a beauty contest and a job interview.
3
I wonder how many legacy admitted students have ever uttered racist or offensive words that have yet to be uncovered. This is absurd and smacks of totalitarian government behavior. Off to the reeducation camp you go! If we are honest with ourselves, we have all uttered or laughed at a racist or offensive joke. I'm sure I have. thanks And I say this as a liberal. I am not a Christian, but I like Christ's admonition: let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.
2
Another ridiculous concession to the pc gods from this nauseatingly pc university. It's endless. Harvard is the absolute worst, with the possible exception of Yale.
I think this is a blessing in disguise for Kyle. And if Harvard rescinded the rescission, I know what I'd tell them...
4
This is the same William Fitzsimmons who admittedly accepts far less perfect students if they are children of wealthy alumnae and has been accused in court of discriminating against asian american students in court. Perhaps not the best person to be making the decision in the first place.
3
Does Brooks really believe there's a "meritocracy" at Harvard that passes judgment on who shall be granted or denied entrance? All one has to do to definitively debunk that preposterous proposition, is hark back to the dawn of the last century and examine the presidency of Abbott Lawrence Lowell, gilded scion of the Massachusetts Lowells.
It was Abbott Lowell who, in those "roaring 20s," sounded the tribal alarum that his beloved Harvard had a "Jewish problem"--i.e., too many Jews in the student body.
After some very vicious wrangling, prexy Lowell solved Harvard's Jewish problem by stipulating an enrollment quota on Jews and other people who didn't satisfy his criterion of being "old stock Americans." What's more, he introduced another requirement. "geographic diversity," to disguise his deed.
For steeped as it was in Calvinist doctrine, Harvard, with trembling fear, hewed to its ironclad tenet that God had chosen those destined to enter the pearly gates; and Jews, papists &c clearly weren't among the chosen.
1
There has to be a kid somewhere with stellar grades, conservative views on the Second Amendment and a complete absence of racist and anti-Semitic content in his or her social media feed. Harvard should seriously consider admitting that kid to its Class of 2023. As for Kyle Kashuv, he just learned a valuable lesson that actions have consequences. Maybe he can remind the President of that next time he meets him.
1
By the way, if the story in “Vice,” is accurate....it seems to be far-RIGHT Trumpist types who led the charge to have the admission rescinded, on the grounds that this kid is, “too close to the Republican establishment.”
Did Jared Kushner pass the "moral character" test? His behavior (Russia meeting at Trump Towe) and associations (Saudis) do not suggest that he did. Heck, he couldn't even agree that his father-in-law's birther conspiracy was racist.
1
God forgives. Harvard doesn't have to. Another way that moral character develops is through learning from mistakes, and recognizing that words and actions -- even frivolous, childish ones -- have consequences and repercussions in the real world. It's a lesson our President, whose character is considerably less developed than this young man's, never had to learn for himself. Perhaps he will develop into a better man than the Leader of the Free World. He likely already is.
1
According to David Brooks logic, this young man's lost opportunity to attend Harvard should simply be an occassion for his redemption to grow even fuller. If remorse for your failings brings wisdom, then ta-da! More failings = more remorse = more wisdom. Awful grace of God indeed.
1
Congratulations Harvard!
It is time to take a "strong stance" on this type of behavior, and let us not also forget most of this type of behavior is learned behavior. His parents!!
Remember: Every day a minority steps out of their home they are subject to at least some kind of racial abuse or denigration!
Kashuv committed no crime. Youthful stupidity and insensitivity are obnoxious in the extreme. But if everyone were judged on their literally sophomoric speech, most colleges would not be able to fill an incoming class.
Kashuv has apologized, claims to have changed in the crucible of a mass shooting, and offered to do more to improve. He should be admitted.
Having been subjected to sex discrimination, harassment and assault as a teen, I would say the same about any of the boys (not men) who treated me that way.
3
There is plenty of opportunity for Kyle Kushov to grow
He can do it on his own time
2
Poor kid. Now he - maybe - knows how non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-wealthy, non-straight, non-American born people must feel.
303
@RH
Your comment totally elides the question of what is the right way to deal with this particular young man and this particular situation, and just trades in one set of bigoted, unfair values for another.
28
@RH: You may be unaware of it, but Harvard has plenty of non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-wealthy, non-straight, non-American-born students. That's a red herring. The issue here is this particular young man's behavior and attitudes (and others who may share them). Stop your stereotyping.
13
@Publius
Certainly, but who have the list advantage to get in ?
2
Remarkable commentary among those who have responded. As the father of a Harvard graduate, I fully support the institution's decision. We unfortunately live in a world where too many inexcusable actions are allowed to pass without consequences. And such an action is simply inexcusable.
There is no doubt that this young man is remarkably intelligent. Yet I can state that he lacks a level of wisdom that the majority of his peers (my experience in dealing with 16 year olds) I suspect possess.
Harvard, as a private institution, is well within its discretion to determine the qualifications needed for an applicant to be considered acceptable. And given the size of the applicant pool, it has a vast array of options.
I can recall sitting in a visit session at Harvard when our daughter was 17, a high school junior, and being told that the vast majority of students applying to the University were academically qualified for the institution, and that factors beyond intellect would be key in the admissions decision making process. This young man simply failed the final cut, allowing room for an alternatively well qualified applicant to be admitted.
Welcome to the real world. "Words matter."
4
So for a kid who privately said racist remarks and is outed by classmates, Harvard holds him respond as an adult. He apologized!
If he did this at age 14, 12 or 10, would the same apply.
Don’t see any mention of the other kids involved with the google doc!
For a university with a history of slave owning faculty, Jewish quotas and now discrimination against Asians in admission policy, it should be ashamed!
For a “woke Harvard” it’s time to wake up!
3
@Marc
1) Oh I guess they forgot racism in PRIVATE is ok.
2) Colleges literally use what kids do in the years between 15-17 yo to determine acceptance. Not 14, 12, or 10. 16 is not too young.
3) Don't think the other kids in the Google doc were accepted to Harvard, or have a national presence like this kid. If they did/do, up to Harvard (or whatever colleges they've been accepted to) to decide what to do with them (recall 10 students had their Harvard acceptance rescinded 2 years ago for similar behavior)
4) Harvard isn't perfect and has a very imperfect record. Maybe this a way to start their own amends.
This is Harvard woke.
2
I teach over the Summers in a Juvenile Hall, where many of the kids I face will spend years, and in some cases most of their lives, paying for their moral failings ... so, yeah, redemption is a lot more complicated than simply saying "I'm sorry" after someone else calls out your misdeeds ...
And it's funny ... Brooks says a kid who earns a "D" in math at 16 is somehow not deserving of a place in Harvard, but a kid who lacks the judgment at 16 to refrain from saying "Kill all the Jews" on a school classroom chat should somehow be given the opportunity to serve as a moral beacon ? ... I would think that any one of the 206 sophomores I taught over the last school year who would never dream of saying what Mr. Kushev said would be far more deserving of a place at Harvard as a moral example for us all than he is ...
2
A sixteen-year-old boy, up late studying for a grueling exam, said a bad word to people he thought of as trusted friends. He did it to shock. And now leftist Robespierres demand his head. The leftist urge to turn on *children* -- most recently demonstrated in the Covington Catholic cyber lynching -- is the abhorrent thing here.
*Every* sixteen-year-old boy in this country has said equally bad things, and worse. But not every sixteen-year-old boy has made a name for himself by going against a liberal, gun control narrative. A gun control narrative I support, by the way.
This kid is being victimized because of his politics, and because of the particular bad word he said. He also said awful things about Jews, but nobody cares about those words, nor would they care about new Harvard freshmen who have said bad words about members of less powerful demographics.
The hypocrisy, the urge for vengeance, the desire to sniff through underwear drawers to find any dirt that can incriminate -- all of it is disgusting beyond belief.
3
@Danusha Goska
"And now leftist Robespierres demand his head." A bit hyperbolic, surely. No one is demanding that Kushuv be executed. He's not entitled to a spot at Harvard, that's all. Millions of kids every year don't get a spot at Harvard and they survive just fine.
1
If we are so forgiving of youthful indiscretions, why are so many young black and Hispanic men tried and sentenced for their crimes as adults? Some even executed for their errors in judgment? Or are only white young men entitled to learn from their mistakes and grow?
4
How about if Master Kashuv composes a re-admission essay to Harvard -- and posts it on social media -- so they and David Brooks and I can all make a more nuanced judgment of his redemption.
Just another MAGA hat wearing, 16 year old, privileged, conservative, white male. No mercy for him- ever! Of course, if you're 16 years old and commit any one of several criminal felonies in NY State, you are now no longer criminally responsible- they 'raised the age' because 16 year olds are 'children'- not yet fully formed or capable of understanding or being fully responsible for their criminal actions. But speech- anything that violates our superior sense of moral justice and equity, even from the same 16 year old? How unforgivable.
3
Ah, give him a break - some kids with very questionable morals grow up to be Supreme Court judges.......
2
Mr Brooks the sin-explainer. Unfortunately there's no redemption for someone who was trying insanely getting attention at age 16 with vial biases, explaining now he is a Jew , goes to synagogue etc. but a few years back he spew forth anti-semitic slander. All the while to get attention. A smart kid needs to steep so low as to use hight speech to get attention? Disgusting!
Harvard confronted this "self-styled conservative", a rotten case of rightful speech, and the answers were meaningless apologies as this person shows little sis]gn of reform and growth. Harvard did well to rescind the admission.
3
Everyone here who has never said anything to anyone that wasn’t racist, sexist, or homophobic can all speak up now...just as I thought complete silence!
2
These comments are the most Puritanical, petty, depressing and classless, I have ever seen. I would bet everyone casting stones would not pass a tenth of the level of scrutiny of their teenage years. Pathetic.
2
Maybe Edward Blum’s “Students for Fair Admissions”, which represents qualified Asian students who are said to be under a quote system, perhaps can find one solid Asian student to replace the otherwise morally challenged Kyle Kashuv
Oh, let the kid in. The more he learns, the less likely he'll end up spouting hate and bigotry. Exposure to other smart kids may save him from his cultural delusions.
Peak David Brooks. That is not praise.
Yes, David Brooks, that is very good and most helpful reasoning that is so needed today __ for our children's future.
1
Really a kid taught racism his whole life, two years later just stops being a racist? Give me a break. A males mind doesn't even fully develop until he's 26 and yet Men still do the same stupid things in their 40s they did in their 20s. I highly doubt he learned anything or was sorry. Good for Harvard.
1
Please, Mr Brooks, find someone else to feel sorry for. There are much more compelling stories of injustice out there than a kid who happens to be smart but finds the right wing and racist lingo appealing. Using the N word is outside the realm of ‘boys will be boys’.
Classic white male entitlement if you ask me.
3
June 18, 2019
"You have a number of choices. You could continue to always fight against people who are really distractions. They're people in the cheap seats of life. Or you can do what you went there to do. Clarence Thomas"
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/clarence_thomas
1
Would this young man be the worst one admitted at Harvard? Is his morality so how - below the morality of even the worst who took classes and got their degrees there? I very much doubt it!
Awesome, Harvard! You have gotten yourself an enemy for life! You can be sure that this young man will dedicate his life to showing how biased your ethics are, how hypocritical you have become!
@Eduard C Hanganu
Seriously? Harvard has done this multiple times before. About many different types of infractions.
@Eduard C Hanganu
RE: "this young man will dedicate his life..."
If that is what he does that it completely vindicates Harvard's decision not allow what would be a psychopath into its school. Especially one who advocates that guns are a valid response to violence.
I’m all for redemption after all our nations history makes it necessary.
Making flippant racist slurs as a bad joke is one thing but the sorry excuse of a lad was advocating mass murder. That should at least be a bar that Harvard or any institution could set.
Let him go to Bob Jones University, after all they frequently welcomed the likes of the Northern Ireland Unionist bigot Ian Paisley or Hillsdale College which is affiliated with the DeVos’ and Eric Prince of Blackwater mercenaries.
1
I agree that people can change and that he has room to grow, yet the timeline gives me pause -- he claims "I was 16!!!", but he was 16 in 2018. That's one year and one month ago, not "back when I was a child".
He criticizes Harvard for judging him based on his actions as a 16 year old, but you have to remember that the whole concept of college admissions is being judged as a 16 year old. Right?
Yes, he messed up, and yes, everyone has room to grow (Kyle included), and he is allowed to have a second chance (we call it: grad school). You have to remember that he's not getting arrested or suspended for his past behavior. The consequence is his admission to Harvard was revoked -- something no one is entitled to in the first place, regardless of how bright and talented you are.
Kyle can be forgiven, but forgiveness does not equal getting to go to Harvard. Going to Harvard is a privilege, not a right.
3
I deal with this kind of thing all the time in my profession, and I completely support the universities, plural, in their right to rescind admission decisions for bad behavior. It's not so much the bad language per se; it's the public nature the student made out of it. We are accountable for what we do and say in public. Separately, character should always be a component of admissions decisions. This is not about a political stance but about a behavior. Thus, I would take the same position (and have, with my students) when a student wants to brag about how he or she "hates" Trump and wishes to write about that in an application to a private high school or college. Hatred is not a sign of good character, let alone is bragging about it.
2
More virtue signalling by the commentariat.
Oh, he's such a bad kid. Kick him out of Harvard. There that makes me feel smugly superior to those lesser beings who are not as perfect as I am.
Sure, he shouldn't have said what he said, but does using the N word at sixteen among your friends while studying late at night a crime? Is it the equivalent of painting swastikas on synagogues or burning down black churches or running a racist web site?
If he wasn't conservative, but a budding AOC would the commentariat still condemn him?
I think forgiving a 16 year old for stupid behavior is the right thing to do. I know people who said some pretty stupid, racist things when kids but grew up to be civil rights activists.
But the worst part of this sordid tale is that by timing this as Harvard did, he loses the opportunity for scholarships (which I believe he was offered) from other schools. So it's not just a matter of the admission to Harvard, but the small matter of paying for higher education.
1
@Ralphie
he can reapply next year, when he's demonstrated true growth and maturity, and is thus accepted with scholarships all over the place. His choice.
1
He should volunteer as a teacher’s aid in an inner-city school for a year then re-apply.
1
More virtue signalling by the commentariat.
Oh, he's such a bad kid. Kick him out of Harvard. There that makes me feel smugly superior to those lesser beings who are not as perfect as I am.
Sure, he shouldn't have said what he said, but does using the N word at sixteen among your friends while studying late at night a crime? Is it the equivalent of painting swastikas on synagogues or burning down black churches or running a racist web site?
If he wasn't conservative, but a budding AOC would the commentariat still condemn him?
I think forgiving a 16 year old for stupid behavior is the right thing to do. I know people who said some pretty stupid, racist things when kids but grew up to be civil rights activists.
But the worst part of this sordid tale is that by timing this as Harvard did, he loses the opportunity for scholarships (which I believe he was offered) from other schools. So it's not just a matter of the admission to Harvard, but the small matter of paying for higher education.
I am always amazed at how many adults were never teenagers.
Don't pretend you weren't stupid too - you just had less opportunity to leave a trail.
No, it would not want such a person like a pre-Kavanaugh wannabe in the making.
I am sure there are many BARR like individuals already preparing for their lives full of entitlements and it will not miss another one.
Elitists never shop at Circle K.
The problem I have with this is that we don't know if he's really sorry that he made these remarks, or if he's just sorry that he got caught. I suspect the answer to this will become clear in years to come. Meanwhile, I'm sure he can find another school willing to accept him and overlook his past.
Well Mr Brooks. There is always that bastion of knowledge and morality residing at "Bob Jones university". Thinking he should fit in nicely no ?
1
I have enjoyed reading Brooks for years. This op ed is ridiculously naive and thoughtless from where I stand. I like the comment about letting this kid attend NRA University. Harvard, nor any college, needs to tolerate right wing diversity just for the sake of it. Kid is smart, cagey, crafty, perhaps brilliant, but he is a racist and showed tremendously poor judgement with his 'immature' online rant. Seriously, how many Harvard-level applicants do that stuff? Good riddance.
3
David Brooks has apparently been living in a vacuum.
Conservatives have forfeited their benefit of a doubt. Several times over. I would offer that the Harvard staff- and most anyone who works with college kids- develops a pretty solid instinct about how moral character develops, or fails to.
2
White privilege is one heck of a drug apparently. He didn't send ONE tweet with the n-word, and David Brooks's attempt to tell his readers otherwise is completely shameful. This punk has used the n-word...a lot and repeatedly. And he didn't do it "when he was a kid". He did it in 2018 and likely just a few months ago via text. He was a racist then. He's a racist now. He hasn't changed. He hasn't had some epiphany. The idea that he's made a "mistake" is despicable.
He isn't being jailed, by the way. He can't go to Harvard. We will now watch as countless Trump-loving universities literally race to offer this bigot a full ride to their illustrious schools.
And a quick note about college admissions for those who apparently can't remember what they had for breakfast: colleges and universities get applications from high school students. You know...high school...when you're a minor. Colleges and universities JUDGE what applicants did as children. Are you picking up what I'm putting down here?
3
There is something else people should think about, that just hit me. These days, the kids who aim for the elite schools (like this kid, a 5+ GPA?) are so afraid of screwing up their chances of getting into an elite school, that they follow a path of least risk, they don't take classes that are a stretch, they don't do things that are outside their comfort zone, they do EC's because they think the school wants to see them, they basically turn themselves from the time they are in middle school into this package to be presented to the schools they apply to.
Yet this bright kid, who is afraid to take risks because it is so difficult to get into an Elite school, who knows the competition to get into there, how easy it is to fail, knows these schools are going to look harshly at racist or other such kinds of postings, in fact are going to look, and yet suddenly he is just a stupid kid? Or that if this was just something in the moment, as he claims, how come in the following 2 years it didn't dawn on him that post would be dealt with harshly? The only thing I can think of is that somehow he didn't think making those statements was anything wrong, the fact that he left them out there for 2 years says he didn't grow, didn't seem to show any regret for what he had posted, until he got caught.
2
Whatever wisdom Kyle has gained is from having his spot rescinded at Harvard, not from his peppering of racist remarks.
I see no wisdom gained here as any true act of moral humility would have accepted Harvard's decision and moved on and not whine about it on Twitter hoping to generate public outrage over it's decision because poor Kyle didn't get into an "elite" school. If he is truly contrite, he will be fine being at another institution that will accept him and drop his meritocratic status-chasing that Mr. Brooks chronically despises.
I find it absolutely ludicrous that Mr. Brooks actually thinks Kyle has the moral high-ground here by having committed what he did at age 16 "to lend a hand to all the perfect resume children" as if they are the ones truly in need of salvation by the enlightened hand of Kyle. It's those dang perfect resume children that are the ticking time-bombs that are the grievous acts in waiting and if only Kyle were available at Harvard to save them from their own self-destructive impulses. Right? Guess what Mr. Brooks, a lot of kids at 16 already have enough moral rectitude and know about issues concerning race and certainly know enough not to pepper online comments with the N-word and think it is funny. Spare me the sanctimony.
2
@Richard Let me ask you a question: So many of the songs 16-year-olds listen to and sing along with are peppered with the N-word in their lyrics. Should every kid who utters the N-word while singing their favorite song be banned from attending Harvard? And if you think what Kyle did was so horrible, why should he be permitted to go to a 'non-elite' school? Why should they be accepting of such odious behavior? These kids are being painted with the same brush as a KKK member burning down a black church. It doesn't appear to me they had hate in their hearts when they used this offensive language in a private chat room while studying for an exam. It doesn't feel like they had hate in their hearts, but the social mob wants to portray them as racist to the core. There's far more hate coming out of this comment section than these kids have shown.
It's been a long time since I applied to college, but I assume the Admissions Committee still evaluates a student's performance, academic and otherwise, that has transpired during his/her time in high school. Those are the years being evaluated. That includes one's 15th and 16th year of life. Assumedly, Mr. Kasuv was applying to college not long after he turned 17. The argument that his words were written in some far off earlier time and, therefore, should be viewed differently, is without merit.
If Mr. Kasuv's online rantings had been discovered by the Harvard Admissions Committee during the vetting process, undoubtedly, he would not have received an invitation to join Harvard's Class of 2023. And, no one would have been the wiser as to their decision, including Mr. Kasuv. And, it would have been Harvard's prerogative. And, Mr. Kasuv would not be complaining. And, we would not be having this conversation.
Nothing has changed. Harvard discovered a disqualifying aspect of Mr. Kasuv's application not originally discovered and has acted accordingly. Mr. Kasuv has learned that words have consequences. Hopefully, he will do something positive with the knowledge.
2
For all those who wonder how the country can still be racist after so many years....
How many people are so thankful they didn't have social media when they were teens? How many of wouldn't have gotten into the college/university had they had Facebook/Twitter etc.?
How many young adults are being educated abut the long lasting power of social media and that nothing will remain hidden. Nothing!
@Beth Grant DeRoos - How many people are so thankful they didn't have social media when they were teens?
Wouldn't have ,made a difference in my teen years. I still wrote letters and wrote in my notebooks. You'd find nothing of the type that Kashuv wrote in any of them.
1
Harvard--a private institution--made the right call here. Mr. Kashuv may have "matured" in the intervening two years, but I doubt the maturity extends much beyond learning to keep these thoughts private, or expressing them in a more P.C. manner. Mr. Kashuv will have other opportunities, and now Harvard will have the opportunity to coach the brilliance of a more empathetic and less hateful individual. No word should be permitted to use the n-word, or any other racist epithet, and not suffer some kind of consequence.
2
Mr. Brooks, I have a 16-year-old grandson who admittedly is not as mature as you and me. Neither is his 13-year-old brother. Yet, I do not expect either of them to disgrace themselves enough to earn their maturity, as you put it, the way this boy did. There is immaturity and there is cocky stupidity. One can be forgiven. The other deserves a kick in the metaphoric pants. Maybe that is the way Harvard decided it could best teach him.
1
Neither Harvard nor the world will miss this kid. Let him go to Yale or Colombia or Cornell. There are plenty of schools that will nurture his white supremacy
I have heard people for decades who claim they have overcome racial bias. Always rubbish
Now at least the kid will have a sib story to justify his hatred. Harvard did him a favor
1
@John Mortonw
"Let him go to Yale or Colombia or Cornell. There are plenty of schools that will nurture his white supremacy."
Seriously? Provide evidence for Yale or Columbia or Cornell nurturing white supremacy. All of the elite colleges in the country bend left, not right -- officially and unofficially.
The irate social media justice mob commenting here is blinded by their rage for Kyle Kashuv first and foremost because he dares to label himself a conservative during this age of Trump. They would all lump the odious language he used as a 16-year-old in a private chat among friends as equivalent of a 50-year-old KKK member spitting in a man's face and calling him the N word. Based on the circumstances surrounding the manner in which Kyle Kashuv and his friends uttered these unfortunate words, I find this to be an instance of kids doing stupid things and not an instance where they had hate in their hearts. Add to this that much of the music 16-year-olds listen to these days is literally filled with the N-word being uttered by their musical heroes, it's not that shocking that kids utter this word, whether singing along with the songs or in a private online chat while studying with their friends. But the mob is angry! They just can't wait to wag their collective finger at this young man and label him a racist to the core. Harvard rescinding Kashuv's admission is a sad indicator that mob justice is carrying the day.
2
You are correct that kids to stupid things. The kids who do not do stupid things and say "fortunate"(to turn around your phraseology) things are the sort perhaps Harvard sees more promise and is willing to invest resources in.
What "the mob" that you describe is saying does not necessarily equate with the investment decisions that one of the most elite universities in the world is making.
@Yann As another person posited here a little while ago, if Harvard denied admission to every teen boy who ever said something ignorant or stupid when they were young, the student body would be all female.
1
Just think about what is coming. Future generations who have posted bad things on social media during adolescence will want to run for public office as they grow older. The bad stuff will still be in the cloud and retrievable.
2
Using the "N" word REPEATEDLY is not a hiccup, an aberration, or a misstep. It is a mindset and an entitlement. Furthermore, we - the public - have no idea what other determinants Harvard used to decide the final outcome. Unlike Kashuv, they are practicing restraint and respect for a person and situation that they know is a potential tinderbox.
2
This is his opportunity to actually seek redemption. Prove it through his actions going forward, and then reapply. If Harvard (or any other elite University) genuinely believes he has matured and is reformed, they can choose to accept him next year. He should use this as to demonstrate true growth and remorse. Or he could seek out more Fox News interviews. How he proceeds is his choice. Maybe he'll choose wisely.
1
Move on, Mr. Kashuv, if Harvard does not want you, then you do not need them as well.
3
This is a nothing op-ed. I mean really. What is Mr. Brooks point here? So folksy--ALWAYS. Such generalities. Who's this dude's audience anyways? Isn't this a social research space? Is this really the problem with elite institutions?
This also has nothing to do with conservatism versus liberalism: hate-filled racist comments are abhorrent from both sides.
2
The Governor of Virginia gets a pass for wearing 'black face' while he was an adult, already finished with college and in medical school. But a 16-year old high school student's texts of vile words condemns him for life.
1
@Donna Gray
The fact that Northam continues to serve as governor is certainly bewildering, but seriously, "condemns him for life"??? Because he's not going to Harvard??
@Donna Gray
His acceptance to Harvard was rescinded. His life is hardly ruined nor is he condemned for life.
No one had been “condemned for life.” Believe it or not, many people survive without going to Harvard. Your breathless hysteria is uncalled for. Attendance at Harvard is a privilege granted to a tiny few—— By no means is it a right.
And by what right do you tell Harvard, a private institution, whom it should admit. You start your own college and then you can admit anyone you want.
He was 16 for god's sake, and has apologized. Let him in to learn how to be right from the almighty gods of Harvard and NYT commentators.
1
Tailor-made for conservatives' tired trope of aggrievement. Decades on, this woe-is-me grows tiresome. Perhaps Harvard should have given the kid another chance, but it is their choice to make. "Not a whit upon compulsion." The student's apology seemed too little too late. And what kid nowadays does not know writing the n-word over and over on social media is unacceptable. Even 30 years ago such behavior was outré.
3
Applicants to Harvard with stellar GPAs and SAT scores are a dime a dozen. It is character that matters and what he would contribute to the Harvard community. So what if he is sorry for writing racist texts while studying for his AP exam. What thinking person texts racism at all, especially in this day and age? Fitzsimmons should not have admitted him in the first place since his personal essay was all about how great it was to meet Trump and push for more guns in schools. Besides, Massachusetts has gun control, real gun control and being an NRA shill would be about as welcome as the crying neo-Nazi was to Keene, NH. He is not just a conservative.
3
Being rejected from Harvard will make him into a D’Souza or Richard Spencer type. He will become a very verbal embittered racist. It’s probably too late for him anyway.
1
"The more prominent he got, the more I was bothered by his hypocrisy,” Ariana Ali, one of Kashuv’s classmates, said about him recently. “He pretends to be this God-fearing, squeaky-clean type, but everyone who knows him knows that’s not who he really is.” Who he really is, according to Ali, is a bigot. According to another classmate, Kashuv “used the N-word frequently,” both in text messages and in person. A different classmate said, “He was obsessed with ranking which women were most attractive, by race. Out of nowhere, he’d go, ‘Wanna hear my racial ranking system?’ ” Political disagreements are one thing, Ali said, “but Kyle’s behavior was way, way over the line.” Ali had several more anecdotes attesting to this. She also, as they say, had the receipts."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/the-parkland-provocateur-kyle-kashuv-prepares-to-graduate
Brett Kavanaugh comes to mind.
I also wonder if the Harvard admissions office were concerned about having pro gun rallies and interviews on FoxNews about the liberal socialist professors brainwashing students.
2
This guy is an avowed racist and avowed right winger who supports Trump. Harvard did the right thing.
3
Morality V. Wisdom
Beatitudes V. Commandments
Good Thief V. Bad Thief
Yes V. No = May ~ Be
Bit V. Byte
Off V. On
Male V. FeMale
Binary V. Hole
Whole V. Donut
In V. Out
BathRoom V. BathHouse
Red V. Blue
Shirts V. Skins
Yin Chases Yang
Yang Chases Yin
Ouroboros Watches
Orouroboros Rolls
Round Center
CenT ~ Ered
GeoCentric V. HelioCentric
North V. South
UPP V. DOWNN
Luther v. Rome
Question V. Answer
“ Who am EyE To Judge ? “
Harvard V. State U
Do Nothing ~ Leave No Thing Un-Done
Nothing V. KnowThing
“ And,
So it Goes ! “
1
As a knee jerk liberal I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with David here. How strange.
1
He didn't get into his dream school. That's it.
People who slack off for a semester in their Junior year are likely to face the same consequences. Are their character failings more severe than his?
Consequences are important. We're not talking about a kid being blackballed out of college - we're talking about a kid not getting into Harvard.
He can repent. He can be morally humble. He can be forgiven. He can go on to lead an amazing, rewarding life. He doesn't need to be immediately forgiven by Harvard in order to do that.
5
13 tweets dissing Harvard for calling you on your racist comments in private correspondence you released yourself via tweet and you're an instant celebrity. Mr. Kushuv can teach even Milo Yiannopoulos about publicity. We've all been set up for pseudo outrage.
Either he really believed in the racist views he posted, or he is the dimmest bulb in the box thinking that it's ok to write these things online without any possible future repercussions.
2
He ain't the only one, David. Will you write a pity-column about all the people who have their offers rescinded? Here's a few:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/6/5/2021-offers-rescinded-memes/
2
Harvard has made a mistake. If you are an institution of imparting knowledge and wisdom, why would you refuse to accept a clearly intelligent and thoughtful person?
1
@Bahram Keramati
They refuse to accept A LOT of clearly intelligent and thoughtful people. Because they get 60,000 applications from intelligent and thoughtful people every year. They have the luxury as a highly sought after private institution to accept and deny anyone they want, for any reason. They chose not to accept this. How he reacts going forward will tell us who he truly is. And he can always reapply (although something tells me he will not).
1
For those who point out that people grow over time and change, let's remember that often the way in which we grow is by facing consequences for our actions.
6
Doing stupid things as a teenager and experiencing grace and forgiveness as an adult, we ought to hear a judgement from Associate Justice to the SCOTUS Brett Kavanaugh.
I agree. Harvard needs to be honest and admit that moral errors are commonly committed by youngsters who, by the very fact of their youth and inexperience, may stumble onto a path to wisdom that becomes clearer as they mature. Doesn't Harvard want to offer an arena, an opportunity for youngsters to safely grow up and grow out? Isn't one important aspect of education the formation of moral human beings? I believe Harvard may have treated this youngster unjustly. Compassionate questioning should be put ahead of shunning.
David Brooks makes up for his many failings as a commentator by being consistently, but, alas, unintentionally funny. Especially when he mounts his highest horse and takes it for a canter. The most amusing line in his latest column is this one:
"The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy."
I don't think even Harvard's most passionate defenders are likely to push that argument very far. The selection committee for the US's Olympic fencing team is probably closer to that epicentre.
Harvard has a trillion-dollar endowment and they do not care what David Brooks--or anybody--thinks. And there are many, many very fine colleges at which a smart person can get a quality education.
1
Thank goodness the early church wasn't as backward looking as Harvard. Never would have accepted Saul of Tarsus.....
2
An applicant who spews racist epithets and glories in anti-semitism and who supports guns on campus, what is not to like?
2
This kid being racist wasn't a “weak moment” rather it was inbred since his birth as you can see by him stating typing out the N word requires practice to be perfect. A weak moment is spraying graffiti on the wall to celebrate graduation day. This kid is a full fledged Trump supporter and “racist” & “Trump supporter” goes hand in hand. Stop coddling these gen Z racists and continue to show them racism is never acceptable. You cant change who you are over night because a college rejected you. This kid may be racist his entire life unless his ideals are fully rejected at every turn he makes. Most racists simply cant “change” and be non racist. Thats ridiculous. They need to face consequences in all facets of society, which is difficult at the moment given a blatant racist holds the presidency, which is precisely why kids are being blatantly racist because “hey, the President is.” It will take years to undo the damage Trump has created and the only answer is to nip it in the bud in all facets of life just as Harvard has done. No more coddles.
2
Hard to fathom why you would support this individual that has demonstrated his ignorance and idiocy. Apologizing does not negate his attitudes and beliefs he clearly exhibited. I would not want this person to be a classmate of my kids with such views. Harvard made the correct decision. How ironic that our rightwing columnists are all bent out of shape when prejudice against blacks and Jews are called out.
While I do not condone nor judge the juvenile comments of Mr. Kashuv, just my opinion, but he is likely a better candidate for Harvard than the author of this piece. Absolute garbage, again in my opinion.
If the student had admitted his action and his repentance to Harvard at the time of his application, or at least before Harvard’s decision, then I think Harvard might well have recognized his moral growth and admitted him. Not to have admitted his racist remarks was to let them stand, which was why Harvard could not accept him.
2
@Jonathan Hale That's an impossible standard. Are we all to attach lists of our possible transgressions made when we were younger on our college applications? Surely each of us did something in our youth that we wouldn't be proud of nor want to be made public. Thankfully, social media wasn't around when we applied to college.
2
Sixteen year olds are held responsible for their actions all the time. Just ask an African American teenager in the criminal justice system.
8
We culturally seem torn on the age of childhood: 26 for health insurance, as low as 14 for the death penalty. We're also super quick to shame this kid, too; as a 30-something I feel lucky I lacked a digital footprint in high school.
Obviously the "n" word is abhorrent!
And yet, how many top radio hits blast that word unapologetically, with the hopes boys like this one will listen, absorb, and buy albums? I bet none of this exists in a vacuum for a teenager who may lack the maturity (or guidance) to decipher.
Another thing: someone below mentioned slurs against women and it's a great point. I dare to say MANY of the young men at Harvard have used gender slurs, including the "C" word. What separates this from that ... where do we drawn the line on terrible things young people say before we kick them out of college?
And yes, I hate the idea of children using either of those terrible words. Yes, I am a liberal arts-educated grad of a private college, one, I believe, would have taken the opportunity to teach this young man a more expanded way of thinking...
In my opinion, Harvard is wrong on this one. This boy is clearly growing up, and he seems to mean well. Brooks is right: whatever happened to the community belief of "who are we to judge?"?
2
Harvard has done this with 10 students in 2012. Why should he be treated any differently. Colleges judge you based on what you did in HS, and everyone knows by know to be careful what you post. Although these were private messages, it shouldn't come as a surprise that they could be screenshot. Harvard is the most elite university in the states. I'd imagine they would have pretty high standards when it comes to academics and personal character. This isn't even news, but ppl like brooks want to push it to fit in with their narrative.
2
Forgiveness and consequences are separate issues and not mutually exclusive. Kashuv may be sincere in his apology, which rightly goes to individuals and communities that were the target of his speech. They may choose to forgive him or not. Harvard is not part of the forgiveness process, they were not wronged (at least not any more than society as a whole is wronged by acts of hate.)
Separately, Kashuv may still bear the consequences of his
actions, losing his chance to attend his first choice college. This is not a "cruel or unusual" penalty, he's still going to attend a good college somewhere I expect. Harvard can easily fill that spot with another very qualified student, so why not? They have standards and should apply them. (side note - good to hear Harvard admits outspoken conservatives, contrary to reports about colleges being monoliths of liberalism.)
Kashuv's full apology and vow to do better is commendable and - if sincere - are separate from Harvard's decision. This path - an apology, a learning experience, an example to others, AND bearing consequences without deflecting blame - is maybe what Brooks should be setting as the standard for character growth and wisdom.
1
Ah, yes - another example of digital vigilantism. How many of us would care to be judged for the rest of our lives by something stupid we did or said when we were 16? Or 15?
I might add that, when I was 16, in the mid-Sixties, in the deep south, I was seriously racist, as were just about all white Southerners. To declare me a life-long moral outlaw for it is to decree that people never change, never learn better, and never grow up.
Today's morality police might stop and consider that some of their beliefs will likely be declared anathema in the future, but they probably won't.
4
@Frank O To be denied admission to Harvard - something that happens to 19 out of 20 of applicants - is not the same thing as declaring someone a lifelong moral outlaw.
1
This is uninformed, deliberate spin or not I can only guess. Did Brooks read his Twitter page? The guy wrote about wanting to use African-Americans as shooting targets, but claims he's redeemed now because he started attending synagogue--but given the timeline, that was clearly after he realized he'd been caught and there were going to be ramifications. When he says it's been years and so he should be forgiven, we're talking from ages 16-18--he can barely put a plural on the word.
He's not sorry he wrote those things; he's sorry he got caught. Let THIS be the start of some real repentance before he does more damage to his life--and ours, given what guns are doing to us all in this country. A friend of mine at the Dallas courthouse managed not to get shot yesterday. It's people like Kashuv who enable mass shootings to happen.
6
Brooks asks at the end of his article "It’s hard to know if Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments, but if he has, wouldn’t Harvard want a kid who is intellectually rigorous and morally humble?" Suppose that Harvard has many (or even just two) intellectually rigorously humble kids to choose from, including Kashuv. Why admit Kashuv over the other choice(s)? Suppose that Kushuv appears contrite. Why does apparent contrition entitle him to admission? How can Harvard verify contrition? Is Kushuv contrite just because he says so?
4
I agree with David Brooks. What Kashov said in his 16 year old "stupid brain" is pretty disgusting, but a lot of 16 year olds are disgusting, and surprisingly they often grow up and become decent, even exemplary, people. Theare are many ways to punish disgusting behavior, but denying education shouldn't be one of them. Yes, I know, the kid doesn't have to go to Harvard, but surely Harvard could find another way to impress on him the unacceptability of his behavior and to allow him to earn, if he can, redemption.
3
This young man should have learned way before he was 16 that the word he gleefully typed over and over was so ugly that he should be ashamed to ever use it. Being forgiven does not mean escaping all consequences for crossing a line.
5
So much is being said here without much knowledge of the young man who feels that he's been wronged by Harvard for his "slip-ups". Here's an article that every person interested in this should read before deciding--I'm surprised David apparently did not.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/the-parkland-provocateur-kyle-kashuv-prepares-to-graduate
2
Wow, we have become such an unforgiving rigid PC society. Of course what he wrote was terribly wrong but who among us isn't ashamed of some things we did when young and dumb? The kid deserves a chance. I guess all other students at Harvard are pure as the driven snow.
2
I have little to no sympathy for this young man, but I'm sure his parents, their friends, and their friends will help him get over his disinvitation from Harvard. And I'm sure that the conservative movement will offer him scholarships to a number of very highly thought-of institutions. Can we move on now?
2
I understand what Mr. Brooks is saying about moral development, and of course, he is right. Furthermore, I am a conservative who agrees with the young Mr. Kashuv on gun issues. Still, I am deeply bothered by Kashuv's cavalier use of the N-word at 16. In response to neighborhood boys using that word, my mother explained to me when I was four years old in the 1960s why that word was so hurtful and wrong. We were poor whites in southern Illinois, but my mother explained to me that the Black people around us were even poorer and often oppressed and that to use such a word was cruel and a cruelty against people who were already suffering. I would never have written such a thing when I was 16, nor did I know any other high school student of good will who would have. I have no animosity toward this young man, and I wish him all the best, and I suspect he has a bright future in front of him. Nevertheless, in this particular case, I side with Harvard. This is not ancient history. It is part of his high school experience. Harvard can and should admit one of the thousands of other applicants with amazing academic credentials who have not spewed racial epithets during their high school years. Conservatives should not waste their energies and social capital defending Kashuv.
3
Why all the stir over this teenager who knowingly and repeatedly made racist remarks? What "right" does he have to go to a particular private university? This idea that he has now learned from his past racist behavior is great, but it is not an automatic pass into Harvard or any other private university. Words have consequences--too bad the Liar in Chief never learned that lesson but this young man will.
5
Here's an idea: let the traditional african-american universities offer Mr. Kashuv a full scholarship. I am certain that he will find it life changing to say the least.
2
White Male Privileged
The use of dehumanizing language such as this has, in the past, led to the normalization of bigotry and abuse towards immigrants. Recall the dehumanizing of Jews during the Holocaust, the Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, and the Rohingya in Myanmar. Language such as this further exacerbates hostility and violence. This mindset has lead to date rapist experiencing little to no consequences for their actions.
People need to be held accountable for their actions no matter how “young and dumb” they were.
Some teenagers believe that they will not face any consequences from their actions. Due to this mindset, adolescents are confident that they can and will get away with anything they do. teenagers know and understand the consequences of their actions, but choose to do immoral things anyway.
1
Have Harvard officials actually invited this kid in and sat down with him for a heart to heart? Taken the opportunity to listen to him and have him listen to them? This could be an important learning opportunity. You really do get more flies with honey. The converted are always good proselytisers....
Instead of confirming his juvenile and ignorant 'beliefs', let him see the light.
2
@Elizabeth Barry, Canada A nice thought, but why should it be Harvard's responsibility to do what his parents have failed to? All this opportunist would do is use it to crow about Harvard having to come to him.
1
Everybody is hopping up and down on this kid's use of the 'N' word - as well they should - , but he also used several anti-Semitic slurs as well. Since young Mr. Kashuv is Jewish, as are his parents, and since he attends Synagogue on something of a regular basis, it is reasonably obvious that he is not an anti-Semite, so why do we automatically assume his text messages including the "N" word are any more seriously racist than are his anti-Semitic ones? He was almost certainly a bright kid doing something stupid, as both bright and stupid 16-year-olds often do. To condemn him for the remaining 70 or more years of his life for such adolescent indiscretions really is a bit much.
I wonder if the reputations of JFK, or RFK, or LBJ, or FDR, or 'Ike', or even Eleanor Roosevelt, could withstand delving into their 16-year-old mentalities if all were subjected to the same intense scrutiny that social media now affords us?
3
Conservative Twitter should be told that Kashuv is not the first student whose admission was rescinded when their past behavior was brought to light. In 2017, Harvard rescinded admission to ten prospective students who had traded racist messages on Facebook. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/6/5/2021-offers-rescinded-memes/
I'm a teacher. If we scoured the private documents (this wasn't public) of every incoming Harvard student, I'm quite certain we'd find at least 25% saying vile things, & a smaller proportion *doing* vile things. Teens say vile things. Their frontal lobes aren't developed. They learn not to. As an educator, I know it's my job to teach them to become more moral. I've had students assault others; commit drug deals & other crimes; steal; blow up things. I teach them. Harvard itself admits former criminals. As they should.
Guess what. It's called redemption, it's called learning.
Either Harvard applies this draconian policy to everyone, or no one. This rescinding process needs to be equitable, transparent, & clear. Otherwise, it's open to discrimination based on soft attributes, ie donor status, connections, $$, political affiliation, race, religion. Harvard itself is being sued for years of active racism against Asians--as adults. BTw, if guilty, do they fire themselves? Close down Harvard? They've already established character flaw is sufficient to rescind & apologies don't matter.
Also what are the toxic words exactly & is this applied to all cultures alike? Does Harvard rescind, say, a virulent anti-semitic Saudi or a racist Chinese national? And is this reactive, applied only if someone launches a smear campaign, & ignore otherwise? All of this is not equitable, murky,& open to considerably dirty politics & hate strategies by enemies.
3
Mr. Kashuv will never learn resilience if there are no consequences for his actions. He should, of course, have a second chance, but that second chance will come somewhere other than Harvard.
2
Adolescent "racists" get punished, but "adult" religious bigots get elected to Congress.
I guess the kid's parents didn't give Harvard enough Bennies, like Kushner's did.
Is Harvard now the " P. C. thinking person's" Oberlin?
3
I have to say that the self-righteousness that attends the folks who share my political views will never cease to amaze me. I have always felt it was wrong to try children as adults and this is exactly what Harvard and the shaming crowd are doing. Yeah, he was a jerk--and a jerk in a way that is remarkably widespread, especially amongst teens. His responses have been more mature than those of the Governor of Virginia and countless others who have been caught out in much the same way.
I would like to advise those on my side of the aisle to stop patting themselves on the back for their virtue. They really haven't earned it. And stop projecting your sins onto others. They haven't earned it either.
1
You don't come out of the womb hating-you have to be carefully taught. Kyle Kashuv heard this horrible name from people close to him. The fact that he is Jewish makes one wonder how he could spew such hatred when Jewish people have experienced persecution and hatred for generations.
2
Not to worry, he will fail upwards.
All the racist, white-male conservative "victims" do.
You wouldn't believe the market for it - they can even get writers at the New York Times to bemoan their plight.
6
I sure wouldn't want to be held responsible retrospectively for my teenage years. Harvard, an educational institution, should be aware of the big changes young people go through in a compressed period of time. I am disappointed in Harvard (not for the first time).
2
I would expect any ivy-league prospect to know that whatever you post on the internet may come to haunt you.
Probably Harvard and other ivy leagues every year happily accept students with the same qualities and shortcomings that Mr, Kashuv but just a little more savvy in presenting themselves as the ideal recruit.
3
And sometimes, Mr. Brooks, we just simply need to take responsibility for our actions and deal maturely with what consequences may come. This should be a teachable moment for young Mr. Kashuv.
5
I take exception to the notion that Harvard admission is based on meritocracy.
4
Why is Harvard holding this teen to a standard that almost no teen could meet? I remember when we were teens we made racist remarks to each other. The only difference was that we didn't post it on social media. That meant that we had the chance to outgrow it. Some of us did and some of us didn't. If Harvard admitted this student without inspecting the social media first it can certainly keep him and see if he has changed. By doing what it did it told him and others like him who make ill advised comments on social media, that all that counts is their past, not whether or not they have or can change.
4
Hmmm funny you own this - I asked my own 30 something kids if they used racial slurs etc in HS and well
No and I asked their friends and some of their teachers . Guess your moral compass a bit pointed south .
1
Very few teens can meet the high standards Harvard sets. That’s the definition of an elite, selective institution. The bar is set very high and few have what it takes to rise above it. Is Harvard overrated? Aren’t other schools just as good? Does it perpetuate an upper class status quo? Does it do enough to advance minorities? Does it promote a liberal agenda? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, it is an excellent school with great resources and a highly accomplished, mature, and refined student body. It requires much of those admitted because they are not only the educated but part of the education themselves. A teenager who uses clearly racist words in an online group forum possesses at least two qualities that should disqualify them from admission to such a school. That young adult is either racist or has terrible judgement. A third quality - being provocative for provocation sake - is an immature and anti-intellectual device. It’s nonsense to think that this guys politics have anything to do with this.
1
David, I truly appreciate your effort to separate a child's indiscretions and poor choices to the larger issue of error and redemption. Heaven forfend my opinions at 16 should define me today. But any child in this day and age knows unequivocally that the language he used was absolutely taboo. And now that child has used the media to promote his perceived punishment as something out of the ordinary, directed only at him. What I see is the primary trait of the current occupant of the White House - narcissism - in the student's response. It's all about me. Good for Harvard. The kid still has multiple choices for an excellent education. I'm sure he'll find a fit.
5
"morally humble"
come on Brooks.
That's not what his classmates say.
I would be more sympathetic to your "tolerance/redemption" theme if the kid had included his texts and a message of his redemption in his Harvard application.
His opposition to gun restrictions is not part of the issue, David.
6
The N work is always a dealbreaker? (see Jennifer S comments). The absolutist, black/white logic behind this sentiment is exactly what our country (and world) do not need. Isolationist bubbles of like-minded individuals are increasingly the norm in homes, neighborhoods, religious institutions, and schools. This is the segregation that makes systemic injustice politically viable.
I am a progressive Californian relocated to a so-called "flyover" state who has learned much about my own arrogance, judgement, and self-righteousness by living in a community that does not universally applaud my liberal status quo. Being in a "purple" city and state has humbled me — awakening me to my own biases and closed mindedness.
It is compelling to me that many on the left (of which I consider myself a part) are ready to embrace the idea of rehabilitation/personal growth when it comes to our penal system, but are unable to consider rehabilitation among their political foes. The privileged and conservative among us should be afforded the same opportunity for change as the marginalized.
Shutting this dialogue down with shame and blame is only going to get us more of the same divisive acrimony we already have in spades.
As for me, I seek to change the world living the same values I espouse: with an open mind and open heart.
5
I'm sure Jared Kushner agrees that Harvard's admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritorcracy - as Tim O'Brien slyly pointed out earlier today. I would suspect there are Harvard grads who are worse (in just about every way possible) than Kushner and their acceptance to Harvard required boatloads more money. Oh, and the Kushners thank David Brooks for reminding us about moral formation. It's played such a significant role in Jared's life.
7
For those in the comments lamenting that Kashuv's "free speech" is being infringed upon--nobody has a constitutional right to get admitted into Harvard University.
6
It is true when we are 15,16 we can do stupid things, but at what point does accountability happen? For example, we routinely try 15,16 year olds as adults in court, so why there do we expect them to know right from wrong, but not when it comes to other things? I realize it isn't the same thing, but it raises a point about at what point does the argument "I was young and foolish' stop working. Given that fact that Mr. Kashuv is obviously a high achiever, striving to get into an elite university, you can't argue diminished mental capacity, if he were an ill educated lout from the back country, that might be an excuse, but someone who obviously knows what that word means? As far as Mr. Kushuv's apology, which is claimed to be heart felt, would even the most hardened racist who got admitted to an elite school not beg and grovel to get in, promise to be a good person, so does that apology mean anything, if it could very well be self serving, like spouse who gets caught cheating and says 'I am sorry I hurt you, you never were meant to find out',that is basically "I am sorry I was caught".
The real question is is this kid a racist? I would hope and assume Harvard did a little more fact checking than simply this one incident, I would hope they did some research on the kid to see if this was a pattern, if people for example posted other things he had written. If this was a one time blip, it could be excused (and should be), but if this kid is bona fide Trump nation type, no.
1
Harvard is a PRIVATE college--they can choose whomever they want. This fellow needs to move on.
7
eh... any teenager who is pro-gun conservative heading for Harvard is marketing a media persona, not going in search of education.
4
@APS
Really? Really??? You can't seek out an education if you disagree with me about gun policy? Really? What has our politics come to? Why such utter contempt for people who disagree with you?
2
I don’t care where Kashuv goes to college. I don’t care who accepts him, who rejects him, why and what for.
I care that he continues to spout and support his views on certain types of weaponry and becomes famous for those views when 18 people at the high school he attended were viciously murdered by that weaponry. That’s a bit of a problem for me.
This is what happens when we give teenagers that little blue check and little to no parental guidance when it comes to technology and social media. Oh, and racist, misogynistic beliefs too. I don’t want to leave that out. Kids say stupid things. So do adults. Have you seen Twitter lately?
No one gets a prize for apologizing.
The you-know-what hits the fan at some point and it gets mighty messy. Kyle will be fine. This isn’t the end of his world. He still hasn’t learned about humility and how to accept things on his own. It’s the damnation of that little blue check again. Look at me, look at me.
He posted the letter he received from Harvard on Twitter and didn’t redact his home address. Hundreds of millions of people now have his home address.
Look at me. Look at me.
We can stop talking about him now.
3
Kashuv was well on his way to becoming another brainless right-wing provocateur. Harvard said they weren't interested in training the next Sean Hannity. Good for them.
6
“The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy”. ????
The recent Harvard admissions lawsuit has further exposed that Harvard admissions is rather the epicenter of influential wealth, power, and aristocratic legacy.
1
@Peter
This is a ridiculously narrow view of Harvard admissions, demonstrating fundamental ignorance of how that extraordinarily meticulous and responsible process works (though it unfortunately does have to allow for some exigencies that cannot reasonably be ignored, but that account for only a small percentage of admitted students). Moreover, the comment is a misrepresentation of the lawsuit and its real motivation.
1
It’s only Mr. Kashuv’s immaturity that he thinks he deserves to be forgiven. Deserves a second chance.
Of course, I don’t know what if anything Mr. Kashuv thinks he deserves, but if he thinks he merits these considerations it is as a result of his immaturity.
It’s called entitlement. Now it’s the entitlement of youth. In the future, the entitlement of race, class, ethnicity, citizenship...
A word of advice. Give it up. Accept and expect that the world is not always kind to us, that fate can be cruel, but that we should never be the source of unkindness or cruelty.
3
We need to not continue down this path (started by our Puritan influenced founding) that the only atonement is rejection, if not total ejection. We have to build forgiveness into the system and try to evaluate growth.
Kashuv, a child of means, will survive and be okay.
Think of the high number of (mostly) young men from (mostly) urban settings who made a stupid decision involving theft or other such crimes. In the age of the $5.00 online background check, their most bone-headed decision lives on forever.
We must get passed this notion that rejection/denial is the immediate, first-choice, remedy for our younger citizens. When applied to those of lesser means, we are creating a persistently underemployed, perminantly impoverished class.
1
The "boys will be boys" right to be appallingly racist: Just another white conservative unearned and unmerited entitlement or prerogative. My version of what somebody else said: They would abandon democracy itself, or even conservatism, before they would give up these entitlements and prerogatives. Mr. Brooks, Mr. Kavanaugh and Mr. Kashuv are true brewski buddies.
4
Wasn't just the use of the "n" word, it was his glorification of the Holocaust, and interactions with other students in the class and his overall boorish, racist, misogynist behavior - so much so that other students who interacted with him provided evidence of it to the admissions office. It was, so to speak, his whole body of character that the Admissions Office was faced with. And in this age where admissions and rejections at a highly selective school turn on very minute details, I am sure the entire administration felt they could find someone equally talented, intelligent, and accomplished off of their wait list, who would not come with all his baggage. Most parents would hit the roof if they found out this guy was going to be their child's roommate. And that would only be the beginning of the headache this would cause Harvard. Brooks can talk about wisdom, but maybe Harvard and their administrators were just being incredibly practical. And presumably they have imparted "wisdom" to Mr. Kashuv that you actually cannot apologize or lawyer your way out of every bad act you commit.
3
Of course colleges are entitled to consider your actions as a 16 year old. They look at your entire high school career. Highly selective colleges, in particular, don’t ignore the one-off D in chemistry they shouldn’t ignore a racist rant either.
7
How does this situation relate to the Vatican Bank and Jesus cleansing the temple? What about discriminatory cases by SCOTUS on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation? Will the Catholic Church be judged by the pedophile epidemic in its midst today? How are we to judge Mr. kashuv? Time will tell on him. HIs words will not disappear with Harvard's decision or the public chastisement he is receiving. Neither will they change Mr. Kashuv. He can only change himself. He has the rest of his life to amend.
1
I knew plenty of problematic 16-year olds who used the word and have since matured into okay people.
But let's remember that in the wake of the shooting, Kashuv frequently mocked 'triggering libs' and 'drinking liberal tears.' It's not impossible to genuinely learn from mistakes and become a fine person, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that he has.
3
Stuff happens and life is not fair. There are other institutes of higher learning beside Harvard and with his GPA and SAT scores he should have no trouble being admitted. There are places where he would be welcomed to play with his AR-15 and use the "N-word", although I don't go to any of those locations.
1
There several comments to the effect that Harvard should allow a diversity of ideas and allow a student with so-called conservative ideas to attend so he isn't cheated out of what he is entitled too. First, Harvard does allow a diversity of ideas. Second, racism and hate are not 'ideas' or the 'other side'.
However as a measure of how disingenuous such comments are from conservatives all you have to know is how someone who wanted to speak on controlling weapons would be accepted by the NRA or if someone wanting to advocate against Forced-Birth or for marriage equality would be invited to attend so-called Christian or evangelical educational institutions.
They see Kyle Kashuv as their Trojan Horse through which they can 'infiltrate' the 'great liberal bastion'. That's why they don't reply that Kyle Kashuv should just take his marbles and go elsewhere - especially after they insult the school.
Those advocating that diversity of opinion, oft-expressed racism is forgiven, should
He just couldn't afford to bribe Harvard admissions. This is not a conservative v. liberal issue, and only the foolish would believe that. Harvard has accepted plenty of morally bereft applicants Jared Kushner come to mind recently, Morality is simply another commodity with a price at those hallowed halls. And in all fairness to the university they are not alone and they are a indeed a rigorous and wonderful, research, teaching university.
My two youngest sons are not yet teens, but they know quite well that racist slurs are in the same category--words that are never to be used even in fun.
It offends me that Kashuv's defenders are dismissing his repugnant behavior as childish indiscretion.
Plainly he's a brilliant young man and was so two years ago when he repeatedly employed the n word and used anti-Semitic language.
Intellectually, we are not talking about an immature kid, but a very bright boy who never dreamed his words would come back to haunt him.
He is repentant only because he got caught.
Kashuv will do just fine without a Harvard education. Bravo for the university in making clear that its moral standards are high and not subject to bending in the face of protests.
2
16 year olds, and this is one very intelligent 16 year old, do not go about innocently spilling out id-iotic statements like infants smearing their highchairs with the pap that they get served. Cluelessness does not stand as an excuse here. And Harvard is not the end all and the be all. In fact its rejection in this case will likely lead to more profound, useful life lessons than he would have ever experienced, embedded within the Ivory Walls of Cambridge.
It is good to remember the purpose of a slur. Slurs are not opinions, or arguments; they are a device used to strip another human being of dignity, respect, and basic human rights. They are what you use to debase another human being before you abuse, enslave, torture, or kill that person.
People interested in engaging in this type of denigration, even "just" in play, are typically sociopaths. They find it titillating to dehumanize others as a sort of vile prelude to all the presumably more gratifying monstrosities inherent in racist projects.
This is not some youthful phase or fancy. This is a malignant personality disorder, and Harvard is wise to steer clear of it.
The fact that admission into a particular American university can be so significant is disgusting.
It seems education and liberal political views do not protect one from hypocrisy and anti-social sentiments.
For those seeking real progressive change, elite liberals are far worse than elite conservatives.
1
Brooks seems to have little understanding of contrition. Yes, moral regeneration derives from learning through error and pain. And one may redeem one's past behavior through subsequent penance and correction — up to a point. But by invoking Aeschylus's famous articulation of the Pathe Mathos, Brooks unwittingly provides the justification for Harvard's decision. If this young racist is to learn the errors of his way through pain, then Harvard's revocation of the privilege of attending the school is the means whereby Kashuv will experience the necessary pain. Kashuv's plea on his own behalf is not evidence of any genuine contrition. In fact, it is a rather mealy-mouthed attempt to excuse himself on the basis of juvenile behavior. Brooks calls for "rigorous forgiveness" but shows no sign that the understands what the rigor must entail. Forgiving a sin is one thing; giving it a pass is quite another, and without any evidence of genuine contrition on Kushav's part, that is precisely what admission to Harvard would have signified.
Or, given the low acceptance rates and the privilege of a Harvard education, the spot could be given to an equally accomplished young man who at age 16 did not use the N word 12 times publicly and brag about having “practice” using it.
2
Harvard's Class of 2022 is made up of 36% legacy students and "Harvard's admission committee is the epicenter of meritocracy" makes me think believe "meritocracy" is a joke.
2
Harvard? My God that’s cruel! The kid already apologized! I’ve been center left since the fifties (thank you UC Berkeley!) but this is too much!! Harvard needs to examine its conscience before it contributes more sorrow to the present civic crisis and misery!!
Throw the first stone those who looking into their own hearts find nothing embarrassing, shameful, painful...
I just happen to be reading the life of Erasmus of Rotterdam, prince of humanists, “a man of calm reason” writes Charles L. Mee Jr.
“There are some children whom you may kill but cannot make better by blows, whereas by affection and kind words you may lead them where you please. This was my own nature as a child, when my teacher, who had a special regard for me as a boy of great promise, conceived the idea that he would like to try how I should bear a flogging....He therefore, charged me with some offense, of which I had never dreamed, and punish me for it. The effect was to dispel all my love of study, and to bring on a fit of discouragement and melancholy, which almost broke my heart, and led to an attack of ague.»
Erasmus believed in redemption too. Prince of humanism he is called. Was he free from prejudice? Was the great Luther with whom he corresponded, agreed with, and disagree?
A 16-year-old is old enough to know that racist and Anti-semitic comments are not okay. And, they are old enough to know that everything lasts on the internet. If he has to go to another college to learn this lesson, then I'd say he got off lightly.
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Cute how Brooks glosses over vile ranting as "leans conservative", to counterbalance those who "lean progressive".
Anyone who has aspired to college, especially an elite one, understands very well by 16 the seriousness of the quest and the rectitude expected for success. Period. Full stop.
I know, I sought (and won) admission to Stanford a lifetime ago, from a barely mediocre high school in Redwood Country in the 1960's, a backwater community where prevailing opinion considered opposition to clear-cut logging and merely questioning the premise of the Vietnam War as tantamount to treason. The principal censored my valedictorian speech (I had to submit it for prior approval) for its incendiary potential.
What outrageous idea had I articulated? That we should be guided by reason, not by "my country, right or wrong". Unacceptably provocative, downright revolutionary!
This kid from Parkland, putatively bright and intelligent, apparently had nothing exalted to offer, so instead spewed hateful slurs intended to dehumanize and injure people who did not choose the attributes on which they were being attacked. He supplemented that by deciding to champion the idiotic and atrociously-written 2nd Amendment, the right for anyone to possess the means to kill. The only way that happens is through permission given in a hateful home.
Harvard has no obligation whatsoever to admit such a weak and compromised Trojan Horse into its academic community. That would mock the notion of diversity.
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When was the last time Mr. Brooks petitioned for forgiveness for 16-year-old make people of color who violated society’s rules? Funny, I cannot recall.
The right wing blogosphere is flogging the “left” for its apparent failure to forgive Mr. Kashuv after his perfunctory non-apology “apology” in which he blames everyone else but himself.
Why is it that this ostensibly “Christian” movement has forgotten the first rule of Christian forgiveness: That forgiveness only follows sincere repentance— which is not in evidence here.
The reason is that they have replaced real Christianity with a new fake Republican kind. Now all that is needed for forgiveness is a bland denial, white skin, XY chromosomes, and membership in the GOP or one of its front organizations.
2
For someone as smart as he is, it's a given fact that he has the responsibility to be aware and be conscious of why racist comments/the n-word are egregious. Especially in an age when PoC speak out via a myriad of mediums against issues like these, there should be no excuse for him to have such a character. It's evermore surprising when thinking about the fact that he himself is a person of color, so not being in support of other people of color isn't appropriate, no matter what forces have made him who he is. Also, he needed to have gone above and beyond to show he is now a changed person. Otherwise, I don't exactly believe his word.
For every maybe racist kid who gets into Harvard there are thousands of non-racist kids who are dying to go. Harvard simply set an example for teenagers everywhere to clean up their acts and to be aware of how their social media is presenting them to the world. Without reforms like this, social media will take us and our kids all down the swirling toilet of crass behavior, bullying, words that should matter but don't seem to. Kids and adults alike should take this as a lesson in life.
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@Rebecca
I totally agree. Well written Rebecca.
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@RebeccaWhen Harvard sets an example for admissions of Chinese - American students, I'll believe their rejection of this young man was moral outrage at a 16 year old rather then some kind of shoddy virtue signaling.
3
@Rebecca Hmm. There are certainly lessons to be learned in life. I do not know how relevant or effective they are if the lessons are based on behavior a couple of years ago and/or behavior before a very, very sobering and life changing event. Kids, such as sixteen year olds, take these event and hopefully learn from them to become adults. I am not certain how I feel about Harvard's decisions. But I do not think it right to call it a life lesson for a kid. Unless that it is that life is not fair. If that's the lesson you are speaking of, this may qualify.
1
When I read about Kushuv’s vile tweets, I thought about the young Stephen Miller back when he was a student in Santa Monica, CA. Did he ever change? I believe he got more emboldened and entrenched in his biases and beliefs as an adult.
If One’s redemption chance outcome is mathematical, i’d guess it’s 50:50. But it’s not, it’s complicated and it’s everyone’s guess.
One underlying question has not been addressed: why go to Harvard? It's a vastly overrated place; there are so many other, better colleges and universities to consider.
Losing something of great value is much more likely to provoke deep thought and confer repentance.
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The bottom line here is that it is not his right to attend any private university. Since when is college admission "fair" to everyone? He may have had a higher GPA and the test scores than some other students, but so is the admissions process at a private university.
I don't know if he has genuinely had a change of heart about his racist, repugnant comments from his past. But if he has, he will be mature enough to understand that not everyone will give him a pass and that is their right.
Words have power and hate speech is not free speech. There are consequences.
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People who hate Harvard and the East Coast elites will love this. Those who think Harvard and the other Ivy League schools that seem to produce most of our business and political moguls of the future will praise the scrutiny of Harvard, the ultimate gatekeeper. What would be the best result for this kid? I do think we fail to remind ourselves that most kids who go to college at 18 are unformed, more or less clueless as the ways of the world, and will benefit greatly from a college experience that will challenge their beliefs and nurture their "coming of age". Harvard rejects nearly everyone. This young gentleman likely got special treatment because of his "Parkland" pedigree. He might be better off by delaying his college experience for a year and benefitting from simply getting out of the spotlight. He does not have to go to Harvard to realize his potential as a human being, to evolve. Like all youth in his situation, he needs he guidance and caring of thoughtful and caring mentors. I hope he gets it.
Harvard lost out on this one. What they could have learned from a healthy debate on all side of this issue is lost.
I agree wholeheartedly that people evolve greatly beyond age 16 because I have first hand experience. I too used the “N” word frequently while attending junior high school - living in a mixed race town on Long Island during the early 70s. My attitude, thoughts, and beliefs did a 180 some time in high school. So this kid could certainly have evolved and (as if I have any influence) I recommend to the powers that be at Harvard to reconsider.
But my goodness, are we really so outraged that someone didn’t get into Harvard. This kid will be fine. Mr. Brooks, How about you write your next piece about the segregation in the New York City public school system? About how a 5 year old couldn’t get into the kindergarten class his parents wanted for him. Then let’s compare their life to the lives of every poor soul who gets a rejection letter from Harvard.
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Sorry, I don’t view Kashuv’s disgusting rant as “youthful hijinks,” and nothing feeds contrition more productively than getting caught. The guy sounds very bright and high motivated. He’ll survive, and a school has a right to pick and choose who can participate in their environment.
That’s not to say these concerns are simple. Yet there’s a counter argument here: what message might letting Kasuv’s admission stand send? It’s okay to do whatever you want when you’re 16 as long as you can firmly and loudly articulate how sorry you are a couple of years later?
Yes, I am concerned that obsessing over safe spaces and political correctness can cloud our thinking. I’m more concerned, though, about the current state of our moral judgement. It seems to be eroding by example from the top down, and I’d advise to worry a lot more about that than who’s strolling around the Harvard campus this fall.
To imply,as he did,that the Parkland shooting made him less racist or anti-semetic is an egregious use of that tragedy for his own personal gain.But....he still should have been admitted to Harvard.A good education has a way of changing a young persons perspective.The kid might learn something other than math and science.Maybe a little history.
All the voices advocating that Harvard should have understood Keshuv had changed, forget that the same break is not extended to people of color.
The same day we saw a family( African American) with a pregnant woman and kids pulled out of a car by the Phoenix police,because a 'Dollar store (?) ' reported them to have removed a toy without paying for it. I am thinking, couldn't the store manager have quietly asked them to pay for the doll, as they left the store? And if the parents were unaware because the child picked it up inadvertently, why not simply ask the parents to pay for it?
Having escalated the issue, couldn't the police have simply asked the family to return it or pay for it? Did they have to push the man against the car, kick out his feet; and ask the woman and children to get out of the car at gun point?
Perhaps Keshuv should spend some time understanding what life is like for the people he referred to disparagingly, and better yet, volunteer some time helping them.
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A friend who attended one of the nation’s most prestigious universities once told me of his outstanding qualifications (which they were) that got him accepted. Once there, he said, everybody had at least what he had, and in many cases, more.
The point is, there is some vastly qualified student out there who previously not made the cut, but also hadn’t sent racist and anti-Semitic emails and who now will go to Harvard.
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Conservative or liberal, racism and sexism are dehumanizing, and too many people have gotten away with both for far too long. These issues may not effect the people who feel that this student should have been allowed into Harvard regardless of his ugly remarks, but they affect me and many, many friends, relatives, acquaintances and strangers who are people of color and female. He outed this information himself; Harvard did not air this. He aired it hoping to embarrass the College and share his contrition after publicly announcing that he’d been accepted, as if looking for a way to save face. Until he demonstrates through his future actions that he has changed, it looks like he is “spinning” this in the media by releasing the information.
Harvard made the right call.
I don't give much credence to apologies of convenience. And Kashuv has years of opportunity to atone for his transgressions. He is free to re-apply to Harvard after that. This rejection from Harvard may be transformative for good or for ill. It's up to him.
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This isn't about someone learning from a mistake or a school judging political beliefs. After all, his beliefs were known when he was admitted. For every kid that gets into Harvard, there are at least 2 other equally qualified and talented kids who do not get in. The kids who haven't made racist comments are the ones who should get in. As for judging him for something he did when he was 16 .... Ummm that's what all colleges do. Of course, Harvard lets in all sorts of unqualified kids based on pedigree, but that is another story.
I've read a few of the comments and am disappointed, to say the last, at the anger of judgmental adults toward a kid who acted stupidly, once, and in a private setting (he was on a Google doc that presumably was shared with a few classmates; he was not posting on social media). Some of the nasty comments reminded me of the kind of intollerance one sees in places like Breitbart, Fox News and American Greatness.
He owned up to what he did, asked for no special breaks, and apologized without reservation--even offering to do so in person. Pretty gutsy.
For the high-and-mighty in the congregation, I wonder how great your condemnation would be if he were a progressive advocating gun control.
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Interesting that the conservatives came to his defense even though the comments he made were racist and anti-Semitic. When congresswoman Omar said something that was taken out of context she was labeled anti-Semitic by these same conservatives who now defend this young man. Words have consequences, well maybe not for the president. But, for the rest of us words do have consequences and we have to face those consequences.
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Since this is a privileged young man who has an ability to learn school subjects, he will be successful in any college who accepts him. He is not guaranteed his first choice college. HE is not guaranteed Harvard. He will be fine and he will have learned a lesson through his choices or "sins". That is exactly how moral learning happens. We will rob him of this very difficult and life defining lesson if he is admitted to Harvard.
Dear DAVID BROOKS,
I agree we need to be forgiving and I agree we may never know the true heart of this young man. He is saying the right things and will be OK without HARVARD. But I'm not sure knowing better to say the right things makes the person any different. I'm not sure and suspect that haters tend to stay that way and become more like the tRump - the perfect example of immorality and short sighted selfish unhelpful global decision making.
When I was 16 I gave a mean defamatory speech in English class that parroted the anti- black sentiments that I heard at home on a regular basis from my parents. It shocked my teacher and some close friends. I was sorry and never did that kind of thing again. I eventually became a Democratic Socialist who is the polar opposite of my 16 year old self and parental heritage.
16 year olds are not fully developed, and they experiment with new identities and ethics all the way into their 20 's.
Why would conservatives or anyone reify the comments of a teenager? let the kid have his say, then let him grow up before we take him too seriously.
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Well stated David. Age is an appropriate consideration of actions. It's called immaturity.
@Stockton It is called ignorance. I was immature once too but didn't use hateful language as a teen.
Redemption first requires penance. Penance requires more than words, it requires actions.
Other than creating a right wing blog, I see nothing in any of the articles on Mr. Kashuv that shows he has engaged in activities that demonstrate penance.
So many comments act as if this is a zero-sum game. Like he's exiled from society and will never attend college. Have people lost all sense of reality? There are dozens of exemplary universities that he may attend, if not hundreds.
Just not the nation's very best, because the nation's very best 16 year-olds don't throw around racial and ethnic slurs for giggles. Period. If you deny it, you're lying, and you know it. I know lots of good kids who would do this, and regret it. They're good kids, but they're not Harvard material. I also know lots of good kids who wouldn't, ever, and they are.
Harvard Admissions, supposedly comprised of thoughtful adults, recently outed for creation and implementation of different than Caucasian, higher standards of admission designed to foil and restrict Harvard acceptance of Asian students ... has now attacked and summarily punished the "honesty, maturity and moral character" of a youthful student?
Has the pot called the kettle black? In the vernacular of the schoolyard, Harvard and others, "Does it take one to know one?"
Peripherally: this sorrowful situation illuminates the egregious practice and student privacy attack perpetrated the Parkland school district administrators ... and by many other US school systems ... that of school system official edict that students must use Google applications to do schoolwork.
Google mines and uses and sells personal information purloined from student entries on the mandated-by-the-school-system-administrators Google software use for communication and schoolwork.
The resultant breach of student ... and obviously, family privacy ... is a most egregious moral failure made by US school systems that make the “you must use Google software for your schoolwork” demand upon students and their families.
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As a teenager who heard countless homophobic comments from virtually everyone including my own sporty siblings for more years that I wish to remember I find it ironic that a progressive and woke institution has thrown down the gauntlet over such a transgression.
Would I deny almost my entire graduating class access to a prestigious higher education over such poor judgment? Just the opposite!
Getting into Harvard is not a right it is a privilege. Hard can set its own standards as long as all applicants know what those standards are. Do they? What this seems is an assault on free speech in order to make Harvard's life easier. Brook's moral lesson is very unpersuasive but Harvard might want to consider what speech they will and will not allow and who will police it.
Harvard reserves the right to revoke admissions for behavior “that brings into question your honesty, maturity or moral character.”
I wasn't doing morally Irreprehensible things at 16. Words and actions have consequences and Mr. Kashuv just learned his first lesson about living in the real world. Hopefully he learns from his mistake and goes forward to become a better person.
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Good grief, David, you are spending too much of your time defending what is the worst of America. Kyle is a slick pr guy, Something in his letter did not ring true to the admissions committee, perhaps. If this fellow proves truly repentant, he will continue to talk with Harvard and take his gap year to work for a genuine social justice non profit, convincing Harvard or some other fine institution that he should be admitted.
His life is hardly over. Time for him to grow up and become a responsible citizen.
I have always considered myself a liberal democrat. But even while in college many years ago, it always turned my stomach to how intolerant our group many times is to any speech that is not in agreement with us. It is the antithesis to what we purport to be. Time and time again, speakers with conservative views (or what us liberals consider extreme) are blocked or canceled from speaking on campus. Just in the last few weeks a Harvard Law Professor was castigated for his helping in the defense of Harvey Weinstein, a right provided by the Constitution. If we disagree with a position - be it presumed racist, sexist, religious prejudice or whatever - get it out in the open and discuss it. Don't pretend it doesn't exist or refuse people the right to express their opinion, however much we may find them disagreeable or even abhorrent.
In the 1970s, I was a loudmouth, opinionated teenager. I am forever thankful that email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. did not exist at that time, so that most of my statements from that era are lost to history. Like most young people, I was trying to make sense of the world, but I was not particularly knowledgeable about it. I shot my mouth off. I expressed extreme views. I deliberately sought to be provocative. I said things that I no longer believe. In my defense, I never expressed racist views like Kyle Kashuv. But I am willing to cut a 16-year old kid a break for being obnoxious and offensive on social media. Five or six years from now, when Mr. Kashuv is a young adult, I would hold him to a higher standard.
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Mr. Brooks is right but he forgets that Harvard was founded by religious Puritans and is now run by equally-rigid secular Puritans. The next step will be putting scarlet H's (for Heretic) on the shirts of those students who are deemed not woke enough.
After reading some of the comments here, I ask myself: Even this unfortunate story we need to politicize? What is the matter with some of you? Or, is there any matter in between your ears? Moral and civics are not defined by the left or the right. Not everything that transpires in this country has to do with politics. This is an excellent opinion article that does not beg the political agenda question. And yes, we all need a break once in a while, because all of us messed up at one time or another while at this: Growing up.
Maybe it is only bigotry, but banning a word for one race does seem like the meaning of the word. The most awkward moment of this, and destructive individually, was when a Rapper invited a member of the word restricted race onstage to sing a song with the race-restricted word in it. Ruined her life! The difficult part of this Harvard twist is that it appears none of the 'offended' group were involved in this decision to oust the typist for typing the word. I believe we need this codified into to Law so folks know when the line is crossed. And Harvard can Lead the way with their Law department, by litigating pro bono for the ousted student.
I'm curious as to how these remarks of the young man became public. Who leaked them? Why?
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@Dan Moerman Kashuv did - posted the letters of correspondence with Harvard on his Twitter feed.
This kid is being used by everyone.
Trump, conservatives, the NRA for his support of gun rights;
Harvard, to show how intolerant they are of intolerance;
And the Left, because this case demonstrates again that the privileged can sometimes be made to succumb to the power of social media.
I would feel sorry for him, except that he waltzed right into it.
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Admit it or not, but racism is essential to right-wing politics. Have you seen Tucker Carlson? Heard of Steve King and Matt Gaetz? Stephen Miller? Or Trump?
That a "conservative" would use racist language doesn't surprise me. Given his recent trajectory, it seems likely Kashuv has had enough media training to appreciate the value of being able to appear mature in public, no matter his private views.
Anyway, this kid's racist past (of two years ago) definitely won't disqualify him from having a public life as a "conservative." He'll probably still get to be on TV.
Let's not pretend his life is over. Not getting into Harvard was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. Now he's a martyr.
He who is without sin cast the first stone at her. John 8:7
Or
sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me. Children’s rhyme
Or
Some musicians cuss at home
But they are scared to use profanity when upon the microphone
Yea, they want reality, but you will hear none
NWA. Express yourself.
I would hope that for 80k a year stundents learn to deal with challenging ideas and people. I would hope that all classes have the opportunity to trigger students. That faculty members can defend the Harvey Weinstein’s of the world and thereby encourage resiliency in students. To learn to deal with words and ideas that are uncomfortable.
Dear David,
I hope you’re reading the comments that your essay has generated. I’m also hoping for a future essay in which you write that after some genuine reflection, and after having revisited your opinions on this young man, you now ask for forgiveness from your readers for ever having written such a defense of offensive racist rantings. You’d be setting such a fine example, and showing us that moral growth is attainable for everyone, not just teenagers.
@Marcus
David Brooks in no way defended the racist comments. He made the obvious points that they shouldn't be irredeemable. You really ought to try to be a little more forgiving and understanding.
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Ah David has a take as usual its wrong. Literally the last person anyone should be concerned about in this scenario is Kyle Kashuv. No one is owed an education at Harvard. Part of being an adult (unless you are the current president) is dealing with the consequences from your actions. Kyle might have to go to one of his 'safety' schools. So he is still a lot better off than the marginalized folks he disparaged.
Opinion writers may opine as they wish. Mr. Brooks is preaching Harvard for rescinding Mr. Kashuv's admission following a false path to wisdom, the argument of sin and redemption is too weak here (and I am putting aside the bigoted/racist comments of Mr. Hashuv). Mr. Brooks would opine more good if he would preach about gun violence and NRA's political dominance to make guns used for mass murder available to pretty much anyone. Perhaps, the next opinion of Mr. Brooks should be preaching Mr. Kashuv about gun violence and support of organizations such as the NRA, knowing how many young folks die of gun violence, the argument of sin and redemption is more appropriate. As a note, I find it interesting how conservatives vocalize their distaste of so called liberal institutions before self-reflecting!
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Let’s hope that whatever university accepts him, it guides him to unlearn what his parents taught him.
There are many unknowns here. Lots of “what ifs.” I believe that Harvard just gave this kid the best lesson he will ever receive. What he does from here will be the life exam that will either support or refute this opinion piece. My hope is that one day, like the fellow who said "I like beer," he won't be defending his ability to spell. Harvard made the right choice. It has probably made many poor choices as well. But were it to act otherwise in this case, and succumb to the type of hypotheticals raised by Mr. Brooks, it would not be acting responsibly. That correction now lies with Mr. Kashuv.
While we all hopefully learn as we grow, I believe most children in elementary school understand what hateful is.
Attending Harvard is a privilege, not a right. He’ll survive.
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Not yet, young Mr. Kashuv. Brash Kashuv merely stated that he was sorry, and that he now knows how detestable were his racist rants at 16. But what did he actually do to show that he is sorry? Like David Brooks, I too, believe that people -- especially at such a young age -- are redeemable. Kasuv is redeemable. Yet, in addition to simply stating plainly that he had been wrong, he might have also taken the steps of writing about how he has behaved since that epiphany to reach out to those he had harmed? What he has actually done to demonstrate a repentent heart. Has he visited and spoken with members of the the black and jewish communities? Has he immersed himself in the knowledge of their history and struggles over the course of history? Has he, with a spirit of repentance, asked for the forgiveness of the people he insulted and dehumanized? And if he had done these things, why not say so? That would have convincing and persuasive. Instead, he expressed his regrets .... to Harvard. Harvard was not harmed by Kashuv's words. And in the absence of any act to demonstrate his contrition, Harvard decided to not gv him the opportunity to harm its community established to value civil discourse.
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Everyone just relax. If he no longer believes the things he typed, time will show that. He will still go to college and is on no danger of having a horrible
Life because he won’t be going to Harvard. Honestly, let this stand as a lesson to those who think being racist and misogynistic and anti-Semitic is funny or harmless. It’s not. Should he bear the responsibility of his actions even though he was just sixteen? Yup. Let’s see if he erases the stain of his actions by engaging in activities that demonstrate who he wants us to believe he is. Hopefully, he will put that alleged superior intellect to good use.
Brooks left out the most poignant line that precedes Aeschylus's famous quote: "He who learns must suffer."
Must we go back 2,500 years to Aeschylus to remember that life is not fair.. and that Kyle is not the first to learn that "actions have consequences"?
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As a liberal I can't help but comment on a double standard--we insist that young criminals are not fully formed; not fully competent and responsible for their actions.....they're deserving of leeway, rehabilitation, and redemption, yes?
Except when the perpetrator is conservative?
Mr. Brooks, I think your thought process is misguided. Harvard had an opportunity to teach this young man a very hard lesson.
Public expressions of hate should indeed have consequences. To allow him to attend Harvard after learning of his awful 'freedom of speech' would be giving him a pass, and they would be crossing their fingers that at the age of 18 he's a changed man.
This young man will be forever changed by this circumstance of his own making. And, maybe he will think twice now before spewing such hateful rhetoric. I commend Harvard for doing the right thing.
Mr Brooks: this young man just got his education from Harvard. It was quick and precise. Let’s hope it is effective.
I understand that every teenager makes regrettable mistakes and should be allowed to learn from those mistakes. I have a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old, and I am a child and adolescent psychologist, so I do understand this issue.
However, a 16-year-old using racial and religious slurs is a racist and does not deserve the coveted, elusive prize of a seat at Harvard. There are THOUSANDS of equally deserving students who are, as teenagers, much more mature and morally well-developed than Kashuv. I would give his seat to one of them any day.
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wrote then is not supposed to be taken seriously but what he says now is unquestionably sincere.
Mr. Brooks reminds me of the evangelicals who embrace Trump for his great potential as a penitent.
Good lord; enough with the "sin" talk, Pastor Brooks!
It's well known by now that Brooks had a personal Great Awakening, courtesy of divorce from his former wife — who converted to Judaism on his behalf — and married his former personal assistant, a Christian who is 23 years his junior.
Since that series of great "moral" decisions on his part, Brooks has, like so many self-proclaimed but dubious moral arbiters, adopted the role of preacher and it doesn't suit him.
"Sin," let us recall, is not a mere transgression, but a violation of "divine" law, a transgression against God. It is irredeemably arrogant not just to assert the existence of such an entity in the absence of solid evidence (personal experience, incredulity and a very old, flawed book are extremely weak as evidence), but to claim to know what it (if it exists at all) actually desires, thinks, believes and so on.
Thus, when Pastor Brooks is pontificating about "sin" from on high, he has made a god of himself.
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Not to be inflammatory, but we do hold 16 year olds responsible for mistakes... and some end up in adult prisons.
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I guess Harvard realized it was not up to the task of educating this young man on how to be a better human being.
Harvard would jump at the opportunity to accept someone who robbed a Wawa at gunpoint at age 16 and was apologetic for his crime and then became an accomplished student with average grades and SAT scores. But a brilliant young man, who is contrite for using unacceptable words, is not Harvard material. Really!
Kyle is upset that he got caught and that there were consequences. And I'll add that it shouldn't take the murders of one's classmates to make one grow as a person.
Give me a break? Who are you? This kid does not deserve to be defended. Going to Harvard is a privilege and the people there do not need this hate filled right winger in their sphere. In High School I was participating in debates about the electoral college, studying, and, yes, socializing at times. No one I knew or would associate with ever used racial slurs (unless they were of that race!) ever. Guess what? Is redemption possible for this guy? Maybe, but he is not redeemed. He is just pedling racism in a more acceptable form. Why do you defend him? Youth can be an inspiration. He is not. He is an opportunits just like Stephen Miller who sees racism as his ticket to social power. We are going to further legitimate this at Harvard?
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We redeem ourselves from sin. Harvard does not do it for us by granting us admission.
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I struggle to understand how young children and teens of color must be held “accountable” for their actions, but we must bend the rules and feel pity for white children of privilege. As a teacher and parent, I recognize that consequences for your actions are the best teacher of all.
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"It’s hard to know if Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments, but if he has, wouldn’t Harvard want a kid who is intellectually rigorous and morally humble?"
Yet this 18 year old, reflecting on what he did only 2 years ago is quoted as saying:
"I am no longer the same person".
"[He does] not recognize the person who wrote those things.”
"[He is} 'embarrassed by the petty, flippant kid represented in those screenshots.' "
What is alarming is how he has mastered disassociating himself so well that he speaks of his past as if it wasn't even physically present, and that the person who committed the transgressions was actually a separate human being. The mental shenanigans he is playing with himself, and others are grounds enough for Harvard to reconsider his acceptance and a clear warning sign that he is a troubled 18 years old.
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Hemingway: "“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
The opposite is to be young and a conservative. These sad, sad kids will be eating their bitter meals their entire lives.
Kashuv acts like a mini Stephen Miller. He should not be anywhere the power-making halls of Harvard college.
By 16 years old, one most certainly knows the difference between right and wrong. Harvard absolutely made the right call. Brooks is playing perfectly to the Trumpian notion that racists who are called out by society for bad behavior are somehow victims.
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"The Harvard admissions committee is the epicenter of the meritocracy."
Um, no. It's a race-based quota system.
1
I am having a hard time understanding the point of this. It would be interesting to read Mr. Brooks' thoughts about other Harvard applicants who had equally good grades and qualifications but did not spout racist rhetoric. Do they deserve a chance at entry to Harvard as much as Mr. Kashuv? Why or why not?
1
One would think that Harvard, being the superior college that it pretends to be, especially given it roots that go back to the days of Jonathan Edwards, would take the challenge and bring this young man aboard and reveal the light and truth of its superior cultural ethos.
But it looks more like the feckless and self-serving institution that it has become, a Maoist elite Mandarin training camp for the elect.
Didn't Thoreau once give it go at Harvard?
1
"It’s hard to know if Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments." If it's hard to know, then this kid has clearly not demonstrated enough thoughtful remorse to set aside his bigoted comments. Glib comments from a better-than-A-student seem not to address any changes in his outlook, just new ways of formatting his attitudes and opinions. His hateful comments were pre-shootings, though they in and of themselves reveal far more twisted emotions than simply "kids will be kids." But emerging from that crucible and still trying to defend the right to own semi-automatic weapons suggests there hasn't been much growth, maturation, self-editing, introspection. I like to think Harvard wasn't denying the race-baiter of a couple of years ago but rather the still questionable applicant of today.
"In the end, this isn’t about me, it's about whether we live in a society in which forgiveness is possible or mistakes brand you as irredeemable, as Harvard has decided for me.”
Mr. Kashuv: In order to prove to Harvard that you have matured enough to deserve to be admitted to the university, you have to accept that you, not they, or others, are to blame for your offer of admission being rescinded, and you can best demonstrate that by accepting Harvard's decision like a mature person.
In your letters to Harvard, which you published on Twitter, you say you were a kid then and now you are a man, and I'm sorry for you that now you'll get a chance to prove it.
1
All these "boys will be boys" comments are frankly disgusting. I'm a boy raised in Texas with strong men who spoke frankly and liked a good joke. What this kid wasn't funny, and it should have serious consequences. He may not have gone to Harvard, but at least he got an education. If an employer had seen those comments two years before a job offer, nobody would blink twice if the offer were rescinded. I don't feel bad for him at all.
Forgiveness and the privilege of attending Harvard are not, in any world, the same thing.
1
"In the end, this isn’t about me, it's about whether we live in a society in which forgiveness is possible or mistakes brand you as irredeemable, as Harvard has decided for me.”
Mr. Kashuv: In order to prove to Harvard that you have matured enough to deserve to be admitted to the university, you have to accept that you, not they, or others, are to blame for your offer of admission being rescinded, and you can best demonstrate that by accepting Harvard's decision like a mature person.
In your letters to Harvard, which you published on Twitter, you say you were a kid then and now you are a man, and I'm sorry for you that now you'll get a chance to prove it.
1
Harvard has the widest talent pool to draw from. Why would it accept a bright student who makes racist comments when they can accept the next equally bright student who doesn't?
537
@Yair
Because everyone is a sinner.
1
Who doesn’t or who doesn’t get caught ?
2
@Patsie
Sir, that is simply religious dogma, and impossible to demonstrate.
4
The times we live in are too often filled with hatred towards "others" if their views differ from ours and that of "our group." This seems particularly the way people who consider themselves "enlightened" speak of and act towards those they deem are or were less than perfect than themselves.
Racism must never be acceptable. I wonder why didn't the students go to school administrators with these derogatory comments by Kashuv at the time he made them? Were they held on to when the student would be particularly vulnerable, so punish him severely? Who can judge their motives.
As David Brooks writes, we all are sinners needing forgiveness. All the major religions call us to "truth and reconciliation," which Mandela and Bishop Tutu mentored for young and old by their example.
@Carolyn Grassi "As David Brooks writes, we all are sinners needing forgiveness."
That is true. But forgiveness is not something one gets to demand. But...
1). True repentance is unconditional. One does not demand forgiveness in exchange for making an apology. Forgiveness is not something you win through deal making.
2). If forgiveness is to be given then shouldn't it be given by the many people he vociferously demeaned rather than Harvard University?
Then, shouldn't Brett Kavanaugh also have been accorded the same right, to be judged separately from he may have done as a 17 year old?
@John He was.
Harvard is way overblown. I would much rather have a grad student who received their B.S. degree from Missouri S&T than Harvard.
1
While I don't disagree with the decision primarily based upon another commentators point about appearance, I would question the decision based upon one instance.
So often in our culture we "pile on" when a person makes one mistake. From what I have read this is not a pattern of behavior but one event. I would question the process that they didn't have a conversation about the young man about the incident and others to determine if this is a ongoing behavior before making the decision. Maybe they did and did not publish that information.
How may of us have done something in our youth once, regretted it, and learned from it?
2
Harvard of all places should know that people can and do change, and that purpose of education is to promote virtue by founding it on intellectual and moral principles. Unfortunately, it seems to have abandoned those principles on which it was founded ... out of fear of the identity crowd. Administrators today have learned to tread softly and fearfully lest they be judged by association. This is all there is to the Kashuv case.
3
Imagine if, when he was applying to Harvard, he recalled those tirades, reported them in his essay, repudiated them and explained himself and his growth in conscience since then. My guess is that he would still have been admitted, but the issue would have been defused, even positively built upon.
6
Try violating the laws of physics without consequences. Life's lessons, or shall we say, state changes are not learned in vacuum, but under pressure, just as in nature. Time to move along, these aren't the droids we should be looking for.
1
What is the percentage of Harvard Alumni who used that word in their young misguided years? Yet before the age of the internet, there was no way to detect this save if it was overheard in conversation and reported. I highly doubt even than, anyone was disqualified
I am confident that young immature minds and morals were dramatically changed by a Harvard education.. This young Man should receive the same chance to change. Society can only benefit.
2
Let's not hold Harvard as the be-all and end-all of dreams. If he's worth anything, he'll be able to prove it with or without Harvard. Let's see how and where his "crusading" goes from here - that'll be the true test of this boy's character.
6
It's remarkable that such vigor is being exercised on behalf of a kid who will still go to college, just not Harvard. It's further remarkable that the same vigor will not be exercised on behalf of many more kids that are equally deserving to attend Harvard, but are the wrong skin color or wrong socioeconomic status. The pretense that college admissions aren't a free-for-all thunderdome of legacy and privilege and are instead some sort of moral gristmill is almost amusing. Almost.
5
At no time is this particular word okay to use by anyone with more than a first- or second-grade intellect. This young man grew up with social media, but in my opinion, it wasn't okay to write it down and pass it around among your friends 50 years ago. I'm in my 60s and wouldn't have done it in my teens. A classmate referenced in an earlier article that they had heard him utter the word as well, so is this really an isolated incident? If his GPA is so high, would he not know the repercussions? This behavior comes from somewhere, and my view is that he may be sorry, but only that he was caught. Save his coveted Harvard spot for someone who doesn't give in to every terrible base thought they have.
6
One strain running through this discussion is that Harvard might have made Mr. Kashuv a better person. But that wasn’t going to happen. That’s not Harvard’s business. They don’t look at individual students, decide that a student needs growth in a particular area, and mandate a particular course. I’m sure there are many Harvard alums who are better people than when they matriculated, but I’m just as certain that many Harvard grads are more selfish than when they started.
Besides, is Kashuv any worse off at the University of Florida, or wherever he ends up? Harvard is very good at admitting people who are going to be successful wherever they go to college, which has the effect of making a Harvard degree appear much more valuable than it really is.
3
I don't think it's accurate to characterize his messages among his friends as "hate speech." Much more likely, I think, is the immature delight in being "naughty," in deliberate awareness of breaking the rules, of being transgressive. This is something most people will grow out of, as opposed to actual racist hatred, which seems to be pretty persistent if it's real. I don't care if he goes to Harvard or not. Maybe this will be a live-and-learn lesson that is part of growing up.
2
Oh, please.
The question is, when this kid wanted to be “transgressive,” what were his go-to moves? He didn’t yack about pot and loud music and what lameos grownups are or how Nietszche and wearing a dress are our only hopes; he went off about black people. That’s not transgressive; it’s the worst kind of confirmity.
I find it very hard to believe that this was a one-off; people who talk like this don’t just do it once. But I know for a fact that he didn’t just throw racist slogans around; he publicly and loudly allied himself with a President who walks, talks and acts like a ducky racist.
1
We teach preschoolers right from wrong. By the time they are 15 most should have learnt that. Those that have not should not be taking up a valuable spot at Harvard.
10
Many critics of Harvard's approach in this matter, like Mr. Brooks, suggest that we shouldn't just the choices of a 16 year old. However, isn't that precisely what college admissions do: they judge the applicant's academic records, activities, and, yes, character, to determine whether to accept them. Colleges don't admit on the hope that the student will suddenly change his or her character. Too many qualified applicants and not enough spots to engage in that sort of thing.
7
Why are they going to say that because he said that when he was 16 he isn't morally good enough to rub shoulders at Harvard? They must all be saints. I am progressive on most issues but this is flat wrong. This zero tolerance serves Harvard poorly and reflects they are out of touch with reality. My son was accepted there and glad he didn't go.
3
June 18, 2019
The art and science of learning - having an education to learn to think and live with intuitive insight for all occasions. As such this article is truly to the core what makes learning the great struggle for all albeit -both individually and institutionally.
This story is contemporaneous to our fast pace exposures to ideas and then bullets - as such we need to really give thought to this article and find that reaching the heights of public discourse will mean we are all for moving the tides of change to advantage and more so give navigational course adjustments as need be for the obtaining the best ports of call's living journey well
2
He was sixteen. He lived in the world. He had studied U.S. history. He most likely knew too he had advantages others did not have... by virtue of any combination of his intelligence, schooling, economic status or parenting.
And he chose to, not privately, but widely, on a social media document, share not the singular but the repeated use of the word, that put other people down. And he did so, to make himself feel better, or cool, or whatever. And by the looks of it, he liked the sound of it. "Practice makes perfect" and so forth. Over and over again, he wrote the word.
This was no casual comment. It was not an "aside". It was not a mistake. It reflected the young man's take on things and of course, most assuredly his immaturity and insecurity.
You don't typically get accepted by the college of your choice by accident. A studied look at a student's high school history (all of it) is usually part of the calculus of admission. Let's not pretend otherwise for the sake of this case.
He blew it. Harvard did not. Sure there's redemption for him. But right now, the consequence for this particular brand of free speech is the tough but correct lesson for him. And importantly, Harvard's right to reject is also a freedom to be cherished, just like free speech.
15
can someone explain how a near death experience makes someone less racist? Also, for all of this authors wax poetic about development and growth, he doesn't seem to grasp that negative consequences are key to that process. Finally, why is this kids moral development more important the right of minority students to feel their student body doesn't harbor potentially dangerous assumptions about them? why is there so much sympathy for this kid, who in all likelihood will still get into a great school, and have a great future, just because he didn't get into his top school choice.
Harvard hasn't sent his future not oblivion. They made it clear that this behavior is not tolerated. Hopefully, that's a message he will carry with him when he gets into another ivy league school next year.
10
Since Universities are admitting students based mostly on their performance in high school, what he did and said at 16 is relevant.
10
Harvard, in its Kashuv decision, is standing for Accountability while raising the awareness of Self-Responsibility. Look what happens to an institution, such as the Office of POTUS when Accountability is mocked and Self-Responsibility dips below the level of consciousness.
8
I like how we can now excuse conservative children from even basic standards of decency and moral conduct. Truly a great political party of moral superiority and family values.
10
@Andrew, look what they excuse in their leader. The embodiment of the seven deadly sins (for the forgetful, pride, lust, greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, and wrath).
1
While children do childish things, hate speech is more than just a childish blunder. Obviously some people do mend their ways, but there was no evidence of that here, only a claim to immaturity.
Harvard has the right to vet its students on any grounds it chooses, as do all private schools. Perhaps this young man will learn a lesson. We'll see.
7
@Barbara
No evidence of mending his ways.
Exactly right.
There were no writings after the hate postings that declared his regret for what he had previously said.
I do not condemn him for I want him to see the error of his ways and to try to better himself.
Cynically, however, I feel his regret comes too late and is mostly the regret of the discovery of his social media.
4
I agree with Mr. Brooks. This "politically correct" decision by Harvard is wrong - it only serves as another example of polarizing. The kid is only 18 and has apologized profusely by comments made when he was 16. Isn't a purpose of education to broaden and challenge ideas? "He drew a circle and left me out - I drew a larger one and brought him in."
3
@Loretta Marjorie Chardin All 40,000 Harvard applicants are 17 and 18 years old. They are judged on the grades and test scores they earned at 16, and their activities outside of school at age 14 - 18. Either Mr. Kashuv meant what he wrote and is of low character, or he is willing to say literally anything to be considered "rad" by his peers and has no character. Harvard has to think about about the 1,000 other students in the class. Can you imagine sending your 18 year old - black or white - to college and finding his roommate is a known racist who likes and uses guns?
@Loretta Marjorie Chardin
Hmm.
I once did a bad thing.
I was tempted to do it and I did it.
I was at a knitting/sheep festival in southern Maryland 25 years ago. I was purchasing wool from a sheep farmer from Virginia. One filled a bag with yarn and paid for it by telling Mr. Chester, the owner, how many skeins of wool were in the bag. I had 20 but knowingly told him I had fewer and therefore paid the price for fewer.
I don’t know why I did that. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. I later contacted Mr. Chester with the “discrepancy” and paid for the stolen wool.
He thought I was a prince for my honesty. Of course I was doubly dishonest for stealing then repairing the damage by acting as if it were an honest mistake.
So, where is the praise for the ordinary person who does the right thing in the first place? Perhaps there is none. I will always be ashamed of what I did, but I will never do it again, because it was wrong and I know it.
So, Mr. Kashuv, perhaps you can do the right thing now, but in your heart do you know it was wrong?
Only you know the answer.
A 16 year old male said to be bright beyond belief and fully informed about the use of so-called social media surely knew exactly what he was saying and how it would be received by Americans older, wiser, and non-accepting of American exceptionalism in the allowing born-in-the USA individuals to kill at will.
He demonstrates the limits on employing GPA etc to evaluate young people as concerns their potential to become decent Americans.
Surely Harvard has found a more worthy individual to take his place.
Perhaps he can use his ability to read by reading about countries where people place a higher valuation on human life than the legislators of my country of birth do.
Then he can write about what he has learned placing his thoughts in a better public forum than the place he chose to vent the racist hatred that his brain was so ready to release – as long as only selected friends could see it.
Wake up David Brooks
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
8
Harvard had no choice. They cannot afford to give even the APPEARANCE of embracing racist views. They need to appear to be above reproach like the proverbial emperor's wife. Imagine the headlines and editorial comment that would have ensued had they agreed to accept this student in spite of his racist posts.
12
Does the left never trip on its own inherent ironies, to wit pretty much loathing Christianity for its perceived intolerances while behaving (the left) like prime characters in a witch-worrying unforgiving twenty-first century Salem?
He's a KID. Accept him and focus on his contrition and growth.
3
@Ken Kids are not monolithic. They are as different from each other as adults are. This kid espouses and uses racist terminology. Ergo, he is not fit for Harvard.
3
@Ken
You are the one who sounds like a kid, “loathing Christianity” is an attack on liberal christians, what only the “right” kind of people are Christians who happen to be conservative republicans? Maybe you are the one who needs to grow up and focus on being less judgmental and try thinking before you make such a stupid statement, kinda like this kid did who has shown no signs of contrition, other than that he got outed for his behavior and needs to take personal responsibility for his actions instead of whining about it to the media.
1
@Ken, I'm a Christian gun owner in the south and a liberal. We aren't eggs in cartons that are all alike. I'm a liberal because I know how cruel republicans have been toward black people, gays, and those who do not fit their views of "real" Americans. I know how willing they are for the poor to suffer and the sick to be left unaided. They claim to be the only Christians in the land. But they are deluded in that they now oppose Jesus in his own name and sully the very name of God. Look at their adulterous, sexually assaultive, child-imprisoning choice of leader. What would Jesus do indeed.
1
AP US History? hope he got a 5... for irony.
2
Two things:
- I am White, and yet never at any age as a minor (or adult for that matter) did using the N-word ever become something I had to "try on for size". I've never understood white guys who feel they have to advance the proposition that they should be able to use that word. Why does IT, of all things enter your mind Bro's? I don't get it.
- Secondly, social media/google etc. has caught another one! A generation ago, what these teens wrote down probably just got verbalized, and then forgotten instead. There are little, dark temporary corners in people's formative past, and there is a large percentage of students at Harvard who probably held some ill thought at age 16 that never surfaced since it wasn't "posted" anywhere.
The administrators should beware of this because if they are going to be the purity police they will need to start an inquisition of all the students. Or maybe they just kicked him out not for this thoughts but for simply being stupid and posting this stuff online for all to see.
Also, on a macro level, school administrators circumvented the socialization process of the students. They robbed black students the chance to find out for themselves about this guy and come to their own judgments. It seems this student is not a Hater. It's a little "big-brotherly" of Harvard administrators to intervene the way they did.
2
It is revolting to hear smart young people express such hateful racism Also, I am so impressed that you are beyond reproach. Like most people, I may have made some mistakes as a teen, but I was lucky that my youthful lapses occurred before the internet was around to document them for perpetual future reference. If the worst thing this kid ever did was use an offensive word when he was 16, perhaps he is not so far gone that he can learn from this experience and grow into a model citizen, albeit one who does not share my politics.
Redemption and forgiveness do not exist for Social Justice category crimes. Same people who argue that 16 year old does not have a brain developed enough to be fully responsible for shooting somebody will turn around to argue that racist jokes cannot be forgiven. ( unless you are new member of Times editorial board or sitting democrat governor)
No, it’s not hard to know if Mr. Kashuv has learned from his repulsive comments. I read his thread on Twitter, and I would summarize his apology like this:
1. I sincerely apologize for the comments I wrote. I take full responsibility.
2. I was never racist, just immature. It was over two years ago. I was a kid, now I'm a man.
3. There was a mass shooting at my school. It was a life-altering event. I have grown as a person and am no longer the person who wrote those comments — who was not racist, just childish.
4. Those comments were made in private.
5. I was outed by political opponents who contacted you to suggest you rescind my offer of admission to Harvard. You seem to have capitulated.
6. A Harvard office sent me a note implying I would matriculate there next year. That raised my hopes, so you’re being unfair to me by standing by your decision to rescind my application.
7. Harvard has a racist past. Let me point that out in front of my 300k Twitter followers.
8. Your hypocrisy is deeply concerning to me. If you won’t admit me, it shows that you’re still an inherently racist organization. Convince me otherwise by reinstating my admission.
9. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. It’s about forgiveness and whether Harvard believes in it.
10. I gave up huge scholarships to accept Harvard! You cost me those! I’m exploring all options. (I may sue you.)
11. I have sincerely apologized and taken full responsibility for the past actions of the person I no longer am.
4
Could you maybe explain how you figure that a kid who gets on the Internet and belches this ugly nonsense, and then acquires “300 K Twitter followers, “political opponents,” and a nasty little public history of cheerleading for the likes Donald Trump, could possibly be said to have only spoken “in private?”
1
@JeffW part of "taking responsibility" is accepting the consequences.
Whatever happened to accepting consequences?
How does anyone actually know if this person's remorse is real? So many of the caught are let off the hook of responsibility by professing their apology and desire for forgiveness. The world as we know now is full of men who were racist at 16 and never changed their position. They now support our POTUS who is also a disgraceful racist hater. Harvard did the right thing.
2
A society which insists that everyone, from day one, be a politically-correct sheeple parroting politically-correct wisdom is a society which should please the stalinists amongst us.
Oh, yes, I know that anyone who would stoop to using the "N" word is diseased, deformed and forever worthy of banishment. I just wish that, rather than banishment, we could ask what would undoubtedly be a difficult and probing question as to "why."
But banishment is oh-so-much easier and will make us feel oh-so-much more self righteous however much such easy and self-righteous judgment will probably make the answer to actually solving the problem oh-so-much more difficult.
1
@J. Cornelio
The "why" is easy. A great many white people, even white immigrants like Kashuv's family, have a profound level of hatred and contempt for Black people that they find very difficult to conceal.
1
a weighted G.P.A. of 5.345a weighted G.P.A. of 5.345
What the heck does that mean? GPA ends at FOUR, of course, unless you're in the Ivy League, especially Haavaad, who continue to insist on grading on a scale of SIXTEEN, only for the purpose of making the "middle ground" of your official transcript wider (the grades your "educator" or "instructor" or "grad student teacher" etc.... thinks you deserve are never published for obvious reasons).
That said, it's also obvious that this potential conservative time bomb doesn't deserve a seat at Harvard. Ironic, since the right wing have endeavored to never miss a chance to deamonize any liberal institution at any time.
Which brings me to the politicization of those not old enough to vote. You don't have a say in the matter before you're 18.
So enjoy being a kid until then.
Forget it, kid. You LOST. Go to Liberty or Bob Jones University and launch your conservative career there.
3
I cannot believe what terrible comments are being written about a 16 year old child by such a large group of adult sanctimonious hypocritical commentators. Not a Christian but really? Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. Apparently, one is not allowed to be a conservative and go to an Ivy League college anymore. Perhaps these adults will pass a law banning such evil racists from touching those hallowed halls. Hello Chinese Cultural Revolution again.
1