Because the political agenda behind the hoax is something they embrace.
A University of Chicago student who claimed his Facebook page was hacked and filled with racist and violent messages against him and another student has now admitted he faked the attack.
Intended to shame the school into making drastic changes around race and speech on campus, the hoax appears to have worked.
The students behind the ruse, the hoodwinked university and the school newspaper have argued that the hoax – which provoked a federal investigation – should not detract from fixing the school’s “culture of racial intolerance,” in the words of a petition demanding policy changes. […]
Campus leaders, even while acknowledging the hoax and the federal resources expended to investigate a fake threat, couldn’t bring themselves to call for any punishments against the students who cried wolf.
Instead, they endorsed the political agenda behind the hoax.
The university, which said Nov. 20 that the “hateful and anonymous Facebook posts” were part of a “larger pattern,” issued a weak retraction four days later.
“Based on our ongoing investigation we now are confident that the Facebook posting was not created by a hacker,” Karen Coleman, vice president for campus life and student services, told the community Nov. 24.
“That conclusion does not erase the seriousness of this episode, the harm it has caused to individuals and our broader community, or the consequences for those responsible,” Coleman said. “Whatever its purpose, the language used in this incident does not constitute discourse and will not be tolerated.”
Coleman said the school would host “special sessions” for students, faculty and staff who wanted to talk about the incidents and “get support.” […]
The editorial board of The Chicago Maroon wrote Nov. 25: “The sentiments that existed before the Facebook post still ring true, and should be treated accordingly. The conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion on campus must continue in light of recent developments.”
The revealing of the hoax “should not de-legitimize the issues of racism that have been raised, or mitigate the seriousness with which they should be addressed,” the editorial said.
By any means necessary.
It is who they are, it is what they do.
it’s the exact same thing as the global warming hoax
Also the second-hand smoke hoax.
and the same thing as the Islam is peaceful hoax
and the Iranisourfriendjustgivethemachance hoax
Hmm. So the thing that needs fixing turns out not to exist, so that means they can fix it that much more easily!
Cheaply bought nobility never tasted so sweet.
Which segues nicely to the noble undocumented immigrant hoax.
A “gigantic hoax” you say?
disgustin’, ain’t it?
Working link?
I always think of the way they used to advise against using exaggerated drug use stories because they were counter productive and destroyed credibility with the kids.
I guess Joe Friday’s strategy was correct after all.
Have any of these “racial incidents” ever proven to be factual?
In case anyone is wondering, no one should go to the U of C to work at the student paper. Or, let’s say, get an education degree.
Because that would be seriously stupid. It costs a shit ton. You can become a run-of-the-mill loser for far less money.
I sorta wonder about if this had happened in the 90s. Would the actual students even have noticed?
So, then, I sorta wonder about now. Did the actual students even notice this horseshit?
There’s not much chitter chatter in the stacks at the Reg.
For what it’s worth, at the U of C in the 90s I became friends with black, Korean, Latino, etc, etc, etc, people for the first time in my life. Came out of rural Wisconsin and suddenly met a whole bunch of people from different places.
There’s a decent chance this worked so well because we were all nerds with 20 to 30 little areas of interest we could bond over without getting weird about race.
Yeah, the future is not as bright as it was in the 90s. We probably don’t even need to wear shades.
Are we half-amazed at the volume of stupidity now prancing upon the stage as “news”? Does it or does it not seem as voluminous, inexorable, and continuous (and directly counter to any sane reckoning of national exigency) as at any former period in our lifetimes? I for one can’t seem to shake the sense that I’ve never seen such an awful joke.
the politics of personal destruction news
Media: Our Coverage of Elizabeth Lauten is Totes Warranted and Even If It’s A Little Bit of Overkill, That’s Just Because It’s a Slow News Cycle, Not Because of Partisan Animus
I remember a great deal of horseshit back then too.
But, there were a few hundred pages of assigned reading to get through each day before going to the Italian language lab so that I could say a flirty word or two to that irresistible brunette.
Random people told us about the Oklahoma City bombing in the food hall and a number of us hadn’t heard about it a day or two later.
Did the nation take four months out during the second world war to chase after twenty stories based on nothing more than obviously pure lies? I don’t recall hearing about that, if it had happened. But then, the running national debt at that time at least had a basis in a kind of necessity, rather than in a non-choice of a non-sovereign people, I guess.
Of course it’s a slow news cycle, what with the single most heinous anti-Constitutional usurpation of Congressional power by a criminal Executive being a non-entity as a topic of interest. Yeah, there’s no Constitutional crisis going on here, since there’s no Constitution left to speak of, hence our silence.
Acerbic and true.
And of course it’s a slow news cycle when neither the Chief Executive, the highest law enforcement official in the land, nor his second the Attorney General can bring themselves to speak in support of the righteous decision of a Grand Jury, but choose to demur in order to stir unnecessary racial division across the land. Yep, nothing to say there.
But, this is what we get, isn’t it?
Journalists are now soft partisan pudding heads rather than tough pieces of leather spit out of their local cities by the time any of us would read them.
And their readers are now soft pudding heads rather than fearsome men and women the likes of which no one would ever want to fuck with.
Everything is now so very soft and slow.
Pudding heads is descriptive of the zombie hoard in that walkingsdead show. Man their skulls are soft, ya notice? Mebbe we should start in killin’ em all?
Charles Krauthammer is an enemy of the Constitution. Dunno why though.
metrosexual nation!!11!! put arugula in your pipe and soak it.
mondale speech writer disease
tho’ ruining class thing mostly
You know what? I think the only problem with “metrosexual” is how it’s sorta letting women off the hook.
Women have also become soft and useless in a way that their grandmother’s would properly disdain.
As a thought experiment I contend that my ol’ Irish grandma could straight up murder twenty to thirty of these soft ass fools sharing her gender. Just massacre them.
Algernon Sydney was hanged on Dec. 7, 1683.
Just sayin’
She could wire a junction box, I’d bet. She could figure out a carburetor when it was cold on the side of the road, I’d guess again.
Also, she could punch a damn horse in the face. Book it.
John Locke had fled to the Netherlands. No fool he.
i know a girl who makes her own kombucha
Does she wear a body camera?
Making one’s own kombucha is a step in the right direction.
Also, animal husbandry, scythe maintenance, chassis repair.
Every other household should have a dumbhead shaving horse and ancillary implements.
The houses in between can go with spring-pole lathes and their implements.
Thus industry will be born.
Seriously?
Somehow I can hear this in my head only in Bugs Bunny’s voice.