
Hack the North official statement on ejecting attendees for Facebook joke [pdf] - 13thLetter
http://hackthenorth.com/hackthenorth-response.pdf
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nness
I think this statement highlights something I'd assume some didn't consider
when debating the issue on Errington's article, or Errington and the other
poster didn't consider when making the joke.

It is the Universities obligation to ensure the safety of its members, it has
these black-and-white rules to ensure mistakes don't happen through lack of
direction, inaction or uncertainty.

In these situations, whether threats are real or just a joke, the faculty
doesn't gather a panel and sit down and debate the true nature of the threat,
they act immediately to ensure the safety of their community. Knowing their
policy is a complete evacuation, and likely realising that the comments were a
joke, simply evicting Errington and the other poster was likely a cool-headed
reaction in lieu of a proposing or interrupting the event.

~~~
13thLetter
That doesn't make any sense. If the university was genuinely concerned that
the posters really were mad bombers, they are _obligated_ to have police
arrest them, evacuate the campus, and search for the bomb they believe exists.
If the university did _not_ genuinely believe the posters were mad bombers,
then throwing them out of an event for being college students telling dumb
jokes to each other is a huge and unjust overreaction: they should do nothing,
or at worst quietly contact them and ask them to cut it out. Splitting the
difference and merely throwing them out of the event is pointless and matches
neither option.

Of course, all this is irrelevant because the two weren't thrown out because
the University was concerned about a bomb threat. This all happened because
some random anonymous person complained to MLH that the postings made them
feel "unsafe," and instead of telling that person to go pound sand, MLH and
HTN cooperated to enforce exactly the same foolish zero-tolerance policies
they were joking about.

