Sober Thread: Dalhousie University Dentistry Suspensions

So, 13 fourth year (last year) dental students at Dalhousie University were just suspended from clinical activities (which are required to graduate) by the university because they had a (private) facebook group where they were posting stuff about wanting to drug and "hate fuck" some of their female classmates (i.e. rape them). Dalhousie won't expel them, likely because they haven't committed any offenses under the school's code of conduct or code of ethics that would allow an expulsion. The board of dentists is asking for the university to release the names of the individuals, and there are shitloads of protesters outside the school demanding the names be released. I don't think they can do that either because they haven't ACTUALLY committed a crime. It's not illegal to say stupid shit on the internet. They never uttered any threats - if anything, it might be considered cyber bullying, but that's such a damn vague law that they'd likely never get convicted, even if they were ever indicted.

I debated this with the husband last night, and some girlfriends this morning, and I seem to have a unique opinion here. They're all saying "release the names, expel the students, throw them in jail". I'm saying "You can't do that. If you try it, and you don't have the legal justification to support it, the university will get sued and they will lose." I get that what those students did is ethically wrong and fucking stupid, but it's not that far removed from some of the unkind shit I've said about people over the years, either online or under my breath. If you release those names, those kids will be lynched.

As I see it, the only people who legitimately are in harm's way at the moment are the suspended students. They haven't raped anyone, they haven't drugged anyone, they were just talking shit. Now, if they actually become licensed and have access to anaesthesia, maybe there's just cause for concern... I just don't know.

Focus: Appropriate punishment for these students - if you were the university, what would you do?

Alt-Focus: Since we live in a society of trolls and online idiots, should there ever be an expectation that what you say "in a private group" is private? What about something said to a friend over a beer in a bar? Is privacy just an illusion?

Alt-Alt-Focus: How do you police the internet?

 

The students should be suspended not for what they said, but because they are stupid enough to say it. if you are retarded enough to do that, then you are too dumb to be a dentist.

If the students were stupid enough to say those things, then they should release their names along with what they said.

Unless there is a specific threat law enforcement should not punish them. They did not do anything illegal, they just did something really stupid.

This is kind of similar to what happened to the Duck Dynasty guy. He was just using his church to justify his views instead of his bros.

Alternative focus- If you want something to be private do not share it with other people. At all. In person or on the internet.

Alt-alt focus- How many people here have been Doxed? I know it has happened to few people. I have never participated in a Doxing. I have participated in a wahoo. So I guess that is how you police the internet?

 

I have opinions on all of this, but just wanted to say anecdotally: When I was their age, I said things about a thousand times worse.
Of course this was in the early nineties, and a couple times strange things would happen, like me getting punched in the fucking face.

I wish we could just punch people in the face again.

 

If they are charged with a crime, the "private" group could be subpoenaed, I suppose. Otherwise, if the University doesn't have specific policies in place, I don't see why did anything to them that would keep them from graduating. If they commented with an expectation of privacy, then the University has no right to release the names. I don't know what Facebook's policies are, so they might have the right. Tell them to stop and that a note will be in their record about their conduct. Without specific threats, isn't that free speech? It's going to have quite an impact on their graduation rate if the University sets a precedent of suspending anybody who's a douchebag.

I don't see this as similar in any way. What Phil Robertson said in his church, he would say to your face or in any public forum. It seems these guys wouldn't have said this publicly. Robertson did not commit any hate crime, and despite his opinion being misguided (and I don't think consistent with the Bible), it's not against the law to profess that your religious views condemn homosexuality. It is, however, against the law to drug and rape a woman.

 

What crime did these guys commit? They didn't date rape anyone. They said they would like to.

 

So let me get this straight: College kids, no actual threats, no crime committed, no college code of conduct infraction, not licensed medical practitioners, and likely just some people using poor judgement in what they said to whom on the internet.

OK, you guys get the gas, I'll get the logs; these people should be burned at the stake on the mall at Dalhousie in front of the entire student body with their parents there in shame. They should have known a poor sense of humor is a burning offense.

Question: Would the uproar be the same if it were the male patients/classmates that they joked about drugging and raping or is this slanted because it involved women?

 

I'd like to see what they actually said. Some of the shit we say on here is probably a lot worse. A little context goes a long way.

 

I'm sorry, but this was Locker Room Talk. As sick and disgusting as what was said, there is not a person on this board-- on in Western culture in general who does not say fucked-up shit while they are in (or THINK they are in) their inner sanctum. Like a certain asshole NBA owner when he THOUGHT he was in the comfort and privacy of their own home. We say horrible (non-racist) shit like these kids say ON THIS BOARD. Hello, we had a thread specifically dedicated on who we personally would want to hate-fuck. Yes, we are sick and disgusting too.

What they said makes them twats. By doing what they did on the Internet and thinking it would be ANY way "private" makes them incredibly stupid for university students. They were born into the Internet and should have fucking known better. On the other hand, people who think they should be "outed" for commiting no crime whatsoever are ALSO twats.

The end result is the people who invented the term Rape Culture now are demanding they get hanged by their thumbs for something that practically everyone has done. The entire situation is a pathetic, seven-layered clusterfuck festooned in cat shit.

 

Update: In a divine quest for perfect predictability, Anonymous is spreading their standard "Out them or We Will" threat. And for those of you not familiar with Anonymous, when they out you the entire world gets your name; your entire next, current and last generation of your family members; every address, phone number; where you work, your work phone number and to top it off: your S.I.N.

 

There's a lot more info, including screenshots, here.

 

This shit is aggravating. People who have no idea what their righteous outrage can actually cause. I knew a kid in HS who made a joke to another student in his yearbook when signing, referencing a girl in our graduating class. Stupid but altogether harmless. Another student, a pious suckup, saw it and "reported" it to a teacher. The girl was then officially notified of the statement's existence (but not the content), freaked out cause of how grave it seemed, it blew up, and the student was prevented from walking at graduation and subsequently lost a scholarship he earned through the school. For the same kind of shit. Statements made in a private venue.

This wasn't a blog post or an article. It wasn't even posting on someone's wall in a threatening manner. It was a private facebook group. Are they idiots? Sure. Have they done anything critical or even against a school regulation? No. People who want their names released can fuck right off lest they want their entire online history to be aired out.

EDIT: I just read the link and saw the screenshots. That is RIDICULOUSLY tame. It sounds more like neckbeards on reddit talking about shit "being gentlemenly badasses" than date-raping frat bros. Seriously, a "does this rag smell like cholorform" joke has people suggesting they would rape future patients? Good lord. I don't condone what they said cause 90% of it is dumb and not funny, but free speech in private can now get you expelled?

 

I'll give you a taste of the kind of argument I was getting back from one of my incredibly well-educated girlfriends:

Me: I remember sitting in a classroom in 4th year organic chem. I hated the prof. She was a fucking idiot who always drew her carbon atoms with 5 bonds. I had a classmate who was Serbian who also hated her. He used to tell me that, if we were in Serbia, he knew people who'd "take care of her" for "$25K, no questions asked". I'd call that equally, if not moreso, disturbing. Said publicly, not written down (until now), but still uttered. If you punish these guys, you'd also have to punish him and anyone who ever said anything like that.
Her: But killing someone and raping someone are two different things. The context is also different; and the pathology. The pathology is far worse in these students, far more disturbing and at a very different level.
Me: Dude. My buddy was talking about ordering a fucking hit.
Her: The students were targeting women in general, not just a hatred toward one person for a specific reason. It's different.
Me: It's still wrong. And, criminally speaking, more indictable.
Her: But not the same level of wrong. And yes, there are different levels of wrong, and different levels of disturbing. I ask you this... What disturbs you more, someone's murder or someone's rape?
Me: How the fuck do I answer that and not come across sounding like a psychopath?

For some reason, the word "rape" seems to set people off something fierce these days. You can't make a joke, you can't even toss the word chloroform around without someone getting their panties in a twist over it. My friend's (perhaps legitimate) concern was for the female students in the class, having to sit next to classmates who they knew had openly talked about hate fucking them.

 

I don't think the public at large needs to know the names of these students. Their lives will be ruined for something they said in what they thoughts was confidence. At the end of the day, they are dumb kids (seniors in college are still kids in my eyes). We have all done and said stupid things when we were that age and if you didn't, you are in the minority.

I do have a question for anyone who understands the law. Can this be used as evidence to some degree in the event that one of these kids does drug and rape a person in the future? Not necessarily the women they discuss in the Facebook group, but in a different case of rape? Are there legal ramifications in that sense?

 

Those screenshots are about what I was expecting. Taken out of context, these accusations make it sound like they were posting things like "Hey guys, wouldn't it be GREAT to drug and rape [some girl]? Oh man she deserves it and it would be so sweet, let's do it some time."

But no, they just sound like a bunch of sexually frustrated neckbeards. Bad sexist jokes and empty posturing. This is one of those times where I absolutely don't like what they said, but I think they should have the right to say it (in a private group).

Example: My roommate and I are very good friends, and without tooting my own horn too much, I would say we're good guys. We treat people well and are not assholes. But if someone hid a mic in our apartment and wrote a transcript of the worst things we've said "in private"? Holy shit, we would be fucked. Fucked. But we're joking, and we both know we're joking; we would never say any of that shit around people we don't know, or online.

I'm not saying these guys sound like good guys, I just think it's unfair to roast people for things they said in private when those things were clearly not actual plans to carry out any crimes. Problem is, the administration is in a tough spot because they look bad doing nothing about this kind of thing when it gets brought to their attention.

 

I agree with most of you that its crazy that there are people that want these idiots names exposed, and or expelled, or get what they think is their just desserts........

What is weird and strange to me is that I don't understand what this motivation is. I get that these guys who made the remarks are douches (and in my previous post think they should get punched for being stupid), but I truly don't understand the outrage?
Some idiots said some stupid shit. Who cares? Move along dummies.

My questions are; Why are we giving credence to dumb people? And why are these people outraged?
Is it truly as simple as participation trophies? Is it because as of recently we've stopped being parents, and become "friends" to our progeny? Have we done a disservice to our kids by validating their shithead opinions, and not telling them to shut the fuck up when they were younger?

I'm not trying to bag on this generation, or be the "get off my lawn" dick, I just truly don't understand the outrage.
There are things in this world to get bunched panties over,,,,, this is not one of them.

 

Sounds a little like Minority Report.

 

Because people are stupid. Remember that George Carlin truth? Where he said "Think about how stupid the average person is.... And realize half of them are more stupid than that." These fuckheads don't know what they're outraged at, they just like being outaged. It gives their opinions validation and ATTENTION. And they don't care that they're fucking with principles of privacy. The Internet isnt private, but we shouldn't need the Get Smart! cone of silence to crack jokes or say nasty thing amongst friends.

Like this M.C Escher of fucked uppedness from a Washington Post editorial:

...that was printed in a NEWSPAPER.

 

Obviously I am not a lawyer, but I'm not sure why one of those has to be the consequence of the other. What does releasing the ability their name have to do with whether or not they've committed a crime?

You don't actually believe they're at risk of physical harm, right? That seems exceedingly unlikely, so I assume you mean the figurative sense of "They will have an exceedingly bad time." If the latter, why is this unfortunate? They sound unpleasant, and I'm not sure why we should shed tears over them facing consequences.

The easiest (and probably only) way to get people to stop saying obnoxious things is to make it uncomfortable for them to do so in an informal manner. Looking at the screenshots, this stuff is pretty pedestrian, so I can't bring myself to care much either way. But the idea that there is some kind of blanket human right to be boorish without consequence is a weird thought.