Mon 30 Apr 2007
Via Greylock News, a (not very active) blog discussion about Mary Jane Hitler. Comments:
1) This is the second independent use (first here) of the phrase “Mary Jane Hitler” to describe the controversy. That makes it official! False modesty aside, all scandals need names. A name for this scandal needs to include the word Hitler. Mary Jane is a useful double entendre since it captures the fact that marijuana references were involved and that the main protagonist, Julia, is female. The absurdity of the combination of Mary Jane and Hitler also captures the lack of threat here. Julia may be confused and clueless but she is obviously a basically good person. The phrase (due to HWC?) “Bong Hits 4 Hitler” is not a bad formulation, but now that two other media sources are using the Mary Jane Hitler terminology, it is time to settle on this.
2) The site, Watching the Watchers, has a copy of one of the posters but lists no source (and no mention of EphBlog either). Now, not everyone knows about EphBlog (shocking but true) but odds are he got the picture from us. Credit where credit is due, please.
3) The author, Lee Russ, refers to Julia as The Postress. I am not sure why he doesn’t just use her name, now that it is the Record. In any event, following the standards outlined in our FAQ, we have removed all references to Julia’s last name in our posts. Soon, we hope to do the same in our comments. (Future comments which mention Julia’s last name will be either edited or deleted.) We do this at Julia’s request.
Now, as you might imagine, this is a tough call. On the one hand, EphBlog is not just a news source. We are a community. We seek to be friendly and accommodating. We do not want to cause anyone unnecessary grief. On the other hand, this is the biggest story at Williams in the last several years. We need to cover it and discuss it. Although we do delete posts (most recent one concerned an Eph charged with child pornography), we would be hard-pressed to delete the posts and associated discussion surrounding this topic.
Fortunately, in the end, it was easy to both maintain our news coverage and discussion while not highlighting Julia’s last name in our coverage. Reader comments on this decision are welcome.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:09 am
I disagree strenously with removing Julia’s last name from posts. She asked for the discussion. Why would you shield her?
April 30th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Why would you resrict my free speech and that of your other loyal readers? To protect a hate mongering, anti-semitic, Nazi lover who affronted every Jewish student at Williams College and shows less than a shred of remorse?
April 30th, 2007 at 12:26 am
“I disagree strenously with removing Julia’s last name from posts. She asked for the discussion. Why would you shield her?”
Seconded. It’s public knowledge (in the sense of having been published in the campus newspaper). There’s no reason it should suddenly start being restricted.
Cheers.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:34 am
*sniff sniff* but… but… but what about freedom of speech, david??? *runs away crying, slams door, hitler posters scatter on floor*
April 30th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Friendly? Accommodating? Do you mean the way Ms. Julia was friendly and accommodating to the Jewish students at Williams College with her anti-semitic hate posters?
She’s had ample opportunity to express regret and keep her name out of Google searches. She seems quite smitten by her anti-semitism and hatred. Let the world share it.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:34 am
David, Bong Hits 4 Hitler is my creation, courtesy of Morse v. Frederick.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:37 am
And I don’t think that we should remove her last name unless and until she actually expresses some real understanding about the gravity of her actions, that you can’t just yell “free speech” and request thing things be expunged and get off without even a google trail for something you CLAIMED was a publicity stunt.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:39 am
No. She is NOT basically a good person. Basically a good person does not respond to a Holocaust Remembrance by papering a campus with anti-semitic hate posters of Hitler. Can we stop with this giving her the benefit of the doubt? She’s had more than a week to express any remorse.
She is NOT basically a good person. She is basically an ugly, hateful, anti-semitic bigoted person.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:42 am
I hardly think that we should heed to her requests at this point. She wanted to provoke discussion, and she got it.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:55 am
I don’t think we “know” that she is “basically a good person”.
And doesn’t removing her last name protect her from the consequences of her actions? But I do love the irony of her asking us to limit our speech.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:57 am
You should actually include her middle name as well — the full name as she proudly published it when she went public last week with her (cough) letter of intent (cough) on EphBlog: Julia.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:03 am
“she is obviously a basically good person.”
That isn’t obvious to me, David. And people who know Julia have gone to the trouble of posting her WSO comments that point to something other than “good person”:
“Taken from the WSO blog about illegal immigrants * Julia*
‘I tell dead baby jokes all the time … I love shooting things … Can’t wait to get home and sit at my door polishing my .45 and waiting for somenody to miss the Tresspassers Will be shot, survivors WILL be prosecuted sign.’
Posted by: at April 28, 2007 09:10 AM”
(posted on WSO):
“Noah: ‘now i am receiving threats of violence from your boyfriend.
please, that is wrong.’
… Julia:
‘Noah … You’ve shown what a ridiculous obsessive nut you are, no matter how insensitive I may be … I wasn’t telling you to remove your claim, and I won’t ask Rob to remove his response to your accusation.’
… April 27, 2007 12:25 AM”
Seems she is more macabre and mean-spirited than “good” to me — and not one whom the HRD posters of children that later died would have, on their face, offended.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:08 am
We should burn her. I bet she floats.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:57 am
No, let’s build a bridge out of her!
April 30th, 2007 at 4:19 am
“We should burn her. I bet she floats.”
“No, let’s build a bridge out of her!”
These comments add nothing of value to this discussion.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Neither do yours. These don’t either, but I just really felt like pointing that out.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:38 am
David, Julia’s name should not be removed from the discussion.
By removing it, you are violating your own guidelines, which state: “For example, important, news-worthy topics (e.g., here, here and here) will be covered even if that coverage makes the subject uncomfortable.”
The Williams Record — and hundreds of readers here — apparently have viewed the posting of pro-Hitler posters by now-confirmed Nazi supporters as a “news-worthy topic[].”
Since the Record found it appropriate to post her name, Julia chose to post her own name on comments here, and Julia and Rob Shvern said they wanted to provoke discussion and promote free speech, you should not censor the content of this site by removing Julia’s name.
I think that it is funny that Julia and Rob — the self-proclaimed last bastions of free speech in our alleged society of drones — now want this site to censor free speech.
After it was conclusively proven that the posters were not some harmless joke but were actually made and posted by neo-Nazi, Al Qaeda-loving, church arson-supporting anarchists who threatened violence against Williams students, the safety and security fears of many in the Williams community are real and justified. By censoring their names, you are protecting the perpetrators. Until the administration takes action by having a frank discussion with Julia about her views of tolerance and permanently posting Rob Shvern from campus, their names need continue to be reported.
David, please listen to the now unanimous views of your readership.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I know Julia is a confirmed pot smoker, however a confirmed neo-nazi is going a little far.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:04 am
The article on Watching the Watchers has been updated with a credit line for the poster. Sorry about the omission.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:14 am
To “9:45am”:
It is undisputed that the posters were designed by Julia’s co-conspirator, neo-Nazi, Al Qaeda-loving, church arson-supporting anarchist “creepy boyfriend” Rob Shvern. It is also undisputed that Rob and Julia hung these posters together. Notably Julia has not distanced herself from her creepy boyfriend’s views or history. Since these posters were hung by one if not two people who believe the above garbage, they were not some joke, caused fear in the Williams community and therefore are a legitimate news story that should be reported until the problem is solved.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:47 am
I strenuously object to removing Julia’s last name from the site. As an advocate of free speech, I think that she should be able to express herself. But she should also have to live with the consequences of that speech, and one of those is being associated with it. Removing her last name is wrong.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Well, the more sites that attribute Ephblog (adding a link to the site) and mention Julia, the higher the google ranking. In fact, Ephblog’s link to the Record article increases its page rank, which explains why a search for “Julia” turns up Ephblog.com and WilliamsRecord.com as the first and fifth hits, respectively.
Unintentional google-bombing? Asking Dave to take it down is only going to make it worse. You haven’t exactly made many friends around these parts.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Wasn’t part of the objection to the intial rememberance poster that they were not identified as posted by the Jewish student group? If we think public postings should be identified, then let’s be consistent here. She earned the opportunity to be completely and accurately identfied in discussion associated with her actions.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:32 am
As long as we accept Julia’s actions as protected by free speach (ie: as long as Julia goes unpunished by the administration), her name should remain published along with her action. If Julia’s kicked out of Williams or charged with any variety of hate crimery, it is only then that we should consider protecting her identity.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Free speech doesn’t necessarily imply being subject to the consequences of your speech. Anonymous speech is hugely important in allowing unpopular or suppressed opinions to be heard.
That said, since Julia outed herself and her name is already published in several places, I see no real purpose in retracting it here.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Now that she’s been slandered by a blog full of fascists what does it matter? The administration has handled this well but a bunch of hateful bloggers hiding behind computers want to hurt her because they are bored. You speak well for the community of sociopaths.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
silly,
i’m assuming that’s a joke. she’s been slandered by a blog of fascists? Are you Rob???? I’m not bored, I don’t want to hurt her, but I’m mad as hell because as a Jewish alumni, my place in my community was attacked by her pathetic attempt at sarcasm. I can only image how current students are dealing with it.
I’m not bored–I have tons of work I should be doing instead that would be infinitely more fun to do. But this has shaken me and so I speak out not out of boredom but out of shock and frustration.
And, silly, if we’re hiding behind computers, at least those of us who consistently post use a moniker that makes us pretty recognizable and accountable. “silly” doesn’t quite make that cut, does it now?
pathetic.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
“community of sociopaths”
Pot, meet kettle. Defending someone who listed on her (now expunged) “Friendster” page hobbies of “misanthropy, propaganda, and petty vandalism”? And “slander” would only apply if none of this were true. Besides, the blog is “full of fascists” only because you (Rob or Julia/whichever, you’re interchangeable) post here. You are the “drones” you rant against.
David, if these “interests” are those of “basically a good person,” I don’t want to see what you consider “bad.”
April 30th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Hitler was himself basically a good person who got others to do bad things.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Silly: Now that she’s been slandered by a blog full of fascists what does it matter?
I’m shocked at just how legally ignorant the posts supporting Julia, Bong Hits 4 Hitler, remain.
How is this slander?
(1) There’s no way that this can be slander, as it’s written, not spoken as the very definition requires.
(2) Truth is an absolute defense to defamation, whether slander or libel.
(3) There’s a “fair comment” privilege which allows for reasonable rhetorical characterizations, especially outside pure fact reporting, e.g., my having referred to people as communists when they are merely socialists, Naderites, self-described “progressives”, or social democrats.
(4) The irony of somebody supporting Julia referring to her critics as “fascists” is too profound to comment on.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
“The site, Watching the Watchers, has a copy of one of the posters but lists no source (and no mention of EphBlog either). Now, not everyone knows about EphBlog (shocking but true) but odds are he got the picture from us.”
The only poster I referenced on Watching the Watchers is the one that appeared on the front page of The Record.
You also wondered why I didn’t just use her publicly available full name: first because I’m uncomfortable with throwing around the name of someone who is not a public figure of some sort, and second, because I don’t want to give her the publicity in case she’s hoping to become a public figure.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
At this point, one thing is sure: regardless of what David does, someone is not going to work for Goldman or McKinsey in the near, or distant, future.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Here’s an interesting article from Stanford Daily from last Friday. I find it to be very… topical.
___________________________________________
Sick Sad World: Why Google will keep you unemployed
April 27, 2007
By Jackie Bernstein
Picture this: Three years from now, you’ve finally gotten the chance to interview for your dream job. You have a flawless resume, near-godlike endorsements from your references, and you’re dressed to resemble a young Republican, circa 1986. In essence, you are the model of employability. But there’s a catch: Someone at the firm has Googled you, and because of the results, there’s no way that you’ll get a job with the company. Not now, not three years from now, not ever. No one will bother to tell you what they found, no one will ask you for an explanation, and you will never know why you were rejected.
When you were in college, you had a political radio show with your friends. When you were in college, someone took a picture of you in your Exotic Erotic costume. When you were in college, you had an article in the campus newspaper about watching someone do drugs while you were abroad.
Three years later, your prospective employer discovered all of this in 10 minutes of mouse-clicks. Long after you took down your radio podcasts, sound-bites are still on dreamboy237’s webpage. That Exotic Erotic picture of you wearing a trout, and only a trout, somehow surfaced on the fourth page of your image search results. Your article about watching junkies shoot up is still your third hit when you search for your name on Google.
I had never bothered to think about the information I was leaking onto the Internet until my friend was Googled by his parents last week. My friend’s mother, who currently has 80 resumes of recent MBA graduates stacked on her desk, informed my friend that she would never consider hiring him. His search results were far too controversial for her firm.
My friend’s Google search results were the sort that you would expect from a typical college male, and may or may not have involved a picture of him wearing a hot dog bun and strategically squirted ketchup. Does this picture merit ridicule and jokes about my friend’s wiener? Cleary, yes. Does this picture merit my friend’s flat-out rejection for a job? I don’t think so, but his mother certainly does.
My friend’s search results led me to ask other people if they knew what came up when they Googled their name, and if they were comfortable with the results. When I asked a fellow (and far more controversial) columnist these questions, he retorted that of course he knows what comes up — he simply doesn’t give a damn. According to his logic, if a company doesn’t hire him because he wrote an expletive-riddled column in his college days, he probably wouldn’t want to work for the company anyway.
But there is a problem with the “This is me, and you can take it or leave it” mindset: Attitudes change, interests transfer, but your PWR project about vibrators stays the same.
The idea of dropping the formalities in the workplace is by no means new, especially here. Hell, this is Silicon Valley. This place is ruled by socially-limited dweebs who couldn’t learn the stuffy social codes of the East Coast if a date with Lara Croft depended on it. If there exists a group of people in the world who have challenged how we’re supposed to behave in the workplace, they’re lurking on Sand Hill Road.
But don’t be fooled — a few nutty wonks at Xerox Park most likely won’t be interviewing you for your next job. Although society has traditionally allowed for geniuses to be a bit off, you are probably not smart enough to pass through on your brilliance alone. You’ll have to check out with conservative Molly McCurmudgeon from
HR, who will hate you not only for your loud pink shirt and rumpled suit jacket, but also for your MySpace account that has “Get Low” set as its homepage song.
Hopefully, when our generation rises to power, we will replace the current workforce’s uptight mentality with free espresso machines, office happy hours and a general understanding that the information age makes it impossible to conceal a liberal college pastime. However, in the meantime, you had better hope that you have nothing to hide.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
This is why my Facebook account is set so only my friends can see it. It might come down entirely towards the end of my time here.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
That’s sort of the point though. We use people’s names and attach comments to make sure they will have to deal with things later. Add your comments too and join the fun!
April 30th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
It’s a little late for Julia now. College Confidential has picked up her name from the Record article (as of this evening): http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=338504
April 30th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Julia has also made National Review:
April 30th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Its something interesting ponder… Do you think that Julia’s actions warrented having her name posted all over the internet?
Sure, her actions and personal views may be offensive and insensitive, but was it your place to make sure that she’d have a hellish time finding a job for the rest of her life?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
[space]: I honestly don’t give a crap about the career prospects of Nazis.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
After she failed to avail herself of the opportunity to acknowledge a mistake and apologize? Yes.
I think it is highly likely she was showing Nazi tendencies in high school and everyone kept quiet. That’s how she ended up at Williams. If everyone keeps quiet this time, she ends up unaccountable for her behavior again.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
So if I were to, say, not give a crap about the career prospects of football players (which is not true, most of the football players I know are cool guys), would that give me a right to post all the stupid (or questionable) things they do and say for all the world to find in a Google search later?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
You have a right to post pretty much whatever you want, since this is, after all a free country. Wasn’t this whole debate predicated on the issue of free speech? Sounds like some people only like free speech when it’s convenient for them.
I would like to point out, though, that it’s rather foolish to compare “being a football player” to “being a Nazi”. Come up with a better analogy next time.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
You have a right to post whatever you want, under free, speech, of course, but I am asking if you have the right. As in, is it morally acceptable?
And I was just trying to think of an example off the top of my head. What I was trying to illustrate is that these posts are coming up because most people definitely take offence with her anti-semitic speech. I certainly do too. I’m just saying, that, would the same response be warrented for a person that holds views that are not unanimously shunned? As in, “I don’t like your opinions, so I am going to lash out against you.”
Is that the right thing to do? Is it a mature course of action?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
No, I can guarantee you that the same response would not have happened if either the views expressed were less universally shunned, or the response afterwards was more diplomatic and considerate.
I’m sorry, but once you start pushing your obnoxious racist views onto other people’s doors, and then you proudly post your manifesto online for the world to see, you should probably expect some publicity.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Careful now - libel and slander are not considered protected speech so you have legal exposure there. By posting nasty and false speculative statements on this blog some posters have opened themselves up to lawsuits for their statements. Just like the RIAA gets violators, you too could be at risk.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Since truth is a defense in defamation, you should probably be more specific about any “false” statements made on this blog.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
“was it your place to make sure that she’d have a hellish time finding a job for the rest of her life?”
It seems to me that, in launching her pr campaign, she took care of this herself. And if you’ll notice, both College Confidential and the National Review got her full name from the Record article — not EphBlog.
And would you enjoy a workplace wherein everyone who isn’t a member of just the “right” identity group is harassed? That’s why federal laws have been enacted — to ensure that employees do not have to suffer the threat of a hostile work environment.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
“By posting nasty and false speculative statements on this blog some posters have opened themselves up to lawsuits”
Oh, really? And just which statements might those be?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
ephmom: “…just the ‘right’ identity group”?
What do you mean by this?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
“libel and slander”
All the statements I’ve seen in response to the two responsible for the Hitler posters have been based in truth and, in fact, more representative of the truth than the misrepresentaions contained in the two’s “letter of intent” and “essays” or “manifestos.” And any statements made about the threatening posters have conveyed justly unfavorable impressions. What issue do you take with exposing the intent behind the posting of the threatening posters?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
“just the ‘right’ identity group”
By that is meant the identity group of an employee’s harasser (or the identity group/s preferred by the harasser and so therefore not harassed).
May 1st, 2007 at 12:08 am
ephmom: So are you trying to call me a Nazi-sympathizer, or what? I have made it clear that I do not condone or agree with these posters. I just may not agree with the response to them - does that automatically make me a horrible person?
May 1st, 2007 at 12:13 am
There’s been a lot of statements that drifted far from the truth or were selectively presented in the worst possible light. I agree some posters have opened themselves up to possible legal action for crossing the line of civil discussion and entering into deliberate libel.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:29 am
“So are you trying to call me a Nazi-sympathizer”
[space]: I said no such thing (nor do I think it). I simply answered your questions. And you’re certainly entitled to your opinions, as are we all. We do, after all, live in the USA where we supposedly enjoy free speech.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:47 am
“I was amazed by those who attempted futility to control which categories of ideas and information was deemed ‘acceptable’ or ‘appropriate’ for public consideration.”
More irony? From http://roblink.com/tenyears.html
Notice the odd misspelling/misuse of “futilely” — the same way it was misspelled/misused in the “letter of intent.”
May 1st, 2007 at 2:01 am
In this instance even Rob comes down on the side of the drones:
“Eventually the complaints bore no weight after my insistent refusals to censor material for the sake of idiots.” From http://roblink.com/tenyears.html
David, are you listening?
May 1st, 2007 at 4:04 am
“I find it to be very… topical.”
Wasn’t there a Record piece about CS&S finding out about drug dealers through Facebook? (It might have been another school.) And if CS&S busts up Beirut games in the frosh quad, what do they do when they smell marijuana smoke?
May 1st, 2007 at 11:44 am
I wonder what her admissions essay was like.