Comment by FireBeyond
6 days ago
"You must disband these groups, including the National Lawyer's Guild student group. In addition, you must discipline officers and members of these groups, and you must make them ineligible to join any other student group."
Sorry, I'll take "holier than thou" institutions over government-mandated "these student groups are acceptable and these are not".
"You must ban all masks and have penalties no less than suspension for any violation".
Oh yes, look at these ethical high ground ivory tower types...
The mask obsession these people still have is just amazing. So angry at being told to wear a mask during a pandemic that they want to ban anyone else from doing it now. I would expect better behavior from a toddler.
It’s unclear how much is residual anti-mask sentiment from the pandemic and how much is related to events like this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68923528
One might reasonably interpret events like that as protestors engaged in activity that is not protected by the First Amendment, is criminal and/or violates other student’s civil rights and/or improperly interferes with the activities of others. And one might credibly imagine that some of the protesters knew this and were wearing masks to hide their identities. And one might further credibly argue that, in 2024, these students were not likely to be wearing masks outdoors for health reasons.
Of course, the letter to Harvard doesn’t really explain what kind of mask ban is imagined or why it’s appropriate to ban masks when students are merely going about their ordinary business.
One might argue that masks are necessary because the state is surveiling people and abducting them off the street based on viewpoint. If you're expressing views in public, it would behoove you to do so while obscuring your identity to the extent possible, lest you end up in a Salvadoran death camp for expressing views disfavored by the regime.
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They want to ban it for absolute facial recognition coverage, and pretty much nothing else.
It has nothing to do with the pandemic. The ban on masks is about whether or not protesters are actually students. Masks have been used to conceal identities when taking over buildings or shutting down classes.
The mask ban isn’t about covid. The purpose is to facilitate facial recognition. It is analogous to the HK protests a few years ago: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49931598.amp