The leftist outrage mob is at it again: stifling free speech and ruining innocent young lives by holding people up to impossible moral standards like not, you know, repeatedly saying the N-word.
The PC police’s latest victim is 18-year-old Kyle Kashuv, a survivor of the Parkland shooting and a conservative activist. On Monday, Kashuv disclosed that Harvard had decided to rescind his admission to the class of 2023 after reviewing racist texts and comments he had made when he was 16. These comments were leaked online a few weeks ago and, Kashuv tweeted, led to “former peers & political … contacting Harvard urging them to rescind me”. After reviewing the case, the Ivy League university did just that.
There is nothing particularly noteworthy or new about Harvard deciding a student hasn’t acted in accordance with its internal policies and rescinding their offer. Indeed, the university rescinded admission offers for at least 10 prospective students in 2017 over offensive comments they had made in a private Facebook group called “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens”. However, Kashuv’s status as a prominent social media personality means the school’s decision to cut ties with him has quickly spiraled into a national controversy. And while I’m not entirely sure a kid not going to Harvard should be news in the first place, the debate it has ignited says a lot about the current state of America.
Let’s start with the question of who gets to make mistakes in America. Kashuv said some truly horrible things in the Google Doc and texts that were made public: he used the N-word multiple times and boasted that “im really good at typing nigger ok like practice uhhhhhh makes perfect”. Kashuv, who is Jewish, also made derogatory comments about Jews. Kashuv has said he is embarrassed by his comments and has since matured: “We were 16-year-olds making idiotic comments, using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible … I want to be clear that the comments I made are not indicative of who I am or who I’ve become in the years since.”
We have all said stupid things we regret; I’m sure none of us would like to be judged by the things we did and said at 16. However, there’s a big difference between “callous and inflammatory language” and blatantly racist language. It’s unsettling to see how many people are treating Kashuv’s racist statements like they’re no big deal, like everyone says that sort of thing. Ben Shapiro, for example, tweeted: “Harvard’s auto-da-fe sets up an insane, cruel standard no one can possibly meet.” Really? When you consider not using the N-word a “cruel standard no one can possibly meet” you are truly telling on yourself.
It’s also interesting, by the way, that Shapiro didn’t condemn Kashuv’s antisemitic remarks; it’s almost as if Shapiro applies his principles and outrage selectively.
Shapiro wasn’t the only conservative thought leader to rush to Kashuv’s defense. The New York Times’s David Brooks opined in a column: “Moral formation is not like learning math. It’s not cumulative; it’s inverse. In a sin-drenched world it’s precisely through the sins and the ensuing repentance that moral formation happens.” While that’s very poetic I also think it’s worth reiterating that there’s nothing particularly complicated about realizing the N-word is bad. Brooks makes it sound like figuring out you shouldn’t be racist is some kind of epic struggle.
Brooks continues to say that we shouldn’t “judge people by what they did in their worst moment, but rather by how they respond to their worst moment. That’s why we are forgiving of 16-year-olds, because they haven’t disgraced themselves enough to have earned maturity.” While I’m entirely in agreement that we should give people the chance to redeem themselves, that nobody should be written off, I’m somewhat flabbergasted by the fact he thinks America is “forgiving of 16-year-olds”. What he meant to write, perhaps, is that America is forgiving of white 16-year-olds.
America is forgiving of youthful mistakes made by guys like Brett Kavanaugh. It’s forgiving of guys like Brock Turner. It’s forgiving of guys like Kyle Kashuv. It’s not, however, forgiving of guys like Tamir Rice or Trayvon Martin. It’s not forgiving of guys like Kalief Browder, who was sent to Rikers, New York City’s notorious island jail, when he was 16 after being accused of stealing a backpack. Browder spent three years awaiting trial in Rikers island, half of the time in solitary confinement, because his family couldn’t raise bail money. When he was eventually brought to trial a judge dismissed all charges against him; two years later Browder killed himself.
Not everyone gets to be a child in America. Not everyone gets to make mistakes. In fact plenty of people are made to pay for mistakes they never even made.
The right is obsessed with lecturing liberals on personal responsibility. However, as their response to the Kashuv situation demonstrates, they are not so keen on taking personal responsibility themselves. Actions have consequences, as Kashuv is finding out. He may not be going to Harvard in 2023, but the university is already teaching him a valuable lesson.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
