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I need to follow up the matter of @GovHowardDean presenting a totally false version of events at Halloween @yale in 2015 recently, at a free speech event @kenyoncollege. My original thread is here https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/955209049666211840 … Free speech is a topic I've cared about for a long time. 1/
I tagged @GovHowardDean in several of the above tweets a few days ago so as to be sure he got all the facts about the events that he might need to form his opinions & arguments, and many of those tweets and facts were flagged by many others. 2/
The tweet thread was picked up by some R-wing venues, including Powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/the-disgraceful-howard-dean.php … and @foxnews http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/25/yale-professor-slams-howard-dean-for-halloween-costume-controversy-comments.html … The latter reporter contacted @GovHowardDean directly, too. Thus, I think he knows about the corrections to his statements. 3/
So, since @GovHowardDean has not yet publicly corrected the record, I'm concerned that @BretWeinstein's second hypothesis may well be right. Dean (like others elsewhere) knew he was misrepresenting the truth while on stage @kenyoncollege in Dec 2017? https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/955498558299373568 … 4/
It's so important to get facts straight, @GovHowardDean, and to correct the record, because the events continue to be misrepresented by so many, and thus are exploited for rank partisan objectives on *both* the Right & Left, *both* locally & nationally: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-halloween-email-led-to-a-campus-firestorm--and-a-troubling-lesson-about-self-censorship/2016/10/28/70e55732-9b97-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?utm_term=.8cb9aade2fad … 5/
This is not just an annoyance for me, personally. This sort of behavior is bad for civil society and rational policy making. People are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. The epidemic of #alternativefacts & #fakenews about so many topics helps no one. 6/
The way this new @foxnews article portrays my wife’s email continues the distortions of some others at @yale (eg @GovHowardDean) suggesting she was affirmatively encouraging students to wear costumes she, too, would find deeply problematic or offensive. This is utterly false. 7/
My wife’s main point was to suggest that students themselves consider whether it was a proper role of university administrators to offer adult Yalies guidance on what costumes to wear. Apparently, many students felt answer was “yes," though many (more?) felt answer was “no." 8/
Any fair reading of her now-widely circulated email, in its totality, would show this. https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-email-to-silliman-college-yale-students-on-halloween-costumes/ … One would think that faculty and reporters, who trade in words, would know. But the distortions & out-of-context quotes are legion, and possibly deliberate. 9/
Thankfully, at least some @yale faculty (incl five deans of some of our schools) were willing to publicly express a proper understanding of my wife’s email. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vHP6e5yCwLakNmRW96eFlVOE0/view … This means it should be possible for others to do so too. 10/
Doug Stone and Mary Schwab-Stone, on the @yale faculty, understood the nuance and thoughtfulness in @ErikaChristakis’ email, for instance, in this piece at @nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/adolescent-development-college-students.html … 11/
Alas, @yaledailynews did not fully or accurately cover many of the events back in 2015, and took down video footage it had originally posted online that, I have heard, captured most of the 2.25 hours of the events in the Silliman courtyard @yale. 12/
Many people videotaped events in the courtyard, and my wife and I had no "secret plan" to create this unwelcome debacle about Halloween. The many such statements in 2015 to this effect are simply false. 13/
Indeed, I came to the defense of students in the unexpectedly viral Yale Halloween videos, both privately and publicly, immediately, in many ways: e.g., https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/662944926494294016 … 14/
Many fair-minded ppl across political spectrum, incl @glukianoff, @DanTGilbert, @sndurlauf, @jflier, @BretWeinstein, @HeatherEHeying, @McCormickProf, @JonHaidt, @PamelaParesky & many others, have publicly noted the frequency w which reckless distortions of events @yale appear 15/
For instance, consider the falsehoods in this 2016 letter to the @nytimes by @GilmoreGlenda https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/opinion/at-yale-the-issue-is-not-free-speech-but-judgment.html … sent in response to the @nytimes piece by Doug Stone and Mary Schwab Stone cited above (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/adolescent-development-college-students.html …). 16/
We never "fanned the flames” of the firestorm, and indeed had utter silence re events at @yale for months & so did not “portray” ourselves in any way. We've spoken only very sparingly in the past 2 yrs, usually when forced to respond to falsehoods or to correct the record. 17/
Specifically, my only published piece about the events is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/education/teaching-inclusion-in-a-divided-world.html … I struggled with hard questions the students posed, trying to find satisfactory answers. And I gave just two interviews — two years after the events (to @SamHarrisOrg and @robbysoave). 18/
The @GilmoreGlenda distortion of our defense of minority student speech rights while at @harvard http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/04/wither-goes-free-speech-at-harvard/ … was also perplexing, as anyone reading our actual words can see. Others have also contorted the events @yale, including the former dean, @JonSHolloway. 19/
For example, @BurgieHoward, who wrote the original 2015 email providing guidance regarding costumes (virtually identical to an email he had sent in 2010 while at Northwestern https://www.thefire.org/e-mail-from-dean-of-students-burgwell-j-howard-to-northwestern-university-students/ …), was himself in the angry crowd in the Silliman courtyard. 20/
Four administrators from @yale were in the crowd (@BurgieHoward and Heads of three of the four "cultural houses,” Rise Nelson, Kelly Fayard, and Eileen Galvez). Courtyard videos since released by many people from many angles fail to capture them helping the students. 21/
Over a year later, @BurgieHoward chaired a committee that awarded important prizes to two of the students in the courtyard. Possibly he did not remember how these students so close to him acted? http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/235844/yale-cements-its-line-in-the-academic-sand-by-awarding-the-student-truthtellers-who-bullied-faculty … via @jkirchick 22/
It would be good for our society & for social justice if deliberate, ongoing misrepresentations, oversights, and exploitation solely for partisan gain of the events at Yale, by both far R & far L, would stop. Let's strive for a nuanced & objective understanding of the facts 23/
There are things that, in hindsight, I'd have done or said differently. But I am finding it hard to read falsities about our words & actions, more than 2 yrs later, from prominent people who should know better, including @GovHowardDean and Alan Levine https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/956090694405324800 …. 24/
Finally, I would ask that people be kind to the students. Yes, they are smart adults, and at an elite place like @Yale. And they are responsible for their actions. But they are also themselves in the process of growing up, and, like all of us, make mistakes. 25/
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