Word: raison
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Adjudicating the merits of various types of speech places the University community on a slippery slope. Hastily attempting to regulate offensive speech is simply unacceptable to a community whose raison d'etre is the free exchange of ideas...
...staff position asserts that the raison d'etre of a University is the "free exchange of ideas." We vehemently disagree. Harvard exists primarily as a learning environment. What does anyone learn from a hateful epithet? Nothing. How is learning hurt when hate speech is protected? Such speech can alienate entire groups, compel them to leave and thus restrict the diversity of ideas expressed here...
...surprisingly, the organizers of these factions have claimed that their clubs will not be exclusionary. But if a club's raison d'etre is social activity, how else will they choose their members except on the basis of personal attributes as important as cocktail-party banter...
...fans care? At a time when most talk shows have moved into controversial issues (Phil, Oprah, even Rivers) or anti-talk-show parody (Letterman), Hall has returned the genre to its original raison d'etre: old-fashioned, unapologetic stargazing. His innovation has been to set the show-biz plugs to a bracing rock beat. And if you prefer a little more substance with your MTV flash, boy, are you stuck...
...what we should examine in addition to how exclusive or egalitarian these new fraternities will in the end prove to be, is their raison d'etre itself. Are these fraternities in fact merely a reaction to final clubs which pride themselves on being so few in number and membership...