College Students Are Using 'No Contact Orders' to Block Each Other in Real Life

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-students-are-using-no-contact-orders-to-block-each-other-in-real-life-4e3272b1

by JumpCrisscross • 1 year ago

28 38 1 year ago

wsj.com

RobotToaster• 1 year ago

A tool originally meant to protect the vulnerable being abused by Machiavellian narcissists, a story as old as time.

iamtheworstdev• 1 year ago

feels like when the same kids that made fun of "safe spaces" on college campuses started crying that they weren't allowed to speak their minds.

throwaway8943453• 1 year ago

feels like when the same kids that made fun of "safe spaces" on college campuses started crying that they weren't allowed to speak their minds.

I don’t really know what group you’re referencing, so I don’t mean this to be apologia for any particular group, but those aren’t mutually inconsistent viewpoints; they’re both consistent with free speech (making fun of censorship and then objecting to it).

tiahura• 1 year ago

They’ve been an abused power play from the beginning.

intended• 1 year ago

Article is consistent in stating that this trend started around 8-10 years ago.

Article also was more strict in its view in the first half, but then explains the cause and effect in a more sympathetic manner.

mcphage• 1 year ago

A media channel mostly read by older people complaining that the youths are doing life wrong, regardless if it’s real or not, is also a story as old as time.

rdtsc2• 1 year ago

https://archive.is/cMKRb

At Carnegie Mellon, for example, an NCO can be obtained by anyone who claims to be “the recipient of persistent unwanted or harassing contact by another student” and includes “indirect contact through third parties.”
NCOs requested by one student after her roommate allegedly stole her bagels, by participants in a group project gone awry, by members of rival student organizations caught up in a dispute and by aggrieved parties in a social-media skirmish.

So you just have to make something up. I am not too surprised there. It's not like prestigious University students somehow select only honest and moral students, they'll get all kinds of characters.

What is surprising is the administrators. Nobody thought of this potential for abuse. Were they so naive?

I wonder if being in the same course means a "contact". If that's the case, the most "enterprising" students could be using these to simply block students from the same courses. Sometimes registrations are competitive and there are not enough slots. How can you ensure you have a spot? -- file a bunch of NCOs against people in the same major and then as soon as it comes time to sign up, tell the administration to kick them out because of NCOs. Now what if the NCOs are mutual? Things can get interesting. Who is forced to drop out of the class then? Maybe flip a coin, or each NCO gets a score for "gravity". The more grave on wins and force the other party to yield.

xigoi• 1 year ago

What is surprising is the administrators. Nobody thought of this potential for abuse. Were they so naive?

In woke politics, implying that anti-harassment policies can be abused is a mortal sin.

rdtsc2• 1 year ago

I call that the zealotry ratchet. The way it works is someone with more radical views can propose some stricter policies to the particular org. If the general group loosely aligns with that ideology, they'll always publicly agree. If they disagree, they'll be pointed at and accused of being a traitor, infidel, some kind of -ist and so on. So, in private participants can understand the policy will lead to disaster, but there is no way they'll say anything publicly. Then, it looks like there is unanimous support and the proposal passes. That's one crank of the ratchet. If that worked, there is the next crank and so on.

mistrial9• 1 year ago

hah - judicial restraining orders are handed out like candy in California today.. (clarification) welcome to the future

tptacek7• 1 year ago

These aren't judicial restraining orders.

kirtakat• 1 year ago

Without any actual numbers given, this reads like any number of other hit pieces on younger generations that have been written up through the years. Especially coming from the editorial pages.

ghssds• 1 year ago

This is White Christmas becomming real

jncfhnb3• 1 year ago

The article doesn’t seem to suggest more than a few anecdotes of this happening.

Imo they’re not even particularly compelling

Karp recalled an instance when he was a dean of student affairs at Skidmore College in which a drunken student lost his key and climbed through the open dorm window of a female student, mistaking it for a friend’s room. She screamed, and he immediately retreated, but he was nonetheless served a no contact order.

This girl definitely expected she was about to be raped by an unknown man climbing through her window. The article seems to imply that it should be cool because he didn’t intend to do it because he was drunk. I think that’s crazy.

margalabargala5• 1 year ago

This girl definitely expected she was about to be raped by an unknown man climbing through her window. The article seems to imply that it should be cool because he didn’t intend to do it because he was drunk. I think that’s crazy.

I don't know about "be cool", but what's the desired outcome here? Avoid a repeat occurrence? Sounds like that would likely happen with or without the order. So what's the use of this tool? Some sort of semi-punitive punishment? "Don't climb in this particular person's window again or else"?

tptacek7• 1 year ago

No, as the article points out, the orders are mutual. They're intended to stabilize volatile situations and prevent escalation. Schools have other processes they run in parallel to evaluate things like assault accusations.

tptacek7• 1 year ago

I don't see what's so weird about this. Conflicts between college students living on campus are a perennial problem; it's not some new fragility in today's students. Students attend (and live at) colleges contingent on rules of conduct set by the colleges themselves. If one of those rules is "you must complete with no-contact orders", and no-contact orders are granted liberally, who cares? The college has a greater interest in avoiding conflicts between its users than a student has in maintaining contact with someone who doesn't want to interact with them.

TrackerFF• 1 year ago

I don't have to deal too much with college-aged people, other than some interns every now and then - but a friend of mine from college is now a professor, and has to deal with this kind of stuff on seemingly a weekly basis.

He told me that one of the most common problems he faces when trying to organize the logistics of a class, is that kids will just block each other from everything, with no notice. They won't even try handle a conflict, straight to blocking and ghosting. So every semester there last-minute conflicts with group projects, lab work, etc. where these things happen.

Anyway, as for me, the only incidents we have/had tend to revolve around feedback to interns and fresh grads. Some of these kids will have what seems like a small breakdown the first time they receive poor (or below average) feedback on something. We had one intern that received a "Need improvement", and the person ghosted the manager, and went straight above - teary eyed - to plead their case.

I suspect that some of these kids have never actually experienced a real conflict before, or been in a position where they had to actually face one.

beej71• 1 year ago

It might depend on the place. At the university where I teach, I haven't seen any such conflicts on group projects. There is strife, but it seems on the same level as when I was in college 30 years ago.

I'm not denying it, but it might be variable.

HDThoreaun• 1 year ago

Mediating personal issues is not a professors job. If they can’t handle that themselves they don’t deserve to pass

dakial1• 1 year ago

Man, they will have a hard time when they start working. There is no blocking if you have to collaborate with someone, if they don't learn how solve conflicts they will suffer a lot.

actinium226• 1 year ago

It took me several long, very confusing seconds to realize "No Contact Orders" didn't mean no-contact doordash delivery but instead a court order.

College Students Are Using 'No Contact Orders' to Block Each Other in Real Life

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