The Harvard Meme Rescinding Debacle ^[8]was a series of actions taken by the Harvard College Office of Admissions and Financial Aid to rescind the acceptances of ten high school students previously admitted to the Harvard College Class 2021. The series of provocatively rescinded acceptances has set ablaze a wide series of debates in topics ranging from the political correctness of contemporary meme culture in higher education to the role of admitted student's online activities in college admissions.

On December 13, 2016, 938 applicants to Harvard College were admitted through Harvard's Early Action program. Of these 938, through the Harvard College Class of 2021 Facebook group, several prospective students took it upon themselves to create large-scale group messaging chats for the initial purpose of familiarizing themselves with their fellow classmates. Two particularly notable chats manifested themselves, one entitled "General Fuckups" and the other entitled "Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens." The latter group's name was derived from the standard naming procedures of popular college meme groups, having the name of the school, a school-specific adjective, and the word "teens" in the title.

Through the two group chats, select members displayed their oeuvres of offensive memes, treating the chats as "meme galleries" of sorts.

The offensive memes in questions covered a wide breath of incredibly sensitive topics, from citing Jews' general abstaining from cunnilingus through mocking The Holocaust to comparing the beating of a dead Mexican to playing with a piñata.

Rescinding Acceptances

When Harvard College's Office of Admissions learned of these offensive memes in April (primarily through other admitted students' reporting), they demanded explanations and examples of the offensive content from the students participating in the distribution of above-mentioned offensive memes.

Following a thorough review, the office rescinded the acceptances of ten students involved with the offensive memes, ^[0]citing exceptionally questionable behavior and an outstanding paucity of scruples.

Aftermath

Since the debacle, many notable news sources, from NPR to the Boston Globe, have journalized the incident, writing articles about both the rescinding of the acceptances and college meme culture as a whole. Many college meme pages, such as Harvard's very own Harvard Memes for Elitist 1% Tweens and Yale's Yale Memes for Special Snowflake Teens, have made a series of memes making humor of the issue, especially pointing out the blatant stupidity of the rescinded students.

The debacle has also sparked debate regarding Harvard's correctness in rescinding the acceptances.

Many believe as though Harvard had no right to access the private online messages of it's prospective students, regardless of how offensive they were.

Others believe as though Harvard was perfectly right and, if anything, should have placed harsher punishment on the rescinded students.