<p>ladeeda6, I’m so sorry to hear that you experienced that treatment, I can’t imagine! I’m glad you were able to transfer out, hopefully to a school where you were treated much much better. </p>
<p>I’ve seen a lot of comments- not here- of people crying “freedom of speech” and that these students may say whatever they choose to say. Of course they can, and obviously have. What these commenters don’t know or understand is that freedom of speech is not also freedom from consequences. You may speak as you please. But you are not also immune to people’s reactions to that speech.</p>
<p>When a student lists their full name, picture, location and university in their Twitter and proceeds to publicly tweet racial slurs or racist “jokes” or “observations,” they are in their full right to do so. What they have no immunity against is negative reaction to their comments. I would never personally advocate vigilante-style harassment, physical or otherwise, of people caught making these sorts of comments. At the same time, it was the student’s CHOICE to make his or her repulsive comments public in the first place. Ohio State’s administration seems to have reacted swiftly, appropriately and thoroughly to handling these students.</p>
<p>Colleges should do mandatory freshman orientation classes about the importance of social media privacy and how the internet works in disseminating and memorializing information. On top of, of course, some freshman diversity education emphasizing that the world is a big place full of very different people and college can be where you learn to actually tolerate, if not embrace, that fact instead of deride and mock it.</p>