The college, as an arm of the state, can’t limit speech unless it fits in one of the narrow exceptions recognized under the First Amendment. “Ensuring a non-threatening environment” isn’t one of the exceptions. (Note: a private college could take more steps to limit speech.)
I’m not saying that all federal courts would agree with me, but that’s my interpretation of the law. As always, people love free speech until they encounter some speech they really don’t like, and then they look for creative ways to argue that it isn’t protected. Sometimes they succeed.
I’ve three pictures so far with girls making signs just like this. It won’t let me link them on here but here are the quotes.
butts facing the camera
These signs are extremely extremely common among men and women. I’ve actually seen more non greeks than greeks with these types of signs, because you have to be really stupid to hang these signs out of your fraternity house.
I’ve personally seen signs in real life from non greeks with sayings like:
etc.
This is one issue that I think is more prevalent in non greeks than greeks.
I think fraternities are no different today. I believe we just hear about it more.
Its funny but I left the south more than 3 decades ago but now have a D attending a national university based in the south. I checked her into the dorm during “rush week” and, 100% honesty, it looked absolutely no different than when I was on a college campus many decades ago. The girls have the same look (even the same sundresses!) the guys with the same blue blazers…the “popular” houses with lines of eager candidates lined up to be judged…and the less popular with bbq grills and portable swimming pools out front to encourage would-be pledges to stop. You’d think that in 3 freakin decades, greeks would have changed…but nope…at least on the surface…same old, same old.
In any case, i think fraternities are no different/worse than they ever were.
@Hunt "The college, as an arm of the state, can’t limit speech unless it fits in one of the narrow exceptions recognized under the First Amendment. “Ensuring a non-threatening environment” isn’t one of the exceptions. (Note: a private college could take more steps to limit speech.)
I’m not saying that all federal courts would agree with me, but that’s my interpretation of the law. As always, people love free speech until they encounter some speech they really don’t like, and then they look for creative ways to argue that it isn’t protected. Sometimes they succeed."
Well, clearly a school has to have the ability to regulate speech to some degree. I can’t believe that cheating on a test is a protected free speech right at a public university.
What troubles me is that many people give this a pass because it is about women. If it were about African Americans, Muslims, Jews, homosexuals, or Christians it would not be so funny to many of those same people. If the school did nothing, and a freshman were raped there today, everyone would say that the school should have done something. Again, if the KKK club put up a African American, Jew, Muslim, and homosexual drop off, I am wondering whether people’s views would be the same, or if somehow women deserve a little less protection.
I agree that legally, the students can’t be prosecuted. However, on a college campus, I think that the students who are not able to refrain from making threatening statements toward other groups of students may need to be removed so that everyone else can focus on getting an education.
It varies pretty widely by campus and Frat. Here in CA - some schools have really tamped down the over the top stuff while others continue to look the other way.
My fraternity would have been punished for those signs back in the 1980s. We had a pretty comprehensive list of behavior rules as a recognized organization. One was put on probation for rating women’s looks as they walked past their house.
Back then, to get a fraternity in trouble publicly you had to collect evidence, call a newspaper and convince someone to do a story on it, then the story had to get picked up nationally. Six guys were suspended by RPI for a game of “rodeo” in 1989 when USA Today got ahold of the story.
DISCLAIMER: Never do this. Rodeo - a guy grabs a woman (usually in a college bar) around the thighs from behind and bites her butt. Another guy times it - 8 seconds is a “full ride.” The “rodeo clown” apologizes for the drunk friend while the rider sneaks away.
“Its funny but I left the south more than 3 decades ago but now have a D attending a national university based in the south. I checked her into the dorm during “rush week” and, 100% honesty, it looked absolutely no different than when I was on a college campus many decades ago. The girls have the same look (even the same sundresses!) the guys with the same blue blazers…”
We didn’t do sundresses! We did whatever were the popular styles of the day. Shetland sweaters, pearls, monograms. Not a sundress to be found.
This article makes a good point that when there is an incident at this University or involving this fraternity at any college, the prosecutor is going to point to this incident as an example of the tolerance of rape culture and greek life out of control.
You can laugh it off today, but the less action you take now, the more difficult it may be to defend yourself in court later.
Also, most universities now are about sixty percent female students. Guys no longer have the upper hand. THere isn’t this sense that it’s a man’s world but they’re willing to put up with women students – as it might have been in the past. Instead, it’s kind of the women’s turf and the guys had better realize that and behave accordingly.
you cheated on your spouse with your secretary, heh heh, the wife got the paycheck so what did she care?
you beat your kids - belts, wooden spoons, brooms, yardstick(s, they didn’t last that long as we aged), switches - they were YOUR kids, how dare anyone tell you how to raise them, especially when your parents showed you who was boss?
you punished your kids for youthful mistakes, like crashing the car or getting drunk and wanting a ride home
if a girl smiled at you, she was fair game. Getting her drunk was part of the deal. She shouldn’t have had a drink if she didn’t want to have sex!
if you knocked a girl up, you had everybody in town say they slept with her too, so you wouldn’t have to marry her or pay anything
colleges supported their Greek system 100%, and went well beyond the law. If someone was raped or beaten up, or even killed, it was the victim’s fault and it was covered up - someone was raped and they were put away if they showed any signs of trauma, or wanting to report it to police
I could go on.
I think the big differences are that if there was a whistleblower back when, someone who saw a big guy carry a drunk girl into a bathroom and lock the door, what proof could he give? Maybe he could console her and make sure she could walk home safely? Now, you can film things, and you can take pictures with hardly anyone noticing. You can record people talking (ever put on your cell phone video recorder and put it in your pocket to record a conversation?).
Or you could even, maybe, if you didn’t have film or anything, actually tell the cops and they actually might care. They might even have a few policewomen on the squad, and maybe even a sex crimes division.
We now have a right to be upset. We now have the means to spread the word. Maybe ODU students have seen that sign for years (at least one source said it was not up for the first time). I know that back in the 80’s, my sorority taught and sang several songs regarding losing one’s virginity, various detailed activities related to that, etc. etc., usually involving drinking and certainly not involving marriage or engagement. Some were even directed at specific fraternities (often the word “virginity” was pronounced “ni-tie” to rhyme with various Greek letters). And they sang some pretty foul songs back to us.
That was pretty weird, considering the actual sorority songs were about “purity” and “faithful” and so on. And the actual fraternity songs were about honor and respect…
Tell that to the long lines of girls trying to get into various fraternity houses across the country every weekend. At least socially, guys have a lot of power.