Most of my experience with 1st amendment law has been in the commercial/intellectual property context, but for those of you who are not lawyers, I just wanted to chime in and say that I believe @maya54 has explained the conundrum caused by hate crimes legislation about as well as can be. It is a very complex area. It also should not matter a whit here.
So let’s say on the same night, 2 stupid drunk frat boys entered the library after hours and painted “Go Cats!” on the library walls, causing $X worth of damage. Let’s also assume the monetary damages to the library are equal to those to the chapel.
In your (collective) legal opinions, would NU (or any private university) be justified if they decided to not pursue criminal charges in the library case but did pursue a criminal case in the chapel case?
In your (collective) legal opinions, would NU have a leg to stand on if they decided merely to suspend the students in the library case but expel the students in the chapel case?
Or is it your contention that they would be obligated to treat those 2 cases equally, both criminally and with respect to “private” punishment?
How does that change if you look at it through a PR standpoint / court of public opinion? Curious as to what you all think would be the consequences.
I think people are also confused on the amount of damage done. The men were charges with damage of over $300. That doesn’t mean the cost was even close to $300, just that it is over $300 and thus a felony. The damage could be $30,000 or $300,000 or even $3M. The charge is the same if the damage is $301 or $3M. Once it is over the minimum to be a felony ($300), it is charged as a felony.
I don’t believe NU considered just handling it without calling the police, but NU may not have had a choice. Many insurance policies require all loses that involve a crime to have a police report, from traffic accidents to vandalism.
Well, @Pizzagirl, I would think they would be obligated to expel the students involved in both cases. Both would be charged with vandalism under law, so that stays the same. Not to expel the “Go Cats!” students would be a judgement biased in nature and - in my opinion - a serious miscarriage of justice.
If I look at it through a PR standpoint, then the above would show consistency and send a message of equal treatment for all.
A court of public opinion however… Well, I don’t think I need to tell you which one people would feel merits more punishment. Not that I think the people would be right.
Legally, I think NU could make those decisions. It is a private entity; it can decide whether it wants to press charges, and what actions it thinks deserves punishment. There may be a contract claim if it punishes the same actions differently for different students, but if its code of conduct differentiates the situations, I don’t know of any legal obstacles.
From an ethical (or PR) point of view, I’m not so sure. I do think that hate-based actions are ethically worse than merely stupid ones.
“Are there cases where they have expelled and not press charges in private universities?”
Here’s a case where there was vandalism and charges were not pressed:
At Wellesley (my D’s school), there was a controversial statue temporarily installed on campus called Samuel Sleepwalker (a statue of a naked man). Students were divided as to whether the statue was appropriately provocative in an artistic way, inappropriate because it was triggering / not a safe space for students who had been victims of sexual assault, or inappropriate just because it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing on the campus. In any case, shortly before it was to have been removed, a student got drunk, took matters into her own hands by throwing yellow paint all over the statue and also on some historic buildings nearby, causing a considerable amount of damage. To the best of my knowledge, there were not words, just paint splotches.
For whatever reason, Wellesley chose not to press criminal charges for the destruction of their own property, even though apparently the vandalism fell under the definition of a felony in Massachusetts. The girl was suspended for a year and had to pay the insurance company under which the statue was insured (as it was not W property but the property of the sculptor). Here is the gofundme page she started, but she was not very successful in reaching her goal. https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■/irlk64
This is obviously a “straight” vandalism case without free speech issues, but it’s an example where vandalism was committed and they didn’t press charges. Frankly I think W was too soft on her and she should have been expelled, but it is also my observation, having a kid at each school, that NU runs a far tighter, no-nonsense ship.
Thanks for the clarification of the $300. This is a building with expensive stained glass windows, ornate wood carvings and so forth; it is really hard to believe it was “just” $300 worth of damage. Is $300 a level of damages that crosses from misdemeanor into felony or something like that?
@pizzagirl, I will give you a lawyer’s answer and say that the decision to try either case isn’t up to the university, it is up to the district attorney. In the narrow sense that person’s decision to indict one case and not the other is covered by the broad doctrine of prosecutorial discretion. That applies to both private and state schools. But I bet that it is more likely the case of vandalism at a church is indicted all else being equal.
As far as whether the (private) school can expel kids for vandalizing a church and only suspend kids for vandalizing a secular building, yeah, I think they probably could. A state school, I think the answer is no they can’t.
As a practical matter, I think that vandalizing a church (or an African American student organization, Women’s Center, whatever) is just different. I think in certain cases the target is part of the message. I would bet that if you could track those things juries and judges would treat the same crime committed at a “neutral” site more leniently than one committed at a specific target. It’s like the scene from Blazing Saddles when the bad guy won’t give our intrepid heroes badges for herding cattle until they add “through a church”. It’s just the way we think of things.
Not sure if this has been covered yet in this thread;
Well, I hate to be dumb here, but what’s the implication? I don’t know how the legal world works. Is a judge in Cook County going to give a rat’s behind about some mucky-muck in Boston?
@pizzagirl I posted that as information relative to the situation, sorry if I confused you.
No, I get why you posted it, totally. I’m asking … since I am not a lawyer and don’t know how the system works … Is this meaningful in any way to how events will play out? Is it any more meaningful than any other upper middle class professional job that a parent might have? I’m asking out of ignorance.
To me it suggests he was raised in a permissive family where the little snowflake could get away with anything. The kind of kid who if he was arrested as a teen would tell the cop “Do you know who my dad is? He will get you fired.”
That just seems like wild conjecture on your part. Who knows? The father could also be a real law and order type who is livid beyond belief.
Of course it is conjecture but I would make a small wager that I am right.
I don’t know @TomSr, but that does not sound like conjecture. Sounds more like stereotyping to me. 
With a judge for a father, I would guess the opposite (no point really, just being contrary). He probably would not have dreamed of getting in trouble while at home, so his sense of pushing limits had poorly defined boundaries. Kids with a rigidly structured upbringing often overreact when given new-found freedoms.
I don’t think there’s any specific meaning other than it’s potentially more embarrassing because the dad is a public servant so of course media outlets will feel it’s newsworthy to mention in a way that they wouldn’t if dad or mom were an executive at Acme Dynamite Company.
Local (city/county) judges are a dime a dozen, but once you get to the state appeals or state supreme court level, or federal judges - excluding magistrates/bankruptcy judges - the judges are more likely to be well-qualified and well-respected by the legal profession.
I write this as a former attorney and person who lives in a state that elects its judges and clearly there are those that are not (or barely minimally) qualified to serve in their positions.
I’ve also never heard of kids bragging about their parents being judges and feeling like special snowflakes because of their position on the bench.
As a side matter, is it possible that the judge’s son fits into one of the demographics that his vandalism was assailing?
Often stereotypes fit. People can be law and order types with everyone except their families. Or maybe I am watching too many TV crime dramas. Or maybe I have lived in Massachusetts too long!
@GnocchiB, I had exactly the same thought regarding the “demographics” of the kid. I have found some–admittedly bizarre–sources claiming that Kafker is Jewish.
I oppose the existence of hate crime legislation. If a person threatens, commits arson, vandalizes, murders, or assaults, they should be vigorously prosecuted for that crime. Their motivation should be irrelevant; their INTENT, which is an entirely different matter, might more legitimately be considered. (As in manslaughter vs murder, or premeditated murder.)
It is my recollection that the push for “hate crimes” legislation resulted from police and prosecutors NOT pursuing assault and other such cases with gay or minority victims. “Fag bashing” was winked at. I really wish it hadn’t happened. We don’t need the Thought Police.