@Pizzagirl, which colleges offer housing options that a student must be African American to live in? Some colleges offer theme housing, but AFAIK, anyone who is willing to participate in the theme is eligible.
From that IHE article linked to a page or two ago:
I agree with others that it’s better to err on the side of free speech and allow these lowlifes to be hoisted with their own petard. A little public shaming might do a lot of good in this case. I have a feeling a lot of the guilty students will “self-expel.” Let’s face it, most of them are cowards to begin with.
Can you link to that article? I tried googling and couldn’t find it. I did find an interview with the president of Unheard, who said it was sent to the group anonymously. The school newspaper was also sent a copy of it anonymously. After the news broke, it received a second video, also anonymously. It appears to have been taken by a different person.
There have been two expulsions this morning.
http://www.koco.com/news/boren-expels-two-students-for-involvement-in-racist-video/31714126
Well, here’s Eugene Volokh’s take on why OU can’t expel. (He’s a renowned first amendment scholar and law professor, and I guess not consulted by Boren.)
And lawsuits by those students are soon to follow.
Boren didn’t expel them for racist speech instead he expelled them for using their position of leadership to create a hostile educational environment. It is a very carefully worded statement intended to avoid the free speech defense and, yes, of course it will be challenged.
A law professor, expert in the First Amendment, lays it all out clearly as to why expulsion is a violation of these students First Amendment rights. Boren should have had some legal advice before he set the university up for expensive litigation.
So will Boren also be expelling the students who disseminated the video through social media? I’m really ashamed that a so-called public servant and educator would have so little disregard for Constitutional rights. He may get away with it if the students don’t challenge the expulsion.
Volokh is absolutely right, in my opinion, anyway.
I think he is hanging his case on their leadership roles.
http://ift.tt/18yaH4N
Two students were expelled by now.
Not sure why the Washington post says they cant be expelled, because 2 of them were. Well, if racist speech is constitutionally protected (in this case racist singing) this should get interesting. Boren called it “threatening racist behavior”.
Government officials & corporate leaders stretch their official positions all the time, full well knowing that it is likely that they will lose in court. As a recent example, was there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Adrian Peterson would be reinstated, but the NFL took "harsh’ action anyway. The optics (aka PR) are much better than doing nothing.
Nobody can drive faster than 55 mph on the Capitol Beltway.
Eugene Volokh, a legal scholar, says they can’t be expelled, but the University of Oklahoma didn’t ask him.
Universities can have codes of conduct that prohibit otherwise legal behavior. Perhaps Oklahoma thinls that singing that offensive racist song was so over the limit of permitted conduct that the students do not deserve a second chance.
Racist speech is not the stated reason for expulsion. Of course, it’s stretching but that is SOP.
What was the stated reason?
So, you create a hostile campus environment if somebody films what you are doing in private, and then sends it anonymously to a campus group that chooses to make it public? I think that’s nonsense, and is a blatant effort to punish speech without seeming to do so. But as I’ve repeatedly said, we Americans love free speech until somebody says something we really, really don’t like, and then we don’t love free speech so much. So the expulsions may stand up, even in court.
I don’t think that Volokh was suggesting that Boren couldn’t do it, but that such expulsions would not stand up under current court rulings. And shouldn’t.
But, courts are also subject to political sway, so even though it seems like a reasonably clear First Amendment issue, perhaps not. Or perhaps the Supreme Court will further modify the rulings related to limited public fora – there are a lot of First Amendment rights that do not apply at elementary schools or high schools. I can see them extending some of those to colleges.
On the other hand, students fighting the expulsion will find their names published even further afield as part of the legal complaint, and perhaps even memorialized in the name of a court decision. Not exactly what most folks would want as an association.
If you read the comments section of that article, Hans Bader, another law professor, says that the stated reason “creating a hostile environment” won’t pass the First Amendment test either.