If Boren can expel these students for singing at a private party, will he also expel students who speak racist rants in their off-campus apartments when someone happens to record it and disseminate it?
Well, this isn’t a joke for me. I am preparing to send 5 AA kids off to school over the next decade, and the possibility that my kids will have to deal with this sort of problem during their college years really depresses me.
Singing at a private party? Um, weren’t they on a university bus?
How private is the party? What if Boren gets one of the sorority sisters to complain?
Oklahoma University did NOT expel a football player who beat up a woman. It was on video. He was suspended from the team for a while but he is back.
So singing a racist song means immediate expulsion. Beating up a woman, not so much.
His name is Joe Mixon. You can Google it.
In the Joe Mixon case, he and the woman were arguing. She slapped him. He punched her once in the face, violently, breaking several bones. He was charged with a misdemeanor and suspended from the team for a year.
IMO, Boren got the racism case right, and should have also given Mixon his marching orders. But in Mixon’s defense, not that I like defending him, he was provoked, and acted quickly in anger.
“Singing at a private party? Um, weren’t they on a university bus?”
To my knowledge, it was a rented party bus. I’m not sure that it counts as a private party in the sense that it was an event sponsored by an officially recognized student organization.
No, I think it just reflects the university president’s priorities. Breaking bones is far worse but violence against women is just accepted as par for the course especially for football players. And it got no national attention either.
Right, zapfino. Don’t know where the sorority/frat kids were going (I believe to some social event), but I wouldn’t call the busride itsef a “private party”.
You could not attend the party or ride the bus unless you were invited by SAE, so the party is private in that sense.
Since Boren is using the hostile environment claim, then unless he would similarly expel the off-campus apt dweller, then the audience to whom the words are considered hostile would have to be only those on the bus. Not the general student body.
I’m a hs student, so I may not belong here, but I just thought I had a perspective that may help. If not, you can just ignore this post and move on down the thread. As someone that was the target of direct physical threats and racial slurs a while back (there were no repercussions for the student), I am very happy with the direction Boren has taken. While it may not be legal, it does at least save face for the university. And for Boren, it was obviously the best call. As far as the students that were making these racist chants, I really couldn’t care less what happens to them. They are free to take whatever legal action they want, but I definitely don’t think they were mistreated from a karmic perspective.
Now I want to address two users:
@Pizzagirl If you’re having to ask why white people don’t get a free pass to say the “n” word, I think the real question you need to be asking yourself is why do you care? Does not being able to say the “n” word make your life any fulfilling? After answering that, then it can be explained why some races can and cannot say it.
@Hunt I understand that you do not support their statememts, and are mainly speaking from a perspective of legality or “pure free speech”. Even so, you come across as almost feeling sympathetic towards these kids, which is something I don’t get.
It sounds like the busride was part of, and en route to an event coordinated by school sponsored organizations.
As I said in a previous post, I find what took place on the bus deplorable and I fully support the fraternity being immediately closed.
In reading through all of the posts, I have not noticed any that address those who took it upon themselves to vandalize and graffiti, what is now the former SAE house–which is on University property and owned by the University. I fully support peaceful demonstrations, signs, marches, speeches, etc, but I feel that those responsible for the vandalism should be punished as well. What is the old adage, two wrongs don’t make a right.
I don’t think it matters whether it was a university-recognized organization that was holding the private party. Universities sponsor speakers who are verbally heckled by students on campus and do not expel the students for it.
@TheAtlantic, you seem like a well grounded hs student who can hold his own in adult conversations…
I would suspect the students heckling a visiting speaker would not be considered engendering a hostile academic environment to the students studying there. If a heckler threatened to kill or otherwise harm a speaker, I think the outcome would be stronger than simply escorting them out of the room.
OU’s IFC defines a chapter event as any gathering with three or more people in the fraternity that uses chapter money to fund their activities.
So it’s a chapter event. What are the implications of that as far as university conduct rules?
Remember the frat at Virginia? Wrongly accused of a heinous rape in a Rolling Stones article that was found to be false? That house was the scene of demonstrations, heckling, window breaking and graffiti. The men had to move to hotels to avoid being harassed. The house member received death threats. Definitely a hostile environment. But no one who did all the shouting and demonstrating was expelled.
Would those who support expelling these Oklahoma students also support expelling all those in that Virginia crowd?
IMO if it is a “chapter event”, an activity sponsored by or representative of a school organization, it is held to a higher standard.