@hayden, I am involved in something right now and cannot attend to this. I promise to look at my post and address your comments and will certainly cry mea culpa if appropriate.
@Much2learn I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Nowhere in my post did I use an ad hominem fallacy, and I’ve competed and won in debate long enough to understand how to craft an argument. I don’t see how anything in my post was unreasoned. All I said was that I definitely understand that he was speaking from a legal perspective, but that it forces a response “to what end”. At what point does freedom of speech turn into freedom from consequences. Nothing in m post was an attack on Hunt, it was simply a question of where does Hunt draw the line on what “legally” and "morally should happen to these students. I understand that everyone’s rights to free speech should be protected, but when these people are saying things that I’ve had directed at me specifically in the past, I am not sympathetic.
Beyond that, I actually did explain that I wasn’t going to approach this from a legal perspective, and that these students should be within their rights to pursue any action against the schools that they deem fit. I feel like you’re kind of using a strawman against me to make this a teachable moment. I don’t think I need to be talked down to, and that’s how it’s coming across right now. Your post assumes I have no knowledge of how free speech works, why it’s important, or what rights the school or these students have. And to me, that’s more indicative of bad arguing than anything you’ve accused me of.
@Pizzagirl There’s definitely a gray area that has emerged as rap has become more popularized among all cultures, which is one of the reasons why use of the “n” word has become so common among whites and blacks these days. Even so, I don’t think that’s analagous to saying there will never be a “n” in SAE.
@TheAtlantic, there’s an old saying that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging. @Much2learn made a nice post, which I appreciate, but you didn’t really take the point. Again, what you said about me was this:
I didn’t like this. The last sentence is an offensive ad hominem attack. Of course, you are not the first person in this thread to imply that anybody defending the free speech of the frat boys in this case is sympathetic to their statements. I didn’t appreciate those comments, either, but they are not unusual when one points out that some particularly offensive speech is, nevertheless, protected.
I continue to be saddened by many comments in this thread, and things I’m reading elsewhere, and by what Boren did. We are at a sad pass if the first impulse when facing offensive speech is to try to find some way to bypass the Constitution and punish it. What’s really sad is that the courts may be too cowardly to put a stop to it.
@Hunt maybe I should have said “comes across to me”, but i’m still not seeing a blatant ad hominem. I believed in the crux of your argument, but I was referring to the tone of it. Of course, seeing as this is the internet I understand how you could have taken my statement in the wrong light, just as I have obviously taken yours.
Thanks. But take it from me, if you ever find yourself defending the concept of free speech in a case involving really offensive speech, you will hear the same kinds of questions about where your real sympathies lie.
@Hunt I honestly don’t see myself in any hole, I’m just expressing a point as i see it. After rereading the comment I notice how I improperly worded my last sentence which caused what I meant and what I said to be two different things. That wasn’t my intent at all, and I’m sorry I didn’t phrase it in a way that’d cause miscommunication on both ends. I took M2Ls statements as condescending because I never meant to imply that you did in fact sympathize with them, and I guess mine were seen as improper based on how I worded it.
I have no doubt that I’ll have to deal with the same comments XD. I guess I’m just at a place where I definitely make a distinction between what they have the right to do, and whether I care about the backlash the comments spark. I guess you have the upperhand since your argument and reaction is logical while mine is situational.
"My sole issue has been that I think the university had a right to de-recognize the fraternity. "
Of course they do. At any moment, they could de-recognize every single fraternity and sorority on campus. They have no obligation. This incident is immaterial to that, though.
And it’s a moot point to talk about what OU can and can’t recognize when SAE national pulled the charter. They aren’t an SAE chapter any more. They are now, officially, a bunch of guys and nothing more.
UCLA Law prof also writes about protected speech,
The could de-recognize all of them, but they couldn’t de-recognize some of them in a way that infringed on Constitutional rights.
I started this exact thread before this one was even created but the administrators moved it to the OU page. I did so because I was appalled and disgusted by the actions of the group.
Also, I have not read any of this thread until today because I was curious how people were reacting to the two students being expelled. I am personally against them being expelled. I don’t say this as an apologist for the group. I don’t say it because I believe in their cause. I don’t say it because I, in any way, shape, or form condone what they did. I say it because, to me, the concept of free speech is one of, if not, the main tenets of our country.
You may not like what they said (sang) but do you really want to live where you are restricted to saying what the majority thinks is acceptable. Maybe the next time you show up at a political rally and voice your displeasure you will be arrested (or even just kicked out of your school, or work). The guys (and whomever else was singing) are despicable and I was hoping the admin would come down very hard on them. I didn’t envision throwing them out of school by going against something that our Founding Fathers cherished above almost everything else.
Unfortunately, freedom of speech tends not to be popular, probably because many people have difficulty telling the difference between allowing something and endorsing something.
Yes @TV4caster! Yes! The reprehensible actions of these students is the only thing more depressing to me than the fact as these threads and comment boards on news sites show a large swath of the American People don’t understand what the First Amendment means. Don’t understand that it protects just this kind of speech, that it can’t be trumped by a school conduct code, that it applies to actions by public college officials and prevents them from expelling a student. Anyone who thinks to the contrary needs to read the WaPo article linked above which lays out all the case law.
I’m not a lawyer. 
My understanding of the First Amendment is that it prevents the government from quashing political speech. I’ve always understand such quashing to mean legislation and criminal prosecution. A criminal prosecution could deprive these boys of their liberty, which is a constitutional right. But these boys were expelled from school, and attending college obviously isn’t a constitutional right.
My question for the experts: Is being expelled from school the same thing as a criminal prosecution?
@LasMa. Yes. The US Supreme Court long ago established that the First Amendment protected all kinds of speech ( not just political speech) and that those protections meant that the government couldn’t take ANY adverse action against you for speech, which means not just criminal prosecution but also things like expulsion from a public university. And as I said a code of conduct doesn’t trump or override those rights.
@Hunt, I totally get what you are saying…but if what you wrote in private came to light, I think it would be common sense to consider that your feelings have influenced how you treat people of color.
I guess my concern is that harsh punishment is rarely educational or mind-changing. I feel like all the actions being taken are NOT going to lead to these kids rethinking how casually they referred to lynching and rejecting black people, but instead make them defensive and perhaps be much less casual in their racist feelings/expressions about minorities (who are no longer the minority of Americans).
Not ALL kinds of speech are protected: fighting words, plotting murder, treason, bull horned speech, defamation, etc. The question is whose speech is legal and why. There is also the social question of why talk about violence against women is more tolerated than talk about killing children or races, but that takes us away from the legal question of Nazis marching in Skokie, which still is different than singing about or planning to lynch blacks.
Aside: I can’t imagine anyone singing about lynching blacks as a wayward youth to be redeemed. Where I come from it is unimaginably racist.
And its not ok to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Just sayin’
Hunt, et al., are undoubtedly better Constitutional scholars than I am, but I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk that the Supreme Court’s post-Tinker jurisprudence forbids the action Oklahoma took yesterday. Overall, the notion that expansive speech rights accrue to students in schools is a relatively recent judicial doctrine.
(N.B.: I am not expressing – and will not express – an opinion on whether the current state of judicial interpretation is appropriate. What I am pointing out is that state of the law may be murkier than First Amendment hawks like Volokh would have you believe.)
Like it or not, if this was a bus chartered and occupied only by SAEs and their invited dates, isn’t that the equivalent of a private setting? Put it another way - aren’t there differences between this, and if they had chanted it on, let’s say, a bus that was ferrying random assemblages of students to a football game, or when standing in an academic quad where all passersby could hear?
@Pizzagirl, would the fact that the bus driver was not invited to the private event but was rather an employee of a vendor the parties hosting the private event entered into contract with make a difference at all?
I do wish we’d hear from that bus driver. Did he note the words of the song at the time? Did it affect him at all? Did he have the right to say anything if he was offended? Would it make a difference if it was a woman driver or a member of a minority? And I just assumed the bus was moving when the video was taken, but has that been verified?