You appear to be one of those people. Most of the individuals discussing the First Amendment issue in this thread are practicing attorneys. Are you? If not, you might want to refrain from telling people who have graduated from law school and passed the Bar that they don’t know anything about the law.
@florida26. Child pornography is an easy one. It’s prohibited not because of the speech but because children ( who can’t consent under the law) are being harmed by the very act of making the porn and by being shown to others in this manner. It’s the conduct that is prohibited and prohibitions on the spread just work to uphold that
I’m not sure why you believe prostitution is a free speech issue. It’s conduct not speech being prohibited.
“If I were a black parent, I would have just been getting a national lesson about how little black lives matter to so many white people. And then I hear these kids singing and giggling about hanging black men. Yes of course I’d feel my child was unsafe in that place. And so would you, if you had a black son or daughter.”
No one has argued that a black person who heard the song (whether directly or indirectly) wouldn’t or shouldn’t feel upset or bad about it. We are talking about how colleges handle these situations.
@ florida26
Perhaps my example is unclear. I’m saying that the female trader was not present at the after work drink session and neither were any other female co-workers.
“Sure are a lot of people on this thread who dont know much about the First amendment and the cases interpreting it. @hunt are you okay with child pornography? That is a first amendment issue Are you okay with prostitution? Another first amendment issue”
Hunt’s only a HLS-trained lawyer. Yep, he must not know much about the First Amendment.
The SJSU incident involved students in the same suite, and the victim was initially reluctant to bring in the police until his parents noticed the problem (perhaps because young black men are more likely to be reluctant to having anything to do with the police, for what are probably obvious reasons). The police, once brought in, did recommend some rather serious charges on the suspect students. There were no first amendment questions.
They were singing in what they thought was a private environment. Obviously, it was not as private as they thought, and it becoming public brought social ostracism upon them (regardless of what OU did). Given that instant social ostracism results from open expressions of such sentiments, that may not be as concerning as how such sentiments kept hidden may affect things. Such hidden sentiments are probably much more widespread, and the occasional open expression is probably too small a sample size to be much of an indicator of how widespread they are in a given area. The effects of such hidden sentiments can often be measured in a statistical sense (e.g. matched pair studies of applicants to jobs or rental housing), but hard to prove or disprove in individual cases.
Who said I was ever making an argument about the first amendment? Excuse me if I missed the decree that this thread can only be about free speech and only Harvard and Yale trained lawyers can participate. I am concerned with statements made here that imply that it is ridiculous for AAs to feel threatened by privately-made comments made by people advocating or joking about or singing about racial violence against my people!! My goodness! If you aren’t AA, perhaps you just can’t understand that some of us are frightened for ourselves and our children’s welfare by the knowledge that people are speaking, singing, joking like that–even in “private”!
Here’s how I look at it. Suppose there are two universities, both private, with two different policies –
University 1 – Racist statements that demean or threaten other campus members are abhorrent and we won’t tolerate them. Those who make them may be sanctioned or even face expulsion.
University 2 – Freedom of expression is absolutely essential to the academic mission. We will have enormous tolerance for speech unless it is illegal, clearly disruptive to the campus, or deliberately harasses a member of the community.
I’d have high regard for both colleges and would feel comfortable attending either one. I think both policies reflect praiseworthy and important values. Frankly, I’m surprised this is such a divisive issue on this thread since I think reasonable people could endorse either or both policies. Personally, because universities have a special role in our society my sympathies are more with Policy 2. Yale’s statement on the matter says it better than I ever could -
re: the Yale policy, I bet they wouldn’t take a chance on a 2350 SAT, 4.9GPA student who somehow expressed his racist views during the application-interview process. I would assume they try to weed those types out beforehand.
“I don’t know how I missed the fact that you are a lawyer. I thought you were involved in admissions counseling or something.”
@Nrdsb4, you got this right! I am a full-time admissions consultant. But I am a lawyer by training and practiced for six years before moving into the educational sphere. I am still a member of my state bar.
(To the extent that anyone cares about my background in constitutional law for purposes of this thread, I was a teaching assistant for Larry Tribe, and I clerked for two federal judges.)
“the ΣAE national rather quickly ejected the local chapter after the incident. Of course, some may suspect that the national is mainly acting for PR reasons.”
I don’t really care either way. In my book, they made exactly the right move, and there’s no bad reason to do the right thing.
To whoever asked, yes, I’m a lawyer. Still unemployed at the moment, but still a member in good standing of the New York Bar! And, apparently like all the other lawyers here, I went to HLS.
Hanna is the resident expert on this, but in my experience all of the private universities my children applied to required teacher and counselor recommendations, which may or may not weed out racist applicants, but are more likely to do so than most public universities, which do not generally require any personal recommendation letters at all.
That’s an interesting question. My guess is that if you wrote a white supremacist essay or put KKK membership on your resume, selective public universities would reject you, regardless of the First Amendment implications. But I have never heard that directly from someone who’s observed the process inside.
@hunt “Individual cases can be tough. I think I would say that a defendant in front of an actual jury could reasonably be interpreted to be threatening that specific jury if he talked about killing jurors in general. I think I mentioned upthread that I might treat a chant differently if it were on the main quad vs. in front of the Afro-Am House.”
I think you are suggesting that saying it in front of someone in the group you are singing about is different than saying it away from them. So, singing about killing judges and juries on your way to the courthouse is okay, but not in the courtroom because it can be considered a threat. Similarly, if these students are on campus singing at a group of AA students, or even one AA student, it could be deemed to be threatening, but if you are drunk on a bus with your buddies, then probably not. Still offensive, but not illegal.
I think that I am finally convinced that this is right and reasonable to me. It just takes me a bit longer.
It is a lot harder for me to get comfortable with what you are saying when we see AA people in Ferguson being ticketed for something called “Walking Suspiciously” which sounds a lot like “Walking While Black.” It is very disappointing to me that this type of thing is still going on in 2015.
Good ol John Stewart
What if someone writes an essay in support of more Israeli settlements or an independent Palestinian homeland? Let’s also say that it is a really good essay, well thought out and substantiated, with a lot of nuance and completely sensitive to the other side of the equation, something a political science major would be proud to write? Reject or accept?
Emphasis is mine.
Hunt can elaborate I guess, but I’m thinking he’s not arguing that any of this is “okay,” simply that it’s not actionable as being threatening from a legal perspective.
@Much2learn, from my earlier post on the “manner of walking” tickets in Ferguson -
The main issue I see with these types of discussions is too many ditch the fundamentals of a constitutional argument for some self-annointed, self-serving purpose, which represents a true reduction in freedoms. This reduction is ignored because they redefine rights to suit themselves, not the higher purpose of the Constitution.
Note that the right to life (and movement too) is defined as a primary good, as if it is purchased in the marketplace. This indicates a mindset that the right to life is given or created by government as a commodity. Very, very wrong.
Again, the entire purpose of the Consitution is government DOES NOT give the right to life, as that is inalienable and given by the Creator and cannot be purchased or altered by government. And actually, it is not something to be protected by government either; it is protected by the individual. The provision for the common defense is not a provision to defend each and every individual from everything they do not like. The Founders knew that only oppressive states could achieve such.
(As an aside, the Constitution does not guarantee the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, as those inalienable rights are articulated in the Decalration. However, after winning the War of Independence, the Constitution was written to make sure Government was limited in affecting or interfering with those inalienable rights. Ultimately, the protection of those rights is by the people re individuals, not government.)
This fundamental understanding was of much debate in terms of limiting the powers of government because the Founders knew governments in history imposed totalitarianism using the premises of protection and security. Benjamin Franklin said it best, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Using Singapore as an example is the exact poster child that Franklin warned about - a country where having just a little bit of drugs could bring the death penalty, where political opposition just up and disappear into the night, and where speaking against the government is also a capital offense. And such an atmosphere is seen by the poster as safe and free? Yikes. Talk about the Benjamin Franklin textbook case of someone who does not understand the inalienable right to life and why government powers should be severely limited.
Therefore, I highly suspect that the above only makes sense to the poster because that 8 year-old never ran afoul of Singaporean authorities. This is a classic case of not understanding that with freedom comes possible abuses one does not like because other people are free as well to do thing you do not like; just as one can do things others do not like.
“Reject or accept?”
I would support a student’s choice to disclose their advocacy of one side of a live political debate, even one that’s controversial like Israel’s borders. There may be some admissions risk, but I think it’s minor.