@northwesty, the hypothetical I posed to Hunt was how the University of Hunt would react if the SAE frat boys sang their lynching song in public, in the hearing of other students some of whom were AA.
Discussions like this, about freedom of speech on campus, the right to express oneself, are always tied up because they aren’t so cut and dried.First of all, at a private university, the legal definition of the first amendment does not apply, because it applies only to the government regulation of speech. OU is a weird one, because it is a hybrid, it is a college/university, but because it is state run, attempts to regulate speech fall under the aegis of the first amendment protections, it makes it more complicated.
However, what is often left out of these discussions is that free speech does not mean the right to say anything you want, anywhere, and especially not the right not to face consequences. One of the charters of universities is it is supposed to be a place of ideas, where people have different views, but there also are competing interests in how those views are expressed and what they might mean to others. Someone who is Palestinian in origin who says they believe that the Israeli government is an occupying force and is an oppressor might not make pro Israeli kids happy, but he is expressing an opinion. If a born again Christian wants to state that evolution is a lie and the earth is 6000 years old, that is their right, they can talk about it, sit on a soapbox and talk about it, that is fine. Someone can believe being gay is a sin, or blacks are inferior, or whatnot, and that is fine, too. However, that Palestinian kid if he says “Death to Jews”, “Jews are pigs” and the like, it is not acceptable; if a born again Christian goes around and gets in the face of gay kids or kids they perceive as being gay, and yell “You are going to hell, you pervert, you should be stoned to death”, their freedom of expression ends because they are harassing other people, denigrating them. If the Campus Crusade for Christ held a rally and they put on some sort of stage show that depicted gay men and lesbians in a very mean, disparaging way (think of a minstrel show of gay and lesbian stereotypes), it is not freedom of speech. While universities are supposed to support free speech and different ideas, they also are supposed to support an environment where people feel comfortable, too, there is a line between free speech and ideas and in harassing others.
Even with a state run university, there have been court cases with free speech issues where the college had an argument that the speech in question disrupted the college environment and made it an unsafe place or otherwise disrupted college life. I doubt very much that if the KKK tried to open a student group these days and for example, paraded around in their robes, or burned crosses, that if the school censored them they would win a free speech case, even with some of the clowns we have on SCOTUS these days (Clarence Thomas was the deciding vote on cross burning being a free speech issue, and he lectured the other conservative judges who thought it was, on what it meant to people who experienced the terror of the KKK), because that expression is designed to invoke fear, or will invoke fear, because of how horrible the KKK was and what it represented, and I doubt anyone other than a couple of crank out there types would support a Nazi group on a public university campus.
And think about this one, school newspapers in public schools, secondary and college level, have no inherent right to free speech, schools can and do censor school newspapers that have articles the administration feels will cause unrest or cause issues between groups of students. One of the fundamental reasons they can suppress speech is if they can prove that said speech would disrupt the right of others to learn in a safe environment or otherwise would hurt the mission of the school to educate. Few rights, even in the public sector, are absolute, in a world of rights, in a place like a college that has a mission to educate students and to protect the right of students to feel safe and not harassed or otherwise threatened or made to feel unwelcome, the right of free speech can end where others rights pick up. A state university that tried to remain lily white and claim the right of free association would be laughed out of court, despite the attempts of some to make such laws unconstitutional (anti discrimination laws), because the right of free association ends when it is the public we are talking about, and even private institutions cannot claim that right if other rights or issues intersect with that right.
In the case of the morons who did that video, the school potentially can censor them, though that is questionable. They can argue that allowing those boys to stay on campus sends a message to others that those who show contempt for others on a diverse campus will be allowed to do so and violate the right of others to feel safe there, and also could lead to something worse, such as violent retribution against those who perpetuated this. I don’t think the morons should be thrown out of the school for this, but I think there needs to be some penalty to show this won’t be tolerated. It depends on the penalty and how a judge views the speech in question, if it went in front of a judge like Roy Moore in Alabama the boys would win, if it went in front of a judge who feels the boys created a threat to the universities ability to function, he would rule for the school.
On top of everything else, those boys are going to face worse consequences then anything the school can do, giving the power of the internet their names are going to come up when background checks are made, and many companies or grad schools might very well reject them out of hand after seeing what they did (well, okay, maybe other than ones run by closeted racists).
Re: the hypothetical pro-Zionism or pro-Hamas admissions essay–Zionists are not generally understood as terrorists today (though they were by the British in the years before '48). However, Hamas is generally understood to be a terrorist organization today (who knows what tomorrow may bring, though; they may evolve into a peace partner at some later date as the PLO once did). All this to say that when someone espouses a pro-Zionist or pro-Hamas position, it depends on what version of Zionism or which Hamas position they are advocating. There is a spectrum here. Similarly, an organization advocating for redress of a particular ethnic group’s grievances should not necessarily be seen as racist. This would have to be true for a white-advocacy group as well (i.e. some anti-affirmative action group).
Fang – Still not a threat – lynchings don’t happen on college campuses.
I’d also say 1st amendment protected – you really can’t regulate just the mesage. Pretty similar to why we let the KKK march. Let them speak; then let others speak as well. That works very well. So well that the frat boys wouldn’t dare to sing their song in public in the first place. I also think the whole hostile environment thing is overdone - on race as well as other topics too. Freedom is messy, but ultimately the good ideas win out in a free society.
But definitely a plausible/defensible case for hostile environment. So very little real world legal risk if you wanted to punish the public singing SAEs. The guys are not going to sue for their free speech rights. They are just drunk frat boys having fun being naughty. They are not an agenda driven group who care about their right to make speech that other people hate (like the KKK does).
I know you’re only posing a hypothetical here, but as someone who was involved in Campus Crusade as an undergraduate and keeps in contact with many of the staff members from my undergraduate chapter, I can tell you that such a rally would be completely antithetical to the organization’s values. Campus Crusade changed its name to Campus Cru several years ago because it though the term “Crusade” would offend students of middle-eastern descent.
@musicprnt your post was very intelligent and thought out. You must have gone to HLS. LOL I knew a boy a couple of years ago who was very smart and got into both Harvard and Stanford. After his admittance he did something really stupid on his FB page. Both of his admittances were withdrawn. So yes there can be long term consequences with social media
The key thing with many rights and where they can be curtailed is provable harm (I am not a lawyer, but I think I understand the first amendment pretty well and the burdens on curtailing any right). Child porn is illegal because children cannot consent to sex, and having them have sex to make the films is dangerous. On the other hand, despite the many attempts to ban it, from the religious right to some branches of the feminist world, banning adult pornography has been time and again been held to be covered by the first amendment, because with porn, despite the very real negatives around it, has only as a basis for banning it that people believe it causes harm, there is no hard proof that, for example with children having sex, that there is provable harm. You yell fire in a movie theater, and the consequences are obvious; you get in front of a group of people and rant against someone (gays, blacks, whoever), and that crowd goes out and let’s say kills someone, you can be arrested and convicted of incitement to riot, and probably with the death of the person as well. Threaten the president in a speech, and you will find yourself in the care of the prison system, even if you say “I wasn’t serious”. Burn a cross on someone’s lawn and despite Scalia and some of the other idiots on the court at that point, you can be arrested for criminal harassment, because burning a cross is not free speech, it is meant to intimidate and cow someone. If the right of free speech causes direct harm, if it provokes unrest (and there is a burden in proving that, mind you), if that right is counterbalanced by the rights of other people or in the best interests of the public, it is not free speech.
In the OU case, it isn’t so cut and dried, but there is a case to be made that those boys who did that video, despite being in a private setting, being students of OU, are in effect representatives of it, that when they agreed to go to the school they de facto became a member of the larger community, and as such, if they are found to be making the impression that the school itself is racist, that if the school doesn’t act it will appear the school is siding with the kids who did this, then the first amendment rights of the students would be outweighed by the harm their action caused, specifically the harm if they didn’t act. I am not a lawyer, but I was involved pretty heavily in student activities when I was in college, I led a fairly large campus organization that booked all kinds of activities on campus, and we were briefed on a lot of things involving issues like free speech versus the rights of others, in part because I was part of a student disciplinary group (had the honor of hearing Floyd Abrams talk about the difference between free speech and speech that can be regulated). If the school allows speech this vile, that can be considered threatening to AA students, it is much the same concept of when Roy Moore wanted to have the 10 commandments in his courtroom, it had to do appearance on the part of a body. With Roy Moore, the judiciary is supposed to be blind, but having the 10c’s in the courtroom gives the impression that the Judge’s religious beliefs will bias his rulings and cast disfavor on his office of being a judge, if OSU doesn’t punish the students it is sending the impression that vile behavior like that is condoned, whether intended or not (the last is more my opinion, though with the Roy Moore case, the federal courts who ruled against him specifically said that having the 10cs in his courtroom gave the appearance of a biased judiciary).
Actually, that has not been left out of this discussion-not by a long shot. There just happens to be a lively debate going on which consequences are appropriate and legal at a public university.
The participating DKEs at Yale were not expelled; the chapter was not even banned by the university, just suspended from conducting any activities on campus for five years, which didn’t mean much because their house is off-campus and privately owned anyway. The DKE national did not punish the chapter at all, that I remember.
Thus, the punishment in the DKE case did not come close to the level of punishment in the OU SAE case.
A couple of pages ago I posited that I would be surprised if any AA’s that I asked at work said they would be fearful if they were at OU’s campus, or would be fearful to send their kids there. I asked the 2 younger AA’s that worked with me today and one said emphatically no. The other said “maybe” but mainly because of the heightened awareness and seeming increase in violence against AA’s (eg Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, etc).
I will ask the few AA parents tonight when I see them.
By the way, think I was assumed to be AA based on my comments, which is not the case. My children do have some (~1/16) AA from Mother’s side, and don’t look obviously Black (nor white for that matter, they look like generic non white minority(think Bruno Mars, I have no idea what he is), and one can be sometimes confused for white). But when dealing with racists, who knows who they are against.
I would not truly worry about my kids physical safety due to this video, but there would be a visceral unreasonable fear in the back of my mind. I would though worry about my kids being discriminated, talked down to, made to feel unwelcome, at parties, and social gatherings, etc…
check out this “VICE” video:
http://www.vice.com/video/black-white-and-greek
“I’m still trying to imagine that essay giving a well-reasoned rationale in favor of expanding Israeli settlements that also displays a full understanding of the opposing viewpoint of the dispossessed. And all in fewer than 500 words? By an 18 yr old?”
I’m not imagining that the essay would be an opinion piece on the topic – as PG noted, that’s not what college essays are supposed to be. I’m imagining an essay about an experience the student had that made his/her POV clear, like a march or a youth group dedicated to the cause. That might be a perfectly fine essay, depending on the school. (I wouldn’t recommend a Defending Traditional Marriage Club essay for Oberlin.)
“However, what is often left out of these discussions is that free speech does not mean the right to say anything you want, anywhere, and especially not the right not to face consequences.”
No one on this board has said anything of the sort.
The First Ammendment is in place specifically to protect speech that some segment of the society may find vile, but which is merely expression of thought.
Well, it probably does cover the right to express the founding principles of a group, within the confines of the said group, behind closed doors, and with members only.
Otherwise any thought the broader public considers vile would have to be wiped out of the brains for all people. That would be a scary thought indeed.
One interesting thing I’ve seen in light of the SAE incident is that now students sometimes ask if anyone is recording when they make a potentially offensive joke given the perceived that of expulsion. For instance, I was with a couple Vietnamese American friends today at a cultural event and they were making jokes about their own culture as well as impersonating the values of their foreign born parents. One of them needed to make sure that no one was recording because she feared that Boren might punish the organization and/or participating students.
Granted, the SAE incident was far far worse for obvious reasons but the expulsion has seemed to make students somewhat more cautious in what they joke about to friends.
Back in the day the Soviets used to have political commisars disguised and hidden among the public. Anyone making an “inappropriate” joke would run the risk of being caught and sent to the gulag. Perhaps Boren wants to set up a similar environment. 
How many of us would survive a public scrutiny of our private acts 24x7? Perhaps we should think about the meaning of the phrase “private setting” in today’s world.
If those same students were to make fun of AA’s, gays, or any other group would it automatically mean they were prejudiced? A couple of days ago several posters argued that anyone who would even joke about another group (race, ethnicity etc) is automatically prejudiced/racist. I strongly disagree with that premise. Laughing at something doesn’t make someone prejudiced. Are those VA’s prejudiced against their own kind? Obviously, not. But they can still find a joke about themselves funny. Just like someone else could find a joke about them funny.
@RondoinBFlat I despise the very idea of speech codes and “hate speech,” not to mention “hate crimes.”
IMHO, the answer to speech is more speech, not creating fake categories.
The coverage of this situation is disgusting, and really exemplifies a double standard and an anti-greek sentiment. The media did a GREAT job covering a 9 second video in a private setting (that did not appear to even target anyone) and vilifying those students. On the other hand, I haven’t seen a lot of coverage about the backlash against the greeks (surprise!), and by greeks I mean all greeks not just SAEs. I have heard that people have been jumping fraternity members, harassing sorority members (especially Tri-Delt), vandalizing cars with greek letters, and so on.
I’m not saying what they did was right, but everything was blown out of proportion, and it’s really disappointing how one side of the story is being left out.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/13/us/sae-fraternity-fallout/index.html
So sad in University of Washington, Seattle. Is racism going to end someday?
We should respect each other no matter if the person is black or white. Each person has feelings and those who like to discriminate black or white people they should see themselves how stupid they look making those racist comments.