So, what you are suggesting in post 51, then, is that AAs should not be outraged or make a fuss over the incident?
@Zekesima: Understood completely. And I can understand the part where one would have questions about a place with a certain kind of history. That having been said though, I hate to see it assumed that history completely defines the present, and that people are unable to evolve. Clearly some people don’t. But to assume negatives about someone because of geography can be as misguided as any other superficial reason for assuming negatives.
Though if the question is why UAB (for example) only has an AA demographic of 12% when the state is 26% AA I might be curious about how the answer came back, myself.
In any case, best wishes to your son, wherever he chooses.
@Hanna, I understand your point about a name making the taunt a specific threat, however, if you are one of only a handful of AAs in a university, the threat in the song still feels very specific to you.
Very peculiar statement. Why does he bother referring to free speech in the first paragraph, and then go on to demonstrate that the University doesn’t actually allow free speech?
As I think I pointed out in my first post or thereabouts, private entities (including private universities) can choose to sanction speech they don’t like, but public entities–including public universities–are not supposed to do so. Of course, they often do it anyway, and often succeed–if the speech involved is unpleasant enough.
When private groups interfere with each other’s speech (i.e., by disrupting a speech), the issue is more complicated. I think universities should enforce a rule that organized speech shouldn’t be disrupted, even by other speech.
“The “state” can’t, but a private organization can?”
Yes. The First Amendment doesn’t apply to private actors. Furthermore, the fraternity has a right to free association, and can expel people just because it doesn’t like them.
“if you are one of only a handful of AAs in a university, the threat in the song still feels very specific to you.”
No doubt. The student at Ole Miss who put a noose on a statue of James Meredith was rightly punished. But that was public speech that the targets could hear/see. The speakers here didn’t intend anyone outside of their group to hear what they were saying. I’m very glad that we did hear it, and we can shun them as the racists they are. But a threat has to be intended to place someone in fear. It can’t place anyone in fear if they don’t hear it.
“Question for you, Hunt: If you saw a video filmed secretly depicting a group of kids from your neighborhood singing about how Hunt’s S or D should be hung from a tree, would you consider that free speech and shrug it off?”
Doesn’t that rise to an implied threat of violence?
T post #60. Not at all. What I was getting at was the media bias. So many of our perceptions of what the world is like are based on what the media reports. And the media picks and chooses its outrages based on the biases of the editors and producers.
It also points out that having speech codes on campus brings out double standards as to which groups are punished and which are not. In these cases, a group actually using words to intimidate is not punished. A group that said obviously racist, but not intimidating words, will be punished. One wonders what the outcome would have been if the same university were involved.
But speaking of blacks being lynched IS intimidating and threatening to AAs at the university, even if the threat is generalized to the group and not one specific target. 3,500 known lynchings in the south in the last 120 or so years, many of them random targets picked only because they were N—!
Of course private organizations can limit free speech. Say something against TOS on this web site and you can lose your posting privileges.
I think what gets questionable here is can a public university expel a student for abhorrent speech in a private conversation? I’m not an expert in constitutional law. I know that First Amendment rights are not absolute and that there are limits on free speech.
I agree. He affirms that they are exercising their right to free speech, and then in the same letter, punishes them.
I think what he is doing is punishing them for racism, not speech. Since the song lyrics imply that the fraternity racially discriminates, that is what he is probably basing his action on.
BTW, how is a song sung at an official frat event a “private conversation”??
@Hanna, The threat WAS specific: any specific N— who dared to pledge would be hung from a tree was the implication of the song.
^^^It’s a private social group and it occurred while they were not out in public?
Really? That seems so unfair. Some of them must have been innocent. I have to hold out the possibility that not all members on the SAE bus felt comfortable with the song or were even singing it. Wouldn’t their only guilt be by association?
I’m also wondering if the dates on the bus are going to share in whatever punishment the university has in store.
It was a private event.
Here’s a thought experiment for you. A and B, both members of SAE, are sitting on a park bench having a conversation. Unknown to them, their conversation is being recorded by a video camera (with sound) in a building across the quad.
A says, “Do you think we’ll ever pledge black members in SAE?”
B responds: “Not as long as I have a vote. I don’t think they belong in SAE.”
A: “Why not?”
B: “Because they are inferior to whites.”
The video of the conversation is released to the public through social media. You are the president of the university. What do you do about the situation?
Is the SAE house on OU campus property?
Re: “real Sooners are not racist”
But the historical Sooners took advantage of some dodgy probably racist dealings by the government with respect to Native Americans.
“IS intimidating and threatening to AAs at the university”
It certainly is, if they hear it. This wasn’t intended to be heard publicly. As I said, luckily it was heard, but it could not have been intended to place people in fear, which is the usual justification for punishing campus speech.
If this were a private school, I’d buy the first ticket on the expulsion train. But it isn’t, so the question of how it can punish individuals gets a lot harder. Fortunately, the national organization did the right thing and closed the chapter, so the university doesn’t have to worry about that.
“Wouldn’t their only guilt be by association?”
Take it up with the private fraternity if you think their membership standards are unfair. They decided there was cancer in this chapter, and it had to be cut out.
To me, a private conversation between two people is different from a song that expresses a longstanding policy of a group during an official frat function.
I still don’t see an explanation of how a university withdrawing official support of and affiliation with an organization is the same as prohibiting an individual’s exercise of free speech.
Well, the group with the bad policy is gone. That part is over.
Of note is that it does not appear that the students are being kicked out of the university, just out of their housing. The university must own the fraternity houses, otherwise I don’t think they would be able to do this. And if they do own the houses, then they have a legal obligation not to racially discriminate in housing.