Another example of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
If it is done because of the content of speech, it is just as much a violation of freedom of speech. A public institution can’t support organizations when it agrees with what they have to say, and withdraw support when it disagrees. A private institution can do so, of course.
To give a less extreme case, imagine if a public university said, “We will only support organizations that officially sign a document condemning fracking.” That, I think, should be obviously improper to anybody.
@ucbalumnus Already noted by most Sooners. and yes, SAE is on OU property and the organization receives funding from OU’s Greek life (IFC). It is my understanding that to receive IFC funding a chapter cannot discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion.
This is more complicated, but as I understand it, a public university probably can impose such a requirement, as long as it does so even-handedly. It sometimes causes an issue with respect to religious groups that have membership or leadership requirements, and it’s not easy to balance all the interests.
In the OU case, I suspect it’s true that this will be couched as a discrimination issue, in order to avoid the free speech implications.
But here’s another thought experiment for you. What if the president of an SAE chapter publishes the following in the campus newspaper (at a public university): “The University recently passed a rule requiring that all recognized campus organizations must not discriminate on the basis of race. Because SAE is a recognized organizations, and wishes to retain that status, we will abide by these requirements and race will not be considered as a factor in our membership decisions. Nevertheless, I feel that I must say that I disagree with this policy, and personally believe that non-white students have no place in SAE, which has a long tradition as a fellowship of white males.”
Again, you’re the university president. What do you do?
@Hunt if that were to occur, I suppose I would issue a statement of condemnation for the opinion expressed but allow them to remain. However, given the statements and the probability that they are discriminating against non white members, I might order IFC’s Judiciary Board to investigate whether race was truly not being considered as a factor of membership.
Free speech does not extend to shouting “fire” in the theater or plotting murder, sedition, or terror. Free speech has always been limited. The questions are whose speech is restricted and why. I think hate speech should be restricted.
I don’t either. However, IIRC, there was discussion about the possibility of expulsion from the university over this, and I know that’s where I began to wonder about how far reaching First Amendment protection is at public universities.
Yes. However, I’m not convinced that’s because of systematic discrimination on the part of most fraternities and sororities. My sorority, one of the most diverse on campus, does not consider race, and the three other GLOs I know well, all of which are much less racially diverse than my own, do not either. Personally, the Indian-American SGA president of OU is in a predominately white fraternity and has claimed, both publicly and privately, to have experienced zero discrimination on the basis of his race.
I think there is a lot of self segregation going on. AA have very active Greek orgs of their own at many schools. However, we can’t ignore the fact that these organizations likely originally came into being because the founding members were not welcome at the white houses.
It’s probably both. I mean, I can’t say anything against other fraternities about OU, but realistically people who chant things like that at social events probably have other racist beliefs and attitudes too – it’s rarely coming out of nowhere and it doesn’t just surface as a result of alcohol. It’s not hard to pick up on those attitudes as a black person and that can be enough to steer people away from a group like this.
I have rarely seen a statements as strong as President Boren’s, and if these young “gentlemen” have ever engaged of bigoted acts that harmed their victims, then these fellows should be shamed and sanctioned such as Boren intends. Yet I pause because of my objections to speech codes. The poem of Rev. Martin Niemoller often comes to mind. My own feeling is that no matter how popular, speech codes have a way of mutating, until they reach the doorstep of their own authors.
Freedom of speech, what does it mean? More child pornography? Fighting words? Threats? Defamation? Sexual harassment? Cigarette ads? In truth speech is controlled all the time. The bottom line is that no country has freedom of speech, though many, including China, claim they do. In fact the control of hate speech seems to be common in developed countries.
Here in the US I find that predictable parts of the population defend racist and misogynist speech as free, free, free, as if some one (else) doesn’t pay for it. As some one who pays dearly for hate speech, I find it appalling that so many are comfortable with using it and defending it.
Personally, I’m appalled that you would equate defense of free speech with use of hate speech. Again, what is hate speech? I assume it’s not just speech that you hate.
I think we do a pretty good job of controlling hate speech here via media, boycotting, etc. We just don’t want the government putting people in jail or otherwise punishing them for their spoken ideas.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
Hunt,
I assume you’re capable of finding a better definition, but incase you really are so clueless, I will send you to wiki to start you off!
And I do find little difference between the defense of hate speech, the use of hate speech, and the use of violence. In my experience, they line up very closely on a continuum, just like the defense of child porn, the use of child porn, and sexual violation of children. Intellectualizing hatred doesn’t impress me.
While Article 35 of the constitution of the People’s Republic of China says that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration”, Article 51 says that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China, in exercising their freedoms and rights, may not infringe upon the interests of the State, of society or of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.”
Obviously, everyone should go where they feel comfortable, but it’s not just Southern universities that have histories fraught with racial tensions. Choosing a school without Greek life might make more sense than ruling out an entire segment of the country if one is trying to avoid the type of egregious behavior that OU’s SAE chapter displayed.
The undergraduate student body at Alabama is 12.4% black, higher than at a lot of schools.
This eerily reminds me of Animal Farm - all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
This is the issue I have with this entire hate speech concept: the concept that there is a protected class of people is just the same as trying to sell the argument that “we all equal but some are more equal than others,” One cannot institute such rules and simultaneously believe that the goal is equality, as such rules, by definition, codify inequality. It is a “you can never get there from here” problem.
There is something intrinsically wrong about that approach, as there is no equality if there is unequal protection of each group to say things another group does not like. Your government at work - we are all equal, but what some say is less equal than others, even if they say the exact same things.