Posted on 03/11/2015 6:49:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week several University of Oklahoma frat boys were caught on tape singing a vile, racist song (and, no, it wasn’t “unconscious” racism or “coded” racism — it was straight up segregation-era hate). The video triggered a tidal wave of outrage on and off campus. A top football recruit “de-committed” to OU and committed to Alabama, the national fraternity expelled the local OU chapter, and students, coaches, professors, and administrators marched in protest.
To this point, the matter is rather simple. The SAE students engaged in racist expression, and private citizens countered with expression of their own — doing what the marketplace of ideas does best, countering bad speech with better speech.
Then, the government got involved. OU president David Boren has summarily expelled two students allegedly responsible for the chant.
I agree with Eugene Volokh. This action is almost certainly unconstitutional. I’m not going to repeat his entire analysis, but his first point should be sufficient:
[R]acist speech is constitutionally protected, just as is expression of other contemptible ideas; and universities may not discipline students based on their speech. That has been the unanimous view of courts that have considered campus speech codes and other campus speech restrictions — see here for some citations. The same, of course, is true for fraternity speech, racist or otherwise; see Iota Xi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason University (4th Cir. 1993). (I set aside the separate question of student speech that is evaluated as part of coursework or class participation, which necessarily must be evaluated based on its content; this speech clearly doesn’t qualify.)
Our public universities are becoming national leaders in trampling the Constitution to legislate their brand of “inclusive” morality. FIRE’s Robert Shibley gets the issue exactly right:
Censorship isn’t necessary for those who are confident in the truth of their views. It’s a signal of insecurity and displays a fear that if an idea is allowed to be expressed, people will find that idea too attractive to resist. Somehow, college administrators are convinced that if they don’t officially punish racism, their students will be drawn to it like moths to a flame. But there’s simply no reason to expect that. Given the history of campus activism in our nation from the civil rights movement onward, there are myriad reasons to expect the opposite.
Instead of government crackdowns on a viewpoint, it is far better to let the marketplace of ideas determine the social consequences for racist speech. In this instance, the OU members of SAE are not only likely to spend the rest of their college careers as pariahs but to be hounded to the ends of the earth on social media and exposed for posterity on Google.
When I was at FIRE I fielded a call from an angry administrator demanding to know what he could do to “take action” after a handful of Klansmen posted racist flyers on a community bulletin board. He forwarded the flyers, which were full of typos and barely legible. I asked him whether he thought his students would be persuaded by this nonsense or would use it as an opportunity to express their support for their African-American brothers and sisters. The latter, he said, and he explained the groundswell of student expression in response. “There’s your ‘action,’” I told him. Let the students send their own message. If the Klan wants an argument, it will lose.
I hope these students find the courage to sue — not because anyone agrees with their words but because the First Amendment needs a defense. They said terrible things, but they did not violate the law. Ironically, the only lawbreaker here is a university so incompetent that it created First Amendment martyrs out of students who redefine the word “crass.”
Yes companies will be falling all over themselves to be the ones to hire the racist boob that won the right to yell "n***er". Maybe in your world or at your company, but not in the real world or at my company. Heck that bimbo that posted a picture of her flipping the bird at Arlington and got fired due to the uproar still hasn't found work in her chosen profession, and it's been a couple of years. Drag this out with all the publicity and the kids are toast from a hiring standpoint.
And if you think they'd collect millions, much less win their suit, then you are delusional.
Two black guests had to school Hannity on the 1st Ammendment last night. Not that Sean is a pinnacle of intellectual strength but he absolutely has no concept. He ended the segment shaking his head and telling both these guys they are wrong. He just looks foolish.
And here at FR we have a few advocating physical violence against the perps...
Nice.
Our universities and colleges became left-wing bastions during World War Two when the loyal American professors and undergraduates enlisted in the military. The 4F, homosexuals, and communists happily took over their posts and then indoctrinated a generation of public school teachers whose students entered the universities starting in the early 1960’s.
The enemy within has been fighting against America for over seventy years now and his trenches are still the schoolroom and his weapons are still the textbooks and the chalkboards.
Would they expel a towelhead who raped a student? Chopped a head?
There is no free speech on most college campuses, especially government funded. There is only liberal- approved free speech.All other speech is restricted speech.
There were no blacks in delta house cause hollywood is racist.
“I am disappointed in Megyn Kelly who prides herself on being a legal expert doing two segments on this situation from aan emotional standpoint ignoring the legal issues. “
Yes, she was clearly not being “fair and balanced” on this matter. Then Hannity had two Black conservatives on, and they were both completely behind the notion that this was a First Amendment issue despite the despicable racist nature of the chant. But like Kelly before him, Hannity was telling both of these guys that “they were wrong!”
And finally there’s this issue of “who can use the “N” word. I have a black friend who uses it more or less continually. He even “greets” his grown children with the phrase “how’s it going nixxer.” And I’ve personally witnessed him “saying hello” to every black person in a convenience store using the sam phrase. To my mind, you can’t have it both ways.
Why didn’t the frat boys just say they were pretending to be rappers?
I wish someone would have “taken issue” when the Black Panthers put out calls for the murder of whites, including specifically white infants, before the Zimmerman trial. But in this nation, there’s one law for anti “people of color” racism, and another law, or no law, for anti-white racism.
The two OU students weren’t arrested or charged with a crime. They were expelled from college. For all we know, their lawyers could end up getting the college to re-admit them. Meanwhile, the other singing students weren’t penalized for anything at all, as far as we know.
I’m guessing that the “black panther” espousing violence against whites wasn’t a college student.
But, I agree with you that OU had better be evenhanded.
I have yet to see any race-baiter say anything similar about Jackson, Obama, Sharpton or any other racist of color. Until the race baiters do, they earn no respect from me for their race-based hypocracy and double standards.
As far as winning, its almost certain: Here is a short list of the Academic Freedom of Speech cases - some on offensive racist speech: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1172536284.shtml
Oh and if at your company you refuse to hire white people for the same behavior other races do that’s called discrimination and may be actionable since its double standard application of fake outrage.
Sean Hannity was pathetic last night, working himself into a frenzy. At one point he had two black guests on (I don’t remember their names but have seen them on Fox many times before), who were trying to talk some calm common sense, but he brushed them aside with “You’re wrong.”
Then where are you any less a hypocrite than they are?
As far as winning, its almost certain:
Nothing is certain.
Oh and if at your company you refuse to hire white people for the same behavior other races do that’s called discrimination and may be actionable since its double standard application of fake outrage.
No, it's called taking into account a person's character, or lack thereof, and how they might represent the company to the outside world.
Kelly has the best show on FNC but sometimes she goes off the deep end, like when she said Santa was white then apologized for saying it.
1. Because I do not apply a double standard to bigots.
2. USSC has already ruled offensive speech is protected.
3. Its discriminatory application of those standards based on race.
Of course not.
2. USSC has already ruled offensive speech is protected.
Not under all circumstances. The concept of "fighting words" has been accepted for some time and court rulings have found that such speech isn't protected. And there is precedent that indicates that language designed to inflict severe emotional distress is not protected either. You think the university will have a problem digging up a few dozen people who claim emotional distress from this?
3. Its discriminatory application of those standards based on race.
Nonsense. It's discrimination against bigots who, last time I checked, are not a legally protected class.
So if I cause “severe emotional distress” to homosexuals by opposing gay marriage, to jihadists by saying “kill them all”, to whites by calling them crackers, to illegals by calling them illegals (you get my drift) then my speech is actionable by state actors?
You need to think this through a bit amigo. The answer to speech you don’t like is speech you do like. The whole notion of “hate speech” is an affront to the First Amendment and freedom. Actions should be actionable not speech.
As far as emotional distress goes that was rejected by the supreme court in flag burning cases. There is no right to not be offended, if there was lefties would be in prison from the offensive speech they have been doing for decades.
Fighting words require physical presence.
It was private property off campus and protected under freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Here is you race card back, its been canceled do to overuse.
How about banning “La Raza” as racist?
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