Many of the protesters in Fuergeson were college students. Some were part of orgainizations at black colleges. Some of these protesterts shouted death threats against white police officers.

Is anyone going after them? If a video of black fraternty, shouting kill the police surfaced, would the same standard apply? Don't think so.

Face it. We don't have free speech anymore. Just polictial correctness.

 

OU is a public university. In fact even the 'private' institutions nearly all get government funding. The government uses money this to enforce politically correct speech only at universities. They are banished from public university kicked out of their home, that is their punishment.

It is really disturbing what the OU president said:

"To those who have misused their free speech in such a reprehensible way, I have a message for you. You are disgraceful. You have violated all that we stand for."

So if you "misuse" free speech you need to be punished????

Isn't this pure McCarthyism? Punishing the entire fraternity for the actions of 2 people? No due process for anyone?

So basically if you hold contriversial views, you can't attend public university, but you must still pay taxes to support these universities?

Then where is the press going after the Ferguson protesters to have them tossed out of their college for chanting that they wanted to kill white cops? Or was there hate speech justified?

So what is going to happen in the USA now is nearly everyone is dependant on the government in some way. So the government takes away your benefits if you say something they don't like. This is supposed to be free speech for everyone?

 

Money puts OU under government control. If OU didn't act quickly, their funding dries up.

When do the wheels of justice ever move this quickly? They had zero opportunity to get a lawyer or make any kind of a defense against the charges.

So your position is free speech is only available if you don't want to ever receive government benefits? So the goverment could make one pay in Social Security tax  their whole working life, then deny  benefits when you are 65 because of your exersize of free speech? Are these expelled students now exept from paying taxes to support public universities? Don't think so. So they are punished for free speech.

Here is article from UCLA(one of those hotbeds)  law professor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/03/10/no-a-public-university-may-not-expel-students-for-racist-speech...

What will probably happen is they'll sue OU and as always taxpayers are on the hook to pay for it all.

If you want there to be universities that are nothing but hotbeds for liberal ideas only, fine.  Just don't put a gun to my head and ask me to pay for it.

 

 

The government just punished someone for free speech and you applauded.

You know the same thing is soon going to happen to anyone that insults Islam at a university.

 

you know, if you're so fucking principled about the whole thing, why not just refuse to pay your taxes, tell the IRS to go fuck themselves, make as much noise about it as you can, make a high-profile case out of the whole thing, and go to prison, where you can turn our reams of written material, give interviews, and make a rather comfortable platform for yourself? i guarantee you'd do more to further your cause that way than bitching on RRS. you and brian are two sides of the same broken record.

I disagree. OU is not under government control. I think you are confusing 'influence' with 'legislation'.

There were no wheels of justice. Their own board made a decision which was due to the problems they had in the past and they want to clean up their public image.

There is no lawyer involved. They have no rights. The charter for that frat can dry up quicker than a fart in the wind and the case will never be heard in a court of law because there are no state, county or city laws protecting those students from the wrath of the University or their fraternity HQ.

How does one refuse? They  just take what they want.

The media wouldn't cover it  accurately anyways. I'm not a maryter for any cause. I don't believe I get some eternal heaven for putting myself in prision.

You of all people. You know the same thing happend with Joe McCarthy that is happening to the rest of the fraternity. Guilt by association.

the victims of mccarthyism were in real legal danger, particularly from perjury. besides that, their livelihoods were significantly threatened directly by an organ of government. this is not happening here. christ, just because you're on the net doesn't mean you have to be alarmist as fuck...

How is kicking someone out of their home and their school not affect their livelyhood? At least the Hollywood studios didn't take money from the government so they could hire and fire as they please. This is government using its teets to control speech.

Did any Furguson protesters get thrown in to jail for their speech? No.

I would assume that every single person who got arrested during those riots got arrested for throwing rocks, starting fires and robbing stores.

 

Probably some or many are like this. There are a lot of spoiled frat boys. But, I actually statyed in one for a semester when I was struggling college student and they had an open room I could stay in for cheap, I didn't join and had no idea if anyone was racist. I would have had to drop out for a semester had I been kicked out without any hearing(I didn't have money for a hotel). Total guilt by association.

Why no hearing with first amendment lawyers?

I have to prove the obvious. Everything a university president does comes down to money, educations is way down the list of priorities. Do you know how the world works at all?

Administrators are told to get out in front of a scandal before it causes too much damage. That is why they were expelled immediatley. Before the boycotts could begin.

They had one football recruit that decided not to go to OU. You should know at a school like OU allumni donations are tied to how well the football team does:

http://www.businessinsider.com/jean-delance-decommits-from-oklahoma-2015-3

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/03/report-finds-alumni-giving-among-other-areas-correlated-football-success

So it all came down to money of course.

Honestly, do you not think that Al Sharpton would be calling for a boycott of OU until the fraternity was closed?

But at a public univesity you are guaranteed free speech:

http://time.com/3739268/sigma-alpha-epsilon-university-of-oklahoma-expel-free-speech/

 

Don't you and Brian think that if OU gets away with this, universities will then think they can ban anti-religious speech and atheist groups?

http://www.dailytargum.com/article/2015/01/hate-speech-will-not-be-tolerated-on-campus

 

Eh, for this post, I was only discussing what has been established by law and court precedence, not how I personally want this issue to be resolved. I'll elaborate a little further on both.

For the former (what the university can legally do), I agree that a public university cannot expel students for offensive speech. If the expelled students sued the university now, from the tiny amount of knowledge I possess of everything and anything to do with laws and legal proceedings, a court ruling in favor of the university would not be following the most objective interpretation of the law and would be overturning the precedence set by previous cases concerning free speech on public university campuses. Having turned it over in my head a couple more times, I also agree with the UCLA professor in your article that their racist chant can't be reasonably interpreted as a "true threat." 

For the law to be consistent, I suppose universities would be permitted to expel the protestors whenever they made a "true threat" against the police, as in a "credible" threat, as in a threat which could reasonably be interpreted to implicate actually causing bodily harm. Of course, that definition seems ambiguous as shit. I don't know how that's handled in the court system...

As for what I personally want, again, I'm honestly conflicted in several ways on this subject.

- I suppose the university should be able to expel the protestors that actually committed crimes.

- I'm not sure how far they should pursue punishing protestors that only made violent threats...

- I don't think they should shut down any organization they were a part of, unless those organizations are promoting committing crimes or exists for the purpose of committing crimes.

- In the fraternity case, I don't think the university should expel all the students in that fraternity, as I haven't seen sufficient evidence that the fraternity, as a whole, supports the message in the video. I might be in favor of punishing a couple "main perpetrators," but even on that statement, I don't feel very confident.  

Hmmm, I don't think we are disagreeing, at least in principle. 

I don't think there is a difference. We have to evaluate people based on their behavior, NOT on the content of their speech, and certainly, NOT based on how offended we get.

again, you're just like brian, deflecting to something else when your bullshit has been thoroughly called. in this case, you can't demonstrate conclusively that someone's constitutional rights have been violated at OU, so instead you try to seize on something ancillary to the main argument and make it about marxism. sort of like brian attacking my avatar when he has nothing else to say. the two of you talk way more about marxism than i ever have. you're both embarrassments.

yes, but a public high school is not the same thing as a public or state university. high school teachers are hired by the state, so they literally are government workers. university professors, to my knowledge, are not. also, public high schools are compulsory (at least up to a certain age), and universities are not. honestly, the only thing that makes a state university "state" is that it receives much more government funding than a private university (and even they receive some state funding). they are not an organ of the state, therefore they're not bound to guarantee first amendment rights in the course of their business.

beats me.





in this case, so it would seem. the first amendment bars the government from making any laws abridging freedom of speech, etc. and the govenment hasn't done anything of the sort in this situation. the first amendment clearly doesn't limit universities' rights to discipline as they see fit. sorry.





yes, i do. there are millions of people in the US with no tertiary education who live above the poverty line. it's common knowledge.

Ah, that's where you're coming from. Okay, hmmm, I'll have to look up that one a little more. 

mm-hm. out of curiosity, what is the salary, drawn from the taxpayers' money, of a member of the board of regents?





yes, and the first amendment begins "congress shall make no law." the first amendment is about protecting our freedoms from legislation. congress did not legislate to abridge these poor boys' freedom of speech, nor did the oklahoma state legislature. i don't care who appoints whom, no legislation was made, no one is being prosecuted, and universities, regardless of whether they are state or private, are independent of both state and federal governments. it's as clear as is the summer's sun: this is not a first amendment case. i don't care what some junkyard dog lawyer the frat or the parents hired says: it's obvious. it's over before it starts. lawyers will pull out any kind of bullshit if they smell money. apparently, so will you, if you think you smell a commie or whatever.





no one has the legal right to a tertiary education, therefore to call it a "public benefit" is spurious. and your analogy with "retirement benefits" (i'm assuming you mean social security) is just silly. the government has direct control over social security. it has no control whatsoever over universities.





again, whether or not you agree with taxes going to support universities is a totally separate issue and i will not be taken down a non sequitur because you suddenly realize you have neither a logical nor a legal leg to stand on regarding the OU issue. period. i win, you lose.

 I  am traveling so don't have access to all my bookmarks, but the Supreme Court has ruled in at least half a dozen cases that the First Amendment does apply to any public university, and typically, the court has applied a stricter standard to universities than they have to other government entities. If the expelled students pursue legal action, it is a slam dunk case in their favor. They may even be eligible for punitive damages per a case from the late 80's but I would have to reread that one to be confident about that. I will provide links to specific cases when I get home, I know I have a folder full on this specific topic. So Butter is right regarding the law, I'd have to say that EXC is wrong about his generalization because there is a long history of the Supreme Court slapping down language related rules, so while some University students may have their free speech infringed, the government in the end has repeatedly overruled University policies and likely will in this case if it goes to court. Our current Court is particularly biased towards erring on the side of protecting free speech.

 

DP

I think the key with this case was the speech done while on university property or at a university sponsored event. Certainly if they said this in an on campus dormitory,  they can kick them out.. I'm not sure what the relationship of fraternites is to the university.

I always assumed since their houses were off campus, they had no official releationship with a university. Perhaps not since the university can kick them out of their house(remember Animal House). But then why are the fraternites able to select who is a member  based upon race?

I don't believe there is such a thing as a private university anymore. The government still has semi-control over them via tax breaks, pell and research grants.

The Feds got Jerry Falwell to shut up and Bob Jones to stop being racist with tax exemption:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University_v._United_States

 

 www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31881518

A Oklahoma fraternity whose members were filmed chanting a racist song has received death threats, a lawyer said.

Stephen Jones did not detail the threats that the University of Oklahoma students had received, but said authorities had been alerted.

The local chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon hired Mr Jones to "protect the rights" of its members, he said.

Two students were expelled and the fraternity house was closed after the video was posted online.

The video showed two members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity leading racist chants that said a black person would never be allowed to join the fraternity.

"Unfortunately, there have been some incidents involving current members of SAE where death threats have been placed, where there had been physical assaults or altercations on the University of Oklahoma campus, and where some of the students who are members have frankly been afraid to go to class," Mr Jones told reporters on Friday.

Mr Jones said there was "no justification" for the slur-laden chants.

 

The high-profile lawyer did not lay out explicit demands but said that he had been hired to protect the "due process" rights for the local chapter's members.

"We are interested - where needed - to act to protect the due process rights, the first amendment rights, and the fourteenth amendment rights of the members," he said told reporters.

He said that he was not seeking an apology from the university president, David Boren, who shut down the university's SAE chapter as the scandal unfolded earlier this week.

In response to the video, students rallied against racism and in support of the student group on Monday.

He also hinted at a possible dispute between the fraternity and the university over ownership of the fraternity's house.

He did not the rule out the possibility of lawsuit against the university, but said said he preferred a non-legal solution.

Mr Jones first came to prominence when he defended Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1995.

 

Fraternities are social organisations that college students, usually male, are given the option to join at many universities across the US. Sororities are a similar option for female students.

I can't remember ever agreeing in principle with anything EXC said before.

I didn't read the article or anything so maybe I'll be off a bit from the actual incident in question. I'll be very specific and careful here.

1: Government has no business telling people what to think or say, unless under very specific circumstances. Like incitement to violence or false advertising. If someone wants to be a racist fuck in a fraternity of racist fucks doing racist things, that's their prerogative. As long as they aren't hurting anyone or trying to get other people to hurt people they can do what they like.

2: Publically funded institutions have no business telling people what to think or say, unless under very specific circumstances. Like incitement to violence or false advertising. If someone wants to be a racist fuck in a fraternity of racist fucks doing racist things, that's their prerogative. As long as they aren't hurting anyone or trying to get other people to hurt people they can do what they like.

3: ANY violation of this is a violation of free speech, and should be shut down immediately.

4: A private institution is a different story, but any expulsion should coincide with a complete refund of tuition costs (-materials like books). People don't go to university and pay thousands of dollars to get kicked out for something unrelated to their academic performance. You don't want them there, fine. Give them their money back.
If the private institution is publically funded, then it is effectively a public institution, and subject to the same rules as a public institution.