6 months in prison folowed by 12 months supervised release, too harsh?

[Vladenschlutte]

I still don’t understand how that march could have been construed as anything other than an attempt to intimidate and psychologically harm the Jewish residents of Skokie. Free speech, my youknowwhat! The courts can and do get it wrong. It was a vile and hateful thing to do, and they did it with a vile and hateful mindset, being…you know…Nazis and all… I’d like to see hooded members of the KKK try pulling a stunt like that in Compton, CA., and see what happens when the defecation hits the rotating blades.

Because the intent isn’t specifically to intimidate the residents. In fact, precautions are taken when planning the march to ensure that people don’t feel threatened. They’ll have to do that to be allowed to march. The intent is to spread their message or something like that.

If you study the cases of nooses left in various places on college campuses, the Ole Miss case is the only one that involved actual racists. I have not been able to find a single other case of race vandalism involving a noose that was not a hoax perpetrated either by someone wanting to create the false impression that they are a “victim” or by people wanting to make racism seem more “real.”. If we are going to send drunk, stupid white kids who do this to jail then we also ought to send all the race hoaxsters to jail.

How are people not getting this?

It’s not the act here that was criminal (beyond maybe simple vandalism or something else really trivial), it was the intent. The intent to intimidate others. Yes, the act itself really wasn’t a big deal, a kid tied some rope to a statue. But that wasn’t the crime. He wasn’t charged because he put some rope on a statue. He was charged because he intended to intimidate others.

I don’t really know how the equivalent Muslim intimidation of Christians would work. What would they do? Nail a statue of Jesus to a cross?

Let’s say a Muslim student put a noose around a crucifix in a in an order to intimidate Christian students. I’d have suggested the same sentence. Kicked out of school, community service.

[Hunt]

I may have missed it, but is there evidence aside from the guilty plea itself that this student intended to intimidate black students?

This case is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, unlike the Skokie march, the “speech” here was done anonymously, at night, with a symbol that (arguably) is physically threatening. But I’d argue that, on the other side, the message of such a noose is somewhat ambiguous. Does it mean that blacks should be lynched? Does it mean that blacks don’t belong at the university? Does it mean that James Meredith should not have been admitted? Some of these messages are more protected than others.

Let me point out that “hate speech” is protected speech under the First Amendment unless it fits into one of the exceptions, like an actual threat. This student could have stood up at a public forum and given a speech in which he declared that he believes black people are inferior, and that they should all be kicked out of the university and returned to bondage–and the university could not have legally punished him. It can’t punish ideas.

So to me, this case is a bit murky.