I guess these kids didn’t take the Harvard lesson, though they are enrolled already so this should be interesting to watch.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/26/racist-facebook-page-discovered-pomona
http://claremontindependent.com/dark-underbelly-claremont-meme/ - original story in Claremont paper
http://tsl.news/news/6868/ - some of the memes
What is it with memes? (…a year ago I didn’t even know what Memes were… I’d only seen the term as applied to “rewriting funny dialogue over a scene from The Fall”)
And what about it makes teens want to be the opposite of “good stewards and decent representatives of their College”?
Further developments: Pomona declares a “bias related incident.” http://tsl.news/news/6875/ and http://claremontindependent.com/pomona-declares-meme-group-bias-incident/. It will be interesting to see what happens. Note that California Educ. Code Sec. 94367, also known as the “Leonard Law,” prohibits private colleges from making or enforcing any rule that would subject a student to disciplinary action for engaging in expression (on or off campus) that would be protected by the First Amendment or the California Constitution’s free expression provision if it occurred off campus. http://www.splc.org/article/1992/09/california-leonard-law-private-colleges?id=14
Here’s another fascinating part of this. The author of the Claremont Independent article was fired as Editor in Chief after writing that article. I know because his father is a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times and has blogged about the incident (Neil Steinberg at his Every Goddamn Day blog).
I was unaware of that lawwhich is a fascinating law . Pamona would be idiotic to discipline students in light of it.
Here is the reporting from the 5C newspaper
I don’t understand why the student was fired for writing that oped though. The op-ed reads like typical opinion editorials. By definition try contain an opinion.
Isn’t hate speech not covered by freedom of speech? Or do the 'memes" not reach the definition of hate speech?
I understand there’s a difference between making a joke about killing someone and advocating killing someone so I find the law very interesting.
Why was the guy fired? It seems like very objective reporting to me.
I was talking about the Claremont Independent article, which seemed to not really give any opinions, just state facts, which I appreciate. I wasn’t talking about the TSL article, which I thought was a well written opinion piece, and can’t imagine anyone getting fired over that either.
Can someone link to the column by the dad of the fired writer? It might clarify.
@MYOS1634 Hate speech is protected speech. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-white-first-amendment-slogans-20170608-story.html
There’s a lot of backstory about the Claremont Independent. First, Ross Steinberg was not the Editor-in-Chief but rather the Managing Editor. Here are his statement (http://tsl.news/opinions/6869/) and the CI’s about why he was fired (http://claremontindependent.com/statement-regarding-dismissal-ross-steinberg/).
Another part of the backstory is that the CI has in the past exposed other private Facebook groups that were in support of students of color. For example, http://claremontindependent.com/3473-2/ about a group which included posts mocking those who do not identify as women of color and in particular asian males. CI got a lot of backlash for that and other stories that published screenshots that disclosed the names of students involved in private Facebook groups. CI stories tend to be picked up by outside publications that promote stories about “crazy PC culture” such as College Fix and Fox News. And those students then received threatening, hostile messages from across the country.
@intparent here is a link to the dad’s blog, although I don’t think he has written about this here: http://www.everygoddamnday.com/. He did tweet a link to a Teen Vogue article about it on 9/27 but that seemed mainly to show he was proud of his son because his story got picked up by Teen Vogue and Inside Higher Ed.
As an attorney I find shocking the number of educated people who do not understand that Hate Speech is protected by the First Amendment. I feel like schools are almost afraid to teach kids this. But it leads to students making demands on public universities or in California’s case on privates too, to do something they can’t do.
Of course a true threat is not protected so " Jews deserved to die in the Holocaust is protected" but “We are going to kill you Jews” is not. ( I’m Jewish so always use Jews as examples )
So when at the University of Michigan students are demanding that the university take action against those who wrote the N -word on dorm door tags, the school really needs to explain that " look if we punish them for that we would have to apply the exact same punishment to those who wrote " you suck" or even “Go Blue” on someone else’s door ( without permission) or it’s impermissible content based restrictions on speech."
Universities seem hesitant to explain the law probably because they worry that it will result in more of this stuff
In any event Google Neil Steinberg Every Godamn Day. His blog is really excellent. One of my favorites. He writes as the suggests every day.
Because of past controversies about CI stories, Pomona actually has info on its website called "FAQ’s regarding Social Media, Student Press and Student Events on Campus. https://www.pomona.edu/administration/campus-center/reserving-space/faqs-student-media. And I agree with @maya54 that in light of the Leonard Law, Pomona will find it difficult to discipline the students for sharing memes, however distasteful or hateful the memes may be. From what I’ve seen so far, nothing was directed at any particular student, so it seems to fall in the “hate speech is protected” category.
I wonder what the distribution of members is across the 5Cs. I know this is focused on Pomona, but am curious.
OK, I understand why he was dismissed. Publishing the names was a terrible move and probably illegal. Expressing a threat too was wrong too. So, the article as published was fine, but the article as Steinberg wanted it wasn’t.
I still don’t understand how hate speech is protected. Slurs aren’t ideas to discuss. “All Jews should have died in the Holocaust” is an idea (all kinds of wrong, but you can discuss/argue). “Go burn K…” is not an idea, whether it’s on a dorm room or in a college classroom. If a student stood up and said that to a professor or a classmate there should be some consequences.
I can’t imagine a situation where kids can say that to each other’s face or to a professor or other adult on campus, and face no consequence. It’s very frightening to me because it means any sort of abuse hurled at others is protected speech and there are many teens who’d love to be able to say anything and not have consequences for it. Class discussions would become impossible if you could insult others whenever you disagree with them and not be kicked out of class.
(And High School!! HS would become a zoo.)
Also curious about the way it’s spread.
But I’d never have expected that from Pomona students.
Maybe we could just have the leadership style of the Lt Gen Silveria from the Airforce Academy who forcefully told his students bigotry, racism and sexism would not be tolerated and if you can’t treat someone with RESPECT GET OUT! What a novel concept…
Hate speech is not protected if it creates a hostile learning or work environment.
@MYOS1634 If you would have looked at the rest of the California state law you would have seen this.
(e) Nothing in this section prohibits the imposition of discipline for harassment, threats, or intimidation, unless constitutionally protected.
@MYOS1634 “Go burn K” is crossing over into a true threat of imminent criminal action, especially if K is a real person or place nearby, so that is presumably not protected.
Thanks for explaining this in plain English (the Leonard law as explained on the Student press law center website is confusing, it’s very abstract)… but “unless constitutionally protected” confuses me (hence my post). Is intimidation in or out of the classroom protected? It sounds like it isn’t but then why add “unless constitutionally protected”?
@Corithian: In that example, “k” meant a slur I won’t type, not a specific name or place, paralleling the previous sentence. In your opinion does that change your appreciation that it crosses the line?
In my opinion, it meets the definition of direct threat and so is it correct to infer that if it does create a hostile learning environment it’s not protected speech? Where does a meme fit?
Therefore, a joke is protected but not everything is protected on campus.
Which leads to: how is posting this on someone’s door/wall different from posting it on their Facebook wall?
How is posting this in a common hallway in a dorm different from posting this on a student forum?
I think “online life” (digital inprint, internet privacy) and the recrudescence of issues related to online freedom of speech are interesting, but I really don’t think things are as cut and dry as it’s been for spoken speech because there isn’t as much jurisprudence on this type of speech.
It’s a no-win situation for Pomona though.
So, to summarize: if the memes are general they’re protected speech, but if they’re directed at someone or something/are place-specific, they’re not; if said to someone’s face they wouldn’t be protected speech, but if posted online they are?
Talked to my kid, who just graduated from a 5C school. The “Claremont Independent” is a fairly right wing campus paper (primarily CMC). She thinks the writer got fired for bringing this to light.