Seems practically ANYTHING can be construed as hostile, harassing, racist on a college campus nowadays. Which college was it where the student union removed the US flag from the lobby of the student union bcs it could be regarded as a symbol of oppression ?
Professor who alluded to physical force to oust photographer resigns post:
That’s beginning to look like a moot point. As of this moment, the Missouri police have plenty to work with:
@whenwhen I am referring to his expulsion of the two individuals, not the removal of the chapter from their house.
@Lasma. Sometimes it’s not fun to defend people’s rights. But non-offensive speech seldom needs defending. I take the First Amendment very seriously. I understand that it’s " gobsmacking" to people who don’t really understand how vital this right is to our personal freedoms. Although I am a liberal Democrat, as an attorney I will defend any constitutionally protected speech. I am Jewish with Holocaust survivors in my extended family. But my first work as a teen volunteer was to help those defending the rights of nazis to march in my hometown.
I have called for the application of First Amendment protections to the U of I professor fired for engaging in anti- Israel hate speech. I have worked on cases involving protecting flag burners. I joined with other attorneys in making sure the “black lives matters” protestors could demonstrate without police interference. I would wholeheartedly protect the rights of the students at Mizzou to protest ( though not to try to push journalists from public spaces). I believe the only way to deal with speech one finds offensive is through more speech. I am careful to separate speech that is hurtful/ hateful which must be protected from speech that is threatening or so pervasive AND aggressive and aimed at a specific person that it’s harassing and thus not protected.
I view protecting the First Amendment as a solemn duty. I wish more people understood that the underlying philosophy of true free speech is “I disagree with ( maybe even are repulsed by) what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
not even close. She resigned her “courtesy” post in the J-school (likely before the faculty would release her from that 'adjunct-style position and from further tarnishing their reputation). But she still maintains her faculty appointment in the Comm/Media School.
Apparently death threats have been made.
Yes, she resigned her courtesy POST. The article makes it clear that she retains her faculty appointment and the article title makes it clear she resigned from her “post” int he J-school.
Perhaps, but your post did not. (And anyone reading this thread without pulling up the NYT article would have likely been mis-informed.)
The alleged hate crime perp has been identified. He’s a 19 y/o non-student:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/11/some-at-u-of-missouri-on-edge-after-social-media-threats-of-violence/75559034/
@bluebayou, I simply lifted the language from the title of the article. I guess you could take it up with the author…
So when the student body president was walking along, and a truck full of students slowed down to hurl the n-word at him (not the first time this had happened to him), you don’t see that as hostile, harassing, and racist?
Who’s in the wrong here? Why do we place the onus on black students to just stop being so sensitive already? Why can’t white racist students be expected to behave like semi-decent human beings? That’s asking too much?
This is what Missouri Students Assn. President Payton Head posted on his Facebook page about how a man on a pickup truck repeatedly called him a racial epithet while he was on campus:
Where does Head confirm these were Mizzou students?
What? Why does that matter? Why can’t some white people behave semi-decently, student or not? It’s not as if racism doesn’t exist outside of college campuses, as any black member of CC will tell you. Why is it always blacks (or other minorities) who have the responsibility for ignoring racist hateful speech, and never the white perpetrators who have the responsibility for behaving like civilized human beings?
@LasMa. I think the point is that this was a message sent specifically to college students and says they can be disciplined for saying hurtful things. This is incredibly broad and vague. It gives the authorities entirely too much discretion in determining what is hurtful.
Of course everyone should behave decently! Sadly, people of all kinds say mean and hurtful things – all the time. A student may call someone else fat at and ugly That is really hurtful. A student could says someone’s political views are stupid and ignorant. That is hurtful. Etc. Reasonable people may think it is not appropriate to discipline students for saying such things, even if they are mean.
@Nycparent. It’s not a question of whether it’s " appropriate" to discipline a student for saying a hurtful/hateful thing. It is that it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL for a public college or its employees to discipline a student for such speech ( so long as the speech isn’t an actual threat or accompanied by other illegal circumstances).
Am I the only one who thinks events have overtaken the ostensible subject of this thread? There’s a photo of the alleged hate crime suspect accompanying this article:
http://news.yahoo.com/online-threats-heighten-tensions-university-missouri-085008275.html
Governing is an art. Where you have a volatile situation, as is the case right now at Mizzou, it’s not so bad if (a) people feel they can call the police to report racial slurs and other hostile speech, (b) the police act as if they could do something about it, and © people worry if they could get arrested or expelled for yelling racial slurs. Now, it may be, after you go to court, and maybe take an appeal or two, that the university can’t do anything to a student who yells racial slurs. (I am not so certain about that, by the way, but there’s no question that a public university could not punish in any way lots of the “hurtful” speech in the news.) But that will be months from now. The Constitution will be preserved and vindicated. But short-term, maybe everyone will calm down a little.
In 2000, the Republicans held their convention in Philadelphia. There were tons of protesters, of course, including some hard-core anarchists. The police arrested people liberally. The courts released them as fast as they could be processed, which at times was maybe not as fast as one might have hoped. Everyone was shocked, shocked!, that the police were cavalierly violating the First Amendment like that. It was shameful, tsk-tsk. The convention went on smoothly, without disruption. The protesters got tons of media coverage and great “my night in jail” stories (and, in a few cases, a small monetary settlement). The protests were very enthusiastic. Worked for everyone, pretty much.
Of course it matters whether the guy on the truck was a Mizzou student. U think Mizzou is accountable the actions of random people not associated w Mizzou?
Just like, am I personally accountable for disciplining other peoples’ children running around in a supermarket?
I have to wonder if applications will be down this year. I for one would rather not send my kid into a college that was having these kinds of problems.