As I scrolled down my Twitter feed on Tuesday, March 17, I noticed the following tweet from The Daily Gamecock “Column: Oklahoma University wrong to expel students."
Hoping this was a typographical error, I clicked on the link and read what Ross Abbott had to say about this atrocious situation from the University of Oklahoma’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
The first paragraph of the column summed up Mr. Abbott’s thoughts nicely: “The chant was ignorant, offensive, intolerant, unforgivable and everything else negative about what many of us would like to think is a bygone era all rolled into one video clip. For all the awful things it was, the song should not be grounds for expulsion from a public university.”
First of all, Mr. Abbott, thank you for acknowledging the chant for what it was: ignorant and offensive. However, the second part of his paragraph threw me for a loop.
Mr. Abbott mentions the first amendment freely in his column. We all know what the first amendment says and does, but Mr. Abbott failed to mentioned one thing: the first amendment does not protect individuals, or organizations, from the consequences of saying those things. It is this very reason why codes of conduct exist.
The cases that Mr. Abbott cited hardly apply here. He suggests that the “first amendment of the United States Constitution unequivocally protects the freedom of speech, even the speech we don’t like.” This is not the case and the highest court has decided that Congress, states and possibly governmental organizations (as Mr. Abbott suggests OU is), may restrict freedom of speech if it is in their best interests. United States v. O’Brien outlines the rule and test.
Each college and university, public and private, issues a student code of conduct in some shape, form or fashion. This is done for several purposes, with the goal of protecting all students being paramount.
At the University of South Carolina, for example, this comes in the form of the Carolinian Creed, which serves a compliment to the code of conduct. The Creed explains why these rules exist: to ensure some type of civility standard at our great university. Any code of conduct is the foundation of respect, which the brothers of SAE clearly violated in the video.
At OU, there is a Student Rights and Responsibilities Code that all students are required to abide by upon joining the campus community. Solely on that video, there are several violations of the Code, including verbal threats and disrupting the order of the university.
The chant rose from the level of harmless to threatening. I can only imagine how the African-American students at OU reacted when they saw the video. The same code goes on to say that direct administrative action may be taken, which, in this case, consisted of OU President David Boren expelling two of the fraternity members.
Whether we realize it or not, students are a direct representation of their university and their organization. This was not a great representation of OU, and the members had to prepare themselves for what happened as a result of their repulsive actions.
If anything, Mr. Abbott, OU was absolutely correct in making that decision. A person cannot say anything without receiving the proper consequences. I hope this will set a precedent at other colleges and universities by showing that bigoted and discriminatory behavior will not be tolerated.
It does not matter if your college is funded by state money or at the hands of generous benefactors; respect cannot be bought. It is a university’s responsibility to protect all of its students. This was definitely the more appropriate course of action, and I applaud OU for taking a clear stand against this moronic display of hatred.