There is no due process on a college campus. There are certain situations, your job or school, where you aren’t promised or afforded due process. Also, these guys were on video and admitted to having participated. What more is there to do? Should they have had a trial? Free speech is not at issue here. You have a right to say whatever you damn well please and without fear of reprisal from the government, but there is no right to say as you please without fear of reprisal from your school or your job or the public. Free speech isn’t the right to run around offending people without consequences, it’s the right to run around offending people without consequences from the government. There’s a big difference.
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More likely Beamers. These guys are found in high positions in business and government throughout the Southeast.
Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow had a segment last night where SAE acronym is for Sexual Assault Expected. Back in my day we called them the “SnAkE” house.
Yeah, I called this weeks ago. The chant wasn’t a new thing and it wasn’t something that the OU chapter made up on its own. Time to shine a light into the closet and see what scurries out.
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Oh, geez…he’s truly been a champ on this, and lord knows replacing Inhofe with any Dem would be ecstasy-inducing; but I can’t help remembering what a thoroughgoing pain in the ass he was in the Senate in the '90s. Lawrence O’Donnell once said he would withhold his vote on Dem initiatives and when asked what it’d take to get him, he’d literally say, “I need to be in the center.” He literally, openly calibrated his positions to be precisely between wherever the Dem and GOP positions were at any given moment. Of course, too many Dems have done that for too long, which is how we’ve been dragged so far right all this time; but no Dem was more explicitly troublesome for his caucus. I assume it’s a moot issue anyway, since I doubt he’d to go back even if he thought Oklahoma were still capable of pulling the “D” lever for anyone, so I won’t have to endure the indigestion I’d get from rooting for him to win. Better he stay in a position where we can admire him for being a mensch. Which he certainly has been on this.
[Woah, sorry for the rant; “Senator Boren” is sort of a “slowly I turn” trigger for me…]
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Individual students perhaps – the organization itself, however, was openly stating an intent to discriminate (or even commit acts of violence). So I think he absolutely had the right to withdraw university recognition of the organization.
This is a state institution. Private colleges can get away with a lot more “rules” that challenge notions of fairness. But state schools are usually held to a much higher standard in taking disciplinary or enforcement actions against students. People who have threatened to judicially challenge expulsion under UVa’s honor code often get reinstated in order for the school to avoid a decision on the merits – which tells you how much confidence they have about it being upheld if really challenged.
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I absolutely refuse to believe they learned it on a national cruise. This goes against the values and ethics they stand for. They told us so!
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Well, then those guys are welcome to challenge their expulsion in a court of law. Not knowing what the honor code or university rules are or what they entail, I imagine these guys violated any of a number of university rules.
What percentage of SAE members are African-American? I’ve not seen any reporting on this. Anybody know?
Anyone surprised?
I saw the figure reported somewhere earlier today - nationally, 3% African American, 20% non-white overall. Which is higher than I expected.
Interestingly, the founder of the OU chapter in its present incarnation (it had been shut down in the late 80’s after a hazing death I think) is Indian-American. His take on this is worth reading every word.
But here is a taste:
I could say that the actions of a few are impacting the whole. But, let’s not kid ourselves. Racism, elitism, hazing, these all seem to be more systemic than localized; and, the culture needs to change, it needs to be overhauled, comprehensibly, and not just swept under the rug…for the few years following 1995, the Oklahoma Kappa chapter of SAE, at the University of Oklahoma, was a solid house, that welcomed men of all races, ethnicities, etc…But, that house of the 90s no longer exists, and apparently has not existed for many years. That being said, I would rather see the whole thing gone than have to ever be associated with bigots!
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Or Andersonville.
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Yes, of course. That’s what Boren said, too, as I recall. In general, holding institutions to a higher standard is not a bad thing. It’s the basis upon which the recent actions by the University of Illinois rescinding an offer of employment against a professor because of his tweets against Israel, or for that matter, Ward Churchill’s actions against the University of Colorado. As state actors they actually have to uphold the first amendment and give procedural due process when they initiate disciplinary actions against professors and students.
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Not to mention the issue of having served alcohol at the house and on the bus - as part of an official event - and not just to underage members of the frat, but apparently to those high school recruits that were hanging out with them. I don’t think the university will have any difficulty finding sufficient grounds for action.
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Couldn’t they have just come back with the Norovirus like everyone else?
Boren exhibits how it should be done. Great job.
The saddest part is that 20 years from now, these tools will be preferentially hiring and doing business with their racist fellow drunk asses, over people who are truly qualified and ambitious
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I don’t think your “free speech” speech plays here at this incident. Go yell the “n” word in the office of your boss and when he fires you, give him your “free speech” speech…lol
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You have a serious misunderstanding of the First Amendment speech right. The First Amend only protects us form criminal prosecution and state and federal laws prohibiting expression in public places.
These young men have no constitutional right to attend OU or any other college and the University is free to set rules of conduct and expel students who fail to meet those rules of conduct. The same as your employer has the right to fire you for this same behavior.
There is no ‘free speech’ issue here.
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