The OU Debacle and the Case for Private Institutions
12th March 2015
Read it.
Yesterday the president of the University of Oklahoma (OU) expelled two students who had been caught on camera leading a bus full of their fraternity brothers in disgustingly racist song. Despite agreement from all corners that their behavior was worthy of condemnation, legal experts and First Amendment advocates quickly pointed out that, well, um, kicking students out of a public college for something they said almost definitely violates the Constitution.
“The university president wrote that the students are being expelled for ‘your leadership role in leading a racist and exclusionary chant which has created a hostile educational environment for others,'” wrote the law professor Eugene Volokh on his blog at The Washington Post. “But there is no First Amendment exception for racist speech, or exclusionary speech, or…for speech by university students that has created a hostile educational environment for others.”
As my colleague Robby Soave put it, “You can’t expel students at a public university for their words. It’s that simple.”