Yesterday, the Yale undergraduate community received an email from Yale College Dean Mary Miller in which she announced the suspension of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity for a period of five years. This is Yale's official disciplinary response to boorish chanting that received national attention earlier in October. The suspension comes at the same time that the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) led by Assistant Secretary Russlynn Ali investigates the University as the result of a Title IX suit. The suit claims that the DKE incident (among other similar initiation pranks by a variety of groups) created a hostile environment at Yale that prevents female students from learning. Dean Miller's action represents a sad turn of events for a University that prides itself on its commitment to free speech and now buckles under pressure from the Federal Government.
(As a side note: the sealed Title IX suit also alleges that the University obfuscated cases of sexual misconduct, a potentially worrisome accusation. Because the public claimants have refused to release a names-redacted version of this section of the complaint, it is impossible to assess the validity and seriousness of these claims).
Like most Yale students, I found the DKE chants (which included crude sexual language) rephrehensible. However, the fraternity's actions did not merit the ban Dean Miller has imposed. Our society tolerates expression, even offensive expression, because we value all forms of discourse regardless of content. The pressure from OCR and the Title IX suit forced Yale to compromise its core values, one of which is a commitment to free speech.
Dean Miller's precedent in banning DKE for creating a "hostile" environment raises troubling questions. Who decides what speech is hostile? The University administration? The alleged victim? The Federal Government? By definition, any decision-maker comes with his or her own particular prejudices which bias the eventual decision. We distrust anyone censoring, and therefore should allow no censors. This willingness to ban "hostile" (as opposed to truly dangerous) speech is antithetical to a commitment to free expression for all.
Let me draw a parallel: As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, I find Holocaust deniers deeply threatening. However, I recognize their right to speak, particularly in a university setting, regardless of their views. I would not want me or anyone else restricting their speech. Rude frat brothers have the same right to make similarly incendiary remarks without fear of disciplinary reprisal.
My conclusion about the privileged nature of speech in our society is not new or unique: It began with the founding fathers in the First Amendment and was recently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court's decision in the Westboro Baptist Church case. In that judgment, eight justices upheld a homophobic group's right to protest soldiers' funerals. As the incubator and marketplace of ideas, universities have a unique role in safe-guarding this Western tradition of free speech. Dean Miller's decision to ban DKE for their obnoxious remarks undermines Yale's ability to maintain the free exchange of ideas necessary to produce the future thinkers of tomorrow.
OCR's investigation of Yale for violating Title IX evidently influenced Yale's decision to ban DKE from the campus. The University sacrificed the fraternity to please Assistant Secretary Ali and her office as they conduct their crusade against offensive (but free) speech. Indeed, Dean Miller went so far as to publicly release the results of a normally-confidential disciplinary hearing in order to signal Yale's compliance with OCR's troubling standards. As the Office of Civil Rights expands in size and scope, the Federal Government will intrude further into the workings of private universities, clamping down on any thought or speech it finds inappropriate. If the Obama administration can wield this type of politicized power over a wealthy institution like Yale, we can only imagine what it can do to schools less financially able to defend themselves. This is a true educational crisis at the collegiate level.
This week, James Madison went toe-to-toe with Russlynn Ali and lost. We can only hope that this serves as a wake up call for Americans worried about our nation's commitment to free speech.
It's possible that something precipitated the chanting and it mitigates to some minor degree the boys culpability . Having said that , even if it was the case that the women had done something to incite the event , most people know that you're still supposed to shrug it off or , at the very least , compose a logical rebuttal rather than resorting to what is essentially a group ad hominem . Remember though , I said "It's possible" not "I believe that ..." at the beginning of the this paragraph . I'm quite willing to chock this up to plain old stupidity and perhaps alcohol on the part of the boys in question .
Society evolves and I feel interpretations of the constitution in absolutes is not the right way to go. After all, this is the way of religious fanatics the world over. Absolutism has led us astray.
In this case, I don't like the thuggish behavior of the DKE students, but perhaps banning them was not the best way to go. You don't want to create martyrs and it does not solve the problem. I would have called up the mothers/sisters of these clowns and have them watch what their wards were up to. Maybe bring them in when a full fledged chant was in progress?
“Hostile environment” harassment is
unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that
creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive
working or academic environment and has
the purpose or effect of substantially inter-
fering with the victim’s work or study.
Hostile environment sexual harassment
can include sexual advances, repeated
taunts regarding sexual preferences, taunt-
ing jokes directed at a person or persons by
reason of their sex, obscene posters with
sexual connotations and sexual favoritism
in work assignments."
That's pretty clear to me. And if any "bros" can't handle those policies, they should choose another school to taunt other members of their community.
Free speech doesn't give the frat, or anybody else, the unfettered right to interfere with the rights of others.
Besides, the supreme court has ruled that there are different classes of free speech. Political and religious speech receive the highest protection; I imagine that callow frat boy pranks don't rate too highly on the court's protected speech list.
2) The school's conduct was appalling. It rewarded gangsterism and allowed threats of nonsense to prod it into suppressing speech. Rather than being an institution where even controversial and hateful ideas can be displayed, they ensured that their school was a padded environment where one needn't think too much.
That frat has an established history of *going into women's spaces and harassing them there*.
It's the difference between the klan marching down main street being jerks and them going to black people's houses, surrounding them, and being jerks. Main street we give them a police escort to protect their right to free speech. Tom's house we tell them to move along.
Or if you like utter amoral jerks like that horrible church ... there is a reason they are passing legislation to prevent them from protesting at military funerals. Their right to free speech is important but grieving family members don't want to hear people yelling that their child is going to hell and shouldn't be subjected to it.
The dorms and the shelter are people's homes and refuges. And yes, a rental home is still a home. If you stood outside my home chanting threats I'd be on the porch with a gun .. of course part of living on campus is agreeing not to own a gun. Not allowed.
You aren't supposed to need one because the campus is responsible for providing security for you.
Bout time they held up their end of the deal.
To NOT do something would be to reward gangsterism as the throng of men chanting threats are the only thing resembling a gang in the story.
One student argues with the teacher in favor of intelligent design. This takes up half the class.
This goes on for two weeks. At this point, you have only covered two classes worth of material and are woefully behind.
The teacher has the intelligent design student removed from class.
This is not a case of religious intolerance or speech suppression.
If the teacher were leading a public demonstration against a school board preparing to vote on teaching intelligent design, then action taken to remove the intelligent design proponent arguing against him in the same public space would be a rights violation.
Different different different.
And I imagine that there are conduct codes agreed to when a fraternity or sorority is chartered at a university. If that code is violated, the terms of the charter are violated. Yanked.
Fortunately, the Yale administration realizes that this type of behavior is tanking its reputation and did the right thing to shut down the club house of a bunch of overly-entitled, drunken, jerks.
Sorry boys, grow up.
If the DKE national organization had done its job in monitoring this particular chapter, they wouldn't have had their charter suspended. From the cheap seats, it looks like the national organization tacitly approved this behavior, which left the university no choice but to step in.
So I'm going to go with no chanting at all outside of people's homes.
However, unless speech rises to the levele of actual harassment (and I do not know the facts of this case fully) it should be allowed.
People have a right to say N-words go home in a public space. They do not have a right to post it on a person's dwelling or burn a cross on their lawn.
And this has nothing to do with "Free Speech" and everything to do with harassment and noise pollution.
Nobody forced the frat boys to go to Yale, and they are still free to go to your house and chant. I'm sure you won't mind.
There are protected classes of people in our country and the supremes have very clearly stated that in instances of discrimination against those classes strict scrutiny must apply. That means the minority or underrepresented group gets the benefit of the doubt. Read the longer piece by a Yale prof about this case before you judge the outcome.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claire-gordon/yale-sexual-harassment-title-ix_b_843273.html#comments