Quote: (03-09-2015 09:34 PM)Wadsworth Wrote:
Quote: (03-09-2015 09:24 PM)SHANbangs Wrote:
Quote: (03-09-2015 09:21 PM)Wadsworth Wrote:
Quote: (03-09-2015 09:20 PM)SHANbangs Wrote:
Quote: (03-09-2015 09:13 PM)Wadsworth Wrote:
Just so we're clear, what exactly are social consequences?
Other people not wanting to be associated with you? People who are associated with you distancing themselves from you? Those are all voluntary social actions by people acting on their own prerogative.
I mean, imagine this were another frat that was mixed-ethnicity, and you found out that some of their white members were singing some racist chant on a chartered frat bus going to a frat event. A reasonable social consequence would be that the minority frat members pushing to dis-associate the frat from these guys, or expelling them from the frat. If you're going to be a reprehensible human being, there are going to be lots of people who don't want to be around you.
Then why is action on the part of university or state/federal governments necessary?
The frat is associated with the university? I didn't see anything about federal government involvement. If there is, that's crossing the line. I have no problem with the university controlling which organizations it wants to sponsor, fund, and facilitate on its campus. If you don't get sponsorship, it just means you don't get its support - there's no prohibition on you starting a non-affiliated organization. Nobody is stopping you from starting your own kkk chapter in the collegetown.
Playing devil's advocate here. Are those universities state or federal funded to any degree? If so, those are public funds and the universities are not rightly seen as private institutions imbued with the right to make these sort of decisions for themselves.
But more to the point, if you believe this then you evidently don't find your earlier argument persuasive. You either allow individuals freedom to speak and associate voluntarily and accept and embrace what comes of that, or you favor some level of coercion from some governing body. Just so we're clear coercion from a central authority isn't "social consequences."
The biggest problem with this isn't that it's censorious, it's that the censorship isn't evenly meted out. These are the same campuses where white people are castigated for being privileged.
Let's take this point by point. If the universities are purely private (ie. no state funding) then my point stands. If the national frat is a purely private (ie. no state funding), then again my point stands. Sure, there are "central governing bodies," but not in the sense that they are public to the taxpayer - more akin to corporate boards of directors.
If the universities are not purely private ie. State-funded universities, that doesn't mean they can't control what is expressed on their own behalf, or associated with them. What, you think a state university is required to let neo-nazis form a branch on their campus and is required to sponsor them? You think a state university has to sanction all forms of expression associated with it? Of course not. State universities have discretion. Constitutionally, all they must do is clear the loose hurdle of "being rationally related to a legitimate state interest." Not having the state-funded public university be associated with racism clears that hurdle. And that's if you classify the public university as a government institution. Remember, being a government funded institution is not the same as being a government institution. The local public library is a government funded institution - that doesn't prohibit it from not carrying porn on its shelves.
The only time when the speech of these frat boys is and ought to be protected is when they are facing legal consequences. They are not here. Nobody is arresting them, and no government authority is fining them.