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Answer Hate Speech With Education

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Even though younger whites were more optimistic than their elders about racial progress, they also were just as conservative in their views of whether racial prejudice against whites, for example, is as much or more of a problem than racial prejudice against minorities.

Among African-Americans Piston found a different surprise: evidence that young blacks are more racially conservative than their parents in being less likely to support government aid to minorities.

OU President David Boren's heart was in the right place when he moved quickly and decisively, but I would prefer that he and other college administrators keep their heads about the method of punishment in such matters.

Boren, a former Democratic senator from Oklahoma, sent a bold and important message when he shut down the SAE house and expelled two of the offending students.

But instead of settling the matter as he might have hoped, his action quickly triggered the equally well-tuned reflexes of organized backlash.

The fraternity intends to take legal action and First Amendment experts say they have a good case. As organs of government, public universities in particular are barred from infringing on speech and other freedoms.

In his statement to the students, Boren said, "You will be expelled because of your leadership role in leading a racist and exclusionary chant which has created a hostile educational environment for others."

 

Yet, as we have seen in recent debates about whether "trigger warnings" should be given to students before assigning, for example, Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" with its frequent use of the N-word, one person's "hostile educational environment" can be another person's perfectly reasonable topic for discussion.

As First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh of UCLA School of Law blogs in the Washington Post, harsh punishments can lead to "censorship envy." If expulsion is an acceptable penalty for people who express racist views about blacks, for example, why would other students not be justified in calling for expulsion of students who express views that seem to express sexism, anti-Semitism or some other hostile attitude?

Colleges should be a place for education, not just condemnation. Before we rush to punish young people for their bad attitudes, we need to take a closer look at where those attitudes come from and what can be done to improve them.

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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.


(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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