Many people may find this disappointing. Indeed, punishing those who engage in offensive expression is perennially popular because it gives the impression that we’re “doing something” about the problem of racism, sexism and bigotry. In France, for instance, Holocaust denial has long been illegal, and just this year the country arrested more than 70 people for praising the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. France has put real teeth into laws that punish offensive speech.
Yet according to the Anti-Defamation League, 37% of the French harbor anti-Semitic opinions. In the U.S. — which, thanks to the First Amendment, has never banned Holocaust denial or hateful speech — that number is 9%, among the lowest in the world. While this comparison can’t capture all the differences between the two nations, it strongly suggests that punishing expression is no real cure for bigotry, and refusing to punish hateful speech does not lead inevitably to its spread.
Censorship isn’t necessary for those who are confident in the truth of their views. It’s a signal of insecurity and displays a fear that if an idea is allowed to be expressed, people will find that idea too attractive to resist. Somehow, college administrators are convinced that if they don’t officially punish racism, their students will be drawn to it like moths to a flame. But there’s simply no reason to expect that. Given the history of campus activism in our nation from the civil rights movement onward, there are myriad reasons to expect the opposite.
The solution to bad speech is more speech. And, as Instapundit notes, it’s not surprising that a Democrat doesn’t understand (or care about) the Constitution.
If it were a bunch of black students singing about “crackas”, would there be any repercussions at all? I seriously doubt it.
I think these OU kids overstepped the line of protected speech to violent threat with the part about hanging them from a tree. I do think the University would do better to have local police do their job first.
“Somehow, college administrators are convinced that if they don’t officially punish racism, their students will be drawn to it like moths to a flame.”
I’m not so sure this is the reason. I think they want to avoid the publicity, litigation, and generaly PITA such stuff brings
It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any blowback for doing this without due process. It’s interesting how college students are supposedly just very large children, yet when they do things like this, suddenly there’s “zero tolerance” just like some of the worst of the public school crap.
According to the survey referred to, Iran is the least antisemitic country in the Middle East and North Africa (though Israel wasn’t included in the survey) – less antisemitic than Greece.