Racism in Oklahoma: should the offending students be expelled?

When I saw the videos of the members of the University of Oklahoma’s ΣAE fraternity singing racist songs on a bus, I was thoroughly appalled. Not only were they singing about how they’d never have a black person in their fraternity, but, using the “n” word, they sang about lynching, saying that “you can hang them [blacks] from a tree.”  Apart from the lynching, it reminded me of my father’s experience at Penn State in the 1930s, when no fraternity—out of about 40—would ever accept a Jewish student, except for the two all-Jewish fraternities, the only place they could go. Clearly, racism is alive and well on campuses, as is anti-semitism and sexism. They’ve just gone underground, so it’s no longer kosher to utter these sentiments in public. When they become public, as they did in this case, disapprobation and punishment is swift. At least we’ve moved that far in society. The elimination of bigotry begins when it’s no longer socially acceptable to be a bigot in public.

In light of this overt racism, the University of Oklahoma expelled two students who were both identifiable and making the offensive chant. The university also closed the fraternity house, giving the members only a day to remove their belongings and find other housing. I found the fraternity closure a bit draconian, for it punishes every fraternity member for the transgressions of only some of them.

But I also find the expulsion of the two students unacceptable—on grounds of free speech. The University of Oklahoma is a public university, an arm of the state government, and as such it’s governed by the First Amendment. That means that free speech is permitted—even speech that is horribly offensive—so long as it doesn’t incite immediate violence. Those racist students were therefore free to say what they wanted without fear of punishment.