ACLU: Um, Okay, I Guess We Have to Admit the OU SAE Expulsions are Completely Unconstitutional

Oh I see.

Earlier the local ACLU had put out a statement reason calls "baffling:"

However, a spokesman with the Oklahoma chapter of the ACLU said it appeared OU had done nothing wrong.

"From everything we've seen it appears the university has stuck by their commitment to due process," Oklahoma ACLU director Ryan Kiesel said. “As deeply disturbing as what (SAE) has done, it appears the university is nevertheless committed to insuring all of their procedural rights.'"

I don't know what's happening to this country, when even the ACLU is getting behind Speech Purges, and only comes out against them when they're embarrassed into doing so.

I have to confess my own bad behavior on this score: My own post was similarly "baffling," despite this also being my pet issue. In my own case, I mistook the situation we were in; I thought the University was within its rights, so that the only thing to be argued over was whether it should do something it had the right to do (a fight I imagined, as I still do, which would be utterly futile*).

In fact, they do not have the right to do it, and universities are required by law, despite being private institutions, to administer questions of the first amendment with all/most of the restrictions placed on the government.

David Harsyani had the right position coming out of the gate. (As did many commenters here.)

Eugene Volokh asks: What's next?

Students talking to each other about a student group event about how Hamas has it right? (The Charter of Hamas, recall, expressly says, "The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: 'The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.' (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).") Why, that could be labeled leading an anti-Semitic and exclusionary discussion that, once it’s publicized on campus, creates a hostile educational environment for Jews.

Black students talking to each other about how all whites are racist, and white cops -- and maybe other whites --- should get shot? Again, that could be labeled racist and exclusionary speech that, when publicized, can create a hostile educational environment for whites

Part of my problem with that kind of analysis is this: It is idealistic, and departs far from reality. We all understand the reality we are dealing with: Whites are now legally second-class citizens as regards this sort of law (and many others), and no college would ever try to boot out students for the kind of "racism" Volokh discusses. Oh, I suppose maybe some explicitly, actually Christian university might try the former, but they'd be backed down quickly after a bevy of lawyers and newsvans swarmed the campus.

No, what we are talking about with these Speechcraft trials is more-or-less explicitly a tool for non-whites to punish whites. (Caveat: Conservative minorities can expect to be treated as "white" for these purposes, because Race Traitors.)

And no, that's not just An Racist talking. The leftwingers pushing these Speechcraft trials are admirably upfront about their belief that speech codes bind "Oppressors" only, and do not bind "The Oppressed."

There is even a claim made -- frequently -- that blacks are definitionally incapable of being racist, no matter how filled with racist animus a particular black person might be. The silly claim goes that Racism equals Racial Animus Plus Power, and as they have explicitly defined themselves as the powerless Oppressed, it is actually impossible for a black person to be racist.

(They ignore the situations in which black people do in fact have "power" over other people. But that's what silly ideologues do, ignore reality.)

So really the only realistic situation where this sort of unconstitutional-but-politically-correct persecution happens is against one of the "Oppressor" cohorts (white, male, cisgendered, Christian, etc.) for the socially hard-to-defend speech that upsets one of the designated "Oppressed" castes (nonwhite, female, gay or trans, Muslim etc.)

Trotting out "what if they do it to Muslims" or "what if they do it to blacks" is silly-- Muslims and blacks know they won't do it to them. These sorts of unjust prosecutions are nothing but upside for the "Oppressed" -- they are a wonderful vehicle for inflicting cruelty upon hypothetical Oppressors, but they have near-zero chance of being turned against "the Oppressed" themselves.**

Perhaps we need to change that. Perhaps we need to inflict as much stupid cruelty versus these things on the so-called "Oppressed" to achieve a Balance of Terror on the process, an aversion about it from all sides.

But that's silly too: Liberals in universities are not going to also bring unconstitutional speech prosecutions against blacks, gays, women, and Muslims.

I don't know. I have no idea.

Pretty much the country is lost.

* My crusades of late have been about situations where a company has a right to fire an employee (and a company has the right to fire any white at-will employee, and most people under contract, too), but which could be pressured, possibly, into not exercising that right. My thinking was, if a Mob pressured them to harass someone for his speech, another Mob -- a better Mob -- can pressure them into not harassing someone for his speech.

I thought, incorrectly it turns out, that OU had the right to do this, so we were in a Clash of Mobs situation, and I figured our Mob had no chance.

But it's a different thing entirely if OU actually has no right to do this in the first place.

** This mode of argument is of possible usefulness with Liberals. However, it is useless with Leftists. A Liberal might actually care that what is sought is a two-tiered system of justice and rights.

A Leftist cares, too, but he's in favor of that, explicitly. Perhaps there was a time with Leftists would lie about their objective; but they're admirably forthright now. If you tell a Leftist, "But you're creating a system wherein whites have lesser speech rights than blacks," the Leftist will say, proudly, "Exactly."

The media likes to talk about conservatives become MOAR XXXTREME; they never seem to notice that many former marginal Liberals are now simply Leftists, and that all Leftists have become more radicalized and militant about their Leftism.***

*** It is useful to note that "social justice" expressly means group justice, as opposed to individual justice; the very notion of "social justice" is intended as a corrective to the perceived perfidies of individual justice.

Leftism is exactly antithetical to the Enlightenment values of justice for each individual, the cornerstone of the liberal tradition (of which liberal conservatives are the most fructuous and vigorous descendants). Leftism posits that doing justice in each individual case will result in "injustices" for the Oppressed groups who are Poorly Served by Your White Man's Justice; "social justice" is therefore explicitly about one group demanding collective punishment of another group.

And the Left has not created this system so that they may be punished by it; as I already mentioned, they have a great many doctrines justifying explicitly two-tiered, race-conscious "justice." The "Racism = Racial Animus Plus Power" is simply the most well known and easiest to repeat doctrine. It's so simple, in fact, that idiots like Spike Lee can understand it and are fond of repeating its stupid falsity.

posted by Ace at 12:14 PM

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