Race Relations vs. Free Speech

[ITR_champion]

Recently, two students at my college played a prank. The administration decided that they wouldn’t recieve any official punishment if they agreed to write the following apology and email it to the entire list of students at the college: (I deleted the names.)

**Dear ********** College Community,
Recently a friend and I performed what we considered to be a harmless prank. We found the Black History Month display that resided in the trophy case last month unlocked and gave in to the temptation to make an addition. After reversing the dust jacket of one of our own books, we wrote “A Brief History of The Color Black” on the cover, indicated that the book was a prank, and provided our phone numbers as directed by the pranking policy to identify ourselves. While we attempted to make our addition as benign as possible, we were mistaken to assume that everyone would view the book as we did. It is clear to us now that it is more than reasonable to interpret our actions as racist, mocking, and disrespectful. We both deeply regret any offense we caused and will certainly never take such serious matters lightly again.
**

I personally don’t agree with this statement. Most people didn’t even notice the prank until this apology was sent out, and nobody I know, black or otherwise, found it offensive. However, this wasn’t the end of the dispute. Recently, I got this email from a friend:

**
Just another example of the silliness of the system: My friend J***********, feeling many of the same things as G************, wrote an email to DOS expressing his views. He probably was not as eloquent and he may have used the word “stupid” in reference to the settlement and to
the Diversity Mailings but, still, what was the administrative response?
PUT THAT BOY ON THE DIVERSITY TASK FORCE!
Yes, in response (retaliation?) to his comments, Jordan is now under the obligation to go to meetings in order to promote diversity here at ********** college.

Huzzah.**

In my opinion, this is a serious attack on our freedom of speech. The student who wrote the Dean of Students Office (DOS) was only expressing his opinion about the actions taken. Although he used agressive language, he only directed that language against a policy that he didn’t like; he didn’t insult any racial or ethnic group. Yet the DOS apparently decided that his letter proved that the student didn’t understand the concept of diversity, so they assigned him to attend meetings of a “diversity taskforce”. These meeting are frequent and will take up a good deal of the student’s time.

So the question is whether such action is acceptable on the part of a college? It seems to me that the college is not only enforcing an overly strict code under the guise of defending diversity, but also silencing anybody who expresses dissaproval. Although a college does have the right to limit offensive material from being displayed, I think that it can only be a bad thing if students aren’t allowed to express their dislike of administration policy.

So how does everybody else feel.

[SPOOFE]

This kind of overreaction (from the DOS, not you) reminds me of the kid that got charged with making terrorist threats with a paper gun.

[The_Ryan]

as directed by the pranking policy to identify ourselves.

What is this “pranking policy”? If the college has certain rules for pranksters to follow, it seems implicit that anyone following the rules will not be punished. While this sounds like the college is in breach of contract, I see no free speech violation. For the term “free speech violation” to apply, someone must either be prevented from expressing a position, or deprived of a right for doing so. If Jor… er, J*********, does not attend these session, what happens? Does he get arrested? I doubt it. The only way the college has of enforing its decrees is to kick J******* out, in which case he can sue the pants off of them.