Penn State Chi O Under Investigation
 

Another example as to watch what one puts on social media sites.

I am all for theme parties but not disrespecting someones culture. I myself did not mind the sombreros and sarapes but the signs they have are completely ignorant and I take it as racially insensitive. Having family that has been killed in Mexico within the last 3 years due to drug war just makes even worse.

http://onwardstate.com/2012/12/04/pe...-photograph-2/

No, the lesson here is NOT TO BE RACIST. Keeping it off Twitter doesn't suddenly make it okay (I know that you wouldn't think it was, I'm just saying that this stuff shouldn't happen privately, either).

Interesting that Panhellenic would be considering suspending the group over speech. Is Panhellenic a private organization or is it sponsored and somewhat controlled by the school?

I don't really agree with an umbrella punishing the chapter or anyone but Chi Omega taking punitive action here. In fact, if they do so, they'd possibly be violating Chi Omega's civil rights.

University speech codes are very arguably unconstitutional as are any codes which would be promulgated by student life or even possibly Panhellenic depending on how it's organized.

Not only are these girls obviously being racist, they seem as if they don't see anything wrong with it. They're all smiling and happy in the pictures.. :/

Kevin - questions:

1) University Student Code of Conduct: would that regulate this behavior?

2) Do not believe that Panhellenic should be disciplining (think this is addressed in the NPC Green Book), but would there be a Greek Judicial Standards Board (or something of the sort) that would get involved?

I believe that many (most? all?) GLOs, at some point in time, have gotten a black eye over something, and I'm going to say, once again, there but for the grace of God go you and I. It could be any group on any given day - who can say for sure? This will be handled internally through the appropriate channels, and Chi Omega at Penn State will surely return to the values it espouses in its Symphony. Give time time.

(My personal opinion: for the love of Mike, keep it off the Internet, you fools. Sheesh. Does everything have to be published? Seriously? Good grief, people. It's one thing to be stupid, it's another thing to immortalize it for the world at large. But no, you guys have to photograph everything and immediately post it online. Thank GOD there was no Internet when I was doing stupid things, and we had to take photos with cameras that had film, and we were terrified to take the film to be developed, so we didn't photograph anything we did. Although I am not saying we made stupid signs, but we did do stupid stuff. We did. And anyone who denies it is either senile or lying.)

Unless Chi Omega, the private organization didn't approve, and I hope they wouldn't.

There is some very limited case law on student codes of conduct and the First Amendment, check out McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands (3rd Circuit), I can get you the cite if you really need it. In that case, the 3rd Circuit threw out several provisions of the Code of Conduct which were overbroad, which I'm guessing probably look a lot like whatever is in the Penn State manual.

I'm not sure I really buy that by locating at a campus, we agree that the University or its machina can limit our speech, no matter how awful it is. I don't imagine this will be a civil rights case or anything because I'm guessing Chi Omega HQ will come down harder on these ladies than anyone from the outside.

As far as "voluntarily agreeing to abide by" a certain code, I question whether the state should be asking anyone to voluntarily abide by a code purporting to broadly restrict constitutional rights and how that same voluntariness argument can't be made for ordinary students with regard to the more general student codes of conduct.

Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else see the issue with the author basically 'outing' one girl in the chapter? Not that it's not all publicly available information that someone couldn't get anyways, but even if I agree that XO was in the wrong, that author crossed some major lines for me

If the university wants to prosecute them, that's one thing. This is simply not Panhellenic's area. As far as I can see, they didn't say anything against another sorority or do anything to interfere with rush.

The article I saw made it sound like the U was in talks with Chi Omega, and that it won't so much impose a punishment as Chi O will agree to something to save face.

Agree!

And they are being total ASSHOLES. It is one thing to appropriate...I will cut privileged white girls a little bit of slack for not understanding why sombreros and ponchos at a fiesta party are troublesome. However, in this case, with the signs and everything, it is flat-out mean-spirited. They KNOW they are being hurtful, and just don't give a shit.

They do at my alma mater... or if they exist they do. Our student government allocates student activity fees to individual organizations. I'd hate to see, for example, the Student Communist Society or the Collegiate Black Panthers (or whatever) be discriminated against in the appropriations process because of the controversial positions they take.

Universities allocate those resources to Greek Life because it's mostly a mutually beneficial relationship. In campuses where we have university owned housing, fraternities and sororities actively recruit people to live in the dorms and typically pay more rent than the average student.

I really don't believe Penn State or any school should be in the position to ever punish speech. What is "offensive" is way too subjective.

It's an academic discussion really because Chi Omega's alumnae or HQ are going to come down on these girls like a ton of bricks. That's how things should work. This is an internal issue they need to deal with, not an issue external actors need to be butting in to.

On the "Trending Now" section of Yahoo's home page, #8 is "Racist sorority photo."

Four levels...
 

OK. First thing personal characteristics, I'm a Caucasian Male with no ancestry from anywhere that Spanish or Portuguese people ever controlled as far as I can tell.

As I see it the photo has four levels...

1) Sombreros. I don't think if the only thing in the pictures had been Sombreros that they would have gotten in trouble at all.

2) Serapes. A little touchy both in levels of authenticity and that they are traditionally worn by men, but the closest I can get to that is doing a Japanese party and having women wear Sumo belts. Perhaps insulting, but obscure. The closest female equivalent would probably be some sort of shawl, I guess.

3) Thick Black Mustaches. There may be some similarities to blackface here. I'd be willing to consider it either way, but quite interested in other's opinion. At least they weren't droopy at the ends.

4) Signs. Totally inexcusable...

So, if they hadn't gone all the way, how much trouble do you think they would have been in if it was only to level 1, level 1&2 or level 1&2&3 ?

I agree that these pictures with the signs are just ugly. I wouldn't even try to defend anything going on here. The signs make it clear that it's not all in lighthearted fun.

I'm also familiar with the "It's (or was it I'm?) a culture, not a costume" advertising campaign, and it struck me when I saw it that I think we may be going overboard with political correctness when this kind of criticism is too sweeping. Telling people to be mindful not to wear costumes that give offense is a great idea: don't get me wrong. But basically saying that all cultural costumes are essentially off the table is probably taking it too far. There's nothing wrong, in my opinion, with serapes, sombreros, etc, when they aren't paired with other degrading stereotypes.