STOP BEING SO STUPID!

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Of course courts have said there are limits on free speech. But if this qualifies as speech—unlike Kevin, I'm not as convinced it does—I don't think those limits would apply here. Kevin's argument isn't nearly as bad as you seem to think. Except, that is, as to the claim of offended students being "overly sensitive."

It's a speech vs. conduct issue, where conduct is not as protected as, for example, dialogue or political speech. Of course the conduct cases point to two other types of conduct which aren't protected. There was a case during the Vietnam War where an individual was prosecuted for burning his draft card in protest. He was prosecuted and it was upheld because of the government's need to draft individuals into the military, etc. (that's not a very good statement of the holding, but I'm going from memory here).

I think there was a similar holding in a case which allowed a municipality to zone in such a way as to suppress adult theaters and book stores which claimed they had a First Amendment right to be where they were.

Another conduct case I can think of is the flag burning case in which 5-4, the act of burning a flag is protected.

There's also a line of speech/conduct cases which state that any speech which is likely to incite violence is not necessarily protected (no yelling fire in a crowded theater).

And of course we know what Westboro does is A-Okay... It's fine to denigrate homosexuals, some might say, but race should be more strictly protected?

What I find very interesting about all of those standards is that in all of the above-referenced cases, we had speech which was intentionally used to inflame one group or another. What I find kind of funny about what would be the natural result of a "It is conduct, therefore not protected" argument is that such a standard would actually mean you can be punished for unintentional speech, but if you go out and burn a cross and hang a black faced scarecrow from a noose and burn it in effigy? The school can't touch you. I'm not sure I like the intellectual consistency of that position.

Then it's time for these college-aged women to grow up and learn that their stupidity and cluelessness can have consequences.

I've never argued there should be no consequences. Just no consequences from the University, since it is a public institution. I would imagine, ADPi's headquarters and local alumnae, left to their own discretion would probably handle things internally and happily issue the necessary apologies. The Latino community might protest in front of the ADPi house, there could be reputational consequences, but when we start letting groups of people punish other groups of people for speech or conduct which was just offensive, I don't believe that's a constitutional or even equitable use of government resources.