After racist e-mail, U-Md. presidents says: We fight speech with speech

[Yonx]

Source: Washington Post

The president of the University of Maryland reached out Tuesday to the campus community – horrified by an offensive e-mail written by a student – and said he would meet with student leaders after spring break to talk about how to improve the campus climate. Wallace Loh, in effect, asked for patience, as the investigation into the incident continues, while emphasizing the importance of free speech.

The e-mail was written last year but went viral on social media in the days after the posting of a video of fraternity brothers at the University of Oklahoma ignited a national debate about race on campus.

The e-mail, which a U-Md. undergraduate who had been a member of the Kappa Sigma chapter on campus apparently wrote to several people about plans for a rush party, had something to offend just about everyone: He used several racial slurs, saying what types of women not to invite, and ended with a profane, and emphatic, dismissal of the idea of getting consent before sex.

National fraternity leaders have condemned the sentiments expressed in both cases; Sigma Alpha Epsilon closed its chapter at OU.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/03/17/after-racist-e-mail-u-md-presidents-says-we-fight-speech-with-speech/

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He seems to take a swipe at the approach taken by the U of Oklahoma's David Boren.

[geek tragedy]

1. Welcome back, name removed! nt

[MadDAsHell]

2. I thought accusing other DUers of being trolls...

Subtly or unsubtly, was against TOS?

[Fred Sanders]

3. There is an unwritten DU Term Of Entry rule that some new posters are not exempt from being searched before boarding.

[MadDAsHell]

6. If that's the welcoming committee we put out I guess I'm less shocked...

That DU's new post rate has dropped 30+% since hitting 50,000,000 posts back in 2010.

[Fred Sanders]

11. Interesting you would know that....or care. If it is even so.

[MadDAsHell]

12. Simple math friend.

50 million posts over the first 3400 days, vs <18m in the nearly 1800 days since.

And as someone who lurked from nearly the beginning and watched this place explode in terms of popularity and talented writers, yes, I do care.

The fact that you apparently don't is telling.

[SidDithers]

4. ...

Sid

[JDPriestly]

5. Depending on the text of the e-mail at the U. of Maryland, the issue may be different

from the issue at U. of Oklahoma. At U of Oklahoma, the song was more than a racial slur. It was a declaration that the fraternity would or does or has discriminated against people of a certain race based on their race. As I see it, the U. of Oklahoma problem was one of illegal discriminatory action, not just of speech.

Of course, just speech that does not involve discrimination that is illegal is very different because it is protected by the First Amendment.

But a public university should not allow one of its officially recognized clubs to discriminate based on race.

That's how I see this anyway.

The situations are different.

[Freeze_Peach]

7. He called for the rape of girls

I would expel him for that alone, even setting aside the obvious racism.

[MadDAsHell]

8. Agreed nt

[Blue_Tires]

9. I don't see any swipe at OU in that snippet

You must be imagining it

[cyberswede]

10. ...