Comment & Debate
Charlotte Allen. Charlotte Allen: War waged on college fraternities.” Los Angeles Times. June 8th, 2011: “The hazing ritual was in poor taste, certainly. But did the fraternity really deserve to be suspended? Weren’t the “Dekes” guilty of, at the very worst, the kind of offensive speech protected by the 1st Amendment (or in Yale’s case, by the university’s 1975 codification of rights of free speech and expression on its campus)?[…] Furthermore, if the Education Department is successful, it will effectively impose a draconian federal speech code not just on Yale but on all colleges and universities. All students, not just fraternity men, will have to watch what they say and write lest they too become targets. The penalty for violating Title IX is loss of federal funding, a sure incentive for universities to crack down on any form of expression that could trigger complaints.”