Syracuse’s Lords of Political Correctness Hunt Down Law Student Bloggers
Don’t get me wrong; Syracuse is a private university. It can act more or less like a dictatorship if it wants to. Such a place would have a hard time attracting students and professors, but some religious schools do function under very strict regimes. Nevertheless, that’s not what Syracuse says it will be. It promises free speech to students — its own student handbook says that “Syracuse University is committed to the principle that freedom of expression is essential to the search for truth, and consequently welcomes and encourages the expression of different and varied opinions, and of dissent.” The investigation into the SUCOLitis blog and its authors gives the lie to this assertion. But Lattuca isn’t done:
SUCOLitis is just another form of bullying, Lattuca said. He said a post on the blog about the current first-year law class being the best-looking and “especially slutty” was offensive. He said students should not have to wait until the blog becomes more extreme and offensive to take action.
So the authors of a blog managed not simply to offend but to “bully” every single woman in the first-year law class at Syracuse. Presumably the blog will next post an anonymous PayPal account to which these students can send their lunch money.
“The thing about going too far is you haven’t gone too far until it’s too late,” Lattuca said. “We don’t look at these blogs and say ‘Wow, this is wildly offensive’ until something bad has happened.”
While this is nearly incoherent, Lattuca seems to be arguing that if you suspect someone is going to “go too far” by saying mean things on the Internet, that suspicion should be enough to censor and punish them before they do “go too far,” right? I think I saw a movie about this once.
Assistant professor of law and LGBT studies Tucker Culbertson, also a member of Team Censorship, also points out that the blog is racist, or something:
One of the problems with SUCOLitis is many of the people it pokes fun at are “women or people of color” when the law school is “blindingly white,” Culbertson said. Those students who are most vulnerable should not have racial and ethnic slurs thrown in their faces, although derogatory names for sex, race and sexual practices are thrown around at SU often, he said.
I am pretty sure that in my reading of the blog, the closest it came to a “slur” was identifying someone as “Hispanic” or “Latino,” and the jokes didn’t depend on racial stereotypes. The blog as a whole was certainly less dependent on racial stereotypes than a certain George Lucas movie that I refuse to mention on principle. (Hint.)
But the students should not be punished for writing the blog, Culbertson said. Although expelling the students would be much easier than going through the remedy process, it would not be a successful means to handle the situation, he said.
“I’m interested in restorative justice as a manner by which not simply to defend a community but to make one,” Culbertson said.
So Culbertson is opposed to expelling students for being insufficiently politically correct not because it would be morally wrong, or completely insane, but because it would be too easy! Instead, he seems to want to put them to work, using “restorative justice” not just to “defend” but to “make” a community. Last time I saw people doing what Culbertson seems to want the blog authors to do, they looked something like this. While it would undoubtedly be funny to see Syracuse law students out on the road picking up trash, or whatever the PC equivalent of that is (maybe giving seminars on how all men are part of “rape culture’?), I’m still not persuaded that it’s an appropriate remedy for the “crime” of writing Internet parodies.
Syracuse has its defenders of free speech as well, such as Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech, and the editorial board of the Daily Orange itself. And thank goodness for them. But, as so often happens, it’s the inmates who seem to be in charge of this higher ed asylum. Nobody forced Syracuse to build a giant building with the First Amendment emblazoned on the side. Having done so, however, one would think that the university would at least have the shame to try to live up to it.
This is a serious bummer. The assaults on freedom of speech and first amendment rights generally are skillful and ingenious, and represent people who simply cannot tolerate independent minds. The enormous resources of major institutions can be used to suppress criticism and what it wrongly calls “bullying.”
“Bullying” is becoming synonymous with any form of pointed criticism, satire or parody directed at special interests. Dictatorships of the future will no longer need laws suppressing the opposition media, only laws suppressing “bullying.”
Several years ago I compiled a collection of quotations on this very issue. Entitled “Writer’s Rights,” a collection of Over 1,600 selected quotations on freedom of expression, civil liberties and individual rights. It’s available as a free PDF download on the web. Search for the title and my name.
Selective observance of “free speech” is no observance at all. Protecting offensive speech is, it seems to me, the First Amendment’s core intent: Inoffensive speech, after all, requires no protection.
I’d imagined that the the deep thinkers at a prestigious university — the folks who are, you know, charged with illuminating the “great minds of tomorrow,” would be able to grasp so simple a concept. Seems I was wrong. (It also appears that my assumptions about the Syracuse University College of Law’s admissions standards were askew, given the first-year student’s ignorant remarks.) Live and learn.
Still, if SUCOLitis had decided to exclusively lampoon white, male, conservative “geeks” on campus (or, perhaps, to unfavorably parody GOP pols such as Sarah Palin) no doubt the university’s law-school faculty would be “defending to the death” the right to do so.
“Protecting offensive speech is, it seems to me, the First Amendment’s core intent: Inoffensive speech, after all, requires no protection.”
Partially correct. Yes it is there to protect offensive speech….towards the government.
If someone walks up to you and spouts off about your mom being your first lay that is blatantly offensive and valueless.
Like the 2nd Amendment the primary purpose of the 1st is that we have a tool to challenge the government with.
Attacking someone verbally with no other intent but to harm has zilch to do with government or anything else.
However in this instance I am doubtful that many people were offended by the blog.
Do we really want to save money and put the entire country back on solid economic grounds? Closing 80% of the law schools would be a great start. It will take a few years for them to die off, but in the long run it will free the population to innovate and produce.
Why stop at 80% we seem to have a glut as it is.
And it is under this rubric of (un)’free’ speech which law profs indoctrinate their charges. The powers that be have deemed the Constitution a ‘living document’, a document to be twisted to whatever the thought police dictate.
To wit, the witch hunt against the purveyors of parody is the logical next phase.What next?
Simply, unbelievable, undemocratic, AND most especially, UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
Jokes and parody are OK if your of the correct political or racial persuasion.
I’m sorry,but isn’t the term “witch hunt” an inappropriate term that would be offensive to Wiccans and their families? Shame on you for being so hurtful. Now if you had said “Christian hunt” that would have been okay.
I’m sorry,but isn’t the term “witch hunt” an inappropriate term that would be offensive to Wiccans and their families?
I’m sure he was only referring to Christine O’Donnell, so that’s apparently okay.
This is not nearly as tough a subject as some persons would make it out to be:
The relevant portion of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has been held to “incorporate” the First against the state governments, runs thus:
So Syracuse University, which is neither Congress nor a state government, is, lamentably, within the law in enforcing a speech code.
The hypocrisy angle is valid. To proclaim a commitment to freedom of expression while enforcing a speech code is contradictory and hypocritical, especially since “politically correct” considerations appear to lie at the base of this contretemps. But other private institutions which the majority of conservatives would defend also enforce speech codes; we can’t claim it’s something utterly beyond the pale.
As in many comparable cases, the best thing to do about this sort of self-contradiction is to publicize it. However, the most we can hope for – and perhaps the most we ought to hope for – is that Syracuse U. will be shamed into removing its proclamation of absolute fidelity to freedom of expression from its handbook, in preference for something like this:
At least we’d have truth in advertising.
Could you enlighten me as to some of the names of the institutions intimated in the following sentence, from your post? “But other private institutions which the majority of conservatives would defend also enforce speech codes; we can’t claim it’s something utterly beyond the pale.” Also, do these institutions proclaim their stalwart defense of freedom of speech and/or opinion as part of their mantra?
Since SU has proclaimed it’s commitment to the First Amendment, their action is, utterly beyond the pale. That is the whole point.
Your analysis seems correct, albeit abbreviated. Unfortunately for Syracuse, if I recall correctly, there is a section in one of the many civil rights laws giving a private cause of action against private actors for violations of civil rights. Being both retired and lazy, I don’t feel like getting up and researching that (and the related issues), but I’d be willing to bet that these law students could find a Conservative Party attorney who would take that case on a contingency, somewhere in NY state.
Anyone who has survived the gulag of Politically Correctness at the University of Michigan can easily understand the brownshirts of Syracuse’s efforts to eliminate any form of free speech on their campus.
Children given the idea that they have power often abuse it until they grow up…or become law professors or their concubines that suckle off of the teats of tenure…. A good university at one time, Syracuse has fallen by the way attempting to liberalize (IE: lobotomize) every student that may have an idea or opinion of their own.
Syracuse University gets money from the federal government, through grants and through student loans. If Syracuse University fails to abide by the First Amendment, then it’s time to disconnect it from the federal teat.
Oh, and by the way, Syracuse alumni might want to reconsider donating anything until a thorough housecleaning is done and all symptoms of political correctness are eliminated from the campus.
Any private person or corporation should be able to limit freedom of speech on their private property, as long as they limit their punishment for violation to peaceful expulsion from said property. But when Syracuse accepts gov’t money (for whatever purpose), in my mind they lose their claim to being a private entity. AFAIK, only Hillsdale College refuses Federal funding of any sort…
Of course the internet is not the private property of Syracuse.
Now I guess a private entity could say that as long as you are here you will abide whatever we say you will abide and by being there you agree to such terms. But that concept of private property was abolished with “Whites Only” lunch counters.
Brigham Young Univ also famously does not accept any gubmit moneys, leaving them free to, you know, run the place as a religious institution of higher learning. Oddly, this causes them and their grads no small measure of DIS-respect from the media, from corporate employers, etc. Go figure…
That student advocate of censorship is not thinking like an adult, which I assume he is, chronologically. I can’t fathom the thinking of the law professors. Please, everybody, go read the trial of John Peter Zenger. Freedom of speech is not negotiable or quenchable.
you know the problem you have here, mr shibley?
the problem is that we are in the age of obama and there are so many of these outrages that are going on that yours is just another one that won’t work anybody up because we are now suffering from a huge dose of ‘outrage fatigue’.
In some people’s minds totalitarian fascist extremism is never acceptable, except of course to head off whatever greater wrong they think totalitarian fascist extremism may remedy.
Oh, yes, Syracuse is devoted to “different and varied” forms of expression as long as they’re not too different, or if someone gets offended by them.
Speaking of which, Culbertson is a profession of LGBT studies and I wonder how often in the classrooms and faculty meetings of that department anyone offers an opinion that is not in harmony with everyone else’s. I doubt it’s a daily affair.
You can make a community by having it be the sum total of free people pursuing their own affairs, making their own decisions, and negotiating with others. Or you can make a community by enforcing rigid standards and behaviors with penalties to those who don’t toe the line. Culbertson clearly embraces the latter–he and people like him will enforce a community and lord help those who have other ideas.
In its own small way this brouhaha shows what it look me longer than it should have to learn–leftist turns into authoritarianism inevitably because that is its nature; so to speak it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
This is not to say that the blog in question isn’t undoubtedly rude and sophomoric.
Nothing new here.
The annual student comedy show/gripefest (The “Libel Show”) my 3L year at SUCOL was particularly nasty and named names among faculty and staff.
Mysteriously videotape of it was never made available in the law library. There remains to this day a mysterious gap in the record, down the memory hole it went, without even the courtesy of a Soviet grade faked up replacement.
Lattuca is correct. Syracuse is independent, non-governmental bastion of fascists unbound by any law but their will to power and opposed to all dissent, criticism and ridicule of themselves. Can’t fault him for being factually wrong. Perhaps the NY Bar association can add a section on free speech and the first amendment to its bar exam. Then at least Syracuse grads will have to fake knowing the right answers.
Didn’t a certain VP get away with cheating there?
Our universities continue to surprise us with such episodes of intellectual cravenness. But political correctness has long been established as a social malignancy—one that seems particularly virulent when it appears in our law schools. One possible antidote is a book published some years ago by Jonathan Rauch, entitled “Kindly Inquisitors.” It is, in a word, brilliant, and its treatment of both free speech and political correctness is unsurpassed. It should be read by every matriculating student at every university—and law school—in the country.
Down?
Not for long: “http://sucolitis.blogspot.com/2010/10/sucolitis.html”.
Flail on this, Germain; you moron. When you hit one of us, a thousand others sprout up before your eyes.
A spirited response. I liked the ape, by the way.
I wanted to declare my 2006 Libertarian candidacy for US Congress in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District at the 1st Amendment Plaza at the School of Communication at Northern Arizona University, which – much like the SI Newhouse School pictured above – proclaims the inviolability of free speech from a colossal (and over-budget) metal sign. I was informed that no political speech was permitted at the 1st Amendment Plaza.
My daughter is 15. We’re beginning to look at colleges… strike another one off the list!
“But the [First] amendment does not protect the authors of the blog within the confines of the private university, as SU has its own free speech policies and does not have to adhere to the First Amendment, Lattuca said.”
I think I’d like to check with Hillsdale College for a second opinion on this matter.
Give Syracuse kudos for consistency. LeMoyne College kicked a student out of his Master’s program for defending the use of corporal punishment. Thought police.
AFAIK, my degree can’t be revoked for the crime of not following the party line, yet. We have to forgive them though, liberalism is a genetic disorder.
” But the students should not be punished for writing the blog, Culbertson said. Although expelling the students would be much easier than going through the remedy process, it would not be a successful means to handle the situation, he said.
“I’m interested in restorative justice as a manner by which not simply to defend a community but to make one,” Culbertson said.”
Reeducation camps! They aren’t “punishment” but “restorative justice”!
They should be denied any Federal money until they adhere to the Constitution.
Here, here … including any student loans or grants.
Just a little correction: It is “Hear, hear!”, not what you have there. Sorry about nitpicking but you are not the only offender, which is why I get annoyed.
But it was up a few days ago and I was able to read most of it (there weren’t that many articles). It consisted of patently satirical stories in the style of The Onion that feature some real names of students and others at SUCOL.
I didn’t get a chance to see the stories but the more private someone is the more protection he has.
Falwell was a very public figure, these law students are not.
Syracuse really might not be the bad guy.
this guy lattuca is going to be a lawyer. oh god! i just figured i’d say god before he passes the bar.
Just to be fair to young Mr. Lattuca, as the debate moderator said, “This event is not supporting any particular blog or any specific speech,” Suto said. “The participants in this debate do not necessarily support what they argue today. They are merely playing a role.”
I suspect that Lattuca has also seen Minority Report and understood the absurdity of the arguments you cited. Or he may simply be a tool.
I’d love for someone to ask this guy Lattuca about whether or not he is for or against profiling in airports. My guess is that he would be against and would strut around proclaiming it. I’m trying to wrap my brain around how its right to censor because it could possibly go too far and wrong to profile based on previously experienced homicidal acts.
Seems to me that SUCOLitis is a private blog and Syracuse has no business reading it, especially if the blogger so states on the front page in all caps. Trespass.
There is no First Amendment, or any other legal right for that matter, to publish defamatory material.
Falwell was a public figure, making the standard higher. The Restatement (Second) of Torts is unambiguous about this topic. What these people have done is defamation. Nobody has a right to libel someone else.
Your organization keeps saying that if rights end where one man’s fist ends and another’s nose begins, that critics should, “Show me the bloody nose.” But this situation isn’t unlike trespassing. I don’t have to show that you’ve caused any economic damage to me to get an injunction against you for trespassing. If you have harmed my land, I can get damages…but the mere act of setting foot on my property without permission is trespass. The same applies here.
The very instant a false statement of fact about a non public figure is published to even one third party, the tort is complete. That’s all the “bloody nose” that is needed.
If this blog were allowed to stand, there’s no telling who would believe the “articles” published within. Opinion is fine. Publishing a bunch of false statements about a bunch of young professional students is a recipe for disaster.
I don’t know what is going on at FIRE, but you guys really need to check yourselves this time. Defending defamatory speech is doing nothing to help your credibility as an organization. I don’t know who decided to formulate FIRE’s position on this, but it is my sincere hope that they take a look at this in a critical and serious manner, and stop making disingenuous comparisons to case law that does not apply to the facts in this case.
Tim killed 10 million people with a toothbrush on Mars.
Tim: Are you for real? Do you really want to travel down this road? But of course you do since acting as the thought and speech police is the MO of the tyrannical left.
Going off on some tangent in order to prove that there is no right to free speech was silly at best and absolutely Stalinesque at worst.
If humor and satire are off limits because it offends your sensibilities then we are going to be one very boring, sad and humorless nation. Fortunately for US you are losing and hopefully when we normal Americans take over we can thrust you bastards out of the country-for good.
1. The Second Restatement on Torts is not law. The various causes of action for defamation are different throughout the 50 states.
2. “The very instant a false statement of fact about a non public figure is published to even one third party, the tort is complete. ” Wrong wrong wrong! You forgot the most important element of the offense. In order to make a case for defamation, the aggrieved party must be able to show DAMAGES. No DAMAGES = no case.
3. ‘False statement of fact’ is a very vague notion. Opinions are not facts, and I’m guessing most of the comments on the blog were opinions, not facts. If the blog had said, ‘That torts professor is the most boring person in the world,’ that would be an opinion, not a fact.
Defamatory? Let them go to court, then, in full light of the day, and prove their case.
I just heard the University of Virginia Law School has repealed its speech code, joining William & Mary. Mr. Jefferson would be pleased.
Syracuse may be able to enforce its speech code on its students on campus or at school-sponsored functions. How do they expect to stop students or anyone else from expressing opinions on the internet?
Of course, if the neo-Marxists at the FCC get their way, “net neutrality” will enable such thought policing.
The neo-Marxists at the FCC will get their way only if we continue to re-elect their enablers in Congress. Please think of this when voting this Tuesday…and please do vote.
Two legs ‘good’, four legs ‘better’!!!!!
Yeah, they’re all for free speech and irreverent, even obscene and blasphemous, parody — until it’s turned on them. Ha ha, calling Democrats the Party of Tolerance is like calling Mohammadenism the Religion of Peace.
Excellent post, Mr. Shibley. FIRE rocks!
Under the Commerce Claus Syracuse University is fully regulated by any and all Federal Laws and possesses no immunity or exemption because students who attend Syracuse University do not attend any other university simultaneously, and therefore attendence at SU affects interstate commerce.
SU may claim that private schools have always enjoyed this immunity. However the Constitution is a living document that always reflects the needs and wants of the people. Put simple, just because a crime has been committed daily in private for a hundred years does not justify continuing this abhorrent practice for another minute, let alone another hundred years.
Tim I cannot believe you are continuing in this manner. If it is a matter for the court, you of all people should know, it ought to go to the court. To replace that, in essence, is to agree with in loco parentis when applied to higher education. Surely you understand the harm that does to our liberty?
I already explained many fundamental premises which you utterly fail to grasp and seemingly refuse to even contemplate. It’s embarrassing that your reaction to this is to post on their blog and link to the case page on FB with the title “FIRE finally gets one wrong.” You’re reacting in a shameful childish way, moreover I believe you are dead wrong. When they win this case, according to you, they should sue you for libel. Or perhaps we can find another student at your school who supports FIRE and get you expelled; you seem to think we can forego the justice system so long as college administrators are willing to take action.
Search yourself for the inkling any reasonable person would maintain that you could be wrong. Pose that into a coherent question & if you like *I* will ask Azhar or Will. You’re being absurd, especially If you honestly wanted FIRE to reconsider their stance. “Dear FIRE, I think you are wrong due to this ____ = my understanding of the law, what would make you defend such a case? Thanks, Tim” then wait at least 3 days for a response. FIRE extends that much reasonable courtesy to colleges in flagrant violation of the law. How could you be so tactless as to publicly smear an organization which has done so much for us, and asks for so little in return? I do not understand what you could possibly be thinking.
Ignore the “lies” and “libel” – How can a blog unrelated to school violate their “code of conduct”? Why do you imagine this case falls within the scope of the university’s authority? How can you believe that a blog can be “conduct”? If it is harassment, a school issue, how was a blog pervasive enough to disrupt their ability to seek an equal education with other students? THINK.
Anyone else find it extremely amusing and ironic that SU has a building funded by Sal Newhouser, and they seem enamored with ideas of acceptable speech? All this guy has done through his career is push these notions of political correctness into the minds of the so called elite through his magazine publications that are considered erudite opinion on the left. Now a school bearing his name is putting his ideals into action. Apropos if you ask me.
Do these schmucks know that the internet, by definition is a public place and not subject to any private restrictions anywhere except US law?
As in hello they cannot punish these students even if they wanted to.
Well it appears that “these” lawyers want it both ways; not a big suprise to anyone who is in the “law” business…S U Law school can be proud of the graduates it puts into your community if you want to pay them 500-1,000 an hour to take and “justify” ANY position!! Yes..the black professors are racists, the liberal professors are washed out hippies from the 60′s and the administrators are still the chicken bleeps they have always been. Of course they teach Constitutional Law to first year law studends but only selected parts it seems? I can not wait for the new graduates to actually begin practicing and spouting off their silly “brainwashed” views taught by their elite “idiots”…Just see how long you stay employed in the “real” world when you actually have to represent someone to protect their freedom of speech!!