University of Oklahoma President David Boren has shut down the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house, ordered students living there to leave, and expelled two students for leading a racist chant. These actions are a violation of the University of Oklahoma’s rules and, as FIRE points out, punishing these students is “almost certainly unconstitutional.” Some might wonder:…
Recently, news about a set of demands by activist students at Clemson University concerned about racism and intolerance spread like wildfire across the internet when a group of 110 faculty and staff published a letter in the student newspaper endorsing those demands. These students and faculty were accused by various conservative websites of wanting to…
By Bill V. Mullen Arizona State Ethnic Studies Professor Lee Bebout is under attack by a white supremacist group called the “National Youth Front” for teaching a course at his University called “U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” Lee was my student at Purdue University, where he earned his Ph.D in American Studies.…
University of Illinois emeritus professor Robert Weissberg published an essay this week with the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a right-wing think tank, in which he argues about the Salaita case: “The trustees are not guilty of violating free speech; their sin is cowardice in overseeing the faculty. They did not perform…
Ahead of the Super Bowl, an MSNBC employee tweeted that he expected that a Cheerios commercial featuring a bi-racial couple would provoke outrage from the Far Right. GOP national chairman, Reince Priebus, denounced the tweet as an inflammatory mischaracterization of the Far Right. MSNBC President Phil Griffin then apologized for the tweet, describing it as…
While Riley Cooper Was Getting Drilled, a College President Largely Got a Pass Earlier this summer, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper became the unceasing focus of media attention because while he was attending a Kenny Chesney concert, he got into an altercation with an African-American security guard and used the “N-word.” The incident probably…
It Might Be Coincidental to Your Hatred of Him That He Is Black. But All of the Following Expressions of Hatred of Him Are Clearly Racist—and If You Don’t Think So, You Are Either a Racist or the Word “Racist” Has Lost All Meaning The recent controversy surrounding the caricaturing of President Obama by a…