Alabama Student Expelled For Online Racist Comments

Lord Coke

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Recently a federal judge recently found that expulsion for online racist speech that is not targeted at other individual students violates the first amendment. The conduct here is identical except the other case was about high school students and in Berkeley. I think this girl has a lawsuit if she wants it. I have viewed the content of her social media video and she does not target any student or faculty member. Rather she proclaims her right to use the n word and makes some generalized derogatory comments about African Americans. I am not sure whether the rant violates forum rules so I am not linking to it but you can look it up on youtube. This country is going to need to have a real conversation about free speech in the near future. I hope she pursues litigation because she has a good claim and it is abhorrent for a government entity to penalize someone for making a statement that in essence asserts that this woman has the right to use provocative lanuage.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harley...school-after-posting-video-using-racial-slur/
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. --
A University of Alabama student repeatedly used a racial slur in videos posted on social media, prompting immediate condemnation from school officials and her apparent expulsion Wednesday. A video of the former student using the n-word multiple times went viral on Martin Luther King Day this past Monday, prompting a protest on UA's campus that was organized on Wednesday, CBS Birmingham affiliate WIAT reports.

University President Stuart R. Bell called the videos "highly offensive and deeply hurtful," and said the student, Haley Barber, is "no longer enrolled here."

"We hold our students to much higher standards, and we apologize to everyone who has seen the videos and been hurt by this hateful, ignorant and offensive behavior," Bell said in a statement.

The videos, in which Barber repeatedly uses a racial slur for African-Americans, were first posted on a private Instagram account, but recordings of the posts became widely shared on social media and brought to the attention of school administrators.

Barber told the New York Post that her actions were wrong.

"I don't know what to do and I feel horrible," she was quoted by the paper as saying. "There's just no excuse for what I did."

Barber did not respond to a request for comment The Associated Press sent to her university email account.

The 19-year-old told the newspaper she had been expelled from the university and was returning home to New Jersey. The university would not confirm her expulsion. Spokesman Chris Bryant told the AP he could "only provide directory information, and this student is no longer enrolled."

In the first Instagram video, Barber says, "I love how I act like I love black people because I ... hate ... ." In a second expletive-filled video responding to criticism, she says she'll use the word "as much as I want."

"I don't care if it's Martin Luther King Day," she says before saying the slur again and again. She then says she will use the slur "as much as I want" noting she is both from New Jersey and, "I'm in the South now."

The videos were first reported by al.com.

Barber identified herself in the videos as a member of Alpha Phi sorority and said she had wanted to be in the sorority since high school. Linda Kahangi, executive director of Alpha Phi, said Wednesday that the student "is no longer a member of Alpha Phi."

"Alpha Phi is a diverse, values-based organization and condemns the language and opinions in these videos," Kang wrote in an email response to a query from the AP. "They are offensive and hateful to both our own members and to other members of the Greek and campus community."

In the videos, Barber referred to the Instagram account she was using as her "finsta," a made-up word meaning "fake Instagram," a secondary account that some Instagram users create to share certain posts with a select number of people.

Someone made a screen recording of the post and shared it publicly.

In 1963, the University of Alabama gained notoriety when then-Gov. George C. Wallace infamously stood in a schoolhouse door to protest the enrollment of African American students. Wallace relented under pressure from President John F. Kennedy's administration.

The university's Greek organizations were segregated by race from 1963 until 2013, when 11 African American students and three students from other minority groups received bids, or invitations, to join a historically white sorority.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
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Yeah thats dumb. So what if you don't like what she says, she's not hurting anything but feelings. Sue the school though i wish she would just sue for re-admittance instead of some ridiculous monetary payout.
 
This student is a piece of shit, and I won't shed a tear for her.

But I agree with your opinion that it probably violates her First Amendment right, as it is a public school. She'll be more hated than Becky with the Bad Grades if she pursues it, though. And I sympathize with the school administration, as it is in their interest in maintaining a functional atmosphere of learning to root out racists like this.
 
Typical yankee carpetbagger heading south and spreading their racist hateful ways where they aren’t wanted.
 
This student is a piece of shit, and I won't shed a tear for her.

But I agree with your opinion that it probably violates her First Amendment right, as it is a public school. She'll be more hated than Becky with the Bad Grades if she pursues it, though.

"I don't know what to do and I feel horrible," she was quoted by the paper as saying. "There's just no excuse for what I did."

- I kind of feel her, but, for a real mea culpa she should really look at why she felt a need to "rebel" and toss around bad words about racial groups.

She still has all the time she needs to turn her mind around.
 
This is a tricky one.
First it is a public school, so she should have freedom of speech, no matter how offensive. I think she is a piece of shit but she can voice her opinions. If it was a private school well they could easily throw her out and it would not be a freedom of speech issue.
The card the University can play is every University has a code of conduct. I am sure being racist is a violation of said code of conduct.
 
"I don't know what to do and I feel horrible," she was quoted by the paper as saying. "There's just no excuse for what I did."

- I kind of feel her, but, for a real mea culpa she should really look at why she felt a need to "rebel" and toss around bad words about racial groups.

She still has all the time she needs to turn her mind around.

Holy shit, I just watched the actual video and had to turn it off half-way through.

What an awful human being, "I don't care if it's MLK day! I'm in the South now, bitch, so I can say it as much as I want: n*****, n*****, n*****!"
 
Holy shit, I just watched the actual video and had to turn it off half-way through.

What an awful human being, "I don't care if it's MLK day! I'm in the South now, bitch, so I can say it as much as I want: n*****, n*****, n*****!"
Is it the word itself that bugs you or a white person saying it?
 
Holy shit, I just watched the actual video and had to turn it off half-way through.

What an awful human being, "I don't care if it's MLK day! I'm in the South now, bitch, so I can say it as much as I want: n*****, n*****, n*****!"

She comes across as a entitled racist bitch don't get me wrong.
 
Is it the word itself that bugs you or a white person saying it?

Listen to it. Its not just her use of the word that is offensive at least to me I can't speak for Trotsky. It is her demeanor. She is every entitled sorority girl plus a lot of racism as well. That said unoffensive speech does not need to be protected.
 
Listen to it. Its not just her use of the word that is offensive at least to me I can't speak for Trotsky. It is her demeanor. She is every entitled sorority girl plus a lot of racism as well. That said unoffensive speech does not need to be protected.

If she had kept the demeanor but didn't drop n-bombs do you think she would have been kicked out of school?
 
Recently a federal judge recently found that expulsion for racist speech that is not targeted at other individual students violates the first amendment. The conduct here is identical except the other case was about high school students and in Berkeley. I think this girl has a lawsuit if she wants it. I am not sure whether the rant violates forum rules so I am not linking to it but you can look it up on youtube.

One thing that I do wonder is whether the compelling interest of the school will be given higher deference since, unlike a public school that is based on where one lives, this doesn't deprive the citizen of access to education in any meaningful way, since she was a transplant student and can go to any number of other schools, even ones in the South where her values are apparently so much more common.

She comes across as a entitled racist bitch don't get me wrong.

Haha, no worries. I can speak about the law objectively, and I can appreciate that you are as well.

Is it the word itself that bugs you or a white person saying it?

Both. A non-black person ever saying it "bugs" me, admittedly, but this is much different than a white person just ignorantly saying it in a slang sort of way (n***a) or remarking on it as a political artifact (discussing the nature of the term itself). It's malicious.
 
It's the word, said maliciously. Context matters.
That seems so weird to me that people allow a word to have so much influence over their emotions.
 
You cant be racist in Alabama?

Anyways I think racism is dumb as shit, but then we also have the right to free speech. In my opinion the right to free speech wins out. Cant feel comfortable with any shit heads rights being trampled, because I don't want that to happen to me later.
 
One thing that I do wonder is whether the compelling interest of the school will be given higher deference since, unlike a public school that is based on where one lives, this doesn't deprive the citizen of access to education in any meaningful way, since she was a transplant student and can go to any number of other schools, even ones in the South where her values are apparently so much more common.



Haha, no worries. I can speak about the law objectively, and I can appreciate that you are as well.



Both. A non-black person ever saying it "bugs" me, admittedly, but this is much different than a white person just ignorantly saying it in a slang sort of way (n***a) or remarking on it as a political artifact (discussing the nature of the term itself). It's malicious.

It could because free speech as applied to social media is a new area. However the analysis as I understand it is whether their was enough of a nexus to school activities so that it is with in the scope of the schools jurisdiction and if so does the speech at issue cause a substantial risk of disruptions to schools activities. Substantial disruption requires more than mere offense per the Vietnam armband case, it appears to require speech which interferes with the rights of other student which makes them feel personally harassed. So something that targets a student which in the case of on campus speech is easily satisfied because a student which in your physical presence is much easier to target.
 
That seems so weird to me that people allow a word to have so much influence over their emotions.
The word stands for a lot of terrible shit.

I am pretty sure that most posters would get annoyed if someone started to verbally abuse their family.

-
As far the girl goes: I am going to err on the side of letting her stay at the University, because I always put Free Speech above anyone's feelings.
 
That seems so weird to me that people allow a word to have so much influence over their emotions.
Yeah, how weird that expressions of overt racism upset people...
 
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