Tabling of hudud bill threatening to tear PR apart

Posted on by

Rift within PAS is also surfacing, with calls for a new pro-PR party president to be elected.

KUALA LUMPUR: The brewing dispute between PAS and its Pakatan Rakyat coalition partners DAP and PKR may have a significant impact both on the future of the coalition and of PAS itself.

At coalition level, a battle between PAS and DAP with regard to the proposed implementation of Syariah law has been on-going for some time now.

That dispute appears to be on the brink of hitting a higher level with DAPs Seremban MP Anthony Loke yesterday calling on both PKR and DAP to take firm action against PAS if the party persists in tabling the proposed Syariah Penal Code 2015 before the Kelantan State Assembly this coming March 18.

The basic principles in the common policy framework of consensus and honesty have been violated, Loke said, as reported by the Malay Mail Online today.

The coalitions existing common policy framework seeks to change from a narrow racial approach to principles based on religious faiths, humanism, ethical and human rights, and equality before the law regardless of status, race or group, with policies derived from adherence to the Constitution and universal principles of justice.

A PR Presidential Council meeting last Thursday had asked PAS to reconsider tabling the enactment.

Despite this, Deputy Menteri Besar of Kelantan Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah yesterday insisted that the enactment would be tabled on March 18, telling the Malay Mail Online that there was no need to discuss the matter further with DAP and PKR.

We have discussed and it will be tabled, he was quoted as saying.

Refuting this, Loke said that Mohd Amar was being dishonest and misleading.

Continue reading here:

Tabling of hudud bill threatening to tear PR apart

A more tolerant America?

Posted on by

As the nation's headlines turn more and more to issues of tolerance -- race, religion, free speech, same sex marriage -- research by San Diego State University Psychology Professor Jean M. Twenge shows that Americans may be more tolerant than ever before.

In a paper released this month by the journal Social Forces, Twenge, along with Nathan T. Carter and Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia, found that Americans are now more likely to believe that people with different views and lifestyles can and should have the same rights as others, such as giving a speech or teaching at a college.

"When old social rules disappear, people have more freedom to live their lives as they want to, and Americans are increasingly tolerant of those choices," said Twenge, who is also the author of "Generation Me."

"This goes beyond well-known trends such as the increasing support for gay marriage. People are increasingly saying that it's OK for those who are different to fully participate in the community and influence everyone else."

Tolerance for different views

The researchers used data from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of adult Americans conducted from 1972 to 2012. The survey includes a series of questions related to tolerance of people with controversial views or lifestyles including homosexuals, atheists, militarists, communists and racists.

Only tolerance for racists has decreased over time, showing people today are less tolerant of the intolerant.

So why have recent incidents of racism on college campuses garnered so much attention? "A few decades ago, racism would barely have been noticed -- it might have even been rewarded," Twenge said. "Now it's noticed, and the consequences can be swift. It shows how much things have changed."

Tolerance by generations

The study showed that the biggest generational shift in tolerance was between the Silent generation and the Baby Boomers who followed them. Generation X and Millennials continued the trend toward tolerance.

Read more here:

A more tolerant America?

The Beast : Obama’s State Department tweets picture promoting Sharia law (Mar 15, 2015) – Video

Posted on by


The Beast : Obama #39;s State Department tweets picture promoting Sharia law (Mar 15, 2015)
SOURCE: http://www.foxnews.com News Articles: The Picture State Department Used to Promote #39;Freedom of Speech #39; Leaves Some Asking, #39;You #39;re Joking Right? #39; http://www.theblaze.com/stories...

By: SignsofThyComing

View original post here:

The Beast : Obama's State Department tweets picture promoting Sharia law (Mar 15, 2015) - Video

Freedom of speech or harassment? Fliers about hell posted in Lexington neighborhood

Posted on by

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Fliers containing a message about heaven and hell were taped to cars and homes in a neighborhood off Armstrong Mill Road overnight.

Lexington police say they are working to figure out if this is a case of freedom of speech or harassment.

The flier talks about heaven and hell but the message isn't from the Bible.

It reads in part, "But for the disobedient and ungodly when they die they shall suffer hell for 3 days and each day shall be like 1000 years of weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The message goes on to say, "You have been weighed, you have been measured and you are found wanting."

Investigators say they are still trying to figure out who left the fliers.

"We had several people come who wanted to discuss with us how to be saved and we said we werent interested, we had our own denomination and we are very happy with it and then this is what I woke up to," explained neighbor Dee Penrod.

Pastor Patricia Kennedy says she also found a flier posted on her home.

"You want to do a door to door or talk to people. You don't come in during the middle of the night and post those on peoples' doors. God wants us to be wise. So we have to be wise in what we do even in ministry," she said.

Kennedy tells WKYT that she believes there is a heaven and a hell. However, she says how she shares those beliefs is sometimes just as important as the message itself, which is why she finds the flyers left during the night so offensive.

See the article here:

Freedom of speech or harassment? Fliers about hell posted in Lexington neighborhood

Mexico journalist who revealed first lady mansion fired

Posted on by

Mexico City (AFP) - Mexicans awakened Monday without the familiar radio voice of a prominent journalist who revealed the first lady's controversial mansion.

Carmen Aristegui, a fixture of morning broadcasts, was fired by MVS Radio late Sunday after a public feud with her employer over the dismissal of two of her investigative reporters.

Her firing became the top trending topic on Twitter in Mexico, with supporters calling on users to unfollow MVS's account over what they consider an affront to freedom of speech.

Aristegui showed up Monday in front of MVS's Mexico City headquarters, where she was greeted by a dozen cheering supporters.

Vowing to fight back, she warned that her lawyers said her firing was wrong and a violation of freedom of speech.

Aristegui said her country "is seeing an authoritarian wind and an ominous sign of something that we have to avoid."

"This team of journalists is committed to fighting for freedom of speech," she said, adding that her firing appeared to have been planned well in advance, "with much resources and much power."

MVS said it parted ways with Aristegui because she had conditioned her staying with the broadcaster on the company reinstating her two reporters, and the company could not accept such "conditions and ultimatums."

MVS said the two journalists had been fired for using the company's name without permission in their participation in MexicoLeaks, a website created by civic groups and other media outlets to receive leaked documents showing acts of corruption.

- Lavish mansion -

See the rest here:

Mexico journalist who revealed first lady mansion fired

Volokh Conspiracy: Can laws restricting publication of preelection poll results reduce the negative effects of …

Posted on by

In a recent post, co-blogger Eugene Kontorovich criticizes Israels law restricting the publication of public opinion polls in the last few days before an election. I largely agree with Eugenes critique. The Israeli law (and similar legislation in many other countries) is an unjust infringement on freedom of speech.

But Eugene does not address an important possible defense of these types of laws. Late preelection polls could exacerbate the pernicious bandwagon effect, which leads some voters to support a given candidate or party merely because it seems likely to win. I discussed bandwagon voting in this 2012 post:

A small but significant number of swing voters tend to support whichever side seems to be winning, partly because they want to be identified with a winner and partly because of a sense that whoever seems to be winning might well be the best person for the job for that very reason. Bandwagon voters are unlikely to make a decisive difference in an election where one side has an overwhelming edge to begin with. But they can be decisive in a closer race. They can also increase the winners margin of victory, thereby adding to the perceived extent of his mandate. For these reasons, candidates and their supporters routinely project greater optimism than they really feel.

The bandwagon effect is an inversion of the normative ideal of democracy. Instead of choosing the winner based on their perception of what would best serve the public interest, bandwagon voters modify their perception of the public interest based on who they think is likely to win. Worse, these voters are often among the key swing voters who decide electoral outcomes.

Well-informed voters and those with strong views on political issues are unlikely to change their minds because of the bandwagon effect. But political ignorance is widespread, and swing voters (the ones most likely to change their intentions at the last minute) are, on average, considerably more ignorant that those with stronger partisan commitments.

Restricting publication of last-minute polling results could potentially prevent relatively ignorant swing voters from deciding who to support for based on bandwagon effects, and thereby lead them to consider more substantive reasons for choosing one party over the others. In Chapter 2 of my book on political ignorance, I discuss some situations where voter ignorance might actually have beneficial results. Perhaps ignorance of late preelection polling results might be another such case.

But to be really effective, such laws would probably have to ban publication of polling results for many weeks prior to the election, not just the last few days. Polls often create a strong impression of who the likely winner weeks or even months before election day. That approach, of course, would restrict freedom of speech far more than current Israeli does.

Even if polling publication restrictions could diminish bandwagon voting, it is not clear that the voters diverted from bandwagoning would choose better-informed reasons for voting. They might instead rely on a variety of other dubious and often misleading heuristics and information shortcuts. Sadly, the bandwagon effect is just one of many negative consequences of widespread political ignorance. We are unlikely to solve the problem by giving government more power to restrict the flow of supposedly harmful information to the public.

Moreover, as Eugene points out, late polls can sometimes provide valuable information to better-informed voters. In a multi-party system like Israels, the decision to vote for a particular party reasonably depends not just on the partys own merits, but on the potential impact of an increase in that partys support for the configuration of a coalition government. And that effect, in turn, often depends on the extent of support for other parties. For example, a given Israeli voter might be willing to support Party X if giving that party an extra seat in the Knesset is likely to lead to a center-left coalition government, but not if it is more likely to lead to a center-right coalition. Admittedly, only unusually well-informed voters are likely to make such careful calculations effectively. But such people can sometimes make a difference in a close election. And if the election is not close, then there is also less need to worry about harmful effects of bandwagon voting.

Of course, one can try to justify restricting preelection polling not on the grounds that it prevents bandwagon effects, but because some polling results are biased or even deliberately manipulated to support one party or candidate. But the same can be said for a wide range of other political information and preelection commentary by pundits, political activists, and the media. If the danger of bias and manipulation justifies censoring publication of preelection polling results, it can easily justify censorship of most other types of political speech during election season, as well.

View original post here:

Volokh Conspiracy: Can laws restricting publication of preelection poll results reduce the negative effects of ...

Done right, C-51 can balance freedom and security

Posted on by

Christian Leuprecht is associate dean and associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, affiliated with Queens University.

In debating the federal governments anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-51, we would do well to remember that there is a reason even Pierre Trudeau insisted on protecting freedom of expression rather than freedom of speech in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: unlike the United States, there was a broad consensus that we did not want to afford neo-Nazis constitutional protection to march through Jewish neighbourhoods (National Socialist Party of America vs. Village of Skokie, 1977). Similarly, we do not want salafist Jihadists abusing their adulterated interpretation of Islam to lure the unsuspecting back to the moral ice age.

Democracies, by definition, cherish the Lockean principle of limited state. Its intervention needs to be justified in an effort to advance freedom (and, subsequently, equality and justice). Life is the ultimate human right: It is difficult to enjoy your freedom when you are dead. No one knew that better than John Locke himself: He fled Oxford fearing for his life, only to return from his Dutch refuge on the same ship as William of Orange.

Far from creating a police state, C-51 is merely getting Canada caught up to the rest of the civilized world. Living thousands of miles from the worlds hotspots, Canadians have until lately enjoyed the privilege of being able to bury their heads in the sand. But globalization has made Canada as vulnerable to violent extremism as our allies. The difference is that most of them have long had in place the provisions in C-51 that have caused such heated debate in Canada: measures of detention that are clearly distinct from arrest, risk-diminishment mandates for security intelligence, more robust provisions to stop people from boarding planes, and very robust provisions for sharing data.

While controversy on C-51 abounds, all critics agree on one fundamental question: How can the government assure me that my rights and freedoms have not been violated? The question is hardly new. Roman satirist Juvenal famously probed: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who is watching the watchers? The government points to the Security Intelligence Review Committee. The problem with SIRC is it has (almost no) jurisdiction beyond the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

First, C-51 should extend SIRCs remit to be able to follow intelligence that originated with CSIS throughout the Canadian security food chain. For example, within the RCMP, SIRC should be able to follow the entire intelligence to evidence thread. To be clear: SIRC should not have purview over entire RCMP investigations that were based on or involve CSIS evidence. SIRCs sole responsibility should be the ability to follow CSIS intelligence throughout federal agencies to ensure that intelligence is handled in accordance with the law and the Constitution.

Second, the SIRC reporting process needs to be sped up. Many of SIRCs reports become public domain, but it takes a couple of years. Due to the steps involved, that glacial pace is unlikely to change. In the interim, why not follow the example of the United Kingdom: clear select members of the opposition to read SIRCs report (and the CSE Inspector Generals, for that matter).

The precedent for clearing select members of the opposition was set during the Afghan detainee debate. Since parliamentary procedure would prohibit this being done in committee, the opposition instead forwards to the Prime Minister a list of names from which the Prime Minister picks at his or her discretion. Rather than having to trust the Prime Minister, Canadians would sleep better if, for example, former Solicitor General Wayne Easter and well-versed defence critic and lawyer Jack Harris had a chance to read these reports in a timely fashion and corroborate that they are satisfied that Canadians rights and freedoms had, indeed, not been violated.

And by virtue of being sworn in as Privy Councillors, the opposition members privy to the reports would never be able to talk about them in public, or Question Period, anyway. So, the risk to the government of sharing this information is negligible compared to the benefits of added oversight.

Compared to standing up a whole new review bureaucracy or vastly expanding the scope of existing ones, the legislative fix for both these remedies would be relatively easy and cost little or no treasure.

Originally posted here:

Done right, C-51 can balance freedom and security

Tranhumanist CEO Wants to Help You Live Forever

Posted on by

AUSTIN, TEXASYou've seen Her. You've heard about the upcoming Ex Machina movie. Now, meet Martine Rothblatt, a transgender, transhumanist who wants to help you live forever by creating your own personal mind clone. If that sounds like science fiction, it is a fiction the board of her company, United Therapeutics, is sold onlast year she was the highest paid female CEO in the nation, earning $38 million.

Siri is just the beginning, she told the crowd at this year's SXSW conference here in Austin.

"There will be continued advances in software that we see throughout our lives. Eventually, these advances in software will rise to the level of consciousness," Rothblatt said, predicting that at that point, there will be no reason why the human consciousness can't live on indefinitely.

The core idea of transhumanism is that technology will someday free us of our mortal coil. The first step is creating what she calls a mind file. A mind file is a digital record that encapsulates your thoughts, mannerisms, relationships, and morebasically, it's a digital record of your entire self. And if you have a Facebook profile, according to Rothblatt, your mind file is well underway.

"We are living in a world where all of your life is captured," she said. "There is work going on at Amazon, Google, and Apple that is Mindware. It is software designed to process and recreate all of these inputs to create a consciousness."

Once the Mindware has its inputs, it just needs a robot to host it, Rothblatt said. Trust her, she's already done it.

Rothblatt hired a team of roboticists to create a "mind clone" of her wife, Bina Aspen. The mind clone, named Bina48, is a head and torso, albeit one that looks eerily like the real Bina Aspen. Bina48 is remarkably sophisticated for a home-built mind clone: she carries on a conversation, she tweets, and she expresses novel ideas. Rothblatt says soon everyone will be able to have a mind clone like Bina48.

"If I can do this as one person with a robotics team, what happens when we have 100 million makers in the world?" Rothblatt challenged the crowd. "What happens when open-source mindware gets put up on the Web for anyone to download?"

Extending human life isn't just a software problem for Rothblatt; she is also at the forefront of organ transplant technology. One of her current projects involves breeding genetically modified pigs to reduce the rates of organ transplant rejection.

"When we started doing this, the longest a genetically-modified pig organ could survive was two hours, and now we are up to over eight days. It's mind-blowing," she said.

Follow this link:

Tranhumanist CEO Wants to Help You Live Forever

Mind cloning, off-the-grid chats & ambient mobile alerts lead chatter at South by Southwest

Posted on by

AUSTIN, Texas As a plane with a Grumpy Cat flag flew overhead, courtesy of Friskies, the Technorati flooded into panel discussions and happy hour spots at the annual tech festival South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.

Top tech influencers pondered immortality and mind cloning. FireChat, an app that lets smartphone users connect via mobile chat even without a cellular connection, was another hot topic. Here's a look at the most notable trending topics Sunday at the tech jamboree.

OFF-THE-GRID MOBILE CHAT

No cell service? No problem.

An app called FireChat uses phone signals such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to connect to other users' phones and enable chats without any network connection. The app, created by a San Francisco startup called Open Garden, debuted in 2012 and was a hit last August at the Burning Man festival in Black Rock, Nevada, where cell phone service is scarce.

It links people via what it calls a "peer-to-peer mesh network," connecting through phone signals rather than a network. The range is about 90 feet but the connection can jump from phone to phone if there's a crowd. It's software-only, says co-founder and CEO Micha Benoliel. Currently the app supports public group chats and hashtags; private messaging is coming.

The app, which is a finalist for South by Southwest's innovation awards, has 5 million users and has been used by tens of thousands of people in India and the Philippines at political protests. As a new startup, Benoliel says his first time at South by Southwest has been positive. "The best surprise has been going to parties and having people asking how they can use FireChat for their event," he says.

TRANSGENDER AND BEYOND IN TECH

United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt, who considers herself a "transhumanist," discussed advances in "mind cloning" in a keynote Sunday. She said she believes people will one day be able to clone their cognitive functions, and detailed her biotech company's advances in cloning organs and making the process of transferring organs from donor to recipient more efficient.

Rothblatt urged everyone to question authority and noted that in other eras she might not have survived as a transgender person.

See the rest here:

Mind cloning, off-the-grid chats & ambient mobile alerts lead chatter at South by Southwest

Trending at SXSW: Mind cloning, off-the-grid messaging – Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

Posted on by

By MAE ANDERSON AP Technology Writer

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - As a plane with a Grumpy Cat flag flew overhead, courtesy of Friskies, the Technorati flooded into panel discussions and happy hour spots at the annual tech festival South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.

Top tech influencers pondered immortality and mind cloning. FireChat, an app that lets smartphone users connect via mobile chat even without a cellular connection, was another hot topic. Here's a look at the most notable trending topics Sunday at the tech jamboree.

OFF-THE-GRID MOBILE CHAT

No cell service? No problem.

An app called FireChat uses phone signals such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to connect to other users' phones and enable chats without any network connection. The app, created by a San Francisco startup called Open Garden, debuted in 2012 and was a hit last August at the Burning Man festival in Black Rock, Nevada, where cell phone service is scarce.

It links people via what it calls a "peer-to-peer mesh network," connecting through phone signals rather than a network. The range is about 90 feet but the connection can jump from phone to phone if there's a crowd. It's software-only, says co-founder and CEO Micha Benoliel. Currently the app supports public group chats and hashtags; private messaging is coming.

The app, which is a finalist for South by Southwest's innovation awards, has 5 million users and has been used by tens of thousands of people in India and the Philippines at political protests. As a new startup, Benoliel says his first time at South by Southwest has been positive. "The best surprise has been going to parties and having people asking how they can use FireChat for their event," he says.

TRANSGENDER AND BEYOND IN TECH

United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt, who considers herself a "transhumanist," discussed advances in "mind cloning" in a keynote Sunday. She said she believes people will one day be able to clone their cognitive functions, and detailed her biotech company's advances in cloning organs and making the process of transferring organs from donor to recipient more efficient.

The rest is here:

Trending at SXSW: Mind cloning, off-the-grid messaging - Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

Bulgaria-US Military Drills: NATO steps up presence in Eastern Europe to counter Russian threat – Video

Posted on by


Bulgaria-US Military Drills: NATO steps up presence in Eastern Europe to counter Russian threat
Over the weekend Bulgaria held military drills jointly with the US; the first in a series of exercises to be conducted over the next three and a half months according to the Bulgarian defence...

By: UKRAINE TODAY

Read the original post:

Bulgaria-US Military Drills: NATO steps up presence in Eastern Europe to counter Russian threat - Video

Bulgaria: Protesters demand ‘NATO-out! Bulgaria wants peace with Russia’ – Video

Posted on by


Bulgaria: Protesters demand #39;NATO-out! Bulgaria wants peace with Russia #39;
About 100 activists demonstrated against Bulgaria #39;s NATO membership in Sofia on Sunday, calling on the alliance to leave the country. --------------------------------------------------------------...

By: RuptlyTV

Here is the original post:

Bulgaria: Protesters demand 'NATO-out! Bulgaria wants peace with Russia' - Video

PRINCETON: NSA director says better balance needed between individual privacy and national security

Posted on by

The National Security Agency needs to establish a broader dialogue across the nation in order to better strike a balance between an individuals rights to privacy and the need to intelligently secure our nation, said Admiral Michael Rogers, NSA director and U.S. Cyber Command commander.

Its not me as director of the NSA that ought to be making that decision [to find a balance]. We as a nation need to decide what are we comfortable with, whats the right balance, he said.

Admiral Rogers, who has been in command since April 2014, spoke to an audience of students, faculty, and community members in a conversation titled Challenges and Opportunities in an Interconnected World in Alexander Hall at Princeton University on Tuesday.

He opened the conversation with an introduction to the missions of the NSA and Cyber Command, and his expectations for the organizations core priorities: obeying the rule of law, being accountable to the citizens they defend, acknowledging mistakes, and not cutting corners.

In the end, NSA is a group of highly motivated men and women who are trying to do the right thing the right way, but they are men and women. They will sometimes make mistakes, Admiral Rogers said. So we say, hey, if we make a mistake, we stand up, we tell the court we made a mistake, we tell Congress we made a mistake, we tell the attorney general that we made a mistake.

During the subsequent question and answer session, Admiral Rogers emphasized the need for the NSA to create more public confidence in its mission.

If were honest with each other, what is our confidence in Congress and the world were living in right now? Admiral Rogers asked. Not as high as we all wish it were.

He noted that after Senate investigation into intelligence community abuses of the rights of citizens, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which created a new legal framework of oversight for the NSA yet national confidence in the NSA remains low.

The very mechanisms, almost 40 years ago, that we put in place to try to generate confidence are now questioned by our citizens. Its not a criticism, its just a fact, he said. What are the mechanisms we can create that will engender greater confidence?

In response to a question about cyberspace deterrence, Admiral Rogers advocated for a proportional and specific response. He also noted that much of the current research about deterrence is done in the private academic sector and called on the Princeton community to help address these difficult questions for the nation.

Excerpt from:

PRINCETON: NSA director says better balance needed between individual privacy and national security

Posted in NSA

Column: The First Amendment and the Oklahoma Racist Chant

Posted on by

University of Oklahoma President David Boren has expelled two members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity on his campus for leading a horrifying racist chant. Does his decision violate their First Amendment rights? And if it does, whats wrong with this picture, in which a public university wouldnt be able to sanction students who not only bar blacks from their organization, but also refer to lynching in the process?

A public university is bound by the First Amendment because its an organ of the state. Admittedly, there is something weird about this fact, because a public campus isnt inherently different from a private one with respect to educational function and goals. Some strange free-speech anomalies can arise from treating a university like the government. For example, professors sanction speech based on its content all the time, by grading wrong answers lower than right ones. But usually free speech bars such content discrimination.

Discipline is another anomaly. A university is meant to be a community of learning, and making such a community work requires rules of decorum that are more restrictive than those that should apply in the public square. The First Amendment generally guarantees us the right to yell, scream, insult, offend, condemn and denounce. None of these forms of speech belong in the classroom, and few belong on a well-functioning campus.

In a perfect world, there might be a broad First Amendment exemption for public campuses. But there isnt so Borens decision has to be judged by First Amendment standards.

Applying ordinary free-speech doctrine, the expulsion looks unconstitutional, as professor Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law has pointed out. Racist speech is still protected speech under the First Amendment, no matter how repulsive. The fraternity can be banned for race discrimination, which is prohibited conduct. Speaking in favor of discrimination, however, is generally protected.

But Borens explanation for the expulsion rests on a different theory. He said specifically that the students were being expelled for their leadership role in leading a racist and exclusionary chant, which has created a hostile educational environment for others.

The important words here are hostile educational environment. Under federal anti-discrimination law, as interpreted by the Department of Education, a university has an affirmative duty to guarantee students an educational environment in which they are free of hostility based on race or sex.

You may have heard about this principle in connection with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex. The law has similarly been interpreted by Education Department to require universities to protect students against a hostile educational environment based on sex discrimination, including sexual harassment.

In the business context, the analogy would be to an employers obligation to protect against a hostile workplace environment.

So Boren was saying that the students are being expelled not for their opinions per se, but because their speech was a form of discriminatory conduct that would create a hostile educational environment for black students. Given that the speech was literally designed to inculcate the value of racial discrimination by making pledges recite their commitment never to admit a black member to the fraternity, this conclusion seems plausible. Removing the chant leaders from campus is intended to fulfill the educational goal of creating a nonhostile educational environment.

Go here to see the original:

Column: The First Amendment and the Oklahoma Racist Chant