Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Society

“It’s Okay To Be White”: Oklahoma Law School At The Center Of New Hate Crime Controversy

The Oklahoma City University School of Law is the focus of the latest controversy over campus speech deemed hateful. Fliers were put up around school that read “it is okay to be white.” The police were called to investigate the potential hate crime and Law school Dean Jim Roth declared that such hatred and exclusion “will not be tolerated.” The controversy however reignites concerns in the free speech community over the use of hate crime laws as a surrogate for hate speech laws. Hate speech remains protected under the First Amendment despite recent calls for the adoption of European-style hate speech laws by various Democratic leaders and figures. Indeed, that is the subject of my most recent USA Today column this week.

What is interesting is that police acknowledged that no property was damaged and the fliers were “not believed to be a threat.” Yet, a full investigation is being conducted to try to learn the identity of the person who put up the fliers “to determine his intent and whether the actions are a hate crime.” That sounds more like a pretense for a hate speech investigation.

Roth sent out a letter that told students and staff “[d]espite what the intentions of that message may have been, the message reminds me of one fact that I know our community embraces – it’s okay to be EVERYBODY.”

That point is of course unassailable. However, the question is whether the law school and the police are pursuing a hate speech as opposed to a hate crime investigation. Would the response be the same with a flier noting that it is okay to be other races? If not, what is the defining principle.

I do not like the fliers and would have strongly encouraged a student not to post them. However, I often do not like speech that is at the center of free speech controversies. We do not need the First Amendment to protect popular speech.

I have written for years about the danger of replicating European hate speech laws. Indeed, a twisted notion has emerged recently where the denial of free speech is being defended as an act of free speech. We have been discussing the rising intolerance and violence on college campuses, particularly against conservative speakers. (Here and here and here and here). Berkeley has been the focus of much concern over mob rule on our campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers, even including a few speakers like an ACLU official and James Comey.  Both students and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.  At another University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.  In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech.  CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,”  Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. 

Launching a police investigation while acknowledging no threat or property damage is a concern for free speech advocates. It seems intentionally designed to create a chilling effect on speech. Once again, you can disapprove of the fliers, voice one’s opposition to the implied message, and yet still be concerned over the police response.

63 thoughts on ““It’s Okay To Be White”: Oklahoma Law School At The Center Of New Hate Crime Controversy”

  1. The obvious question for anyone with a brain is: IF it’s a hate crime to put up posters saying “It’s okay to be white” then is it NOT a hate crime to put up posters saying “It’s not okay to be white”?

    HOW ABSURD has the world (primarily the progressive Left) become? The posters are a response to the insanity of the LEFT and Democrats demonizing Americans based on the color of their skin. No one should want to be identified and broken apart by the vile interesectionality of the Left. The small, ignorant, divisive Left prefers incite their base and blame people based on the color of their skin.

  2. I’m going to make a really blunt statement, and this one I’m going to aim at the managerial elites who just love to flood America with surplus population from the thirld world, whether it’s to add more cheap labor, or more consumers, or even more long term voters to feed the Democrat party.

    BE SMART– IMPORT ASIANS INSTEAD

    the long term viability of America will be enhanced instead of worsened.

    the following is exactly the WRONG trend if you want positive social results.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/02/28/international-migration-from-sub-saharan-africa-has-grown-dramatically-since-2010/

    seems like some other famous guy said something about haiti was it? “we don’t want people from schiessholes….”
    EXACTLY! WHO WAS THAT GENIUS? YOU KNOW WHO! ORANGE MAN BAD!

  3. I do not like the fliers and would have strongly encouraged a student not to post them.

    What an f***ing hypocrite! Your opinion of the fliers is irrelevant. You supposedly advocate for free speech, even speech we don’t like, but would encourage students from not expressing it? Because you don’t like the speech? Damn!

    1. As time goes by, I find myself being more and more disappointing with JT. He gives the illusion of political sanity but never quite jumps off the fence to one side, good or bad.

      1. I agree Jim. It would seem that Turley doesn’t want to leave an ideological footprint that would disqualify him from anything. That makes him no different than every pandering politician. What a waste.

      2. “So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Rev. 3:16

    1. The funny ironic thing about White Christmas, is that it was written by a Jewish man.

      http://www.irvingberlin.com/white-christmas

      “In December 1942 Carl Sandburg wrote the following for the Chicago Times: “We have learned to be a little sad and a little lonesome without being sickly about it. This feeling is caught in the song of a thousand juke boxes and the tune whistled in streets and homes. ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.’ When we sing that we don’t hate anybody. And there are things we love that we’re going to have sometime if the breaks are not too bad against us. Way down under this latest hit of his Irving Berlin catches us where we love peace.””

      1. True, Mr. Kurtz……and more than being a Jew, he was the most patriotic American composer of our lifetime, imo.
        Came to this country at age 5, from Russia, I think, and dirt poor. His dad died when he was young and he had to sing for tips on lower east side.taught himself the piano…and sold papers,I believe..He joined WW1…and wrote lots of patriotic songs. including “God Bless America”, and even though it was written in about 1918, Irving put it away in a file, because it was a very personal patriotic prayer for him. Not for the public. Then years later, on the 20th anniversary of Veteran’s Day, Kate Smith and a radio show were looking for a new patriotic song for her to sing . Irving pulled God Bless America out of his file. It had never been sung or heard before Kate sang it on the radio that year. The rest is l’histoire.
        Anyway, I loved that guy….He was just marvelous!

        1. ha ha most patriotic composer of the 20th century, that’s not a high hurdle

          definitely a really good composer thats for sure

          2. there is another song that ‘racists” have come to like which was in a movie you may have seen

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDuHXTG3uyY

            this song was written by a jewish guy too, but the skinheads etc since the movie “Cabaret” came and went, have covered it in their little bands many times. this shows they appreciate cultural diversity too, lol

            2. Mr. Kurtz…..do I know that song?!
              I put it on the outgoing message of my voice-mail when Obama became president……..and caught a teensy bit (!) of flak from my liberal friends.
              They were appalled……which is how I felt about Obama and his SS thugs’ disgraceful treatment of Texas precinct workers who would not click their boots together for him!

              1. well, its a good song, however you want to take it, satire, anthem, whatever. i am not puritannical about my musical tastes. i even like the chicom national anthem

                here is a cover of “tomorrow belongs to me’ by Saga a pretty singer from Sweden, of course youtube has it marked as offensive, just because!

    2. Is it that time of year yet? I usually start singing White Christmas to everyone I know in August…I started to, but then my good ole pal up in the MidWest was pissed when am unexpected cold front came into town.

      Claims I’m a huge weather jinx. Def not a weather jinx here. Nonetheless, this is a reminder.

      I will start singing it again.

  5. the good news folks is that the Chinese migrating all over the world and spreading their own money around, will lead other people to get a taste of far more serious “racism” than they imagine white people harbor, from a non-white, highly successful people, who at least in their own homeland, haven’t ever been taught to hate their own kind; and aren’t afraid to speak their minds frankly

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/world/africa/kenya-china-racism.html

    AFRICA
    |
    Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination
    Subscribe

    Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination

    阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
    RUIRU, Kenya — Before last year, Richard Ochieng’, 26, could not recall experiencing racism firsthand.

    Not while growing up as an orphan in his village near Lake Victoria where everybody was, like him, black. Not while studying at a university in another part of Kenya. Not until his job search led him to Ruiru, a fast-growing settlement at the edge of the capital, Nairobi, where Mr. Ochieng’ found work at a Chinese motorcycle company that had just expanded to Kenya.

    But then his new boss, a Chinese man his own age, started calling him a monkey.

    It happened when the two were on a sales trip and spotted a troop of baboons on the roadside, he said.

    “‘Your brothers,’” he said his boss exclaimed, urging Mr. Ochieng’ to share some bananas with the primates.

    And it happened again, he said, with his boss referring to all Kenyans as primates.

    Humiliated and outraged, Mr. Ochieng’ decided to record one of his boss’s rants, catching him declaring that Kenyans were “like a monkey people.”

    After his cellphone video circulated widely last month, the Kenyan authorities swiftly deported the boss back to China. Instead of a tidy resolution, however, the episode has resonated with a growing anxiety in Kenya and set off a broader debate.

    As the country embraces China’s expanding presence in the region, many Kenyans wonder whether the nation has unwittingly welcomed an influx of powerful foreigners who are shaping the country’s future — while also bringing racist attitudes with them.

    It is a wrenching question for the nation, and one that many Kenyans, especially younger ones, did not expect to be confronting in the 21st century.

    Kenya may have been a British colony, where white supremacy reigned and black people were forced to wear identification documents around their necks. But it has been an independent nation since 1963, with a sense of pride that it is among the region’s most stable democracies.

    Today, many younger Kenyans say that racism is a phenomenon they largely know indirectly, through history lessons and foreign news. But episodes involving discriminatory behavior by the region’s growing Chinese work force have unsettled many Kenyans, particularly at a time when their government seeks closer ties with China.

  6. The author of this piece is part of the problem. By condemning the message of “it’s okay to be white,” he feeds into the anti-white hysteria. If Turley really cared about free speech, he would endorse IOTBW as a fine and righteous sentiment, with no caveats.

    1. https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

      get an eyefull of the reality of racial differences folks. these are facts, just facts.

      hate? if I say asians have higher iqs as a group, does that mean I hate white people? of course not. im just stating a fact. it’s not hate to say blacks have lower scores than both racial groups either. just stating facts. no more than saying that black kids can run the 100 yard dash faster, on the average. a fact any ten year old in an integrated school knows from experience!

      nor does it mean any one person is smarter or not. but the American cultural emphasis on individualism is such that people are scared to identify groups and their differences.

      the WHY of that is because from day one, American culture was guided by rich men who understood that by selling the dream of equality, they could conceal their own inequality.

      but what can be done about this? the most extreme and brutal communist methods in the USSR and PRC could not eradicate human differences, so we can’t either. might as well get used to GROUPS and GROUP DIFFERENCES

      whether it complies with politically correct ideology or not.

  7. And this is how the modern left caused my entire lefty, East coast family to leave the left. The modern left is now the enemy of the people.

  8. “I do not like the fliers and would have strongly encouraged a student not to post them.”
    **************
    The more interesting question is what is not to like about the flyers if they display a truism. It’s certainly okay to be any race or nationality so why discourage it. Why would that simple statement cause any consternation unless, of course, you disagree with the message or are looking for a “woke” fight to signal virtue? Maybe you think suppressing this sentiment will keep the peace? Patrick Henry understood the trade off between the fear of losing the peace and freedom of expression:

    “Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

    Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

    2. The Mercenary has to say the first sentence regardless of what he truly believes.

      You know your job watches all your social media crap for the slightest thing to come down on you hard on….say your thoughts are offensive.

      He probably doesn’t believe this, but he has to put it in there. See Adminsitrator so and so…I said not too, what the students do or don’t do isn’t my fault.

      I saw some drama mama at GW a few years back. I was like yep, this is why I had very few friends in law school, the catty ness is deep.

      GeeDub should hire me to clean it up, i could be a mole, that goes to school forever, blending in with the students…just saying….

  9. If it’s okay to be black it’s okay to be white and saying so is okay too despite Dean Wormer’s hissy fit. These academics needs a vacation to the real world where acts of suppression and discrimination have consequences. Who appointed him nanny?

  10. So it’s ok to say white is toxic and White people need to get over their whiteness but it’s not ok to say it’s ok to be white. I’m puzzled.

  11. So what is Oklahoma City University, School of Law? Is it accredited? Should it be? How many low-end law schools does this country really need? It sounds as though the Dean is none too bright, which leads me to wonder about the quality of lawyers the school is producing.

    1. Tin,

      If one wants to go to law school in Oklahoma they should be able to see you go to OU or TU, but you don’t go to OCU of B Crap.

      I seen a talk a week back speaking about what will be happening & what is already happening, among other things is a massive collapse of most of these universities that have sprung up like mushrooms across the US. IE: It’s already happening.

  12. (The police were called to investigate the potential hate crime and Law school Dean Jim Roth)

    We need to start investigating what is causing all these people & organization into Mass Mental Illness.

    And we need to start putting people like Dean Jim Roth in a rubber room for 6 or 12 months for a wellness check.

    Call & raise hell if you’ve the time, I do.

  13. So, let me get this straight. The Oklahoma Law School thinks being white is racist?

      1. He isn’t self-hating. He despises you. And me. And the marks who pay the tuition at his 3d rate institution.

  14. Keep going Pinkos.

    Your virtue signalling feels good to you.

    But, you are mistaking activity for progress. Every time something like this happens, more Americans decide that the liberal agenda has to be stopped.

  15. If I pass out a flyer saying, “It’s ok to be Hispanic” (and I actually am), sweet, tolerant, White liberals will be ki@@ing my ass.

    But if I pass out a flyer saying “It’s ok to be White”, (and I’m actually that also), now I’m a “nazi”.

    More of the leftist tolerance for which they are well known.

    antonio

  18. As Chief Justice Roberts has said, the way to stop discrimination is to stop discriminating. As long as we expressly base decisions on the antiquated concept of race, we can expect members of the various racial groups to protest their treatment, which the First Amendment protects of course.

  19. How is stating a fact a hate crime? I’ve written it before, there is no such thing in the U.S. as hate speech.

    1. I’m going to teach the idiotic professors some constitutional law. BRIEF THIS CASE FOOLS

      https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/377/

      OCTOBER TERM, 1991

      Syllabus

      R. A. V. v. CITY OF ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA

      CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA No. 90-7675. Argued December 4, 1991-Decided June 22,1992

      Mter allegedly burning a cross on a black family’s lawn, petitioner R. A. V. was charged under, inter alia, the St. Paul, Minnesota, Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, which prohibits the display of a symbol which one knows or has reason to know “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.” The trial court dismissed this charge on the ground that the ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content based, but the State Supreme Court reversed. It rejected the overbreadth claim because the phrase “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others” had been construed in earlier state cases to limit the ordinance’s reach to “fighting words” within the meaning of this Court’s decision in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572, a category of expression unprotected by the First Amendment. The court also concluded that the ordinance was not impermissibly content based because it was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest in protecting the community against bias-motivated threats to public safety and order.

      Held: The ordinance is facially invalid under the First Amendment.

      Pp.381-396.

      (a) This Court is bound by the state court’s construction of the ordinance as reaching only expressions constituting “fighting words.” However, R. A. Vo’s request that the scope of the Chaplinsky formulation be modified, thereby invalidating the ordinance as substantially overbroad, need not be reached, since the ordinance unconstitutionally prohibits speech on the basis of the subjects the speech addresses. P.381.

      (b) A few limited categories of speech, such as obscenity, defamation, and fighting words, may be regulated because of their constitutionally proscribable content. However, these categories are not entirely invisible to the Constitution, and government may not regulate them based on hostility, or favoritism, towards a nonpros crib able message they contain. Thus the regulation of “fighting words” may not be based on nonproscribable content. It may, however, be underinclusive, addressing some offensive instances and leaving other, equally offensive, ones alone, so long as the selective proscription is not based on content, or there is no realistic possibility that regulation of ideas is afoot. Pp. 382-390.

      378

      Syllabus

      (c) The ordinance, even as narrowly construed by the State Supreme Court, is facially unconstitutional because it imposes special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on the disfavored subjects of “race, color, creed, religion or gender.” At the same time, it permits displays containing abusive invective if they are not addressed to those topics. Moreover, in its practical operation the ordinance goes beyond mere content, to actual viewpoint, discrimination. Displays containing “fighting words” that do not invoke the disfavored subjects would seemingly be useable ad libitum by those arguing in favor of racial, color, etc., tolerance and equality, but not by their opponents. St. Paul’s desire to communicate to minority groups that it does not condone the “group hatred” of bias-motivated speech does not justify selectively silencing speech on the basis of its content. Pp. 391-393.

      (d) The content-based discrimination reflected in the ordinance does not rest upon the very reasons why the particular class of speech at issue is pros crib able, it is not aimed only at the “secondary effects” of speech within the meaning of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, and it is not for any other reason the sort that does not threaten censorship of ideas. In addition, the ordinance’s content discrimination is not justified on the ground that the ordinance is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest in ensuring the basic human rights of groups historically discriminated against, since an ordinance not limited to the favored topics would have precisely the same beneficial effect. Pp. 393-396.

      464 N. W. 2d 507, reversed and remanded.

      ——————————–

      next case for incompetent admins:

      https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-24/supreme-court-vulgar-trademark-case-is-absolute-on-free-speech

      ———————-

      but look on the bright side. this just makes the day come sooner when loser phony “academics” and bureaucratic parasites like this guy are packed off to reeducation camps digging gardens for their own food in the desert!

      1. Is Oklahoma going to send me a check for consulting since I had to waste ten minutes of my time instructing their foolish incompetent employee?

        NO — ONLY BOOTLICKERS CAN EVER GET PAYCHECKS FROM THE STATE FOR WORKING IN A SCHOOL!

        THE GOOD NEWS IS I WON’T HAVE TO TAKE A PAY CUT —
        MY CLIENTS PAY ME BETTER THAN THE STATE EVER COULD!

        even wasting an hour or two a day typing these lessons out here for free, i can still make more money than a flunky like that

  20. Hate Speech Requirements:
    1) It must denigrate or cast in a negative light one or more of the government-favored minorities OR
    2) It must favor any non-government-favored Caucasoid race or people

    Sounds about right.

Comments are closed.