• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Fliers telling LGBTQ students to kill themselves is fine according to Cleveland Uni

J

JettDash

Junior Member
Banzai said:
Weird question: Isn't suicide illegal in some parts? Which would make telling someone to go kill themselves a call to unlawful action, making it not protected by the first amendment?

I have no idea if suicide even is illegal anywhere in the states anymore or if I just made that up and it never was, but I kind of remember reading about it.
Click to expand...

Even if so, it would also have be that the posters are likely to incite it for them to be illegal. Which would be hard to prove.
 
S

Sulik2

Member
Hate speech should not be protected free speech period. Full stop. This needs to change in the USA. You can outlaw the obvious hate speech and not slide down the slope.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
If that's the tune they are willing to dance to, I would start creating some highly offensive posters aimed towards these cunts in response to test how far their free speech principles go. Like how most white supremacists are virgin losers, how most homophobes are secretly gay, etc.
 
S

Saint Gregory

Member
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment

A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. For more on unprotected and less protected categories of speech see advocacy of illegal action, fighting words, commercial speech and obscenity. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicate a message. The level of protection speech receives also depends on the forum in which it takes place. 
Click to expand...

Why would anyone expect a university presidemt to understand the not at all subtle difference between protected speech and what those flyers represent?

/S
 
A

ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
If I went to this school I'd be printing off thousands of flyers of graphic gay porn and distributing them everywhere, forcing the administration to respond.
 
D

dragonbane

Member
Reprehensible shit. The basic law in Germany made it very simple, freedom of speech yes, but with restrictions on the violation of personal honour and other basic laws. Plus utmost protection of basic human dignity and that the right to live out your personality ends exactly with the violation of those same rights of others
 
S

Sorithin

Member
Absolutely disgusting.

CSU isn't too far from me. My company does business with President Berkman.. and sadly, his response doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
 
R

Ratrat

Member
If I had more faith in people I would almost expect those fliers to create sympathy and awareness for the shit lgbt people endure.
 
A

Alienfan

Member
Is this real? The reason I ask is I can only seem to find the one image, and a handful of small sites citing the same tweets. If this happend at my school, it would be all over the news and the school would erupt in huge protests. The fact this is a small news story really speaks to how fucked up US universities are. And the free speech fetish people, so infuriating.

Like another poster said, plaster a bunch of hardcore porno pics everywhere and see how their "free speech" policy holds up
it won't
 
D

dondarm

Banned
Alienfan said:
Is this real? The reason I ask is I can only seem to find the one image, and a handful of small sites citing the same tweets. If this happend at my school, it would be all over the news and the school would erupt in huge protests. The fact this is a small news story really speaks to how fucked up US universities are. And the free speech fetish people, so infuriating
Click to expand...
https://twitter.com/presberkman
 
K

Kettch

Member
Sulik2 said:
Hate speech should not be protected free speech period. Full stop. This needs to change in the USA. You can outlaw the obvious hate speech and not slide down the slope.
Click to expand...

The obvious hate speech to the current party in power is stuff like BLM. No need to go down the slope when the top of the hill is already fucked up.

America has major problems that need fixing before we can even consider something like hate speech laws. To start with, preventing one of our two major political parties from being a hate group itself.
 
R

rucury

Banned
“We respect the divided opinions on whether or not LGBT members can be considered human beings and subject to respect.”

Hope the sitting president is gone by this time tomorrow. Fuck them and everyone else involved in the production and distribution of the flyers.
 
H

hypernima

Banned
Fascist solutions sounds like an alt-right staples knockoff. If I ever saw one of these at my school i'd rip em down so damn quick. I swear there's more blatant white supremacist infiltrators in the high ed school system these days, if not before.
 
M

Matt

Member
These are being posted on university bulletin boards and other property?

Then they are absolutely within their rights to have them removed, and they should.
 
K

krazen

Member
Matt said:
These are being posted on university bulletin boards and other property?

Then they are absolutely within their right to have them removed, and they should.
Click to expand...

Yup. Not sure how this is even exactly a free speech issue. Cops usually investigate flyers that fall under hate speech all the time as harassment, not sure why Cleveland is a magical place where we can leave flyers telling people to off themselves
 
J

JettDash

Junior Member
krazen said:
Yup. Not sure how this is even exactly a free speech issue. Cops usually investigate flyers that fall under hate speech all the time as harassment, not sure why Cleveland is a magical place where we can leave flyers telling people to off themselves
Click to expand...

Citation required that cops investigate people for this sort of thing and have them prosecuted.
 
R

Red

Member
This is intimidation. It’s a slur and a picture of a man being lynched. Is the university really excusing it as free speech? Really?
 
R

richiek

steals Justin Bieber DVDs
Fuck the university’s spineless response to fascism, hiding under the excuse of the first amendment.
 
M

Mendrox

Member
Fascinating how many people with anime avatars try to justify that shit on that presidents Twitter (like with all the recent threads about that...Now I see that too). Like..what the hell? Fuck these people. That shouldn't would fly here and that guy should quit his job...
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Misha said:
That's a threat... not even remotely veiled...

Its not "I think you're probably going to hell someday" or "I think what you're doing is gross" (which are both horrible and nonsensical opinions) its "I want you dead"
Click to expand...

It's not "I want you dead". It's "hey look at all these people who commit suicide like you, think about it, wink wink."

Which is how it's likely not a specific enough threat to withdraw free speech protections. If it were targeting particular people or encouraging others directly to kill themselves imminently, it would likely not be justified.

That doesn't mean that there isn't another avenue by which you can censure these communications, even on a public university, though. But in regards to whether they're entitled to use the public bulletin boards and what kind of forum that equates to, it's a bit murkier.

https://www.cu.edu/doc/counsel-public-forum-overviewpdf

With some brief digging, it seems like a lot of colleges do treat them as public forums they do not or will not heavily regulate, others that they will. So it's not a hard and fast rule. Penn, for example, has a specific note:

* Think before you post. College Houses defend the right of free speech and expression on campus and actively promotes the civil exchange of ideas. In the spirit of the latter aim, students are urged to reconsider creating and distributing posters or flyers containing material or language that could be construed as malicious toward or dangerous to other responsible members of the University community.
Click to expand...

Barnard "[does not] tolerat[e]" derogatory or discriminatory flyers; others like UCSC have listed flyer policies but don't actually enumerate specific requirements for approval.

Relevant SCOTUS caselaw is Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier and Healy v. James. I'd think in this circumstance they'd probably side with the school given the forum, but it's worth nothing in the former case they established lower first amendment protections in certain school fora.

HStallion said:
Isn't this like shouting fire in a movie theater or bomb on an airplane?
Click to expand...

Not really, and even if it were, "fire in a theater" ain't a thing and hasn't been for decades.
 
R

Rayis

Member
I would make fliers encouraging fascists and white supremacists to drink bleach to make their innards just as white as their skins.

According to this university, it'd be fine and dandy!
 
S

Skatterd

Member
President of the school needs to lose his job for that statement.

"CSU also is committed to upholding the First Amendment, even with regard to controversial issues where opinion is divided."
Like, yanno, whether people should kill themselves. Just things like that people are divided on *shrug*
 
T

TacoMasters

Member
This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Boggles my mind that there are people who actually think with a mindset like that.
 
A

Addi

Member
At which point in time did free speech go from protecting the oppressed to protect the oppressors? Get some hate speech laws ffs
 
S

Sianos

Member
conservative logic:

advocating for the death of someone based on their sexual orientation and encouraging their suicide = free speech that must be protected

a black man, respecting the wishes of a military serviceman, kneels in protest of police brutality instead of sitting = not free speech, tries to pass laws to prevent this from happening
 
S

shanshan310

Member
What is happening. How have we regressed not only to the point where this somehow passes for civil debate, but that having this debate (about what even? Whether LGBT people should kill ourselves?) is more important than campus safety and preventing bullying.
 
G

GoldenEye 007

Member
Alienfan said:
God that's even more upsetting. There's no law requiring them to honor the first amendment, that only pertains courts/the government. The university are choosing to allow these fliers up (or he is). What a nut
Click to expand...
Public universities fall under the government too. So yeah they are bound by the same laws.

I'm not sure how anyone can argue this is speech, though. It's actively encouraging others to commit suicide. CSU president is being a little bitch.

I hope students transfer out. For a school administration, the one thing that will send them into a panic is a sudden decline in enrollment.
 
T

Tigress

Member
xxracerxx said:
I bet if someone put up fliers that called for the faculty and staff to kill themselves they would be dealt with promptly.
Click to expand...

Honestly some one should just of call them on the hypocrisy (cause they either change their tune quick or they end up realizing how stupid they were but being stuck saying it's free speech because they realize that soon as they van it they'll be called out).

This is how the church of Satan gets places to take down Christian stuff in government by insisting they also get to put up satanic images. As soon as you do something they actually disagree with, they tend to change their tune.
 
1

1.21Gigawatts

Banned
F1jUJmc.png



...
 
S

SomTervo

Member
This is disgusting.

Truly, truly fucking disgusting. "Free speech" doesn't mean it's OK to tell people to commit suicide, regardless of who they are.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
Et tu, Brute?
Poll 2
51
3K
TrueLegend replied
I am a 'Filthy Casual' - welcome to my meltdown my fellow potatoes
2 3 4 5 6
250
14K
Putonahappyface replied
  • Locked
How The Last of Us became 'the greatest story' ever told in video games
Opinion Analysis 2 3 4 5
203
17K
Elysium44 replied
[Atlantic] America Has a Drinking Problem
2 3
149
17K
Hawking Radiation replied
  • Locked
Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine Over 90% Effective, applying for FDA authorization later this month
2
67
7K
TaylorSwiftFan replied
Top Bottom