Speech Codes on Campus

The article, Jim Crow on Fraternity Row, is very disturbing to read about. It is horrifying to hear that these college students were using very offensive and disruptive conduct. The pictures showed them painted black and dressed up like the KKK, pretending to hang "black" people. This kind of behavior should be outlawed at the school because it is very offensive to the point where it disrupts people's lives. I believe these kids knew exactly what they were doing and they knew it would be offensive to people. I don't believe they were trying to make a point, they were just trying to get on people's nerves. Their actions also threatens  the lives of any student on campus. By putting a rope around a "black" persons neck, it promotes a threat to any black person on campus. There are certain restrictions to freedom of speech.
At the University of Oregon, their speech code says that any harassment or speech because of another person's race, gender, color, national origin, age, religion, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or veteran status is strictly prohibited.
 

Students Right to Free Speech

As we talked about students rights to free speech, it made me think a lot about what students should be allowed to say and what they should not. There are so many things in this world that can offend someone and people need to learn about that, which is why schools cannot restrict everything that may offend someone. Students need to learn about what goes on in the real world and what may happen. On the other hand, there are certain topics that need to be restricted because some issues may offend people to the point where it disrupts their learning and the point of school is to learn. In a case that we read during class, kids were wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school stated a policy saying that if kids wore the armband, they would be suspended. The case went to court and they agreed that it was unconstitutional. Students should be allowed to express their opinion and they were not disrupting other students when wearing these armbands. They were merely stating their opinion and part of learning in school is that kids should learn about other opinions in their school and in the world. I agreed with the courts decision because I believe that there are so many opinions in this world that may offend someone but people should get used to that. This was not disrupting learning and if it was offending someone, they need to lean to ignore it and find a way to deal with it.

Israel

Israel is my second home. I have over 150 cousins who live there and I have been there 7 times. Some people who I have talked to have a huge issue with going there because they feel it is not safe. When I go there I have never felt safer because everywhere you go in Israel there are soldiers. I believewe could learn a lot from Israel and their culture. After high school, people are sent to the army.Women go for two years and men go for three.They have the choice to fight or to do other jobs including teaching, cooking, and so many other things. After they finish their time in the army, they have six months to travel or just figure out what they want to do for the rest of their life. After those 6 months they have the option to go to a university. I believe this is much better than our lifestyle in America because most people don't know what they want to do with the rest of their life at 18 years old.