Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
So the denial of students' First Amendment rights without so much as notice or an opportunity for a hearing cannot be intelligently discussed? No. It's illegal to do what the school did. One of these days, a group is going to challenge this and win.
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I probably should have said jump to conclusions instead of intelligently discussed. My point is that we know very few facts here. What is clear is that Texas State's president has delegated authority to suspend without prior notice or hearing if there is a continuing danger or an ongoing threat of disruption of the school, but must set a case hearing as soon as practicable. From what I can tell, Texas State has a pretty good legal staff backstopping the university's disciplinary actions. This is what I meant when I said we have not seen the actual notices that went out to the groups. I would expect that many of the suspensions (especially the sororities) to be lifted pretty quickly at those hearings.
I can't overemphasize the fact that in the last 10 months four fraternities at Texas State were suspended multiple years (with some having their charters revoked) because of university alcohol policy violations during an October 2016 party where a severely intoxicated sorority member was killed. Now, less than 13 months later, another person dies under apparent circumstances that clearly violate the university's hazing and alcohol policies. There are likely more incidents documented by Texas State where a death was not involved, so we are not aware of them.
