Why UCLA Needed Racist Student to Kick Self Out Of School

Quick poll.  Are you guys as sick of Alexandra Wallace as I am?  I’m certainly looking forward to the day University of California, Los Angeles administrators finally kicking her chubby and cellulite-covered butt out of the school’s dorms and into the streets for her anti-Asian ravings.  Man, I can’t wait to see her face once . . . Huh, what’s that you say?  Dang it, why can’t anything I’m looking forward to ever come true?

For those of you who have been following this story as closely as I have, you’re no doubt already aware that over the weekend the portly racist Wallace issued a statement that she would be withdrawing from UCLA after suffering through what she describes as “the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats and being ostracized from an entire community” just because of her three-minute video.

You know, I would really like to feel bad for her and maybe perhaps in another circumstance I would; however, that three-minute video of hers is making it really hard for me and I’m sure any non-racist to sympathize with her.  Moreover, let’s also not forget that Wallace’s video was anything but an accidental ranting made in frustration after a random encounter in the library with “Asians” like Wallace would like us to believe.  Her father confirms that Wallace was intending to make a series of these racist videos in an ill-conceived attempt to build a career as a video blogger.  At least she succeeded in showing her true colors and rallying her other white supremacist friends over at Stormfront.  By the way, that was the first and hopefully the last time I’ll ever need to mention that white power website again.

In any case, now that Alexandra Wallace is gone from the UCLA campus, the question still remains in many people’s minds of whether her racist remarks could have really gotten her kicked out of the campus.  The answer may seem like an obvious yes; however, like most things in life the simplest solutions are sometimes the most complex.  And in Wallace’s case, as idiotic and despicable as her comments may be, the fact remains that unfortunately she could not have been punished for making them by either the school or through our country’s legal system.

Now the latter is probably pretty obvious to you all.  All speech, even hate speech, is protected under the First Amendment of our country’s Constitution.  Rather than boring you with a long constitutional analysis on why this is the case, it’s a lot easier to just point you to this story.  As you can see, if the Westboro Baptist Church is able to get away with the crap they are spewing, chances are that Wallace’s racist ravings aren’t going to be that big of an issue as far as the First Amendment’s protections are concerned.

Basically, the reason the First Amendment incorporates such broad protections is because what can or can’t be considered “hate speech” is too broad a category to define without impinging on one’s freedom of speech.  What can be considered offensive to one group of people may not necessarily be considered hateful to another group, and so forth.  So clearly Wallace’s right to say her moronic comments are as protected as my rights to call her a fat pig.

However, the difference comes when one looks at this from UCLA’s standpoint and the disciplinary measures they may implement.  Again, on the surface this seems like an easy question to answer.  UCLA is a college and as a college they have the right to make their own rules and implement a code of conduct and require their students to adhere to them both as a condition for attending the school.  UCLA’s rules state that students cannot create a “hostile education environment” and thus Wallace’s YouTube hate speech should be sufficient grounds for her dismissal. Simple right?  No, not quite.

You see UCLA is a public college, meaning that it not only receives a large chunk of its funding from the state of California, but under National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Tarkanian, UCLA is also considered a state actor.  A state actor in this case basically means unlike like private schools, UCLA is legally bound to follow the US Constitution and not violate the rules within it.

And what’s in the US Constitution?  Why the First Amendment of course.  That means Wallace’s racist speech is unfortunately protected and even if UCLA wanted to kick her out for it, they legally would likely be prohibited from doing so for that reason.

So what have we learned?  Well, if you want to spew hate-ridden speech from your sloppy fat bimbo mouth, you should go to a public school.