"UMass Lowell Stands with First Amendment, for Now, in Row over Student Tied to Neo-Nazi Hate Group"

Prof. Richard Pelz-Steele at UMass Law (Dartmouth) has the details; an excerpt:

UMass Lowell seems, so far, to be taking a principled position in a controversy over a neo-Nazi student.

According to Patch, the University of Massachusetts Lowell sent a letter to students and faculty last week saying that it could not suspend a student tied to a neo-Nazi, hate group simply because of the association.  At the same time, the university pledged to investigate specific threats, alleged crimes, or incidents of hate speech, and to enforce the Student Code of Conduct.

The student in question appeared on a live-stream posted on Telegram, and re-posted to Twitter by a watch group, with the founder of "NSC-131," an organization founded in opposition to Black Lives Matter and identified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League, Patch reported earlier this month.

A Change.org petition, with more than 11,000 signatures at the time of this writing, accuses UMass Lowell of being "blatantly permissive of not only racism and hate speech (which they state is protected under Freedom of Speech) but outright criminal activity and Neo-Nazism" in protecting the student.  The petition accuses the student, by name, of having violated already the Student Code of Conduct and, through alleged participation in the January 6 Capitol riot, the state vandalism law.  Patch reported the appearance of NSC-131 at the Capitol riot, but no personal involvement by the student….

Looks like the petitioners are partying like it's 1949, but the university is correctly resisting.

Comments

[DaivdBehar]

Expel the Commie scumbags. Zero tolerance for the agents of the Chinese Commie Party.

[Greg J]

"According to Patch, the University of Massachusetts Lowell sent a letter to students and faculty last week saying that it could not suspend a student tied to a neo-Nazi, hate group simply because of the association. At the same time, the university pledged to investigate specific threats, alleged crimes, or incidents of hate speech, and to enforce the Student Code of Conduct."

1: There's no such thing as "hate speech", there's just speech you hate.

2: Exactly why are we supposed to believe it's actual a "neo-Nazi" group?

"NSC-131," an organization founded in opposition to Black Lives Matter and identified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League,

A: The ADL are lying left wing hacks
B: All good people are anti-BLM, so being anti-BLM doesn't tell us anything

What a pathetic joke

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The way they brand everybody to the right of Joe Biden as extreme right neo-Nazis makes that designation worthless, especially when honest-to-Stalin Marxists run rampant through academia. I know nothing about the ADL's recent activities, but if they are going to start brandishing that smear, they've lost the benefit of the doubt.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Well, let's see:

The founder of the group explained that the goal was to have college students "get[] together with all the other guys that think like you and start circling the frat parties and bullying the kids that race mix", while the student at issue here explained that "We're pretty much a frat, just racist," and added, "If you're going to start a frat, we suggest the name Kappa, Kappa, Kappa."

https://patch.com/massachusetts/waltham/umass-lowell-cant-suspend-waltham-man-neo-nazi-ties

So not the outfit I'd want to go to bat defending, but you do you.

[Greg J]

Aha! NOW you've made a legitimate argument that they're actually racist (and therefore bad people). Heck, they might even be as racist as your average CRT supporter!

But you might want to work on your reading comprehension:

I never defended NSC-131. I just stated (correctly) that the "evidence" supplied by the author, that they were "neo-Nazi", offered no value or worth.

Thank you for stepping up and meeting the challenge

[Sarcastr0]

LOL

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Our vestigial right-wing bigots have rights, too . . . including the right to be replaced, in the natural course of American progress, by better Americans. Time will sift this. Let the clingers continue to fail on the merits.

[Ben_]

Can signers of a change.org petition be held liable for defamation if for their signature on a petition containing false and defamatory claims?

[swood1000]

Was there a change.org petition when Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Bill Clinton shared a stage with Louis Farrakhan, or when prominent black leaders refused to condemn him? I did see one, with roughly the same number of signatures as this one, urging that Farrakhan not be censored on Twitter.