College Tells Students To Pull Their Damn Pants Up; Accused Of Racism
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Robert Gehl
August 18, 2015
Students at an Arkansas college are being told to pull up their pants, and boy is that racist.
At Henderson State University, they put up a sign in the student center warning people against profanity, loudness, rude behavior and sagging pants.
But when a group of black students found out about the sign, they complained enough to force the school to pull it down.
After only being up for two days, the sign has been taken down. Students told Channel 7 they believe the sign was targeting them, but administration says they’re just holding their students to a higher expectation. …
“The group that I’m representing was outraged by the sign,” [student Daisha] Haggans said. Those students wanting the sign taken down because they say “sagging pants” is culturally associated with African Americans.
“Its politically insensitive to certain groups. They felt like they were being targeted,” [student Kristin] Bell said.
The NAACP and the ACLU got into the mix, of course. They have both criticized bans on saggy pants, saying the violate the First Amendment and disproportionately target young black men.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education also said the ban is unconstitutional.
“Absent some kind of showing that sagging pants could somehow disrupt the educational environment in a clearly, truly unreasonable way, which is hard to fathom, this is a blatant overreach by the administration,” Creeley said. “It’s dismaying that a public institution of higher education wants to treat their students as if they are in grade school.”
The bans on profanity and rude behavior were also concerning, Creeley noted, adding that the university was “really going for the trifecta.”
In a message sent to students last week, Henderson State said it did not intend to “specifically target” any groups on campus. The signs were taken down, and the university said it should have communicated with students about the “larger context” of the signs before posting them.
University officials said Friday that even though the signs are now gone, they still expect students to follow the rules that were posted.
“We have removed the signs,” the university stated in its message to students. “However, we remain committed to supporting campus and classroom environments conductive to learning and respect for all members of our community.”
http://downtrend.com/robertgehl/college-tells-students-to-pull-their-damn-pants-up-accused-of-racism
