Since the membership of Pi Kappa Phi has come under fire for poking fun at the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, some have tried to justify the fraternity’s actions as protected by the First Amendment.
But the bottom line is that the constitutional right to free speech does not apply to this case.
When some fraternity members went into the Mason and Abbot halls cafeterias on April 1 and April 2 wearing pink T-shirts with phrases such as “I like little boys,” “Capt. Gay Sex” and “Fag Hairstylist” on the backs, they were not speaking out against gay people in any type of political way.
Instead, it seems, the shirts were being used as a means to haze new pledges. Hazing is prohibited by MSU’s greek system at MSU and Pi Kappa Phi’s national organization.
Pi Kappa Phi is not being punished by its national headquarters and MSU’s greek system because its members were exercising their constitutional right to protest. The fraternity is being disciplined because it hazed it members in a way which violates its national organization’s rules and the greek system’s rules against discrimination and hazing practices.
Even if Pi Kappa Phi members were making a political statement against the gay community, they still would stand to be disciplined by the group’s national headquarters and the MSU greek system because those organizations are private institutions.
Fraternities and sororities are not government institutions. They are privately funded and therefore can make policies that seem to infringe upon the guarantees of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court upheld that standard in 2000, with its ruling that the Boy Scouts of America could bar homosexuals from being members. While “Congress shall make no law ... ,” private organizations have more leeway.
The fraternity members in question knew their organization’s rules and standards when they signed up for membership. Therefore, they must adhere to those rules and standards or face punishment by the organization.
What it all boils down to is that the members of this fraternity did not play by the anti-discrimination and anti-hazing rules set up by its national headquarters and the MSU greek community. And because Pi Kappa Phi ignored these standards, a panel of greek presidents cast a punishment on them.
The two organizations are right to have anti-discrimination and anti-hazing policies and they are right to punish the members of Pi Kappa Phi for not following them.
The fraternity’s members cannot hide behind the First Amendment to protect their ignorant and bigoted actions.
The greek system’s and Pi Kappa Phi’s national headquarters are doing the right thing by punishing the MSU fraternity for breaking the rules. The Constitution has nothing to do with it.
Actions that promote ignorance and hate should have no place within society’s respectable institutions.
MSU’s greeks are right to take a stand to refuse to let hate and ignorance flourish
