Having a long commute has lead me to listen to radio stations that I probably never thought I would, I find that I am very lenient now on what I consider “entertaining”. Since Eric and Kathy were getting pretty run of the mill for me, my new morning routine has been to listen to the 103.5 morning show with Drex. It’s trashy and pretty salacious but it gives me a laugh and keeps me awake. This morning they were discussing a story that had just broke and I found it pretty interesting, I am not sure how many of you had heard about this already, so sorry if it’s old news.
At Penn State some college students have recently had some pictures surface on facebook of their Halloween costume from a party earlier this year. They decided to be “controversial” (their words) and dress as the Virginia Tech shooting victims. Their costumes consisted of Virginia Tech t-shirts and fake bullet wounds. It was a small party and someone took pictures of their costume. The pictures got into the hands of someone who was not a friend and that person then posted them on facebook. The result of this has been extreme anger and hurt. The students that dressed up have received lots of attention, most of it negative, they even have received death threats.
Now the part of this story that interested me was that I felt like it could have easily happened to someone I know. Halloween costumes are getting more and more outrageous each year. It has become commonplace to see people dressed as celebrities or current event situations. I can recall a past party that I attended where 2 people dressed as Siegfried and an injured Roy after his attack from a tiger. Now I am not commenting on the tastefulness of such costumes, I am just saying that this could have easily happened in our group of friends.
The radio DJ Drex was very upset about the whole situation and felt that Penn State should expel the students because of their actions. He claimed that since they were enrolled in the university and the pictures were posted using the university’s network (remember that someone else posted the pics without their consent) that the university had an obligation to reprimand these kids. Drex took some calls from listeners. They ranged from outrage that the students weren’t being prosecuted for their actions, to people feeling sad that this was even considered “news”. Several military personnel called in and thought it was absolutely crazy that that these kids were getting away with this. Drex did play a portion of an interview with one of the costumed students, and I have to say he showed no remorse, was very crass in his description of the costume and how it affected others, and felt that he was innocent and covered by freedom of speech.
Well he’s right, much to people’s disappointment Penn State was unable to do anything to these students because of their right to free speech. However now that they are in the public eye and people know who they are, who’s to say they won’t be harmed?
I found it interesting that individuals within the two groups of people I thought would be most pro freedom of speech (a radio DJ, and military personnel) had such a problem with this. What do you think?
