41 min listen
Strange Fruit #146: The Line Between Safety & Free Speech on University Campuses
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
30 minutes
Released:
Nov 13, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Since we spoke last week about University of Louisville President James Ramsey's poor treatment of Latino students on campus, racial tension has come to a head on other campuses across the country - most notably at the University of Missouri. And while we'd all like to think of college campuses as free from harassment and racism, banning certain speech outright brings up First Amendment Issues, and some say it can dampen the free exchange of ideas that should be a hallmark of educational environments. We talk about it this week with attorney A. Holland Houston, who joins us for an all-Juicy-Fruit episode. We also turn to her for perspective on Judge Olu Steven's recent dismissal of an all-white jury in the trial of a black defendant, and how the demographic makeup of a jury can affect the outcome of a trial. And she weighs in on the assault-by-twerking case out of DC, which sounds comical, but does bring up some serious issues of gender and sexual assault. Two women are being sought by police after forcibly dancing against (and groping) a man who was waiting in the check-out line. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," she explains. We discuss whether people would like be more upset and less amused if the genders in the case were reversed. Or as Houston puts it, "What happens if women are the ones who are the aggressors, and if it crosses the line of, this is not the behavior that I want." Then WFPL's political reporter Ashley Lopez joins us to catch us up on a hot topic that's closer to home: the proposed methane plant in West Louisville. The story is complicated, and the players are familiar to most of us who live in Louisville. The ultimate question is, did West Louisville leaders sell out the health and needs of their neighbors in exchange for a payout? Or was the plant an inevitability anyway, so it was pragmatic to bring some money from the company back into the community, if possible?
Released:
Nov 13, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #44: Some of My Best Friends...: Interracial Friendship in America: How multi-racial is your circle of friends? Are any of your close friends of a different race than yours? Not the lady who works down the hall from your office or the dad you chat with while waiting for your kid to get out of school. Someone who's been to your house or invited you over for dinner. A [recent poll by Reuters](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-usa-poll-race-idUSBRE97704320130808) found that the many white people - 40% - have no friends outside their race. We on Strange Fruit figure this is probably no surprise to black folks. Among people of color, 25% of respondents said they didn't have friends outside their race. We wanted to talk more about the reasons why this might be the case, and what historical and demographic factors created the situation. So we spoke to Tanner Colby, author of [Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America](http://www.ta by Strange Fruit