Meg Miller, a student at the University of Missouri, published a white supremacist Snapchat post wishing for the death of Black students, as Blavity recently reported. Her caption was incredibly offensive and prompted a lot of criticism.

“if they would have killed 4 more n****rs we would have had the whole week off,” she shamelessly posted with laughing emojis.

 

@Mizzou THIS is what’s happening on your campus as we speak. She is allowed to freely roam campus while spewing racial slurs, being openly transphobic, and denying allegations. Black Mizzou and POC on this campus are making a call to action that this is invesated IMMEDIATELY pic.twitter.com/Pk7WUkqvv6

— Kaylyn Walker⁷ (@kaylyn_walker) December 8, 2022

 

In a campus-wide email, the University of Missouri President Mun Choi announced that Miller, who went viral last month for the blatantly racist message, will face no reprimand or discipline from the school. Choi asserted that the First Amendment protected Miller’s racially insensitive statement because she sent it in a personal capacity.

“Upon review, the student’s racial slur was expressed in a direct message to her friend and was not communicated in a way that harassed any individual. In that context, the speech is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” read the email. “Because we are a public institution, constrained by the First Amendment, OIE and OSAS concluded the university has no grounds to discipline the student who sent the message, even though it is diametrically opposed to our values,” Choi said.

 

Failing to hold students like Miller accountable for their racist and violent actions has infuriated many Black students, and Choi’s update has only added fuel to the fire.

At MU, racial tensions flared up again during the previous semester due to another incident. After racist flyers were found posted around the campus in October, Choi and the MU Faculty Council issued a statement condemning racism at the university in November. Some flyers depicted white children, and one contained a racist message. The Anti-Defamation League has labeled the October flyer’s quoted statement as a hate slogan regularly utilized by white supremacists.

“we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” read the racist quote on the flyer.

A spokesperson for the university stated at the time that the distribution of such flyers was upheld under the First Amendment. Missouri’s Legion of Black Collegians addressed the issue head-on in a searing open letter to the local community.

 

“The concerns of Black individuals continue to be ostracized, diminished, and downright neglected… Today’s decision, as blatantly wrong as it is, was easily predictable…,” read the email. “The University of Missouri’s lack of action concerning this situation sends a clear message about who the university is intent on protecting… When there are tough calls to be made, the University of Missouri consistently chooses to align itself on the side of hate, and the response to this incident is merely another example,” the email further elaborated on the poor decisions made by the University.

 

Kaylyn Walker, a sophomore University of Missouri student who is a Senator with the Legion for Black Collegians and Vice Chair of Social Justice for the Missouri Students Association, told the Kansas City Defender that Mizzou chooses to defend their racist students day after day.

“Mizzou continues to protect its racist students day after day…They claim her statement wasn’t ‘directed’ at a student but it absolutely was directed towards the Black community and was very threatening speech,” Walker said.

Despite the University’s assertion that the First Amendment protects Miller’s threats, numerous individuals contend this is untrue. “Not all hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, since hateful expression can fall within certain, narrow categories of unprotected speech such as: Incitement to imminent lawless action (incitement); speech that threatens serious bodily harm (true threats); or speech that causes an immediate breach of the peace (fighting words),” notes The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

According to the Defender, public universities must meet a high burden of proof to restrict off-campus speech, but if they can show that a particular piece of speech constitutes harassment or a threat or creates an unsafe or hostile learning environment for students, then that speech is not protected.

The Legion of Black Collegians submitted a request to make changes to the Code of Conduct regarding the use of racial slurs on campus. Choi wrote in an email about the situation with the racist propaganda that while the university condemned hate speech, it did not specifically denounce the posters displayed all over the campus.

Choi stated in a news release on Monday that these messages don’t represent the school’s values, according to ABC17.

“First Amendment law does not allow a public university to punish speech only because it is racist or hateful – even when that speech is diametrically opposed to our values,” Choi noted. “Our university community will not be defined by the actions of one individual, but instead by our deep and collective commitment to be welcoming to all,” he said.