Earlier this month a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old were expelled from the University of Oklahoma over their so-called leadership role in a racist frat chant that went viral. Protesters picketed outside one former student’s home, which the family temporarily fled because of threats.

The same day, the University of Maryland announced it was launching an investigation of an email containing racist and misogynistic language sent to a campus fraternity by one of its members. Puzzlingly, the email was sent in January 2014. It’s not clear how it came to light this year. The author of the email was suspended from his frat. University President Wallace D. Loh vowed on Twitter to “ensure due process and protect the free speech guaranteed by our Constitution,” adding that he is “struggling with justifying this email as free speech.”

A teacher at a private Catholic school in New Jersey came under fire three week ago for posting a homophobic rant on Facebook. She has since deleted the offending post and, at the request of her employer, taken down her Facebook page. These actions didn’t prevent Susan Sarandon and Greg Bennett, a former “Real Housewives of New Jersey” cast member, from denouncing her on social media — a medium in which Sarandon and Bennett wield considerably more power than a random schoolteacher. The teacher has since been placed on administrative leave, and her family has embarked on a fundraising campaign to cover costs incurred by her loss of income.

I abhor racist, misogynistic and homophobic remarks as much as the next progressive. They’re crude, obnoxious and ignorant. But do they really warrant suspension, expulsion or potential job loss?

My compassion for the New Jersey schoolteacher is limited. She is an adult with a career; she should have known better than to write something stupid and hurtful in what is essentially a public forum. However, given the lack of evidence that her bigotry extended to the classroom, I’m not convinced she deserves to be suspended or fired.

As for the recent trend of college-age men being punished for poor judgment, I find that far more sinister.

In my early 20s, I said and wrote many things that could be construed as offensive. I also have male friends I knew when they were 20 and foolish. I believe there is a wide and meaningful gap between chanting “No means yes! Yes means anal!” (a Yale fraternity chant that was recorded in 2010, leading to the frat’s five-year suspension from campus) and actually raping a woman. At 20, most people want to impress their friends — and most rapists don’t need a chant to get in the mood.