Since the frat house was off-campus and this is a public university, the school really had nothing to say about it.

Sarah McLaughlin reports at the FIRE blog.

Public Universities Threaten Students Over Controversial Off-Campus Banners

Public universities must tolerate students’ off-campus speech even when it offends some, or most, of the student body. Recent incidents at Old Dominion University (ODU) and The Ohio State University (OSU) serve as reminders that this is not always what happens.

At both universities, students adorned their off-campus residences with signs offering a less than wholesome welcome to new and returning students. The banners at ODU read, “Rowdy and fun – Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,” “Freshman daughter drop off,” and “Go ahead and drop mom off too.” Signs at an OSU apartment, which were taken down after move-in day, read, “Dads, we’ll take it from here,” and “Daughter daycare 2.0.” The offending students at ODU have also removed their banners after being contacted by their administration, and may face repercussions from their fraternity, Sigma Nu.

While these incidents may mark the first time in the new academic year that students at ODU and OSU encounter speech they find offensive or insulting, they will undoubtedly not be the last. As Tyler Kingkade shows in The Huffington Post today, suggestive signs like these are hardly uncommon in the university setting.

In a worrying response to the banners, the ODU administration published a statement warning students that “[m]essages like the ones displayed yesterday by a few students on the balcony of their private residence are not and will not be tolerated” and that “[a]ny student found to have violated the code of conduct will be subject to disciplinary action.” An OSU spokesperson made a similar threat, claiming that “student code violations go with a student regardless of whether it is on or off campus.”