I'm fine with schools that block slogan T-shirts, regardless. If the purpose is to be inflammatory, it has no place in school. I don't totally disagree with the person who said that maybe we should have school uniforms in all schools... though from a logistical standpoint that sounds like a nightmare.

So, no... my opinion would not be different.

But what if it was viewpoint-based like this one? Where all slogans aren't banned, only ones that specifically have liberal messages. Or if a school in Alabama bans only t-shirts that have pro-gay tolerance messages. Because of security (so they claim).

Students have very limited to no right to free speech. Individual communities decide what they decide. If they can prove that there is a safety risk being created specifically due to the wearing of the message and being done intentionally to inflame or invoke unrest, then I would be fine with banning any specific "viewpoint" or slogan-based clothing, sure.

methinks you don't understand the definition of the word "racist" mmkay?

In case people aren't familiar with the backstory that led to the lawsuit and the ruling. Emphasis mine.

Yes it would be interesting to hear the board members opinion on a backwoods Missouri school (there are plenty :) ) banning kids wearing Michael Sam jerseys for security reasons. Of course the American flag shirts are being worn in protest of the Cinco de Mayo celebration and I wouldn't mind seeing the punk kids wearing them get their asses kicked but why does every solution always have to involve banning things? And it's always "security" as well.

Yeah, I was using Butter of 69's words but it was a poor fit for my context. I'll stick with just assholes.

In regards to DT's article, I wonder why the Cinco de Mayo celebration wasn't banned as well.

Which brings me to my point on banning everything. You end up having to ban Cinco de Mayo now to be politically correct and to be "consistant" (and then I'm sure something innocent like green on St. Patricks Day or something down the line) Why not just deal with the idiots on both sides? No instead lets ban American flag shirts!

I'd prefer government doesn't get into habit of trying to discern the intent of expression before deciding whether to ban it. I'm not aware of any recognized 1st Amendment distinction between sincere expression and ironic/satirical expression. (Edit: The school aspect of course, is a thing, and a important part of the legal analysis here, I'm just not sure off the top of my head the scope of viewpoint-based banning of expression where there's alternative means to deal with the state's claimed interest of security - I do doubt that the Ninth Circuit would come out the same if it was a different kind of expression that was banned though.)

How do you deal with idiots on both sides though. Clearly these were a group of students looking to incite violence (or at least incite anger) by wearing their t-shirts. This group clearly had a precedence. So what do you do that doesn't get blowhards like the above posting Georgian from saying this is the end of Merica and civilization as we know it!!!

It's just a different twist on what might be the most foundational issue in the concept of government. There's a very real and legitimate security concern, and the government absolutely has the authority to address it, and there's concern that they'll exceed that legitimate authority to pick political sides/be corrupt/scale back rights/whatever. Definitely no easy answers, its just interesting to see the same debate with the sides switched.

Because these days they're as liable to get shot/knifed and seriously injured, or just beat up and then have their parents sue the school district as it is to be "harmless" like it was in the "good old days."

I'd argue that it should be if it caused that flashpoint. And the article doesn't specifically say, it may very well have been banned this year too.

Whatever the intent, if someone considers someone else wearing an American flag to be proper provocation for violence, we've completely lost our perspective of the meaning of expression versus action.

However, the courts have made it clear that expression is not necessarily protected in the schools. The schools have a responsibility to preserve the peace.

Those who consider the flag-wearing students to be nothing but asshole racists should take a hard look at our country's history of protest - even a recent history. I don't know what's in their minds any more than I know what's in the minds of those who protest wealth or minimum wage or any number of other concepts.

I suspect that none of us would hold up to any stringent test of bias, should there be some sort of machine that can open up our brains and extract our thoughts.

Aren't there really two distinct issues here? The court was deciding whether the school had the authority to ban the clothing and the decision is in line with plenty of precedent establishing that students have very limited free speech rights while on school grounds or at school activities. There really shouldn't be any shock or anger that the court did what was expected.

The second issue is whether the school administration should have banned the clothing. That's a lot trickier, IMO, but it's an argument that has nothing to do with the court.

The school is wholly responsible for the safety of the kids and would be held to such in the courts especially if they knew that there was the potential for violence.

It's the same kind of mindset that gets kids to chant "USA! USA!" at foreign players during sporting events. Most are just doing it to be an asshole and it is certainlly racially charged. Plain and simple. There is very little going on from a patriotic standpoint to those sorts of "protests", and those that say otherwise are deluded.

Ban patriotic chants!

I'm not looking for the return to any good old days. I'll gladly take 2014 over then. I work at a school though and think the blanket fear of lawsuit so we will do this is so prevalent nowadays that's it sickening. Let them sue, we have a full time attorney here they can waste their money ours is already paid for.

Definitely. Does the constitution let them, and should they. It's good to separate those things.

And then there's this other angle about how the American flag is really a symbol of racism here. I'm sure it is, for some of them (cue "thug" debate). But there's an important distinction/separation to make there too. We can fairly speculate about people's "true motives" in using certain symbols. I was the biggest "'thug' is a racist symbol" guy in that Richard Sherman thing. But here we're talking about law and banning expression. I wouldn't be excited about any government entity banning the use of the word thug, even if the motives behind the use of word were racist. And the flag, unlike the word "thug", does have legit sincere positive meaning for a lot of people. That takes things into even more dangerous territory, IMO, when it comes to government banning, and punishment for certain kinds of speech, even in the context of a school.

Why don't we just teach the concepts of critical thinking(to include perspective), proper debate, & disagreement-without-violence earlier in education?

And I think the word "racist" or "race" is likely the wrong word choice here...its "xenophobic" if anything. The subject of "race" is constantly thrown into things where the most obvious difference is the visual appearance of 1 group. If people celebrating Cinco de Mayo (or a similar holiday) were ass-white and of Swedish/Russian/German (or whatever) descent, I contend you'd see the exact same backlash (reasonable or not) but we'd get past the outward appearance part pretty quickly to get at the root of the "problem" or dissimilar viewpoint or perspective.

Because gunz n 'merica!

No seriously, we could but there are so many different people that there is no way that you could ever convince everyone to just rationally think/disagree move on without someone somewhere taking offense, or feeling slighted and then that would be that. It's a pipe dream. Like living in a world without structure where you could do what you want in a free market without, you know, a government to help formulate the structure of society or regulate what goods and services and the concept of fairness are worth.

Clearly can't and shouldn't be done, but I appreciate your condescension in EVERY POLITICAL THREAD. It's great.

Point was the sentiment behind it is much the same. Not whether it should be banned or not.

I'm interested in this distinction, please expound.

I thought you were trying to blend the two, and honestly, if I took another second to make that post I would have spelled that out more instead of resorting to a catch phrase-type thing. I didn't think you were literally calling for the banning of patriotic chants, I was trying to make the point that how we feel about the people making the expression shouldn't impact how our we respond to the them in a legal sense.

But your all caps and your belittling of me and my opinions as a whole is kind of ironic. You're not above lecturing people if you think you're in the right.

You're both wrong, and acting like children. I CLAIM THE MORAL HIGH GROUND!!! BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Er, as you were....

Well race is not the same as "foreigner". You can be a light, medium, or dark skinned foreigner and be equally objected to by a local populace. And "foreigner" can be a relative term for that matter...this happens to be a EDIT: Mexican holiday but its a similar (albeit much milder) behavior when you see objections around people moving from one place & still supporting their old sports team. Essentially the "we did things like this where I came from" vs "well, if that place is so great, then go back" argument thats prevalent in many places that people move to (i.e. Sunbelt destination cities have these types of divides in many social circles). I think its just more magnified when its country vs country as opposed to US city vs US city (or at least its got more extreme elements to it).

The real issue with these types of things in my opinion is that "foreigners" are celebrating traditions and affinities that they should not (to those objecting) because the new place (again, relative to the foreign & established people) should be what they aim to assimilate into. If the foreigners were Russian, I suspect you'd hear lots of "Ivan" and "Nikolai", vodka, and communism mockery without anybody attaching race to it. To that end, (sidebar here)...I was a bit surprised (though not shocked) to hear during that kind of stuff on national news during the Sochi Olympics. I guess I chalk that up to "people don't really know what racism is, they just know making fun of dark skinned people might get them labelled as racist so they don't do it".

The namecalling (of foreigners by established people), focus/mocking on skin color differences or other associative traits or behaviors that people do is (again, imho) just post-rationalizing the reasons for objection to the foreigner (in an albeit crude & illogical way).

Thats at least my hypothesis around these types of societal issues.

I agree, you won't get much headway with adults who tend to be set in their ways, but kids are naturally more open minded...its the adults that tend to close it for them.

You'd have to make the subjects of such teaching the most politically correct things for it to work though. You couldn't debate anything that has any wiggle room for outcry but I think those skills would still have more merit at an earlier age even if the debated topics are more centered around "pencils with erasers vs pencils without erasers".

I know right? I can't believe I'll have to see the Irish flying the flag of a foreign nation (only colors that should be flying in this country are the RED WHITE AND BLUE. If they want to drink their green beer they can GO BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM.

If this were 1910, you'd find lots of agreement.

What are you basing this on? Do you think court decisions that have protected the free speech rights of Fred Phelps or the KKK were the "desired result based on their politics"?

The justification for the suppression of speech in this case is security. The government maybe/probably can suppress the speech, because of that legitimate interest, and because there's lesser First Amendment rights in schools. Usually when the government is doing something in the name of security, there's a lot of suspicion of that. But when the "what they're doing" is also something we want them to do, the suspicion seems to vanish. (Edit: Which just makes me suspicious, even when I also like what the government did.)

Fred Phelps and KKK cases are extreme examples. I think it's almost easier to recognize the free speech in the extreme examples. It's messier when there's two sides, and the government picks a side to censor.

But as a matter of law, and separately policy, are you really down with this? If a student's gay rights group in the south was getting harassed and there was the possibility of violence, and the school administration responded by banning the group and any reference to gay rights, would that be ok with you? Would you think that was both illegal and bad policy, or one or the other? I'm pretty sure if a Bush-appointed federal district court judge upheld the ban, we'd have some rhetoric about that, we might suspect the judge of having a policy interest in the case, and maybe it'd be well founded. His ruling wouldn't necessarily mean he's a bigot, maybe schools can selectively censor whatever the hell they want in schools. But I'm sure that would be the response.

Edit: And what's the difference between those people wearing flag shirts and the hypothetical gay rights group? Their motives. So it's not really at all about security anymore (if there's a distinction at all, either in law or policy), because the security concerns are in both examples. And its the security concern which justifies the ban in the first place.

Or, you can take the view that America is a melting pot that embraces the wide variety of cultures that have made it their home, and that the country is only the stronger for it.

:D

I think we are getting to the point where we need a standards group to identify all forms, including context where applicable, of bigoted expression.

But this will likely be very complex as you start to consider the amount of contextual situations. Plus it would need to evolve over time so we may even need to just make it a computer application so it can properly weigh all of the various factors for our little brains because we can't seem to find agreement to say, a 90% level.

I'm certainly not arguing against that view. I'm just pointing out that we apply the wrong form of wrong a lot. :)

Well, there's a significant difference in intent between the two groups. The gay rights group is advocating for a greater extension of rights, ostensibly at the expense of no one. The flag group is deliberately attacking the right of another cultural group to exist in their society.

Diametrically opposed in intent, one could say....

The problem is that while discernment of intent tends to be a common sense thing in the moment, it's easily obfuscated when people get lawyered-up, and that's when everything heads to shit.

Why can't we all get along, indeed.

Do you have examples of this?


This doesn't really make sense. Are you trying to suggest that the court wouldn't have banned "God Hates Fags" under the same exact facts of this case because it's "easier to recognize the free speech"?


Your example is much more extreme than the current case. They haven't banned the flag shirts permanently, but simply ordered the students to turn them inside out during this one celebration. Of course I wouldn't be okay with a complete ban, whether it was a gay rights group in Alabama or a traditional marriage group in San Francisco. And even the limited bans I would only be okay with if there was clear and convincing evidence of security concerns.

The point of my post was that you're claiming this was a policy decision and it would've been different if it was some liberal cause being banned (because I guess liberals don't care about the flag?), but have not offered any evidence of that.

Or, you know, we could all curb our tendencies to be judgmental assholes. :D

I've often said we should apply the right form of wrong more often. When it's right, you just can't get enough of wrongness, I say.

:p

But then we'd have to accept people being different from us, please explain how this will work. :confused:

And I hope that a hundred years from now they'll think people in our time getting upset about others celebrating Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year are as crazy as we view people in 1910 who would get outraged at St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

Who will judge whats judgmental though? How would we even know we're judgmental? :D

EDIT: That would mean we'd have to judge ourselves as to whether we are being judgmental. My head could hurt from that.

I've definitely boozed up many times in celebration of many "foreign" traditions. But I kind of do get the source of the tension where we become so protective of the foreign traditions, at the expense of the ones here. In a broad sense, it's silly, because American traditions aren't going away, if anything, they're getting more global. They don't need as much protection. But I get why people get anxious when there's that voice that doesn't mind banning flags or symbols of Christianity, but then is simultaneously ultra-protective about protecting "foreign" patriotic and religious symbols. I'm not saying they're right or that there isn't distinctions, I just think if that anxiousness is understood there maybe wouldn't be as much of that tension. There maybe would be better, practical solutions to situations like what was going on at this school, rather than just banning things that are important to people.

Almost any other time the security/government thing comes up. NSA, gun control, military, police searches and seizures, drug laws, the Patriot Act, etc. Even school security like metal detectors, random locker searches, etc. Don't we tend not to believe the government when it does things for "security", or at the very least, we're concerned about the potential for abuse? Edit: Don't you think the degree of that suspicion depends on how much we like guns, or tanks, or police officers, or racists?

I think when it's something that's SUCH a fringe view, I think it's easier to say, "ya, you're crazy, but you have the right to be crazy." When it's a more contested issue, like gay rights, or border-town rivalries between races, I think it's easier to get caught up into it and take a side. I think courts do that, I think people can do that, and I know I can do that. To me, it's the most interesting thing about being a lawyer and briefing constitutional issues, trying to completely eviscerate any of my own policy opinions of things. Maybe because I've done that so many years, I'm a little over-sensitive in identifying the potential for it everywhere else.

But either way, neither of those (KKK and Phelps) cases came out of the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit has a history of making bewildering decisions that are quickly overruled 9-0. They do make up law to fit their desired policy end. I don't think there's much debate about that, even among moderates (and probably most liberals). That doesn't necessarily mean it was the case here, but I thought some of the rhetoric responding to the decision, that was all focused on how racist these people were, instead of the security issue, was that kind of response. And maybe in retrospect they were entirely talking about what the school SHOULD have done, instead of the constitutional issue.

I do admit that this is where the theory falls down, yes.

Tell you what, even though this is just a huge imposition and challenge, I'll step up and do it. I can judge everyone and that way no one will really have to worry about it too much. Sound reasonable?

So it's easier to pick Fred Phelps over a guy whose son was killed in combat than it is to pick between the flag and a Cinco de Mayo celebration? Yeah, that makes no sense.


See this is where I have a problem. You don't know that they're doing this. It could be just that the 9th circuit has a different judicial philosophy than the Supreme Court and thus gets overturned more often than other circuits. But you're assuming they're making a policy preference.

There's a lot of false equivalence in what you're saying, however.

Unless you want to start giving us actual examples, I'll point out that when we talk about banning symbols of Christianity, it tends to be things like a monument to the 10 Commandments outside of a courthouse, or something like that. Which you're comparing to a school having a one-off Cinco de Mayo celebration (which has already been assimilated by the American beer industry anyway).

I mean, maybe you have examples where false equivalence isn't present, and if so, let's talk about those, than broad generalities where equivalence is simply implied.