The majority does not need to be protected…get it?
[/quote]
‘Majorities’ don’t sue, and neither do ‘minorities’ - individuals do.
If an individual in the so-called majority gets negatively impacted because of someone else’s speech, he should had have the same protection - whatever the measure, little or lots - that an individual in the minority would.
Moreover, what are the chances that an evangelical Christian kid - assuming that is what he is - is actually part of the majority where they had this event take place? I don’t know whether he was or wasn’t - but classifications are trickier than they look at first glance.
I suspect the principle is the same. If a group of people, such as Christians, are being picked on by other children, it appears that they can by stopped by the schools.
I suspect the protection of minorities alone in the language is either somewhat spin or because it simply never occurred to the judges that non-minorities may need exactly the same protections.
Anyway, this was long winded, but I’m agreeing with you.
[quote]Diomede wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
Diomede wrote:
regardless of whether you should be able to wear derogatory t-shirts to school, the fact that this ruling protects the minorities and not the majorities is rather troubling…
The majority does not need to be protected…get it?
Give me an example please.
If “homosexuals are shameful” is banned speech, so should be “christians are shameful.”
A white kid shouldn’t have to endure hateful speech because he is white when a black kid does not. That is a clear violation of equal protection.[/quote]
I don’t know where you come from but neither phrase is ‘banned’ but I am against either statement being uttered in a public school system that my taxes pay for.
Where are students wearing shirts that claim “Christians are shameful”.
FYI - I support the separation of church and state because that is the main reason we as Americans have such a great relationship with our church(s).
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
I don’t know where you come from but neither phrase is ‘banned’ but I am against either statement being uttered in a public school system that my taxes pay for.
[/quote]
Fine… the argument is that the school started the discussion by pushing a political agenda, and then silenced dissenters. Want to say “No discussing sexual orientation in school”? Ok, great! Want to say “No discussion of religions in school”? Awesome! But don’t then say that it’s ok for the school to say “Gays are great/horrible/have funny hair” but not ok for students to express peaceful dissent.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
I don’t know where you come from but neither phrase is ‘banned’ but I am against either statement being uttered in a public school system that my taxes pay for.
Fine… the argument is that the school started the discussion by pushing a political agenda, and then silenced dissenters. Want to say “No discussing sexual orientation in school”? Ok, great! Want to say “No discussion of religions in school”? Awesome! But don’t then say that it’s ok for the school to say “Gays are great/horrible/have funny hair” but not ok for students to express peaceful dissent.[/quote]
Can the children also dissent against math? I think many would like to…
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
I don’t know where you come from but neither phrase is ‘banned’ but I am against either statement being uttered in a public school system that my taxes pay for.
Fine… the argument is that the school started the discussion by pushing a political agenda, and then silenced dissenters. Want to say “No discussing sexual orientation in school”? Ok, great! Want to say “No discussion of religions in school”? Awesome! But don’t then say that it’s ok for the school to say “Gays are great/horrible/have funny hair” but not ok for students to express peaceful dissent.[/quote]
I understand your point.
Freedom goes both ways.
Anyone that thinks gays are inherently bad humans or thinks that Christians are inherently bad humans is very misguided.
There may be bad people inside of those groups but I refuse to accept they are all bad because they may or may not do something I disagree with.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
I don’t know where you come from but neither phrase is ‘banned’ but I am against either statement being uttered in a public school system that my taxes pay for.
Fine… the argument is that the school started the discussion by pushing a political agenda, and then silenced dissenters. Want to say “No discussing sexual orientation in school”? Ok, great! Want to say “No discussion of religions in school”? Awesome! But don’t then say that it’s ok for the school to say “Gays are great/horrible/have funny hair” but not ok for students to express peaceful dissent.[/quote]
Good point. I wish we could keep all this crap out of school.
Deal with sexuality clinically and scientifically in school. No need to get into any more than that.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
Anyone that thinks gays are inherently bad humans or thinks that Christians are inherently bad humans is very misguided.
[/quote]
I agree with you, but being a good or bad human is a subjective evaluation. The best response seems to be for schools to just avoid trying to teach moral or value-based lessons. Then we don’t have to let the children wear their annoying t-shirts, and children don’t have to hear annoying politically-motivated drivel (well, as much…).
[quote]vroom wrote:
Can the children also dissent against math? I think many would like to…
[/quote]
Math isn’t subjective, nor is it political. If, on the other hand, a history teacher were to spend class time saying what a great president Bush was, or Kerry might have been, or George Washington was or wasn’t, and students disagreed with him, I think that is just fine.
On a semi-related note: When I was in middle school, our history book told us that the KKK was created to persecute blacks. That’s simply untrue, and I (respectfully and privately, unfortunately) told the teacher so. She disagreed and told me to bring in a source. I did. She looked surprised, but she never told the class that the book was wrong.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
Diomede wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
Diomede wrote:
regardless of whether you should be able to wear derogatory t-shirts to school, the fact that this ruling protects the minorities and not the majorities is rather troubling…
The majority does not need to be protected…get it?
Give me an example please.
If “homosexuals are shameful” is banned speech, so should be “christians are shameful.”
A white kid shouldn’t have to endure hateful speech because he is white when a black kid does not. That is a clear violation of equal protection.
I don’t know where you come from but neither phrase is ‘banned’ but I am against either statement being uttered in a public school system that my taxes pay for.
Where are students wearing shirts that claim “Christians are shameful”.
FYI - I support the separation of church and state because that is the main reason we as Americans have such a great relationship with our church(s).[/quote]
When a phrase is not allowed in the school, it is banned speech. You can argue semantics, but it is banned.
notice i used an if statement. I dont believe that the majority is protected under this law. If hate speech against the minority is banned, so should hate speech against the majority. I think we agree on that.
i agree on separation of church and state. I think it is one of the most important things in making our country work.
I just reread the ruling, and it suggests on page 35 that hate speech against the majority would also be under the perview of the school to prohibit.
I would think that people would be more worried about the power this gives to school administrators to make this decisions, as opposed to a court-imposed and unequal clamp on speech, since the former did happen and the latter did not.
[quote]zarathus wrote:
I just reread the ruling, and it suggests on page 35 that hate speech against the majority would also be under the perview of the school to prohibit.
I would think that people would be more worried about the power this gives to school administrators to make this decisions, as opposed to a court-imposed and unequal clamp on speech, since the former did happen and the latter did not.
[/quote]
what sentence(s) exactly are you refering to on page 35?
What you describe makes the Volokh diatribe BB quoted yet another spin piece meant to villify those damned legislating from the bench judges.
How surprising!
As has been found in the past, schools are empowered to take steps to limit certain activities that would interfere with the ability to maintain an environment suitable for education… so, is there really anything new here at all?
What you describe makes the Volokh diatribe BB quoted yet another spin piece meant to villify those damned legislating from the bench judges.
How surprising!
As has been found in the past, schools are empowered to take steps to limit certain activities that would interfere with the ability to maintain an environment suitable for education… so, is there really anything new here at all?[/quote]
The problem is that what Zarathus describes isn’t there.
You’re right, vroom, that schools have long had the ability to maintain an environment suitable for education. This has always been defined as causing violence or disruptions in the classroom. That isn’t the case here, though.
This ruling says that because some “particularly vulnerable students” might get their feelings hurt and not be able to concentrate, schools have the right to censor things that might interfere with their ability to get an education.
[quote]We consider here only
whether schools may prohibit the wearing of T-shirts on high school campuses and
in high school classes that flaunt demeaning slogans, phrases or aphorisms relating to a core characteristic of particularly vulnerable students and that may cause them significant injury.
[/quote]
That is a completely new and dangerous rationale for limiting free speech.
Back when I was a kid, we couldn’t wear t-shirts with heavy metal bands on them to school. This was around the time of the silliness with the kid that blew his head off after listening to “Paranoid” some two thousand times.
Nobody sued the school.
And there wasn’t even a hateful message like “God hates fags” on the shirts… it was just black tees with band stuff on them.
Fast-forward to today. Now we have assholes out there who sue because they can’t fathom the idea of not acting like some kind of prick to gay people.
Ask yourself this: who else but a self-important prick wears a shirt saying “Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned,” and on the back, it said “Homosexuality is Shameful.” ON A “GAY SUPPORT” DAY.
I know some of you guys think this is an attack on free speech, but it’s not. It’s an attack on assholism in a school. If you wanna be a prick, do it somewhere besides a school where my kids go. Wear that moronic shirt to restaurants, malls, etc. and prove what an idiot you are. Just not in the dang school, guys! What is so hard about this?
I know that some of y’all think that this country has freedoms being eroded slowly away, but my example above shows that it is not our freedoms being curtailed so much as the tendency for some of us to be jerks. If I was a high school student, and I wore a t-shirt to school on Easter that said “Jesus is still dead, and you all are stupid for thinking otherwise”, I would fully expect to catch a decent batch of shit for it, and be told to remove it… this is totally within the realm of normalcy, and NOT an attack on my free speech. It’s just me being corrected socially and justifiably – an attempt to teach me something – “Don’t be an asshole.”
Y’all know that school is supposed to teach our kids stuff besides math, right? Do we yell “fire!” in a movie theater? Do we scream “bomb!” at an airport? No, that is assholish behavior.
Y’all know that school is supposed to teach our kids stuff besides math, right? Do we yell “fire!” in a movie theater? Do we scream “bomb!” at an airport? No, that is assholish behavior.[/quote]
Things like freedom of speech?
Are you seriously dense enough to equate yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater with some kid wearing a t-shirt?
[quote]doogie wrote:
Things like freedom of speech?
Are you serious dense enough to equate yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater with some kid wearing a t-shirt?
[/quote]
No. Those are all examples of being an asshole… something which should be discouraged in polite society. Listen, man, I am all about our freedoms and liberties. I would like nothing more than to spread our American ideology to every corner of the Globe. But being an asshole for no good reason isn’t cool. Plain and simple. Use your liberties to do something positive. Tearing down somebody who already has enough problems as it is isn’t being a good American, hell – it’s not being a good friggin’ human being.
What point did that shirt serve?
The statement “I do not agree with our school’s policy of being fair towards gay people, and I am not adult enough to keep it to myself, and air my grievances in an appropriate way.”
The statement “I need to have someone teach me that I am being a little prick, and that my so-called free speech is inapprpopriate… obviously my parents aren’t doing a good enough job of teaching me how to behave myself like a real person.”
All of the above.
My last two cents about this: Get over yourselves. It’s a damn T-shirt. There’s no way this should have gone as far as it did in the court system. How ridiculous is this behavior? All those years ago, did we freak out and sue everybody because we couldn’t wear a Black Sabbath T-shirt to school? Get a friggin’ life.
What you describe makes the Volokh diatribe BB quoted yet another spin piece meant to villify those damned legislating from the bench judges.
How surprising!
As has been found in the past, schools are empowered to take steps to limit certain activities that would interfere with the ability to maintain an environment suitable for education… so, is there really anything new here at all?[/quote]
Well, it is clear you are relying on what Zarathus read and not what you read. Still haven’t bothered to read the decision, Vroom?
As is, you keep missing the point - schools can restrict or enlarge the scope of speech for kids attending. There are limits, but no one disagree a school can limit speech based on educational needs.
What they can’t do is cherrypick and abandon all content-neutrality. Maybe the free-speech sphere for students is small, maybe it is big - but it should be neutral: one viewpoint should not be privileged over another merely because the school has identified a class of people it wants to protect from some remote chance of getting their feelings hurt.
I am fine with a large restriction of free-speech among students at a school. But whatever the range of free-speech rights, it must be content-neutral. If a school in, say, the Deep South allowed pro-war t-shirts but said that anti-war t-shirts caused too much ‘trouble’ in an educational environment because someone might have a relative serving, etc. and thus might be offended - you would have already wet yourself over the indignity and the government encroaching on our civil liberties.
And I noticed you have a new pet word you are going to abuse and overuse in place of an argument. Looks like “spin” is the new “talking point”. Or is it the new “cheerleading”?