Posted on 06/25/2021 4:20:32 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Sit down and be quiet. School administrators, who are predominantly left-wing, will tell you when you're being disruptive.
SCOTUS, on June 23rd, ruled 8-1 in favor of the plaintiff, Brandi Levy, in a case involving her suspension after badmouthing her school on social media. Her profanity-laced diatribe was posted on SnapChat. She wrote the message after she failed to make the Varsity Squad and was being kept on the Junior Varsity Squad.
Her rant, "F**k school f**k softball f**k cheer f**k everything", accompanied a picture of herself, and a friend, showing the middle finger. (Note: she did not use asterisks.)
A student took a screenshot of the message and showed it to the cheerleading squad's coach and Brandi was subsequently kicked off the team. The parents made numerous appeals which ascended through the appellate courts, eventually reaching the Supreme Court.
At stake was the issue of whether a school has authority to take disciplinary action when a student speaks outside school grounds.
Schools have argued that extracurricular activities off-campus, but affiliated with the school, are within that purview. The school also argued that speech that leads to a "substantial disruption" to school activities is an actionable offense no matter where it is made, off school property or outside of school time.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
To paraphrase ‘Gold Hat’ speaking to Dobbs:
“We doon need no stink’n first amendment.”
>>If you want to gut the schools, pull your kids out and either homeschool them or put them in a private school
That won’t “gut the schools”; they still get funded through taxes even if they had no students. We need to defund public education entirely; Separation of school and state.
The Supreme Court has given “schools” far more authority on speech by students, anywhere their speech occurs, than it has granted just about any other venue in society.
What makes “schools” privileged to refuse the freedom of speech in ways not possible in most any other venue. In particular what makes schools privileged in controlling speech that takes place outside of school when for most any other venue the idea of controlling speech that takes place outside their purview is seldom countenanced by the courts?
Why has the Supreme Court put schools on a legal pedestal?
Townsfolk: cut school taxes
Administration: ok, and we will cut football, drama club, after-school daycare since you parents chose work over family, fire teachers, and put 70 kids in classes
Townsfolk: you can't cut football.
Administration: we just did
Townsfolk: we are sorry...we will pay HIGHER taxes
Deplorables: wait...school is about education, not sports or drama.
Townsfolk: stfu and pay your taxes.
Now, if over time the school rolls dropped by 50 %, then you'd have a fiscal argument to lower taxes. Absent that, it's a doomed prop.
Agreed. I homeschooled my children.
This ruling does only resolves this dispute. Who determines "substantial disruption."?
This ruling only resolves . . .
I believe that CNN and the AssPress started it, but the cancer is quickly spreading through the rest of the media. GP is probably the worst example on the right, but Breitbart and American Thinker do this all the time as well.
People don't take the time to read the actual facts, nor do they think critically about anything. Headlines on all sides are tailored to the moron class, and many in the moron class only read the headline and the social media posts that the headline is pasted into.
Let's look at the FACTS:
SCOTUS: "Unlike the Third Circuit, we do not believe the special characteristics that give schools additional license to regulate student speech always disappear when a school regulates speech that takes place off campus. The school’s regulatory interests remain significant in some off-campus circumstances. The parties’ briefs, and those of amici, list several types of off-campus behavior that may call for school regulation. These include serious or severe bullying or harassment targeting particular individuals; threats aimed at teachers or other students; the failure to follow rules concerning lessons, the writing of papers, the use of computers, or participation in other online school activities; and breaches of school security devices, including material maintained within school computers."
"We are uncertain as to the length or content of any such list of appropriate exceptions or carveouts to the Third Circuit majority’s rule. That rule, basically, if not entirely, would deny the off-campus applicability of Tinker’s highly general statement about the nature of a school’s special interests. Particularly given the advent of computer-based learning, we hesitate to determine precisely which of many school-related off-campus activities belong on such a list. Neither do we now know how such a list might vary, depending upon a student’s age, the nature of the school’s off campus activity, or the impact upon the school itself. Thus, we do not now set forth a broad, highly general First Amendment rule stating just what counts as “off campus” speech and whether or how ordinary First Amendment standards must give way off campus to a school’s special need to prevent, e.g., substantial disruption of learning-related activities or the protection of those who make up a school community."
So, SCOTUS disagrees with the 3rd Circuit with a bright-line rule that says ALL off-campus speech is off limits. However, they don't precisely define the rule as to what speech can be regulated. Instead, they set up a three part test.
First, a school, in relation to off-campus speech, will rarely stand in loco parentis. The doctrine of in loco parentis treats school administrators as standing in the place of students’ parents under circumstances where the children’s actual parents cannot protect, guide, and discipline them. Geographically speaking, off-campus speech will normally fall within the zone of parental, rather than school-related, responsibility.
Second, from the student speaker’s perspective, regulations of off-campus speech, when coupled with regulations of on-campus speech, include all the speech a student utters during the full 24-hour day. That means courts must be more skeptical of a school’s efforts to regulate off-campus speech, for doing so may mean the student cannot engage in that kind of speech at all. When it comes to political or religious speech that occurs outside school or a school program or activity, the school will have a heavy burden to justify intervention.
Third, the school itself has an interest in protecting a student’s unpopular expression, especially when the expression takes place off campus. America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy. Our representative democracy only works if we protect the “marketplace of ideas.” This free exchange facilitates an informed public opinion, which, when transmitted to lawmakers, helps produce laws that reflect the People’s will. That protection must include the protection of unpopular ideas, for popular ideas have less need for protection. Thus, schools have a strong interest in ensuring that future generations understand the working in practice of the well-known aphorism, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Given the many different kinds of off-campus speech, the different potential school-related and circumstance-specific justifications, and the differing extent to which those justifications may call for First Amendment leeway, we can, as a general matter, say little more than this: Taken together, these three features of much off-campus speech mean that the leeway the First Amendment grants to schools in light of their special characteristics is diminished. We leave for future cases to decide where, when, and how these features mean the speaker’s off-campus location will make the critical difference. . ."
So in a nutshell, SCOTUS is declining to create a blanket rule that would prohibit the regulation of *ALL* off campus speech, but says that in the limited instances that schools can regulate speech, the regulation has to fit within the three part framework created, AND such regulations will be rare given the diminished interests of the school in regulating off campus speech.
Regulating speech because a student is Cussing out the coach, expressing religious or political opinions, advocating against abortion, ect... would all be off limits for the schools.
The Courts.
To be particular:
“”Tinker requires a specific and significant fear of disruption, not just some remote apprehension of disturbance.” “School officials must be able to show that their actions were caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” “Officials must base their decisions on fact, not intuition”
This ping list is for the other articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)
The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
I think the SCOTUS narrowed things down considerably. That is, schools have to be able to act against tangible threats of violence or criminal acts from students made on social media.
However, non-violent expression or the use of profanity is not enough. Students cannot be punished just for expressing contempt or even hatred for others.
And yet any language considered hatred can be cause for substantial disruption. Is that clear?
Not in the SCOTUS decision, it isn’t.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
“Hate speech” is actually a pretty nebulous expression in the law, appealing to emotions rather than facts.
The Court . . . identifies this case as an “example” and “leav[es] for future cases” the job of developing this new common-law doctrine. Ante, at 7–8. But the Court’s foundation is untethered from anything stable, and courts (and schools) will almost certainly be at a loss as to what exactly the Court’s opinion today means.
Absolutely correct...
When the government took complete control of the Nation's "formerly" public school system in the 1960's & 70's, it was driven by the communist's knowledge that to conquer the U.S. the target for the future needed to be reeducated/propagandized children...
This absolutely necessary strategy was first postulated by the Fabian Marxists back in the late 1800's...
This was totally accomplished by the 2000's and played a key role in communism's final glorious victory in 2020...
There is no hope that anyone under the age of 35 can be converted back to a supporter of freedom, liberty, and capitalism...
Best hope is a minor course correction on one of Apophis' next three passes...
just a screwed up headline
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