I’unno. Perhaps they gave him a chance to avoid getting his ass kicked, and he took it. Being a Steelers fan, I won’t say he would have deserved it, but it probably would have happened. And yes, Seattle fans should get over it already.
It was a dick move by both the school and the kid. The kid (and his parents) knowingly allowed the rules to be broken, and the school set up a BS rule to begin with The only time something like limiting colors or team support is appropriate is when it’s school colors for a school game.
But, as I said, the kid intentionally broke the rules, so he deserved it. That’s the bottom line.
Oh, and Seattle needs to get over the butthurt. If I were in Seattle right now I’d be wearing my Super Bowl XL Roethlisberger jersey as often as possible just to drive the nails a little deeper. In that respect the kid, his parents and I are a lot alike.
I think there’s a First Amendment problem there: the school is permitting “speech” only if it goes in the way the school approves.
Which, if the school can show set rules and potential disruption, is entirely legal and proper.
I’m not sure what the first amendment issues are pertaining to dress codes and uniforms. Perhaps one of our legal types can add something.
What type of name is “Grendon”?
I think there are two problems with this:
(1) It was the school itself that set up the situation with potential disruption, by endorsing one sporting team knowing that some students will support other teams.
(2) The school is enforcing majority beliefs on a minority: exactly the sort of thing that the First Amendment is against.
Yes, it’s not about politics or religion, but for many high-school students which team you support is more important than politics or religion.
What minority? Steelers fans? You are not serious, are you?
For that matter, where does it say that preventing the enforcing of majority beliefs on a minority is the point of the amendment?
*Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. *
It’s a fairly routine First Amendment case. Dress codes are one thing (a constitutional gray area), but you don’t get to have a dress code with exceptions for speech you like. As Tinker says:
Fortunately, the school was smart enough not to suspend the kid, and the kid didn’t want to make a federal case out of a minor ordeal.
Doesn’t that mean that you need to get over it, too?
If wearing the shirt is considered disruptive, they can probably make him change it. It’s a bullshit rule, but it is a convenient way of getting around the First Amendment, and, combined with the ability to search you for reasonable suspicion instead of probably cause, the reason why I was taught all my life that you give up your constitutional rights when you enter a public school building.
Sometimes the SDMB needs taken out and laughed at for a while.
Some fat kid decides to do exactly what he was told not to do, the school disciplines him exactly as they said they would do, and on the SDMB they start to bleat about Amendments, constitutional issues and legal advice.
The kid didnt want to make a federal case? So he could if he wanted to? That in a nutshell shows how fucked up your country really is. Some nobody breaking a school dress code is a first amendment issue? Get over yourselves.
Awww…does someone need a hug? Rough week at home?
[Not commenting about the exception for Seahawks apparel because it’s not relevant to this case.]
If I were the kid’s father, I’d be far more worried about his attitude than his sports loyalties. He’s the worst kind of asshole, the kind who likes to piss off others for the sake of pissing off others. I tell you right now that if his parents don’t start correcting this behavior, he’s going to end up a worthless parasitic drain on society with no skills, no purpose in life, and absolutley no hope for ever improving. I’ve seen too many people go down this path.
(And before you say anything, yes, it’s possible for a rebel to amount to something. But this rebellious spirit has to be channelled into something positive. A punk band can make memorable, driving music. A campus protestor can shine the spotlight on social injustices. A feminist leader can smash through a glass ceiling and open up career opportunities for young women. A complete asshole is never going to be anything but a complete asshole.)
That said, I can’t help but think that the school shouldn’t be protecting him. You’re proud that your team benefitted from corruption and want to rub everyone’s faces in it? Fine. Show your colors. Flaunt your unpenitent dickishness. Hopefully, getting beaten to a bloody pulp will teach you a few things about tact and restraint. Or it’ll make you even more determined and you’ll keep pulling this crap until you get killed. Either outcome is fine, really.
Airman Doors - Okay, I’ve always known you to be blunt but intelligent and thoughtful (not unlike me 
), and I find your desire to “drive the nails in deeper”…puzzling. Are you saying that you’re fine with grossly unfair results? If so, are you just as happy when your team gets gypped (I don’t know any specific examples offhand, but they’ve been around a long time, there should be something)? Or that the Steelers are somehow entitled to Super Bowls (which is also why you do that “march to the Super Bowl” thread every season)? I’m afraid to even entertain other possibilities, honestly.
I start the thread every year because I’m a Steelers fan, and talking smack is what sports fans do. It’s always been that way, it will always be that way, and I am no different. Of course it’s arrogant presumption tot title the thread like that, but if I’m going to talk trash all year I certainly have no right to demand that none of it comes my way. So I invite it with the title.
As for Super Bowl XL: I suppose the crying about that will never end, and in that respect you’re no different. But “grossly unfair”? Here, I’ll be charitable and say that some of the calls were bad. The only really egregiously bad call was the personal foul on Hasselbeck in my opinion, but it makes no difference what I think, the whining will still continue. The assertion that it was “grossly unfair” puts you squarely into Diogenes territory. It implies that the game was fixed and the refs fixed it, a favorite assertion of his.
Is that where you want to be right now? Otherwise, it’s nothing more than incompetence, which is not at all the same thing.
And yes, I do like to drive it in deeper, because I am sick and tired of the never ending butthurt about it. If I have to listen to the incessant whining, you have to man up and take the response. Sorry if that bothers you.
It was possible but I have my doubts. Sports fans in the Pacific Northwest aren’t as intense as they are in other parts of the country. Also, we Seahawk fans don’t have a long-standing rivalry with the Steelers (and I blame their loss in the 2006 Super Bowl on piss-poor officiating anyway).
Now if this kid went to Boston and showed up at a schoolyard wearing Yankee gear then we can talk about him inviting a beating.
If Seahawks fans have to listen to your incessant gloating, you have to man up and take the response.
I do. And I respond in kind. Where’s the trophy? Still stings, doesn’t it?
A thirteen-year-old boy who defies a school rule. That’s a complete asshole? It used to be what you’d expect. Forget teams for a second: I think it’s just good that not every kid has fallen to the wussification of America.
i agree with your logic but disagree with the target of your ire. sure, the kid has a streak of “asshole-just-for-the-sake-of-it” in him but the REAL incurable asshole is the princiPAL that thought “Seahawk-and-nothing-but-seahawk” day was a good idea. what kind of school administrator sends home a student because he’s wearing black and gold when it should be… blue and grey-blue?
it would appear that the “worthless parasitic drain on society with no skills, no purpose in life, and absolutely no hope for ever improving” actually grew up to be a school administrator in seattle.