In basically every case that makes it to the Supreme Court, only one side has pursued the case all the way to the Supreme Court. After all, you don’t appeal to the Circuit Court f you won at the District Court level, and you don’t appeal to the Supreme Court if you won at the Circuit Court level. Appeals cases are, almost by definition, pursued by the losing side and not by both sides.
And you have no evidence, if the lower court cases had gone the other way, that the student and her parents would not also have continued to pursue the case. The lawyer arguing their case was from the ACLU, and I doubt they would just have thrown in the towel if they had lost at the District Court or in the Third Circuit.
Cite? Are you really saying “the government” can stop a 14 year old from carrying a “Fuck Biden” sign at a MAGA rally? Under what theory? Or, are you saying they can stop her from saying it in a classroom (which no one disputes). On one hand, we have a MAGA rally, and on the other we have a classroom. The question for this case is which category we put a snapchat message.
But this completely ignores the central issue in the case: the question of where the speech happened, and the extent to which it disrupts normal school activity.
First, as @Procrustus notes, the government certainly cannot forbid a child from swearing as a general matter of course, especially if the swearing occurs in the context of clearly protected speech.
Second, your whole argument completely neglects the “schoolhouse gate” question which is at the center of Tinker, and which the justices are wrestling with in this case. This is not an easy question to answer in the world of portable technology and social media, where it is very easy for speech that originated outside the schoolhouse gate to be viewed and heard inside the schoolhouse gate. As I said earlier in the thread, I’m not sure of exactly where to draw the line in such cases, and I don’t envy the justices their task in this case, but if you want to discuss this case, it’s a question you have to grapple with.
You seem to want to pretend that the issue of time and place doesn’t matter, but it’s absolutely central to this case.
When you disagree with the person in charge of managing a group of people (including yourself), whether or not you use the word ‘fuck’ is actually very important. It helps determine whether or not you are being respectful, whether you’re being dismissive, whether you are demonstrating the type of behavior that is desirable in people allowed to participate in this voluntary activity.
Even if you do support the coach and speak words supportive of the team, the words you choose can demonstrate behavior incompatible with membership. “Go East High! Fuck West High! I hope their bus crashes into a tree.”
Exactly. A student can tell me to go fuck myself on the street and they are completely within their rights. Do that on campus or on a school function and it’s a different story. Social media just makes the distinction a lot fuzzier. The more I think about this case the more I think that the school district should have packed it in about 4 years ago.
Indeed, what if the agreement the student signed with cheerleading had said, “the student may not disrespect cheerleading by showing enthusiasm for other school’s sports teams” and then somebody showed the coach a picture of the student wearing their rivals sweatshirt while she was off campus? Or of her rooting for another team at a basketball game her school was not playing in?
What if the agreement said the student may not show disrespect for cheerleading by praying to a Christian God?
Oh dear, this DOES sound serious! I guess we have no choice but to let her post a TikTok attack ad denouncing the idiocy of the Cheer Coach and let her remain captain of the Cheer Team.
So, is it the “Fuck” that you think is unacceptable, or the disagreement?
If she had been more articulate, and said, “I am so pissed off right now! I should have made the team, but the coach doesn’t know talent when he sees it!” Would that be acceptable? That’s pretty disrespectful, saying that the coach doesn’t’ know how to do their job. Like I asked, is it that she expressed disagreement with the decision, or used the word “fuck”?
She didn’t say, “Fuck you coach” to their face, which would be disrespectful. She blew off some steam over her disappointment in what she believed to be a private conversation.
If I had an employee that didn’t get a raise, and one of my employees came to me with a recording of them saying, “Fuck my job, I didn’t get that raise”, I wouldn’t fire them. If they told me that to my face, I likely would.
I see no problem with this in general. If it is chanted on the bus, or at a game, then I would take steps to stop it, and discipline if it continued. If it was at home, or on private social media, then I wouldn’t see a problem with it.
This crosses a line into wishing harm on others. If we were in the pit, I could say, “Fuck poster” without any sanction, but as soon as I say, “I hope poster runs their car into a tree” then I would get a mod note of some sort.
Did she wish harm on anyone, or is your example just hyperbolic and not actually related to the discussion at hand?
There is only one side being ridiculous here. The courts have said so twice. The evidence shows that their position is ridiculous, IMO: she didn’t break any rules but they still want to punish her for something she did off-campus, out-of-sight of the coach because someone else decided to bring the evidence onto campus. It was petty of the coach and it’s lunacy that tens of thousands of dollars and over 4 years have been spent defending these actions.
The young lady was not ridiculous; she was merely defending herself.
When you combine disagreement with certain wordings, your words can be perceived as a disrespectful attack on the person or institution, where they would not be so perceived under different circumstances. It’s that disrespectful attack on the coach and the team that is the problem, not the disagreement or individual word.
When “Fuck West High” is out on “private” social media, it can very much become public, and this person is now not only on record being divisive and disrespectful, but we are going to put our school’s name on the front of her jersey, and have her represent our school in front of a large crowd who may have seen that “private” post.
This would pose problems why exactly? Would the crowd instantly erupt into violent chaos when they see her? Would a vengeful demon wreak havoc? Would the local economy collapse? Would prolific and flamboyant jaywalking threaten the town’s peaceful existence? All because a girl who once said “fuck cheerleading” is now cheerleading?
Students chosen to represent the school in front of crowds should be leaders, representative examples of good behavior for the other students, not dickbags exhibiting behavior that makes the world shittier for everyone.
No, the school would still have to show that praying violates some reasonable school purpose.
The young lady’s position amounts to “anything I say off school grounds and outside of school hours is none of the school’s business, regardless of any effect it might have on the schools, just because it occurred outside the schoolhouse gate.”
The school’s position is merely that the schoolhouse gate isn’t a physical place anymore, and activities off school grounds can still violate school rules and be punished appropriately. The question they present to the court is:
The location of the schoolhouse gate is a separate question from whether this particular outburst disrupted the school sufficiently to merit punishment. I can accept an argument that throwing her off the team for posting “fuck cheer” is a disproportionate response; that’s a reasonable argument and reasonable people can have different opinions on exactly where the line of acceptable behavior might be and what the coach should be required to tolerate.
However, if the question presented is answered in the negative, then NOTHING a student says outside of school (that isn’t actually criminal threat or otherwise prosecutable) can ever be punished by the school because the student has absolute right of free speech to say whatever s/he wants. A student with full First Amendment rights to speak about school-related events and activities can wish harm to befall the other cheerleaders and wish the other team’s bus crashes into a tree, as long as she says it off school property and outside of school hours. That student can foment discontent in the ranks, plot rebellion against coach’s instructions, or otherwise cause all sorts of disruption without consequence, as long as it all happens off school property and outside of school hours. That, I don’t find reasonable and acceptable, and it doesn’t sound like the justices do either.
As the saying goes, bad cases make bad law, and I don’t think this case is a particularly good vehicle for deciding the schools’ authority over outside speech affecting school matters, but it is the case the justices chose to take up.
As everyone knows, high school athletes are always of the highest moral caliber, and no school would ever sweep allegations against, say, their star football players, under the rug.
Anything can be perceived in a certain way, if people want to perceive them that way.
Are you saying that if she had said, “The coach doesn’t know what she is doing, they cannot tell talent when they see it, and they have no business being in charge of tryouts.” That would have been acceptable? There was no foul language involved, but I would say, far more of an actual attack.
If so, then they have no freedom of speech, they may not disagree with decisions made, nor levy any criticism towards those who have authority over them. If not, then it’s just because she used a bad word, so someone should also be kicked off the team for saying, “Fuck yeah, I made Varsity!”
You never did answer that, do you think that someone should be kicked off the team for using foul language in agreement or excitement?
I don’t see it as an attack on the coach or the team, as it was not said to the coach or the team, nor in any place where she had reason to believe that they would have heard it.
So, if someone recorded her saying, “Fuck West High!” in a private conversation, does that make her on the record being divisive and disrespectful?
Sure, she is also going to be saying lots of negative things about West High, some of them rather disrespectful, in the official course of her cheering on East High. If she cheers for West High’s kicker to miss the field goal, is that not divisive and disrespectful?
They should probably refrain from using profanity while representing their school then.
If the Valedictorian stubbs his toe in private and yells, “Fuck that hurt!”, and that is recorded and played in public, do we strip him of his title? We don’t let him give a commencement speech. After all, he used foul language, which means that he’s a dickbag exhibiting behavior that makes the world shittier for everyone.