# I Pit the administration of Live Oak High School **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 6, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521 "2010-05-06T15:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/261 "2010-05-10T08:42:41Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Why don’t you look up the school district’s code of conduct and see if there’s a specific definition of punishments? > > I bet “agreeing to go home” isn’t on there. But Bo, do you agree that schools do not normally let kids “agree to go home”? If you left school in the middle of the day without permission at my high school, you received an instant 3-hour detention. Somehow I doubt things have changed much in ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/262 "2010-05-10T14:51:23Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > But Bo, do you agree that schools do not normally let kids “agree to go home”? > > If you left school in the middle of the day without permission at my high school, you received an instant 3-hour detention. Somehow I doubt things have changed much in ten years. Note that in your example, going home _results_ in punishment, it is not itself the punishment. AFAIK, actually, the notion of “go home and change and you can come back in to school” seems to be pretty common in a lot of the “student sent home for inappropriate attire” stories I’ve read. If you read them, nearly every single story says the student was told to change their shirt/turn it inside out or go home. The kids have options; they just choose to go home. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/263 "2010-05-10T14:57:48Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Note that in your example, going home _results_ in punishment, it is not itself the punishment. > > AFAIK, actually, the notion of “go home and change and you can come back in to school” seems to be pretty common in a lot of the “student sent home for inappropriate attire” stories I’ve read. If you read them, nearly every single story says the student was told to change their shirt/turn it inside out or go home. The kids have options; they just choose to go home. Right, they have the option of choosing between two forms of punishment. Going home being the lesser punishment of the two. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/264 "2010-05-10T18:07:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Right, they have the option of choosing between two forms of punishment. Going home being the lesser punishment of the two. You seem to have the idea that if you say something loud enough, long enough, it will become true. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/265 "2010-05-10T18:30:12Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > You seem to have the idea that if you say something loud enough, long enough, it will become true. :rolleyes: \ He learned it from YOU \ ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/266 "2010-05-10T18:41:58Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > You seem to have the idea that if you say something loud enough, long enough, it will become true. :rolleyes: Well, it worked! Before posting in this thread I spent about ten minutes screaming, “ **SnoBoarder Bo** will finally show himself to be an idiot that will remove any doubt.” And then you offered up all your posts. ---
**Author:** ![kdeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b487fb/32.png) [@kdeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kdeus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/267 "2010-05-12T00:58:27Z")
> [@dhkendall](#): > > The best analogy I can see for this is being sent home because you’re not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day… It might be closer to wearing orange on St. Patrick’s day. It is an otherwise neutral color associated with “the other team,” and selected for the point of irritating people on that particular holiday. Or maybe I’ve got the whole green/ orange thing wrong. I’m neither Irish nor violently religious. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/268 "2010-05-12T01:02:32Z")
But orange is a color on the Irish flag, and the Orangemen are just as Irish as the rest. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/269 "2010-05-13T19:28:43Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I _said_ the action was a mistake, but I’d also bet my house those specific kids were being punks or had a history of being punks. I’ve been there, done that job. I know how it works. > > . And the white kid who got beaten senseless in Jena was a “racist redneck who deserved a beat down.” No prejudice there at all, no siree. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/270 "2010-05-13T19:37:26Z")
Oh the humanity! Who could foresee the consequences of wearing flaggy clothing? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/271 "2010-05-13T20:03:09Z")
[ > [@Jim Navarrette](#): > > Finally, now that more details have surfaced, it looks like the boys have, all along, been acting like brats. While it’s true that it is not the school district’s policy to ask students to remove patriotic clothing, and Rodriguez is in hot water, it is also true that administrators at Live Oak High School asked students beforehand not to wear flag clothing on Cinco de Mayo – any flags, of the United States, Mexico or Estonia. That’s because there had been tensions last year, according to what a Morgan Hill school board trustee told The Associated Press. ]([The San Diego Union-Tribune: Local News, Sports and Things to Do](http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/12/patriots-or-kids-out-of-control/)) [ > [@Jim Navarrette](#): > > The important thing to remember is that these five boys openly defied school authorities not once but twice. It’s obvious they wore the T-shirts to stick their fingers in the eyes of Mexican-American students and mock an ethnic celebration that they didn’t feel had anything to do with them. They did this despite being told to practice restraint by administrators. And then when they were told to stand down, they refused. > > Just whom do they think was in charge at that school – the adults or the students? And, if the administrators give in to public pressure, then we should ask: Who really is in charge? ]([The San Diego Union-Tribune: Local News, Sports and Things to Do](http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/12/patriots-or-kids-out-of-control/)) The school admins are in charge. That’s why they are hired. If the job they were doing was fine when they sent home the girls with pink hair, it should be fine now. As Mr. Navarrette notes (and as has been said in this thread), many are just in a snit because \ THE FLAG! is involved. And so we get loud braying jackasses like **magellan01** piping up with their “opinion” even tho all they know for sure is THE FLAG was involved, not knowing anything about school policies, local history, etc. but they are _sure_ that no matter what, it wasn’t the kids with the flag who were the problem. Those kids can’t be the problem, they argue, because they had the flag, and the flag magically erases all errors and sins, both actual and perceived, committed by the bearer. :rolleyes: Apparently, it’s also supposed to reach back over time and magically make the incidents from the previous year not have happened. [ > [@](#): > > Kathleen Sullivan, a Morgan Hill Unified School District board trustee, said Live Oak also experienced problems on Cinco de Mayo last year. > > She said some students had complained to the principal and vice principal that they had felt intimidated by students waving American flags. ]([http://www.ktvu.com/news/23470391/detail.html](http://www.ktvu.com/news/23470391/detail.html)) MEANWHILE, I thought some of the students at the school were very eloquent during their march on city hall. [ > [@](#): > > “We could have ignored it, but the fact that they did it to us last year – see that is disrespect toward us,” she said of the students. “And they want to do it again and plan it out, they plan it out. They think it’s funny. It hurts us. We are just as equal as they are.” > > Fellow student Lizbeth Ruiz also said she felt disrespected. > > “There is no right for them to be putting us down,” she said of the t-shirt wearers. “All that proves that America isn’t what it should be.” ]([http://www.ktvu.com/news/23470391/detail.html](http://www.ktvu.com/news/23470391/detail.html)) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/272 "2010-05-13T20:28:53Z")
It should be noted that Ruben Navarrette, Jr. (not Jim) is a professional race-baiter whom I would not believe were he to tell me “careful, plate is hot”\* unless I had secondary confirmation in the form of seared fingertips. - Mr. Navarette, Jr. enjoys mining his own CNN columns with this type of needlessly inflammatory stereotype (e.g., white knowledge of Hispanic culture is limited to guacamole and chimichangas), so if he can dish it out, I presume he can take it. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/273 "2010-05-13T22:18:22Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > As Mr. Navarrette notes (and as has been said in this thread), many are just in a snit because \ THE FLAG! is involved. And so we get loud braying jackasses like **magellan01** piping up with their “opinion” even tho all they know for sure is THE FLAG was involved, not knowing anything about school policies, local history, etc. but they are _sure_ that no matter what, it wasn’t the kids with the flag who were the problem. Those kids can’t be the problem, they argue, because they had the flag, and the flag magically erases all errors and sins, both actual and perceived, committed by the bearer. :rolleyes: > > Apparently, it’s also supposed to reach back over time and magically make the incidents from the previous year not have happened. Apparently, you really are as stupid as your efforts have thus far indicated. Look, dummy, the _motivation_ of the students doesn’t matter. What they DID matters. And they didn’t do anything wrong. Their action are protected. They could hate Latinos (even though two of them are half Latino :rolleyes:) every which-way till Sunday…they could want them all shoved in meat grinders or beaten like pinatas or sent to the South Pole—it matters squat!!! What matters is what they _did_. And what they _did_ is that they channeled their protest in a way that the law says is protected. Can you really be so dense and empty-headed at the same time? As far as the previous year, BIG FUCKING DEAL? American kids were waving American flags in an American school—“Call the authorities!”. Look, son, if the administration was aware of a potential problem then they should have dealt with it another way. Add much more security. Or tell the kids who want to celebrate A MEXICAN HOLIDAY that they have to accept that American flags are allowed to fly, as well. And if they don’t like that they should just stay the fuck home or go march in somebody’s basement where they can keep out the America-loving undesirables. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/274 "2010-05-14T01:42:59Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > She said some students had complained to the principal and vice principal that they had felt intimidated by students waving American flags. Man, “felt intimidated” by kids doing precisely nothing. Oh, wave that flag at me, I’m so fuckin’ scared. Christ, what pussies. > [@](#): > > MEANWHILE, I thought some of the students at the school were very eloquent during their march on city hall. > > > [@](#): > > > > “We could have ignored it, but the fact that they did it to us last year – see that is disrespect toward us,” she said of the students. “And they want to do it again and plan it out, they plan it out. They think it’s funny. It hurts us. We are just as equal as they are.” > > > > Fellow student Lizbeth Ruiz also said she felt disrespected. > > > > “There is no right for them to be putting us down,” she said of the t-shirt wearers. “All that proves that America isn’t what it should be.” You say “eloquence”, I say “butthurt”. This is exactly what everyone means when they say “political correctness run amok”–this half-assed “oh noes someone’s offended better ban it” bullshit. Point out to me that the kids who wore the American flag were racist or acted improperly in any way. Seriously. “felt intimidated”? “Felt disrespected”? I feel disrespected that these kids are such goddamn pussies but I’m not asking them to be sent home until they come back with a properly calibrated outrage-meter. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/275 "2011-11-12T03:47:50Z")
Update: The students sued claiming infringement of their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court found against them: [ > [@](#): > > The district court sided with the school in the dispute, finding that administrators had demonstrated a non-discriminatory purpose for asking the students to remove their American-flag apparel. While they may have been treated differently than students wearing Mexican-flag apparel that day, the court noted that the students wearing Mexican flags had not been targeted for violence. ]([http://blogs.findlaw.com/ninth\_circuit/2011/11/morgan-hill-student-free-speech-rights-case-fits-tinker-to-a-t.html?utm\_source=feedburner&utm\_medium=feed&utm\_campaign=Feed%3A+USNinthCircuit+(FindLaw's+U.S.+Ninth+Circuit+Blog)](http://blogs.findlaw.com/ninth_circuit/2011/11/morgan-hill-student-free-speech-rights-case-fits-tinker-to-a-t.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+USNinthCircuit+%28FindLaw%27s+U.S.+Ninth+Circuit+Blog%29)) Opinion (PDF) [here](http://ia600707.us.archive.org/5/items/gov.uscourts.cand.228924/gov.uscourts.cand.228924.67.0.pdf). The court noted that the Tinker standard allowed school officials to suppress speech in situations that "might have reasonably have led school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” I find myself in disagreement with World Net Daily over the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/276 "2011-11-12T04:42:08Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > And wearing a USA flag on a day when students had been told that it would be not just May 5th, but also Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of Mexico and it’s people, could be seen by some as a less common and less well-known way of saying “fuck you” to people celebrating Mexico, it’s peoples and cultures. Well, I suppose it could be, but it’s a stretch that borders on the psychotic. I I could also see a Pittsburgh Steelers baseball cap as being a less well-known way of showing affinity fr the Nazi Party. Is Cinco de Mayo some sort of celebration of hatred of the United States or something? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/277 "2011-11-12T05:11:33Z")
Wow. When we get to the point where the US flag, in the United States, is seen as potentially provoking violence under any circumstances, one has to wonder WTF is going on? This should go to the SCOTUS. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/278 "2011-11-12T16:07:44Z")
I’m confused at why people are saying, “I’m a liberal, but…” What’s being a liberal have to do with it? If anything, it sounds like these kids may have been making a small statement (one against multiculturalism, I donno?) and the libs on the board shouldn’t need a disclaimer. I’m also wondering if students wearing a French flag would have been kicked off campus. 😉 That whole situation was just bizarre. Did the school take the American flag down from the flagpole, too? ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/279 "2011-11-12T16:18:03Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Wow. When we get to the point where the US flag, in the United States, is seen as potentially provoking violence under any circumstances, one has to wonder WTF is going on? This should go to the SCOTUS. What error in law do you find? The kids gathered with the intent to disrupt (what, five kids just coincidentally wore flag t-shirts?), and you want to give them special protection because of their faux patriotism? If anything they were being disrespectful to the flag. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521/280 "2011-11-12T16:25:36Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > What error in law do you find? > > The kids gathered with the intent to disrupt (what, five kids just coincidentally wore flag t-shirts?), and you want to give them special protection because of their faux patriotism? > > If anything they were being disrespectful to the flag. Quite a few assumptions you are making there. And since the SCOTUS says that flag burning is protected speech, don’t you think that maybe the “disrespect” you see falls well below burning the flag and is also protected speech? Kids can wear flag apparel on any day of the year except Cinco de Mayo? Puh-leese. The “special protection” being requested is by the offenderatti, not the flag wearers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-administration-of-live-oak-high-school/538521.md?page=15)