I’m not sure what viewpoint is being advanced by having a Cinco de Mayo observance. I seriously doubt the school was promoting La Reconquista or something.
i usually hate slippery slope rebuttals but i think this is a clear example of where it applies. if a kid wants to beat another kid up for having long hair, do you tell everyone to get short haircuts? no, right? but how do we decide what is too small an infraction and what is too large? surely only the worst most inciting incidents should be banned, right?
The most basic format of the threat I was describing is this:
Bob: Alice, the next time I engage in this non-default action, I will commit violence against you!
Teacher: Bob, not only are you in trouble for issuing a threat, but to keep Alice from feeling further threatened, I’m forbidding you from engaging in that non-default action.
Note that this isn’t the same thing as the OP’s case, as far as I can tell, but is rather an example of when a flag shirt might be forbidden (if wearing it is the non-default action in question).
Your haircut scenario is something like:
Bob: Alice, because you have engaged in this non-default action, I will commit violence against you!
Teacher: Bob, not only are you in trouble for issuing a threat, but to keep Alice from feeling further threatened, I’m forbidding ALICE from engaging in that non-default action.
That minor change makes a world of difference, and it’s not a slippery slope.
what do you mean by non default? is speaking with a southern accent non default? is listening to bob dylan on my headphones non default? is humming while listening to bob dylan non default? dancing in place but not humming? nodding my head to the music but not dancing and not humming? is smiling non default? is wearing a green tie non default? criticizing the president?
Wearing a shirt is default. For some people, speaking with a Southern accent is default. But if it’s something that you make the choice whether to do, if it’s something that you can easily and trivially choose not to do, and you threaten someone with violence next time you do it, then you’ve turned your next such choice into an implicit threat, and it’s appropriate for you to be stopped.
Consider: “The next time you see me with my eyes open, I’ll hit you.” In this case, it’s not trivial for the kid to not open their eyes; you can’t really treat that as a threat. But, “The next time you see me wearing a red shirt, I’ll hit you.” It’s trivial for the kid to not wear a red shirt, so you can treat that as a threat.
I think you make a very acute and important distinction here. I see the situation referred to in the OP as (I changed the names to reflect the ethnicity’s of the groups involved):
Miguel: Billy, because you have engaged in this non-default action (wearing of the American flag), I will commit violence against you!
Principal: Bob, not only are you in trouble for issuing a threat, but to keep Billy from feeling further threatened, I’m forbidding BILLY from engaging in that non-default action.
That’s kind of how it sounds to me as well, except that WTF is the principal doing talking to Bob about what Miguel did?
However, I can’t quite tell from the stories whether Billy is the victim here, or whether Billy is also engaging in violence. If it’s the latter, the situation becomes murkier.
In any case, I reiterate that in this case, I don’t think restricting speech is legitimate. It seems to me to fall into a gray area of Tinker.
but you said: " if i see you wearing tennis shoes again i’ll beat you up?"… that if you were the principal you’d ban tennis shoes, right? or did i get that wrong?
but what if the kid, george, lives in ohio. he’s on the school baseball team. he LOVES the cincinati red’s. but (to be silly) this other student, fred, HATES communism. fred feels communism and the color red are one in the same. he wants to beat up anyone wearing red. or at least harass them.
i assume you will make case to case decisions and allow george to wear red tshirts in this case, right?
I think I agree with this. The suppression of speech in the case I think is particularly problematic because they suppressed only one side of the competing messages.
Agreed. I am a lawyer. I think if anything the Tinker case supports the right of these students to wear US flag shirts because the act of wearing a flag T-shirt is not disruptive of the educational environment. If under the picture of the flag it said, “Fuck you Mexicans go back home!” then that would be disruptive and bannable.
But IMHO, the test for being disruptive should focus only on the content of the speech and the actions of the speaker, not a hypothetical unlawful reaction from his opponents.
a shirt with the american flag doesn’t imply any hatred or violence … why would an american(the mexican kids) even think that ? … I’ll go even further and say the mexican kids who were supposed to be offended should have been proud to see the flag as they’re supposed to be a part of this country … I’m cuban and we can be having the biggest, all everything cuban celebration and I would be all for it if someone came over and planted the american flag in the middle of the party … I’m as american as I am cuban … so saying they were offended by the american flag is what is troubling to me here …
and wearing a shirt with an american flag is completely separate from someone threating or intimdating someone else … you can’t ban the flag because an individual committed a crime wearing it … that makes no sense … you just ban the person if need be …
if the flag wearers were doing nothing but wearing an american flag shirt in school and it was the flag hating students who were getting angry and riled up because of the flag shirts then they are the ones who should have been delt with … the principal should have reprimanded the flag hating students and sent them home … not the ones wearing the flags if this is what happened …
but I want to assume that the flag wearers were the ones * *inciting violence or making threats because otherwise this ruling is completely wrong
Are all messages the same, or can a message have a different meaning in a different context?
If the patriotic kids only wear their patriotic flag on Cinco De Mayo and do so in numbers, then yeah, it can be easily (and in this case, correctly) interpreted as “Fuck you Mexicans go back home!”. Especially if there were previous conflicts between 2 groups. It can convey menace while staying juuuust inside the lines. That is one of powers of symbols.
So let me ask my stupid question.
Is this regular garb for these kids to wear, or did they save it for a special occasion, like May 5th? If the Mexican kids all wear their Mexican flag stuff on say, the day before the 4th of July holiday, would this be an example of ‘showing pride in our heritage’ or a not so subtle ‘fuck you’?
Not that I think anything should be banned from being worn. Just about everything I wanted to wear was banned in my high school.
It’s not that simple a case, and(ghod, how many times does this have to be repeated) it wasn’t just a case of kids wearing shirts with flags on them. If you don’t want to read through the thread to get the details, at least take a look at the links provided in posts #217, 48, 52 and 84.
They were not, noir exclusively, anyway. I did not see one =reference to any threat they made in the article or the opinion from the court.
Much is unclear, but according to the links supplied, one “White” student and one “Mexican” student alerted the administration that there might be a problem. It is unclear if these kids were ones directly involved in the flap or just innocent kids trying to avert a fight.
It does seem that the Mexican kids had a real problem with the kids wearing the flag. You can read the opinion yourself and draw your own conclusions.
at the end of the day a flag is a flag. chanting USA USA USA is vocal. WEARING a t shirt with flag on it is not vocal, it is the definition of silent protest.
I assume you mean “Next time you wear an American flag T-shirt, I am going to beat you up.” Is that correct?
FTR I would not agree that it would be reasonable to ban the T-shirt (in addition to punishing the threat), but I am not sure if that is what you are advocating. Because it is like dealing with anti-gay bullying by banning both gay-bashing and gay pride T-shirts.
I think if anything the Tinker case supports the right of these students to wear US flag shirts because the act of wearing a flag T-shirt is not disruptive of the educational environment. If under the picture of the flag it said, “Fuck you Mexicans go back home!” then that would be disruptive and bannable.