Schools have the right to regulate clothing and such, blah blah blah has already been established. The fact that they have the right to do so doesn’t mean they should. Educationally and socially I think it’s a much better idea to let students see differing opinions and learn to deal with the existence of dissent. The alternative is that the schools make too big a deal out of these issues as if the very mention of them is a breach of the peace. I think that’s a stupid policy and discourages people from even attempting to get along with each other. Similarly I don’t think school districts need to waste their energy deciding that t-shirts or bands are offensive, but perhaps that’s another issue.
These are all the same statement. I don’t see how there’s any “back pedalling.” To eliminate confusion for you, 3rd trimester abortions are never performed unless there are urgent medical reasons. That is the law in most states, and that is the policy of the very few clinics which perform them.
We know the criteria that has to be met at every clinic that performs 3rd trimester abortions, but detailed information is hard to obtain because of privacy laws. This may come as a shock to you, but you don’t actually have any right to know what kind of medical procedure another citizen might be getting, or why.
It’s not as easy to do that when students are WEARING the speech. That effectively makes it impossible for them to shut up.
What happened is that some parents decided to use their kid to spam a classroom with inflammatory speech in the hope that they would subsequently be allowed to portray tjhemselves as victims for being told to knock it off.
How long has it been since you’ve been in school? In grade school, a kid running with scissors is not going to be allowed to do it until he pokes someone’s eye out, the teacher is going to take away the scissors. Since this took place in a grade school, I really don’t find it unreasonable that they asked the student to change before a reaction took place.
But really, students chatting it up about “Look what she’s wearing! Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!” is enough of a disruption for most schools.
Since your cite about reasons for late-term abortions includes abortions from 16 weeks and up, it’s irrelevant to my statements about the reasons we performed third-trimester abortions. Since your cite about reasons for abortions only identifies reasons for late-term abortions, it’s irrelevant to reasons for abortions in general.
You’re conflating “late term” abortions with 3rd trimester abortions. They aren’t the same thing. So-called “late term” abortions are anything after about 12 weeks. It’s an anti-choice tactic to deliberate try to blur that distinction. The stuff you’re citing is reasons for 2nd trimester abortions, not 3rd.
3rd trimester abortions are only performed for compelling medical reasons. There are only 3 clinics which perform them, and all of them have stringent criteria for performing them. They have to because anti-choicers are desperate to find them performing one of those mythical, cackling abortions on a completely healthy fetus for a woman who just changed her mind at 8 1/2 months. They tried for years with that one they ended up killing (after they firebombed his clinic and shot him once before).
I understand your point. I think it’s bad form to do that with children. But this isn’t a parenting thread. Even if we were to discuss her parents, it wouldn’t be relevant. She might independently have come to this decision herself. It’s a bit naive to think that middle school-aged children have no political views independent of their parents. I certainly did. And religious views. And societal views. But I lived in a household where education was important, where books were important, where the ability to think was important.
This is about the independent right of citizens of our country to enjoy the constitutional freedoms given to them as a matter of right. While I don’t think it’s a topic that should be talked about around younger kids (too much), I also don’t think children should watch rated R movies. But I don’t get to make that decision for all children, just mine.
Nor do you get to decide what is and isn’t free speech. The law delineates a loose-knit way to analyze it. Those students in the 1969 case (Tinker) were wearing their speech. Clearly, this medium isn’t relevant to the legal analysis.
What is relevant to it is a.) is there a generalized right to free speech, b.) where does it start and end, and c.) how to determine what to do given a is true and b is in question. In this case, it doesn’t appear to have substantially interfered with the school’s ability to teach, the school’s ability to maintain discipline. If those are true, then it’s a non-starter.
Surely you see how it could. Students are sitting down for algebra class and in walks Susie with that T-shirt on. The abortion debate begins, and even the teacher would probably get involved (abortion being the hot button topic that it is).
And it starts a pissing contest as well. Pro-choice students design their own T-shirt and wear them. A race ensues to see who can create the most graphic, in your face design.
I just don’t think that school is the proper outlet for that and that teachers and administrators should be able to retain control of the learning environment. I think that constitutional problems would only come into play when they have policies that are unfair to one side or the other.
For all those trying to protest that the shirt had not yet caused any disruption, are you all agreeing that if if HAD started causing arguments in the classroom you would agree THEN that the school would have a right to tell her to change it?
If a kid came to school with a swastika, would you have a problem with the school telling him to remove it immediately, or do you think they should have to wait until it causes a disruption?
Nor do we allow them carry guns in school so long as they don’t shoot anyone.
Nor to beat up other students until someone is really hurt. Nor stand around and just shout obscenities.
I’m glad you agree, as do we all, that it’s a good idea to prevent children from running around with scissors. Now, if the constitution provided them that right, I could see it being relevant. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t.
Not legally. The issue some disruption; it’s substantial disruption. Though the latter isn’t well-defined, I think the inability of the staff to quell the discussion like they do the crowds who watch fights and those who gawk at the children bleeding from their eyes after the eyes have been gouged out in a freak-running-around-arms-a-flailing-with-scissors accident would qualify. As it appears, the school was able to manage the situation; they just did so poorly (and illegally).
Or should students’ rights be predicated on the possibility that school officials will purposefully ignore the law and act contrary to it? I think not. They have the expectation to use their constitutional rights in a reasonable manner. The school’s illegal reaction to it isn’t the proper analysis.
Agreed. But again, there’s no punishment for this beyond asking her to change. So fighting it proves nothing. And riling up a bunch of 7th graders is only going to lead to a t-shirt arms race (as jtgain just mentioned).
Well, I think that if a student wore a swastika, the school would have little recourse since it’s a thousands of years old sign of peace. Even if it weren’t, a swastika is the same rank of political idea-showing as a “vote bush” button or a “help Darfur” kind of thing. That many people look at it with disdain doesn’t make it unconstitutional.
Now, if the shirt in question HAD actually caused a serious disruption, or the swastika, or the whatever, I’d say get it out of there. But a little inconvenience for a constitutional right? Nah. The right must have primacy over the annoyance; after all, it’s not much a right if its exercise is trumped by someone being annoyed.
Of course, the first test I’d apply, as I think so too would a court, is how did the school try to stop the argument in the first instance? If the first step was to ban the shirt, they’d be wrong. As you’ve noted, you were able to steer the class back to the material at hand. That seems like a prudent first step. Just saying “oh shit, an argument whatamigonnadoaboutthatwithoutjustfirstbanningtheshirt” wouldn’t cut it.
Given the caveats made earlier about the indeterminacy of free speech law in schools, my qualified answer is no. If in-class arguments are started by students who disagree with the content of the shirt, that is a legally insufficient reason for banning the shirt. The only constitutional response is to punish the students who disrupt the class by starting verbal arguments. Tinker, though dated, is pretty clear that banning an article of clothing because it causes controversy and arguments would be unconstitutional.
It’s a close call. A swastika might be contrary to the school’s educational mission in the way a pro-drug message is but a pro-life t-shirt is not. And as I said earlier, the law here is pretty indeterminate. It may be that a swastika crosses some line of provocation that an ordinary political opinion does not.
I seriously doubt you’ve read all the laws for all the states, so I assume there is a source you used to determine what you asserted. Providing said source would be beneficial to your argument, and to this debate.
OP: Not to graphic for school, but perhaps a bit too controversial. I wouldn’t dislike a “no political t-shirts” policy, myself, as it is at least fair to both sides. Fox seems to be claiming that the current policy is not fair to both sides, and, other than Diogenes, we all seem to agree that that would be illegal. It makes sense to me, as banning only one side is promoting the other.
Controversy isn’t a good thing in an elementary school. This is a K-8 school - and the first and second graders are going to see that shirt.
I want to be the person who introduces the topic of abortion to my kids - eventually - in high school - I think it should be discussed in school - both in health and as a political discussion. But I don’t want my second grader to learn about abortion from a t-shirt she sees in school, and to have her first commentary be from her second grade teacher - who may have a different values system than I do.
This is particularly important for my son, who is an adoptee. Abortion and adoption are tied up in “unwanted babies” and it can be difficult to seperate them. We’ve talked about abortion with him (he is going into fifth grade) but carefully.
But when called on the error, he deftly, and without so much as a nod to suggest he was ever saying anything else, says:
I picture Diogenes as the Governor in “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas:”
It’s not a perfect analogy. That character’s signature move was to spout platitudes so that no one could nail him down on any definitive statement. Diogenes dodges being nailed down to a definitive statement by the even simpler expedient of making lots of definitive statements, switching between them with the grace of a dancer… dancing to the tune of “The Sidestep.”