‘Everything BUT intolerance?’ My goodness that’s A LOT!
But keeping out all that liberal inspired intolerance - that’s good. Say hello to religion in schools – goodbye reverse discrimination!
Despite the occasional act of stupidity by some nitwit principal someplace, religion has never been “banned from the schools” in this country. The school–that is, the public school, an agency of the state, and its employees acting as agents of the state–can’t promote a particular religion or viewpoint about religion, but it’s well established that students have the right to engage in all kinds of religious activities: prayer (outloud when general conversation is permitted, as at lunch times or on breaks; silent at other times–not that you could ban silent prayer anyway); wearing clothing or jewelry with religious messages; incorporating their religious beliefs into class assignments when it’s actually appropriate to do so (i.e., writing an essay on the Bible is appropriate if the assignment is “What book has had the most influence on your life?”; it isn’t if the assignment is “Write an essay on an influential work of American literature and tell how and why it has been so influential”); meeting in organized prayer groups on school property during non-instructional time; etc.
You might as well say you’d love to see the uproar if all the gay kids started flying around the school on beautiful rainbow-colored wings. Unless things have changed a lot since I was in school a few years ago, there’s no way any gay kid is showing up at any ordinary American public high school wearing a big ol’ “I’m here, I’m queer, get used to it!” shirt. Might as well wear a shirt that says “Please mock and beat me!” Heck, I went to an extraordinary and unusually gay-friendly American public high school, and even there our most “out” and flamboyant students didn’t actually wear t-shirts announcing their orientation. Many sported smaller gay pride accessories like freedom rings or backpack badges, but I don’t think I ever saw anything that couldn’t have been easily hidden or removed if the student felt they were entering a less-than-friendly environment. It’s difficult to quickly and subtly change your t-shirt.
The Day of Silence has been criticized by some as not being a very effective protest, but the clever part of it is that it would be almost impossible to ban on “disruptive” grounds. What could possibly be disruptive about a bunch of students deciding to be quiet?
I don’t know how this plays out in other places, but when the campus LGBT group at my college arranged a Day of Silence observance they told everyone that responding to questions from instructors and participating in class discussion would be fine. No reason to sacrifice your education, or your participation points! It was only social conversation and chit-chat that people were asked to stop for the day. Can’t get much farther from disruptive than silently moving through the hallways and only speaking when it’s necessary and relevant to the class.
FYI, the SCOTUS case obliquely referred to in this thread was Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, 1988.
From http://www.acluem.org/newsletter/1998liberties/january1998/hazelwood10yearslater.htm
Well, maybe the reason schools and school districts have policies against discrimination is that when lots of people taunt and despise a kid for what he or she is, it is very hard for that kid to learn math, science and literature. It is all about establishing an environment conducive to learning. The day of silence, as I understand it, is not anti-anyone. If the kids wants to proclaim his Christianity, fine. If he wants to proclaim his straightness, fine. (Though there might be dress code standards about that for both sides.) However if he wants to tell his fellow students that the are evil, and what they are is shameful, he can Cheney himself as far as I’m concerned.
Am I to understand you to mean that the staff do not have the right to be offended? That it’s only disruptive if one or more student say it is? I don’t think working in a school means you give up your right to take offense at hate speech, does it?
If you mean the right not to be offended, there is no such right, for staff or for students. There is a right to freedom of speech, which is what is at issue here.
Not quite. If the administration is going to try to stop the kid from wearing his T-shirt, they will have to produce some evidence that it was disruptive. Additionally, if they are going to allow the National Day of Silence, they will have to show that this was not disruptive. This would be pretty much the only way they can justify allowing one point of view but forbidding another.
The Constitution does not allow the government, or its agents, such as schools, to engage in content-based censorship. You cannot, in other words, forbid speech that advocates one political or religious belief but allow another. If you are going to allow students to express their support for one point of view about homosexuality with a National Day of Silence, you cannot forbid students from disagreeing with a t-shirt.
There is no such right.
Regards,
Shodan
OK, I get what you’re saying, and I agree with you, really, there is no right to be spared offense. Poor wording on my part. I apologise.
My point was just that tomndebb seemed to be saying that since no students objected, the admin shouldn’t even have noticed anything. I was just pointing out that, IFAICS, the school dress policy, quoted earlier, expressly forbids this sort of “speech”. It doesn’t have to be a student who notices or complains. A teacher/staff member will do. Not a “right” per se, but a privilege granted by the school’s own rules.
My understanding is that the t-shirt falls under “unacceptable dress”, as defined in the school rules.
The Day of Silence is condoned/under the auspices of the school, so therefore is not “disruptive” because it’s catered for in the timetable.
If an Admin member sees the T-shirt and is bothered by it, it is disruptive. Therefore can be considered covered by the existing ruling. Errm, did I make myself any clearer?
Now, then, the question becomes one of the legality of the school’s dress code. I can’t say, but my opinion is that it should be, and that students do not have an absolute right to free speech at school. But that is just my opinion, and has no bearing on the legality of the action taken.
I participated exhaustively in the previously-linked thread, and I think it’d be well worth reading for folks before participating here; the issues, and the relevant Supreme Court cases, are almost identical.
The only relevant difference I’m seeing so far is that in this case, the school had a clear guideline in the student handbook against wearing such a shirt, thus satisfying one of the conditions laid out in West v Derby for restricting a student’s free speech rights. I don’t see that the other criteria laid out in that case have been met, and so I’d guess that the school is acting beyond their authority.
As long as we’re all clear that “acceptable” does not mean I like it, then yes: I would’ve accepted that asshole’s shirt as the price we pay for having free speech.
Daniel
Not a problem, and no apology is necessary.
And my counter-point was that, if the school is going to ban the t-shirt as disruptive, they will be obliged to produce some evidence that it is so. Simply saying in essence “This is disruptive because we don’t like the message” doesn’t work.
Teachers are, in my view, much more clearly agents of the government, and therefore need to produce a higher level of proof that the t-shirt is disrupting things than would another student. This is because the First Amendment to the US Constitution applies only to governments and their agents. Teachers are government agents; students much less so.
But whether or not the student dress policy outlaws this kind of speech is almost beside the point. In the US, students have limited but definite First Amendment rights to free speech, which cannot be abrogated even by official dress codes. The controlling decision on the matter is (IIRC) referred to as the Tinker decision .
Thus, if the administration of the school allows speech in favor of one view of homosexuality, thereby establishing that speech regarding homosexuality is not inherently disruptive, then they cannot outlaw speech regarding homosexuality which disagrees with them unless they can show it to be inherently disruptive in a way that a National Day of Silence is not. And in my view, simply that the teachers don’t like it is not a good enough reason.
Sort of, but I still disagree with your reasoning.
The school could equally well provide that students can express their opposition to homosexuality in non-disruptive ways, just as they provided that students could express their support for it with a non-disruptive National Day of Silence.
But simply allowing an administrator to see the t-shirt and ban it as disruptive simply because he/she was “bothered” by it is far too close to allowing them to ban anything whose content they don’t like. Thus an administrator could just as easily see that students are not participating in class because they are part of the National Day of Silence, be bothered by the notion of support for homosexuality, and forbid participation.
See the Tinker decision. They don’t have an absolute right. They cannot disrupt the educational mission of the school.
But however limited the right is, it can’t be limited based on the content of the message. You could not ban, for instance, only “Nader for President” lapel pins, but allow “Bush-Cheney in 2004” pins.
Regards,
Shodan
Which other criteria would you say still had to be met?
Thanks for the link. One thing they say there is
I’d say since the school already had the rule on the books, and since this wasn’t just any day of the schoolyear, expectations of disruption were not unreasonable, and as such, pre-emptively banning the shirt satisfies the reasonable expectations bit outlined in that excerpt. The fact that the dress rule exists at all indicates an anticipation of such slogans as inherently disruptive. I can see the point about it being a response to other people exercising their free speech too, but to me, it clearly was intended to confront.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s abundantly clear that the intent of the shirt is to antagonise others, whereas the intent of the day of silence isn’t to antagonise anyone, and that makes a big difference? Like the difference between me burning a cross out in the sticks, and me burning it on a black person’s lawn?
In case people were wondering why more and more schools these days are setting dress codes which ban writing of any kind on t-shirts, this is why.
A lot of the discussion here seems to be over whether or not the kid had the right to wear this message printed on a t-shirt. How about the spoken word? Would he be in as much trouble if he had just said out loud, “Homosexuality is shameful”? Would we be having the same debate here? If so, the t-shirt has nothing to do with it. If not, why not? What changes?
In the paragraph you quoted from, you left out a very important part:
[emphasis added]
I don’t see any evidence that there’s a similar situation here.
But this is the only one of the criteria that I can see this case not satisfying. If there have been incidents at this school of religiously-based physical violence against gays (or those perceived to be gay), then I would think the school was acting within its rights.
Daniel
Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut out anything. I see what you’re saying, and I agree with you about that bit being important, with two caveats.
Does it have to be this school? Or would it be sufficient to show that that sort of thing has happened at other schools?
and
Does it have to be violence? Or is intimidation/verbal abuse also covered?
All good questions. As near as I can tell, the Court hasn’t decided on this yet, hasn’t decided what constitutes “evidence from which [one] could reasonably conclude that possession and display of [certain types of offensive materials], when unconnected with any legitimate educational purpose, would likely lead to a material and substantial disruption of school discipline.” I would say that anything stronger than a couple of fights at football games would constitute such evidence; anything weaker would be problematic.
Honestly, I’m not very happy even with this rule. To explain why, I’m going to replace the T-shirt in question with a different one: a Silence=Death pink triangle T-shirt.
Such a T-shirt would be protected speech under Tinker, I think. But, and here’s the kicker, if a group of students decided they hated these shirts, then they could follow the guideline in West v. Derby and start loudly threatening the shirt’s wearer based on the shirt. Essentially, if they give the school evidence from which it could reasonably conclude that display of a Silence=Death T-shirt, when unconnected with any legitimate educational purpose, would likely lead to material and substantial disruption of school discipline, then they could help the school board achieve the right to forbid the T-shirt.
That’s plain and simple thuggery, and I’m afraid that the West v. Derby decision might inadvertantly encourage it. My concern may sound a bit absurd, if you think I’m saying that the violently homophobic highschoolers would be reading Supreme Court decisions, but that’s not what I’m saying: I’m saying that this case rewards such thuggery even if the thugs are unaware of the rewards.
Now let’s turn that around: in this case, the asshole wearing the homophobic shirt could find his rights restricted if some gay-rights folks start threatening him. That’s no good either.
I will say that whereas violence at the school, and problem even intimidation at the school, probably qualifies under the West v. Derby decision, I don’t see that verbal abuse would as easily qualify. Verbal abuse, unlike physical abuse, is in most forms constitutionally protected.
Daniel
A teacher can be just as offended as he or she chooses. I see no reason for a teacher to be able to take his or her personal offense and turn it into an arbitrary ruling to impose sanctions on a student. If the T-shirt did not cause other kids to disrupt classes or to engage in riotous behavior in the halls or lunch room, then I see no evidence of disruptive behavior. And, barring a rule that prohibits all expression on clothing, I think any member of the staff that uses personal feelings to make up arbitrary rules is out of line.
Responding to your last sentence, would you consider it appropriate for a Christian administrator to suspend a Wiccan student for wearing “pagan” symbols? How about an atheist administrator suspending a student for Christian symbols? Lots of people consider other forms of expression to be expressions of hate. I am not particularly supportive of “hate speech” regulations (as opposed to rules against “inciting”) for exactly the reason that everybody gets to define everyone else’s speech as hateful.
I agree. They can’t just declare that an item of clothing is “disruptive” when it has not, in fact, caused a disruption, and any definition of disruption that includes a student or administrator merely being offended is far too loose. I wouldn’t count anything as disruptive unless it gets in the way of education.
While the kid who wore the shirt is an asshole, even an asshole has the right to express his feelings about homosexuality and the school’s endorsement of the day of silence. If he can say it out loud, he should be able to say it in writing with a message on his body.
Making up arbitrarily rulings would be out of line, I agree. But this is not an arbitrary ruling - the text on that t-shirt is quite specifically covered by the existing school rule. Not the same case.
The fact that you don’t see any disruptive behaviour is a non sequitur, anyway. The law, AFAICS, deals with anticipated behaviour. None of us is psychic enough to tell what could have happened later in the day, had the student not been prohibitted from wearing the shirt. Saying there was no disruption is unsteady ground for an argument, as I could argue the lack of disruption points to the effectiveness of the policy, as it stopped the “hate speech” before things got out of hand. Not that that’s what I’m saying, you understand, but that is a flaw in your argument to me. What do you think?
No, neither the Christian nor atheist admin would be right. But a christian wearing a “burn the witches” t-shirt would be right out, IMO. As would a pagan wearing a t-shirt showing a scourged Jesus being rogered by a Roman soldier (I’ve actually seen that!).
I see where you’re coming from with regard to hate speech vs inciteful speech. It seems to me, though, that wearing that t-shirt, in a (I assume) mostly Christian environment, where an opportunity exists to single out those whom the shirt mentions as a group or class, does cross the line into incitement. If all the t-shirt said was “Romans 1:27.” I’m sure I would see it differently.
That’s even less steady.
There are no tigers in my apartment. Could it be because the paperclip on my desk repels tigers? Actually, there are no tigers anywhere in this part of the city; does that show that my paperclip is really effective?
The kid wore an anti-gay shirt for an entire day with no disruption. He wore another shirt for part of the next day until he was told to remove it, and no disruption occurred while he had it on. Unless you have evidence that a disruption was about to occur, I’d say the logical conclusion is that the shirt is not disruptive.
Look, I think we’re getting a little hung up on the disruptive part here. Am I wrong in saying “The rule is on the books, if you don’t like it, get the school board to change the rule, then wear the damn t-shirt?” Or is American jurisprudence sole predicated on testing laws by breaking them?
I say again - “disruption” does not have to actually occur. All you need is reasonable anticipation of a disturbance. To me, the admin was reasonable.
I agree wholeheartedly that the “leave your religion in the car” remark was out of line. So disipline the admin for that.
And no, the asshole student’s right to express his feelings does not trump the educator’s duty to create an abuse-free environment for his students. I can see exactly where the admin is coming from - the t-shirt is a direct, extremely personal attack on a group of students under his charge. I’d stop it, just like I’d discipline a student who called a jewish student “Kyke” in the hallway, or referred to a female student as a “stupid cunt” within my hearing. Religion shouldn’t be a get-out card for hate speech.