I think part of the misunderstanding is that you seem to think “disruption” means students shoving one another in the halls, or doing something to stop a teacher delivering a class. I think “disruptive” also covers anything that disturbs the emotional well-being of students AS THE ADMIN SEES IT, even if those students aren’t all clamouring at their door denouncing the t-shirt. Part of the admin’s duty is to create a harmonious environment which encourages study. Having part of the student body attacking the perceived evils of another part’s very existence is not anywhere in my definition of “harmony”.
So, in other words, the t-shirt itself is the disruption.
Well, I find the school’s rule both too vague and overly broad and I don’t find the mere presence of a T-shirt “disruptive.”
Under my interpretation of the rule (outside the “sexual identity” language), both a T-shirt that proclaimed membership in P.E.T.A. and a T-shirt inscribed “People Eating TastyAnimals” would be “disruptive” because someone is going to take offense. (Which is why I initially indicated that bans on all text are the only safe rules.) A T-shirt that proclaims “He Died For Your Sins” could be offensive to a Jewish or Muslim (or any non-Christian) student. I would find a “WWJD” T-shirt disruptive (for its sheer banality, if nothing else). I realize that the school has included a clause that singles out sexual orientation as a protected class, but the rule is too vague to be fairly enforceable. I would agree that a Phelps-like “All Fags Are Burning in Hell” T-shirt would be inciteful, but there is rather too much gray area around less explicit texts.
If the shirt was so disruptive, why was it only addressed on the second day that he wore a shirt modified to say “Be Ashamed” “Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned”? The shirt he wore on the Day of Silence did not bring a rebuke from either the students or staff; it was only after he challenged the school authority that the administration decided that he was disruptive. And disruptive does mean to disrupt a classroom environment. Absent some testimony that a class actually lost teaching time while addressing the shirt, a claim that the shirt, itself, is “disruptive” is probably baseless and is, at best, speculative–particularly when he wore a shirt without even raising attention on the actual Day of Silence.
Because no staff noticed it earlier? Or because the added text made it more noticeable? Just because he got away with it one day, doesn’t mean he can continue to - the school is not a courty of law, no “precedent” is being set by failing to find and discipline him the first time.
Do you have a cite where it says that a member of staff noticed his shirt the first time and let it pass? Otherwise that means nothing.
No, disruptive just means “to disrupt”. You are adding the “classroom environment” bit in, just likeI added the “non-threatening study environment” bit in. Both of which could be argued to be fulfilling the notion of “disruptive”
What if a social studies teacher started class with **“Be Ashamed” “Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned” ** written on the board, framed the issue and proceeded with questions / comments from students? Would this be disruptive, in poor taste, or good technique?
I don’t think we are talking about legal precedent. This is evidence that the shirt did not produce disruption, since the kid wore it the first day and half the second with no problems. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe that the t-shirt was inherently disruptive.
From the first San Diego link:
But there isn’t the slightest indication that the t-shirt disturbed the emotional well-being of students, just as there is no indication that the National Day of Silence disturbed the emotional well-being of straight students. It sounds sort of like “emotional well-being” is being used as shorthand for teachers saying “I hate it when people disagree with me”. Everyone seemed to survive the presence of the t-shirt the first day, and the second as well.
I don’t see any problem with this, providing the teacher did not use the opportunity to single out or harass any individual student. Although I will say that the teacher who told the kid with the t-shirt to “leave his faith in his car” is probably not the teacher to lead this kind of a discussion.
Kind of ironic. A National Day to protest people being silenced winds up trying to silence people.
Why do you think that’s what disruptive means? What, in any Supreme Court case, leads you to this conclusion?
I think you’re wrong: the disruptions that West v. Derby cites are confrontations and fistfights, not people getting upset at mean words. If you were right, then a fundamentalist Christian Admin could forbid the wearing of David’s Stars (but allow crucifixes) because the Admin believes the David’s Stars will upset the school’s primarily Christian population.
Let me rephrase that - I think that’s what the school admin seems to be thinking disruptive means - not that it’s based on any existing SCOTUS precedent.
Look, in terms of speech, I believe there’s a big difference between Star of Davids/Crucifixes/pentacles, and christfucker badges, “Juden Raus” t-shirts and what this kid had on. There’s a continuum there, and you guys seem to think this falls on the “statement of religion” side. I say it falls on the “attack against a minority” side. Hate Speech.
The difference to me is that one is an identifier, and the other is an attack. This kid wasn’t wearing a t-shirt that said “I am a Christian”, he was wearing one that said, effectively, “Homosexuals are sinning scum”. That’s an attack, not an affirmation of belief. I’d have no problem if his t-shirt had said “it is wrong of my school to support the day of silence” and left it at that.
You are probably correct - that is what the administration thinks should be banned. But the Supreme Court decides what rights are under the Constitution, and if the administration violates that, they get slapped down. Schools are agents of government, the First Amendment controls what government can do regarding free expression, the Supreme Court interprets the First Amendment, this school administration can go pound sand.
Look, you aren’t getting it. Speech cannot be banned unless it is disruptive. This wasn’t disruptive. Therefore, it cannot be banned.
It doesn’t matter whether you call it “hate speech” or anything else. “Hate speech” as you define it is protected speech. The kid was not advocating violence or any illegal activity, and did not disrupt the educational mission of the school.
Therefore, his t-shirt was perfectly OK. Whether or not other people like it, including you and me and the teachers, means nothing whatsoever.
The government does not have the right to ban speech because they don’t like it.
That is an absolutely fundamental right of Americans. School administrators, no matter how much they would like to, are not allowed to abrogate that right.
Not for those who agree with me, any more than for those who don’t.
Actually, this stuff is pretty damned close to hate speech. Scratch that: it is hate speech.
Where we differ is that I think hate speech, when not accompanied by a specific threat of illegal action, should be constitutionally protected. Even in a school environment. To do otherwise opens up a can of worms that I don’t like, as I suspect that conservative administrators will use such power to further the dark side of the force.
Allowing hate speech in a classroom would create an environment in which only the popular, mainstream views could be expressed. Maybe some of the most courageous students would feel comfortable but I think significant numbers of the GLBT students would head for the closet. I recognize the fact that none of us have a constitutional right to comfort. Still.
Look, Left Hand & Shodan, I agree with you that free speech, even hate speech, should be protected. EXCEPT: at schools. I think they are a special case where the right to free speech gets trumped by other concerns. I see that you guys don’t agree. I can respect that, really I can. If this was a university, for instance, with adult students, I wouldn’t have the same problems with the t-shirt.
I don’t know, I think my reaction is perhaps too emotional. I guess, if I had a kid in that school, I’d want the teacher to do what he did (without the asshole religious slur). But you guys know your own law better than I, so if you say it’s probably not Constitutional, I’m not going to argue. Which answers the OP, I guess.
I’m surprised spectrum isn’t all over this one…maybe that should clue me in?
Yet giving administrators tools by which they could identify and ban certain types of speech as “hate speech” would be even more dangerous. I guarandamntee you that some bigoted administrators would declare refutations of Creationism to be hate speech, would declare things like the Day of Silence to be hate speech, would declare war protests to be hate speech, would declare political views that oppose our government to be hate speech.
As bad as the intellectual climate might be when hate speech is allowed, it’s even worse when hate speech can be banned. I don’t trust administrators to make the decision for me which forms of speech are allowed.
The cure for the ills of free speech is more free speech.
As will liberal (or left-leaning or whatever term we wish to use to contrast “conservative”) administrators. I have no idea where on the political spectrum young Harper’s AP stands, but his actions in this case, indicate a position more to the Left than the Right in U.S. politics.
I do not see this issue as a Left-Right problem (except as the people involved in this instance appear to have taken political positions in this incident). If a school wants to bar all writing on clothing, that is their right. If a school chooses to bar language that incites violence, that may be their right, buit they are walking a dangerous line if no actions are actually occurring as a result of what they judge to be improper. Given the apparent lack of reaction to student Harper’s T-shirt by everone except his A.P., I do not support the A.P.'s judgement in this case. If they choose to bar language that makes other people uncomfortable, then I believe that they have stepped over an indefensible line.
I agree. My point was that leftists shouldn’t applaud this action, because the same power that enables a leftist to squelch speech also enables a rightist to squelch speech. Even if you’re not interested in free speech per se, you still ought to oppose this action.
Other people obviously interpret this differently, but “Be Ashamed” and “Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned” read like a threat to me. Not a direct threat like “I’m going to beat up all you queers after school”, not even quite as direct as coming right out and saying “You’re going to Hell”, but I can’t see any meaning here other than “You better watch out, or God will do something bad to you.” I’m having difficulty seeing this as anything other than a threat.
I am not opposed to students being prevented from threatening one another, regardless of their political beliefs. I feel this way even when the threats are supernatural rather than directly physical. If, say, pagan students with leftist politics started wearing shirts suggesting that anti-gay students would be on the receiving end of some nasty dark magic, I’d consider that speech that should be “squelched” in a school setting as well. Students should be free to express that they believe in a particular religion, or that they believe in no religion at all, but I don’t think they should get to use their religious beliefs as an excuse to threaten others at school with some sort of dire supernatural punishment.
I think it’s a very fine line between banning certain religious “threats” and banning discussion or symbolism of certain religions in general. If expressing Christian beliefs can be a threat, then what’s to stop a school administrator from declaring that a cross is a symbol of intimidation just like a swastika?
And if supernatural threats are to be banned, what about other vague, indirect threats? For example, suggesting that students who sell pot will be arrested, imprisoned, and perhaps assaulted while in prison is a much more tangible threat than suggesting gay students will be punished in a hypothetical afterlife. By that standard, even school antidrug programs or athletic code handbooks could be considered threats.
I agree with you that threats are not protected speech, but I would limit “threats” to statements where the person making the threat actually has some influence over whether it will be carried out; otherwise, any mention of negative consequences for any action might be considered a threat.
Something along the lines of “Quit being queer, or you’re gonna burn in Hell!” is not “expressing Christian beliefs”. Whether or not Biblical condemnation of homosexuality even exists is a matter of some scholarly debate, and while some sects have embraced the idea it’s certainly not a central tenant of the faith. Even if it were, I don’t see using religion as a whitewash in such situations. It would be unacceptable to shout “Shame on you, you filthy whores!” at female students in the halls, and it does not become more acceptable if one claims that one is merely expressing the religious belief that women who engage in premarital sex or who aren’t dressed with proper modesty are committing a sin. When expressing your religious beliefs takes the form of harassing others, then you’ve crossed the line of what I would consider tolerable behavior in a school setting.
I’d have no problem with banning “Hey potheads, you’re going to be raped in prison!” shirts on school grounds as well.
I have been pondering the question of what precisely distinguishes a warning from a threat. Both are meant to discourage a course of action by highlighting potential negative consequencs. I don’t think the difference is the level of involvement of the speaker; “If your paper is late, I’m going to mark you down a letter grade” seems like a fair warning of punishment that the teacher will personally carry out, while “If your paper is late, I’m going to beat you senseless” is clearly a threat. That there is a difference is obvious, but I cannot at this time express what the difference is…except that one statement seems like a reasonable reaction to wrongdoing and the other does not. Could it be that a threat is primarily intended to inspire fear? I’m still thinking about it.
I agree in the broad sense, but I think we disagree on the particulars. Are you comfortable considering claims to be laying a curse on another person to be a threat? I am, even though I do not believe that magical curses really exist, and thus cannot believe that the “curser” has any real influence over my fate. Even if you don’t believe in magical curses, it’s still upsetting to think that another person wishes harm on you and it willing to attempt to bring it about, even if their chosen method is sure to be ineffective. And it’s not too far-fetched to suspect that a person willing to resort to dark magic would happily give you a mundane kick in the head if they ever had the chance.
Now, standard Christian beliefs do not hold that ordinary Christians have any power to induce God to send someone to Hell. However, threats/warnings of Hellfire do seem to be intended to inspire fear, and there have sadly been more than a few Christians in the world who believed that God needed their help in punishing evildoers. I don’t think it would be unreasonable for gay or gay-friendly students to feel fear in response to the shirt in question, including fear of what the student wearing it might do to them in the name of his God. I can see how others might think that the wording on this particular shirt was not strong enough to motivate such feelings, but as a high school student I think I would have felt threatened by it.
How about “Watch out, some of you embrace what the law condemns”?
I suppose so, though the seriousness of the threat would depend on whether the victim actually believes in curses. There’s still a big gulf between “if you do this, I will curse you” and “if you do this, God will be angry”.
That’s why I said “something along the lines of”. As far as I can see that’s the message of the shirt, even if it’s not the actual wording.
At this moment (I’m still mulling over this warning vs. threat thing) I’d have to say that the “Watch out” and “you” make it a directed statement rather than a general one, and that makes it seem threatening. Broad advice like “Don’t embrace what the law condemns” or “If you embrace what the law condemns, you could go to prison” would be warnings, but suggesting that ill fortune is about to befall particular people seems more like a threat to me.
If I understand the sequence of events properly, the school administration didn’t reprimand the boy when the shirt said only “Homosexuality is Shameful” and “Romans 1:27”. He got into trouble after adding “Be Ashamed” and “Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned”. Now, I don’t know why this is the way it played out, but it’s possible that they felt the same way I do. As much as I dislike the message, the original version of the shirt might fairly be considered protected speech. However, the second one crosses the line by making the message specific rather than general.
I’ve been attempting to come up with a non-supernatural analogy to help me pinpoint the line between “threat” and “warning”. Here’s the best one I’ve been able to think of so far. Let’s imagine I’m a teenaged girl with a violently overprotective father. One of my classmates has been attempting to convince me to go out on a date with him. If I say, “Ask me out again, and I’ll tell my daddy to whup you”, that seems roughly comparable to saying I’m going to curse him. It’s also obviously a threat.
But what if I have no influence over my father’s actions? No matter how I felt about the matter, mere knowledge that my classmate had his eye on me would be enough to send papa into a rage. It wouldn’t make any difference even if I begged him not to hurt the boy. In this situation, if I say “Ask me out again, and my daddy is going to whup you”, is it a threat or a warning? It seems to me it could go either way depending upon my feelings and intent. If I were motivated by desire to protect my classmate from my father’s wrath, it would be a warning. If I just wanted him to leave me alone and didn’t actually care whether my father assaulted him or not, it would be a threat.
So what was the student’s motivation in this case? I don’t know, but if I were called into the principal’s office because of a “threat” that I meant as a warning, it seems like the best course of action would be to explain my intent, apologize to anyone I frightened, and not repeat my warning…at least not until I could find a less threatening-sounding way to phrase it. In an ambiguous threat/warning case I’d expect that students would be given the chance to make their explanations before any punishment was decided upon, but if they weren’t sorry about making other people feel threatened then it would seem fair to treat them like they intended to be threatening.
Which, if any, of the following would you consider a bannable “threat” on a t-shirt worn to school?
[ul][li]Homosexuality is sinful[/li][li]Gay-bashing is a crime[/li][li]Loose lips sink ships[/li][li]Silence = Death [/li][li]The Patriot Act diminishes the rights of all[/li][li]Using cocaine will mess up your life[/li][li]Vote for Bush, or the terrorists have won[/li][li]Vote for Kerry - save the poor[/li][/ul]It seems to me that all of the above involves a warning of dire consequences if a given course of action is not followed. Therefore, they should all be banned, right?