be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

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kiryan
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be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby kiryan » Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:58 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/0 ... 30212.html

school had and allowed broad participation in a pro gay event, the day of silence... and at least 1 student showed up with a tshirt that said "be happy not gay". Adminsitrators reacted typically and were overruled in court who issued a broad injunction.

"In its opinion, the court said a "school that permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality.""
...
"But people in our society do not have a legal right to prevent criticism of their beliefs or even their way of life."

I agree finally, some sanity in the discrimination of ideas. The article links to the actual court opinion which was interesting reading. Some technicalities about the quality of the evidence submitted by the school district... but also some interseting points... the younger the children, the more they can restrict... the older the child, the closer they are to voting age, the less they can restrict speech and ideas (an interesting principle).

I also liked the section on the "heckler's veto" which says that you can't use your reaction to non "fighting words" to justify censoring speech because they incite you to violence. So people retaliating against the shirt wearers can not be used as justification that it causes disruption to justify banning the shirt.

The case does not set a strong precedent... the judge repeatedly refers to the lack of evidence from the school district... but I agreed with the principles none the less.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Kifle » Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:33 pm

I agree that the shirt should have been allowed to be worn; however, I've seen schools have kids take band t-shirts off due to opinionated material. Do schools allow kids to wear pro pot shirts? I was under the impression that schools have the right to stifle opinions from kids through clothing.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Teflor Lyorian » Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:36 pm

My advice would be for that jurisdiction to adopt a dress code for school so that such things can be disallowed without being discriminatory.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby kiryan » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:13 am

schools only have the right to restrict speech that disrupts the education process.

Teflor, the school has a dress code policy, and attempted to use the policy to say the tshirt was disparaging towards gays.

The court found that the tshirt was to a degree disparaging.. but not to a degree that it could be classified as "fighting words" or disruptive to the education process.

Your problem with dress codes is freedom of speech. Courts have ruled that dress is covered as an expression is protected by freedom of speech. You can have extremely restrictive dress codes in private environments, public situations may only restrict it when it becomes disruptive.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Teflor Lyorian » Thu Mar 03, 2011 2:05 am

kiryan wrote:schools only have the right to restrict speech that disrupts the education process.

Teflor, the school has a dress code policy, and attempted to use the policy to say the tshirt was disparaging towards gays.

The court found that the tshirt was to a degree disparaging.. but not to a degree that it could be classified as "fighting words" or disruptive to the education process.

Your problem with dress codes is freedom of speech. Courts have ruled that dress is covered as an expression is protected by freedom of speech. You can have extremely restrictive dress codes in private environments, public situations may only restrict it when it becomes disruptive.

No no, you just have to be careful in selecting the policy.

For instance, "no words on clothing" is a policy that would probably pass muster with the court.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby kiryan » Fri Mar 04, 2011 4:50 pm

actually, I don't think it would in a public setting.

The court has ruled that clothing can be considered speech under the first amendment. Public schools are public.

Government can't unreasonably and arbitrarily limit your rights... they can only do so with good reason. I don't think you can formulate a reason that would pass constitutional muster for banning all words on shirts in public schools. You can obviously do it in a private institution (or at work), but its a completely differnet ball game in a public setting... even a public setting that is already heavily restricted (schools).

Kagan tried to argue that crush videos were "free speech" that had limited or no value and could be restricted due to that lack of value... she lost

She also argued that the government could regulate all political speech during an election cycle including... the publishing of a book or video (specifically the "hillary the movie" political attack ad thinly veiled as a theatrical release). She lost that one too.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Teflor Lyorian » Fri Mar 04, 2011 4:53 pm

The court also ruled that you can conduct out of sight protests of funerals.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Ashiwi » Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:39 pm

I fully agree with this. Until homosexuals are a protected group the right to advocate for, AND protest against, is protected under free speech laws. When they become a recognized group protected by discrimination laws then how such issues are dealt with in a public school will change.

Although I do wonder if that would make any difference for the WBC issue. It seems to me that even if homosexuality becomes a protected status, the WBC would still maintain the right to protest to a more limited degree, in the same way the KKK and the Neo-Nazis have the right to march on behalf of their causes. The WBC would probably have to change the wording of their protest signs due to hatespeech laws, though.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby kiryan » Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:57 pm

um... sexual orientation is a protect class unless I'm mistaken. It passed right after Obama took office iirc.

Regardless of whether you have a protect class, individuals have a right to free speech.... I will always be able to say "I hate black people". I can be restricted from saying "I hate black people" to a group of black people intending to start a fight... but you can not restrict me from expressing an opinion like black people are a subspecies of human... whether its factually true or not.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Teflor Lyorian » Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:16 pm

Except that dress policies have passed muster with courts before. You just have to make them non-discriminatory.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby kiryan » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:48 pm

they have but not in arbitrary standards... usually as far as I am aware, each infringement must be justified... you can ban bandannas as gang paraphanelia, you can't ban bandannas because you think kids should have their head uncovered...
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby Corth » Tue Mar 08, 2011 4:41 pm

I think the court's logic here is that once the school 'opened the door' by having an event focused on homosexuality, it could no longer prohibit speech that was pro or con that issue.
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Re: be happy not gay tshirt is protected!

Postby kiryan » Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:31 am

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/1 ... 48208.html

PHILADELPHIA — Breast cancer fundraising bracelets that proclaim "I (heart) boobies!" are not lewd or vulgar and can't be banned by public school officials who find them offensive, a federal judge in Pennsylvania said Tuesday in a preliminary ruling.

...

ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper cheered the judge's decision, which referenced Supreme Court case law on the limits of student speech – and school censorship.

"She rejects the school district argument that it's really just for the school district to decide what is and isn't appropriate language to use in school," Roper said. "You look at it in context. It isn't written on a bathroom wall. It's a breast cancer awareness bracelet."

== Now I agree with your analysis corth that the supreme court ruled narrowly that the school couldn't censor one side of the debate only... but I think theres a broader trend... at least in the news coverage of 1st amendment cases... at least i hope so. Course this is only a federal appeals court, the supreme court may over turn it upholding the broad power they've given public entities to censor speech.

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