Bloomington, Ind., superintendent bans Confederate flag

School property can be a limited public forum, as long as rules are established an applied consistently.
My experience is limited to the handling of California community colleges and a CSU, but I know our policy was based on an Arizona case. I'll have too look it up another time.

The heart of the Arizona case had to do with the outfield signs at a school athletic field. To some it up, you can't sell an outfield sign to Fight for the Family but refuse to sell outfield signage to LGBT Alliance.
And vice versa.

The slippery slope begins with attempting to regulate 'hate' and 'disruptive' speech and expression.
Much of protected speech/expression is intended to offend. It is intended to provoke and and stir controversy.
That does not mean it should be banned.
Intent to offend is not the same as intent to incite violence.

The moral content is not material, nor should it be material whether the expression offends.
Attempting to protect people from taking offense is counter to the intent of the First Amendment and is simply an impossible standard.

 

A long time ago, when I was a young reporter covering HS sports in NJ, a wrestler was kicked out of super regionals for wearing a 'Charlie Don't Surf' t-shirt with a picture of Charles Manson on it.

 

Has any school banned those ridiculous Che Guevara T-shirts yet?

How many of those shit-for-brains teenagers even know who Che Guevara is?

 

No, I'm not. As FranticScribe has explained, they do it on content-neutral grounds, i.e. that the students are causing a disruption.

It's stupid. We all know they are actually banning speech they don't like. But that's the framework, which is content-neutral, i.e. the same as any speech ban.

 

OK.

But the standard is completely different.

I was in high school during the 2 Live Crew era. Could I have worn a "Fuck Martinez" shirt to school? I surely could have worn one to the county courthouse.

 

No. But not because it was offensively, inherently, or morally objectionable. But because it would have caused a disruption.

 

Great. So we're in agreement about this Bloomington case then.

 

More things you can't wear: A MAGA hat and "Basket of Deplorables" shirt to the polls in Texas.

Campaign-related clothing leads to voter's arrest in Bulverde

 

Rules are rules.

 

Not necessarily. He can correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe Dick's point is more about the differing treatment of the rainbow flag.

It sounds like the confederate flag kids likely pulled their stunt largely in response to other kids displaying the rainbow flag to represent a political view. Basically an "if they can do it, why can't we?" sort of thing. In which case, it was actually a combination of BOTH flags that were causing the distraction/disrupton. Thus, if the superintendent was actually focused only on addressing the distraction, she should've either banned both or neither.

But instead only banned one. Why? Most likely because she was taking sides on content. Which, constitutionally, she shouldn't be allowed to do.

And, fwiw, I agree with others earlier that so much of this nonsense could be eliminated if public schools just started using uniforms.

 

I may have told this before, but it's one of my idiot-student favorites.

So about 10 years ago, a young lady walked up to me before class and told me she was going to be leaving class early to go to a job fair. "Fine," says I, "and thanks for letting me know. What kind of a job fair is it?" "It's the banking/finance one over at the Student Union." "Hmmmmm ... in that case, you might think of leaving class a little earlier so you can change shirts."

Yep. She was wearing one of those ... to a friggin' banking/finance job fair.

 

But you're wrong. Schools do have the authority to regulate speech, even the content. There was a case out here, I think we've talked about it, that students were banned from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. The administrators judged that their intent was harmful to the learning environment.

In the case of the rainbow flag, the school has a very strong interest in teaching tolerance, and part of that is assessing the content of the display. Not only do they have the right, in fact, that's the reason the school is there.

Yes, it's a government operation. It's also a place where minors gather -- and by nearly all laws we treat minors differently -- and it's a place where people are forced to be in the environment and cannot get up and walk away to avoid a situation that offends them. Thus, heavy regulation is absolutely necessary.