No Free Speech at Schools?

Dude, it's nothing to get pissed about.

It wasn't personal. It's just that people say that all the time - that free speech is absolute - but that is completely unworkable once you start thinking about what it really would mean.

 

Apparently in Texas a crowd can yelling "SLUT" at an assault victim, but the assault victim can't refuse to cheer for him.

She should take solace from the fact that Rakheem will be a broke crack head on probation, pan handling for Newports while she enjoys a good life in the future.

 

I wasn't pissed, although that's on me since it looks like it based on how I wrote. Like you said, I'm probably caught up with the Journalism and Free Speech connection. If free speech is disruptive, such as jumping behind your teacher with a sign, it shouldn't be allowed. However, not cheering for a player isn't the same as threatening to attack someone or clearly disrupting the game (unless someone was distracted by the missing part of the cheering formation). It should fall under free speech, and school officials shouldn't have put this girl on display before the crowd because she simply refused to cheer for her alleged rapist.

 

I don't think she has any legal argument at all. She is part of the club and she is refusing to perform her duties.

That said, the adminstration should have had the decency to let it go. They had the right to do what they did, but they were wrong to do it.

 

She has the right to refuse to cheer for him. But she does not have the right to be on the cheer squad.

I wouldn't blame the Texas courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it almost impossible to rule against a school in any situation in which it restricts student free speech. Ruling otherwise, even if you vehemently disagree with the doctrine, would be flirting with judicial activism.

 

OK, but what about then the student who refuses to participate in class. He is exercising his free speech rights. Should the teacher be able to dock his grade?

 

When the student fails the quizzes and tests, then he should be.

However, I admit that free speech is a complicated issue that doesn't have a clear solution in any case.

 

But what if class participation is a factor in the grade? Is that OK?

I'm not trying to put you on the spot as much as think out loud about what you just acknowledged - how damned difficult something so simple on the surface can be to figure out in practice.

Which is why it drives me nuts when people like those in the Tea Party - or the ACLU for that matter - act like Constitutional law issues are cut and dry.

 

I definitely agree with you on the Constitution part. When the gun amendment was written, people hunted for food with muskets. Now, did the Constitution writers imagine citizens using AK-47's to attack rival gangs? Of course not. It's not a document that can simply be consulted without regard to the future.

 

Hell, I don't even think there were public schools when the Constitution was written.

 

I wonder if cheerleading was considered a sport back then...

 

Which rape will stay with the victim longer: the physical one by the jocks, or the psychological one by the school officials?
If the school officials had a problem with what she did (or didn't do), they could've dealt with it quietly, away from the game. Instead, they opted to humiliate her, perhaps playing to the yahoos in the stands.
Figures the three conservative judges would allow the school officials to get away with this. I sometimes wonder if conservatives have problems with anti-bullying initiatives in schools - I think some look at bullying as an acceptable means (even if they don't initiate it themselves) to maintain their own sense of order, given that the targets are often LGBT, SPED or the physically weak.
I'd love to know the circumstances under which the principal left the school.