No Free Speech at Schools?

The teacher totally can lower the student's grade. Not participating in class isn't "speech" in any way recognized by first amendment cases. It's different from refusing to say the pledge of allegiance because they're fundamentally different types of speech. One involves you pledging loyalty to a country, the other you're just not taking part in class. Fundamentally different. The first can be seen as stating a political view, such as criticizing the government, while the second can not. As the court said

This view does not cover the student who doesn't participate in class. It does cover the student who doesn't say the pledge.

 

Amraeder makes a salient point here. One of the first things in 1st Amendment analysis is to determine whether the action is a regulation/restriction on speech or rather a regulation on conduct.

For example, let's say I'm demonstrating with my Tea Party group in a public park and I say, "You know what I think the government is? It's garbage!!!!" and I take a full trash can and dump its contents out all over the park to emphasize my point as the group cheers. The cops, standing by watching, come up and ticket me for littering a public park. I defend on the basis of the First Amendment. I lose because law the cops enforced regulated conduct, not speech.

 

Under what law would you like the judges to not "let them get away with this"?

 

Harassment?

 

I don't see it. The people in the fans who the father claims jeered her? Sure. The students in the school who called her a slut? Sure.

But I don't see how the school did anything harassing. The school has the legal right to tell cheerleaders they have to cheer for players or they can't be cheerleaders. In this case, applying that right makes them candidates for the biggest douchebags in history, but they still have that right.

 

I have to agree. The school's handling of this was disgraceful, but I don't see how it was illegal.

 

You're right. They may have the legal right to. However, the kid didn't pose a danger to the crowd (unless you're thinking of a threat to peppiness), so why remove the kid in the middle of the game? It's a shame, but it's a legal shame, unfortunately.

 

Another problem: At no point was the accused ever convicted of rape. If the school said it was OK for her to not cheer for this guy based on her accusation alone, that would potentially open two cans of worms: either they let the guy play, when they at least consider the possibility he raped her reasonable, or they don't let him play, which could let to accusations of civil rights violations from that side. Since he had not been convicted, and the standard is innocent until proven guilty, the school had to treat him as if he had not committed a crime -- which, legally, he had not (until he pleaded out to a lesser charge).

Now they could have removed him from the team based on the controversy his playing would cause in the community and the distraction it would have provided. They could have removed him for more verifiable infractions related to the accusation. But he's still on the team, and the cheerleading rules are you cheer for everyone on the team at the game you're doing, so you're kinda stuck -- even if, internally, you believe her.

 

She could claim that the school was condoning their actions because it was on school property, and they didn't do anything to the fans to stop it.

I'd be interested to know if the school has an anti-bullying policy. Of course, if what she said is true, it would seem that the adminstrators would need a policy written for them.

 

Playing team sports is a privilege. It's not a right.

Making a kid accused of a crime sit out their sport until the charges are sorted is not violating their rights. If they threw him out of the classroom, and didn't provide an alternative education for him, then he would have a case.

 

She'd have to prove that the harassment happened and that the school administration was notified or aware of it, which aren't easy things to prove even if we assume they are true.

 

They could make a case that his civil rights are being violated if they deem him guilty of a crime that the courts haven't convicted him of, which would be the implication if they kicked him off the team based on the complaint on its own. They could also claim that by indirectly judging him guilty of the crime, by virtue of punishing him for it, prejudices the community against him (at least in theory).

Not sure how far a case like that would go, if at all, but it would certainly have the potential to make an already bad scene worse.