Re: Shedding the right to freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate

On Jun 12, 2024 at 12:49:49 PM PDT, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com>
wrote:

The famous quote from Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School
District (1968) should be applicable, but it's not.
 
[Students] do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of
speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.
 
Liam Morrison, a seventh grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleboro
Massachusetts, was ordered by his principal to remove his t-shirt, which
stated "There are only two genders."
 
Note: It's two SEXES. Even the kid bought into biological versus social
transgender jargon of sex versus gender.
 
He complied.
 
Being a wiseass, he next wore a shirt, "There are CENSORED genders."
 
The second time, he didn't remove the shirt, so he was kicked out of
school for the rest of the day.
 
During Pride Month celebrations, the school celebrates that there are an
unlimited number of genders.
 
The kid filed suit in US District Court; he lost at trial. The school's
argument, that there are "real" mental health concerns and trivializes
the significant harm that could occur to nonbinary students captive in
the classroom looking at it.
 
He lost again at First Circuit.
 
https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/23-1535P-01A.pdf
 
I don't understand how this isn't a slam dunk under Tinker for the kid.
They're appealing to the Supreme Court.
 
>
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/02/07/massachusetts-student-who-was-banned-from-wearing-only-two-genders-shirt-is-focus-of-free-speech-appeals-case/
 
>
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/02/08/massachusetts-middle-schoolers-case-about-only-two-genders-shirt-goes-in-front-of-federal-appeals-court/
 
>
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/06/10/massachusetts-middle-schooler-banned-from-wearing-only-two-genders-shirt-loses-federal-appeals-case/

This is ridiculous. As part of the government, a public school can't engage in
viewpoint discrimination. If they're going to allow the kids (and teachers) to
display pro-troon propaganda, they have to let kids who feel differently
express themselves as well.

Some with all these "rainbow crosswalks" that are suddenly sprouting up in
cities all over the country. These are public streets and the cities are
granting permits for these gay/troon political statements. One of these days a
religious group is going to show up to apply for a permit to paint a nearby
intersection with their political beliefs regarding troons and the city will
have no choice but to grant it. Even a city attorney hired fresh out of law
school will know enough to tell them that they can't provide one side with a
forum for speech and deny that same forum to everyone else based on the
content of their speech. So they'll either have to paint over all the troon
rainbows or allow the anti-troon folks to have an intersection to paint as
well.

New York City ran into this issue during the 2020 Summer of Love when DeBlasio
unveiled to great fanfare a Black Lives Matter mural that took up an entire
city block painted on the pavement of 5th Avenue. I think they even did it
front of Trump Tower to shoot him a metaphorical middle finger. The mural
later quietly went away when someone demanded a permit to paint an entire
block with White Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter (I can't remember which)
and the city's lawyers told them they'd either have to allow it or face a
costly and embarrassing civil rights lawsuit, which they'd almost certainly
lose.