Central High School promposal goes viral, some classmates call it racist

Keep in mind that the 1st Amendment is a restriction on Congress. “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech …”

As I know you know, speech is restricted in many ways by our society, and there can be consequences for violating those restrictions.

Being a teenager is a time for learning, and we can probably all look back on our teen years and remember something we learned the hard way.

The school is not Congress, and so if the school wants to discipline these 2 kids, in the end, it’s for their own good.

“Actions have consequences” is a good lesson to learn when you’re a teenager.

 

I'm fine with just prom denial and some measure of public embarrassment.... and I don't recall personally asking that anything happen to Smirk Boy other than the same scorn, which he got...

 

What do YOU think should happen to them??

 

how about you go prove your own point, instead of asking me to help you out?

That probably depends on the school's code of conduct.

You say all that about a recognizable uniform, while Mike Bacsik got fired from his radio gig, because he made a racist tweet.
Plenty of others got fired for their facebook contributions without their uniform on.

 

With your logic then the Executive Branch can simply make an EO banning any criticism of government and that any violation means a lifetime of incarceration.

Or do you want to admit that "Congress shall make no law..." means that the Government in general cannot prevent Free Speech?

Not to mention all the court cases that you're ignoring by even making such an "argument".

 

Well, it was racist (and sexist) for Biden to propose the equity candidate for SCOTUS, Brown. Are you gonna criticize Biden?

 

Good to know.

As for the rest...Never said you personally had.

 

That Brandi case is about sticking up a middle finger, and not a racist remark.
And the judge ruled that the middle finger was the expression of her criticism against the school and so protected by free speech.
The racist post has no resemblance with that case since making racists "jokes" has noting to do with criticism.

 

Do you understand what a rhetorical question is?

Again, rhetorical question.

The obvious answer to both questions is "no". That's why they're rhetorical. Anyone with a brain knows the answer is "no".

And as I noted they should not have been. Did you not read that part of my post?

 

Here is the current controlling precedent for student's off-campus speech and the limits of what schools can do to control it:

20-255 Mahanoy Area School Dist. v. B. L. (06/23/2021) (supremecourt.gov)

 

Already have in past posts. It was wrong of him to do what he did. It was also wrong when Trump did the same for some of his picks. Same with Obama. Bush. And Clinton. And many others.

Was there some kind of point you had with this post?

 

I 100% agree, but there are also enough similarities between the 2 cases that might give the school/district pause before taking actions... that's all I'm saying...

 

So not during prom.

 

The school cannot legally punish them for this off-campus speech. The school should follow the law.

 

How can any offense like racism be heinous if you claim everyone participates (and most everyone agrees) in/with it?

 

Would it be ok to ban a student from prom if they posted a video 10 minutes before prom started saying they were going to shoot everyone at prom?

The police wouldn't have had time to investigate, so would it be ok for the school to go ahead and make that decision because of something that happened off campus?

I'm not equating the this incident to that, but the logic some people are using to say that the school can't take action for off campus speech would apply to both.

 

If the kids say something the school doesn't like while not at school they can't do anything. Period. Nothing.

If the kids say/do something while on school property then they can.

What happened in the OP was off school property on thier own time. There is NOTHING the school can legally do. Ever.

 

That would be considered an immediate threat and as such is not covered by the 1st amendment. So yes they can.

 

Yes, the school could in that case. There is a narrow 1st Amendment exception for schools to regulate student off-campus speech in the case of "threats aimed at teachers or other students". The promposal was not a "threat aimed at teachers or other students".

 

But the kid was just talking about taking photos of everyone, or at least that is what he says when he shows up to prom.

 

I never said it was heinous. I also do not believe everyone participates in it.

I'm thinking that you have me confused with someone else. I have previously stated that the amount of actual racists in this country would only fill up a football stadium. That most of the country, contrary to leftists claims, is not racist.

 

If your point is to muddy the waters about whether or not your fictional scenario is a true threat or not, I'm probably not interested in pursuing the hypothetical beyond this response: The school should use their best judgement to determine whether the off-campus speech truly represented a "threat aimed at teachers or other students" or was a reference to photography. Ultimately, if there's disagreement, that same discussion will be had before a judge who will make the same determination. If it's determined to have been a true threat, then the school is within their rights to regulate that speech / punish the student for making the threat. If it's not (say, for example, the student was an avid photographer and was holding a high-end camera and seemed to clearly be referencing shooting photos in the video), then the school cannot punish that speech and claim it represented a true threat when it clearly did not.

None of this has any bearing on the situation from the OP because "If I was Black, I'd be picking cotton, but I'm white, so I'm picking you. Prom?" is clearly not a threat.

 

Sorry. I misread your previous post which stated that, of course, the actions described in the OP of this thread were racist.

 

Was a copy of that 'written requirement' inclusive of commentary outside of school property? I highly doubt that any such handbook fine-tooths every aspect of a student's life in that regard.

Teachers are a different matter. They are 'employees', and subject to such as I previously outlined.

 

Authoritarians don't get (don't want to enforce) the first amendment because that would allow opinions contrary to the authoritarian and the desire of the authoritarian is to stifle speech and thought which disagrees with the authoritarian. .