School T-Shirt Wars, Part MCXLVI: Kids can't wear U.S. flag shirts on May 5

Depends on the provocation. This was clearly a politically based provocation, which puts it on a higher tier of speech than mere taunting.

 

My student paper is provoking the staff (or School Board) with an article they wrote about...

 

You posted this instead of citing the "shit load" of Supreme Court rulings? here's one:

"The Court did not, however, grant students an unlimited right to self-expression. It said First Amendment guarantees must be balanced against a school's need to keep order: As long as an act Of expression doesn't disrupt classwork or school activities or invade the rights of others, it's acceptable. Regarding the students in this case, "their deviation consisted only in wearing on their sleeve a band of black cloth," the Court said. "They caused discussion outside of the classrooms, but no interference with work and no disorder."

Oh, and the student paper at a high school can't just print anything it wants. If some snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears wannabe Bill Simmons tried to write that the football team sucks, the principal would have to step in so the kid doesn't get killed.

There. I think I'm done indulging this particular deviance from the actual point. The student paper and what it can or can't do has less than nothing to do with this.

 

What was that about a fucking strawman?

 

Again, not an argument I was making. And the part you bolded was Scicluna's view, NOT a view stated in the article. Your read might be different.

 

The case you are citing also upheld students' rights to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. School administrators can't just say "I think it's going to disrupt the classroom" and therefore justify a banning. There has to be some reasonable grounding for the expectation of disruption.

Like AQB was saying, to justify this, the principal more or less say that he thinks Mexican students in his school have such little restraint that seeing an American flag on May 5 will cause a disruption.

 

Fine.

This is a terrible infringement of these boys' rights. All they wanted to do was wear their stylish bandannas and t-shirts to make a peaceful statement about how much they love their country. The principal is not only wrong, he's a racist who thinks the Hispanic students would be violent. I know this is true because the first post in this thread said so.

This is all about the Flag, and nothing else. Long may it wave! Long may it FLY!!!!

Don't Tread on Me!

 

And *there's* the strawman.

 

I can remember kids getting sent home for wearing Spuds McKenzie T-shirts.

Promoting a shitty pilsner and an aggravating ad campaign is bad enough.

 

Wearing an American flag is not disrupting a class.

Teach the students to respect each other and if they fight they are gone for seven days and they are not allowed to attend the prom and walk in graduation.

Plus, you are taking away the rights of 950 students to try and deal with 50 students.

Is this were I get to call you a name and a moron?

 

I never called you a moron, 93Devil.

More than once, I've written out words that mentioned the fact that your status as a teacher makes me doubt the quality of our public school system, but I pulled it back before I hit "POST."

But I never called you a moron or any other name. If I did, I apologize.