Contest Implies Banning Free Speech Is OK
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 11:31AM I recently read a blurb about an ongoing contest mentioned in the Nashua Telegraph. Here's what they wrote about it:
Essay contest
For the third year in a row, the New Hampshire Supreme Court, in cooperation with the state’s newspapers, is hosting a Constitution Day essay contest, with two categories – grades 5-8 and grades 9-12.
The topic this year is about free speech: “When should a school be allowed to ban T-shirts that have certain kind of messages and pictures on them?”
A full page description of the contest, rules and prizes appeared in last Sunday’s Telegraph and is republished today.
Essays not to exceed 300 words must be postmarked by Oct. 1 and mailed to Constitution Contest, The Telegraph, 17 Executive Drive, Hudson, NH 03051.
Full contest details also are available at www.courts.state.nh.us or www.loebschool.org.
Kids are being asked to write an essay explaining why a school should be allowed to ban a T-shirt and this is how the bureaucrats at the NH Supreme Court felt we can best honor Constitution Day?
The very question itself implies that there is an appropriate time or a message offensive enough that schools should have the power to override the first amendment and prevent a student from wearing it.
For kids thinking about responding to this contest allow me to share a small bit of information with you, this is the first Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Pay close attention to the part in bold. Encouraging the thought that there are forms of speech that should be banned or that schools should have different rules applied to it's following the Constitution then other public locations encourages the weakening of our rights.
The only exception to this would be a private school which by the sole fact they are private gives them the rights to create any rules they wish for the students who choose to go there. But I would argue that even that should be heavily discouraged.
It is this mindset, that we should have places were speech or other rights can be limited that opens the doors to other violations and helps support the mindset that these violations are acceptable. Free speech zones when protesting politicians for instance. Or smoking bans which create limits of what legal activities a private business can have going on within it's doors.
We shouldn't be teaching our children through biased questions to think that such violations are acceptable. Government should not be allowed to take away our rights under any circumstances period.
Free speech, school in Education
Reader Comments (22)
Get your butt over to Steve's Column about the constitution.
That's where the serious constitional debate is.
Seriously, Steve is taking a long time to answer, because my question gets to the heart of his and your belief system.
let's see this through.
"Two and two equals what?"
rather than
"Two and two equals four!"
Now you try thinking a bit harder and lay off the Telegraph, which has gone to the mat in court, footing legal bills to fight cases and done far more for free speech in NH than you ever have,
Well put.
Look at a more open question. If I asked "Is Abortion a good or bad thing" that would be a fairly non bias question because it does lead one way or another however if I asked "when is it good to ban abortions", now that leads. It already gives the upper hand to the side that believes abortions should be banned.
If I were to ask you which form of capital punishment is the best and why, that question already implies that capital punishment is acceptable and puts those who object to it at the disadvantage from the start.
The question is not leading in the sense you ask. The question:
"When should a school be allowed to ban T-shirts that have certain kind of messages and pictures on them?”
could possibly be answered:
"Never"
That would not be the correct answer though. Clearly there is speech that can and should be prohibited. Hate speech and cries to kill others, for example: "Kill all Jews" or "Kill George Bush" clearly can be banned. The constitution allows schools to have rules forbidding a wide range of expressions. Schools can do this to maintain public order, for pedagogical reasons, or to prohibit slander, libel, and slander. Under these guidelines, "F**k You!" could be banned, and possibly "John Sununu is a teabagger" could as well, although this is a little less clear.
Hope this helps.
Mike, there have been several Supreme Court cases regarding free speech in school and if the question simply looked at one of the cases asking students if they supported it or not it would be one thing but this is another.
In Tinker vs. Des Moines the court wrote that students do not "shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door."
In that case students were wearing black arm bands to school to protest Vietnam.
In Papish v. Bd. of Curators of the Univ. of Missouri students were expelled for a news letter that included a four letter word, the court there found that expelling them was a violation of their rights to free speech and free press.
It isn't until the infamous Bong Hits 4 Jesus case that the supreme court supported limits on free speech in schools. But the ONLY reason the courts sided against free speech in this case was because it violated the school's drug policy which is different in my opinion then saying they supported limits on speech itself, the courts supported drug policies.
If you plan to enter this contest, you need to do a little more basic research:
"In Bethel, the Court upheld the right of Washington state high school administrators to discipline a student for delivering a campaign speech at a school assembly that was loaded with sexual innuendo. The Court expressed the view that administrators ought to have the discretion to punish student speech that violates school rules and has the tendency to interfere with legitimate educational and disciplinary objectives."
"In Hazelwood, the Court relied heavily on Bethel to uphold the right of school administrators to censor materials in a student-edited school paper that concerned sensitive subjects such as student pregnancy, or that could be considered an invasion of privacy."
"In Frederick v Morse, [the Court] found that schools have the right to discipline students who present messages that conflict with stated anti-drug policies, even where the evidence of disruption of school activities (a fact that seemed critical in Tinker) might be absent."
And of course there is Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, where the Court ruled: "There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."
In the Hazelwood case, I don't consider that a limit on free speech as much as classifying which freedoms outrank others. Clearly privacy is higher then speech. That's an example of your rights ending when they impact my own.
The Frederick case I already explained was drug policy.
The last case which you bring up is an example of clear and present danger. The equivalent of yelling fire in a theater. It's not so much the speech as much as the known reaction that will come from those words. That is a good example and I should have brought that up.
Now getting back to the first case, Bethel, I have to disagree with the courts on this one. This is clearly a case where they got it wrong.
I can't speak for "us guys", only for myself. I don't believe in limiting freedoms, but I do believe there are many types of freedom and that with freedom comes responsibility. If I was Jewish, do I have a right to not see "Kill the Jews" on t-shirts worn by my classmates?
When it comes down to balancing individual rights versus societal rights, I probably tilt a percent or to more towards societal rights than you do, but not in any important ways. I do this perhaps because I have a greater appreciation for what happens when there is no societal structure in place. I think of all the forms of governance, anarchy is the worst.
Rather than get too philosophical, what is actually lost when you tell a school kid: "No obscenity, no slander, no pro-drug messages, no calls for insurrection, and no hate speech on your t-shirt"? I think exactly precisely zilch is lost, and I think anyone who believes otherwise is either a child (in mind or body) or a romantic fool. I would rather save my energy to fight for rights that actually matter, not for trivialities. And I think we should recognize school administrators have a difficult job and err on the side of backing them up on issues like this that are of such little practical consequence.
As an aside, I had to wear a tie and jacket at my Jesuit high schoool and so far I seem to have survived the ordeal and prospered.
Should Matt Simon have the right to walk into a town hall meeting or into the state house to speak out about his opinions supporting legalization of pot while wearing a pro pot T-shirt?
Should a US citizen of any age be able to stand on a public street corner holding a sign with a political opinion on it?
If you say yes to both of those cases then what changes when you walk into a school vs any other public building or location?
I would say "yes" to both of the situations you posit.
The difference with a high school is it exists for the purpose of educating young people. One of the challenges to teaching the vast number of kids is maintaining order, and things that break down that order is detrimental to teaching. Anything that takes away from the education mission is counter to its purpose and should be discouraged. A school is not a public forum for debating issues. Can this be taken too far? Of course it can, and that's why courts exist to adjudicate differemnces of opinion on the matter.
Let me ask you a few hypotheticals. Do you think kids should be allowed to wear t-shirts to school with the following nessages, or are they OK in your book?
"Kill all Jews because they are Christ killers."
"Kill the Principal"
"Smoke dope"
"Black people are inferior to whites"
"Kill George Bush"
"I hate Democrats!"
Based on your above post anything that hampers my education should be discouraged. So if that is the case then I should be able to sue a school if the teacher isn't doing a good job. If a teacher pushes their political views and forces kids to watch say an Obama video that they find offensive then that teacher should be promptly banned from the school.
You were sort of making sense and then all of a sudden the wheels came off and you took a sharp turn right into wingnut land.
Nothing I wrote would allow you to sue a school if the teacher isn't doing a good job. How you arrive at that is odd, at best. My guess is you know this, but are hoping a reductum ad absurdum argument will succeed. It doesn't.
As for banning a teacher because he shows a speech by the president urging kids to study hard and stay in school.... I suggest you take a look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are nuts or if you are just living in a fantasy world.
As far as my comment about suing teachers, I derived it from this statement you made:
"Anything that takes away from the education mission is counter to its purpose and should be discouraged."
You've already defined "discouraged" in this case as schools preventing such things on their grounds as given by examples supporting banning of T-shirts. Taking this same logic to the next level, if a teacher therefore takes away from the education mission then that school should be sued to have that teacher fired. If as a right winger I find it offensive to have schools discussing left wing topics and my child is distracted by such things then I should likewise sue to have such disruptions removed from the classroom so they can learn actual subjects such as reading, math and science.
So, you'd support boys wearing t-shirts to school that say things like:
"Anti-Abortion, but Pro Date Rape"?
"Make me a sandwich, bitch"?
"500,000 battered women, and I'm still eating mine plain"?