Update on Jr Pubbie T-shirt

[donco6]

While on the school playground that morning, Daxx and other students got into a shouting match over the shirt, Superintendent John Barry said.

When the argument spilled into first-period math class, Daxx was sent to the principal's office. He was given the option of turning the shirt inside out, wearing a shirt provided by the school or going home and changing into something else and coming back to class.

Daxx didn't like any of those options, so district officials suspended him.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10541233

Dad is ultraRW antiabortion whacko. Kid "hasn't been following the election."

"I don't understand that much to have an opinion," Daxx said. "I just follow my dad."

[Fuzz]

1. Kids shouldn't be used as billboards to express their parent's political opinions,.

[nxylas]

2. Did you see the dress code at the end?

It prohibits clothes that "Contain profane, lewd, defamatory or vulgar communications". I'd say "Obama: a terrorist's best friend" was defamatory, wouldn't you?

[donco6]

3. Oh yeah.

The dad has been in the news before for inflammatory acts. Now he's just using his kids to achieve his own ends.

[baldguy]

4. Sounds like Jr Daxx is on track to be a perfect sheeple Republican

Don't think, don't try to understand, don't act on your own volition - just follow.

[donco6]

6. "I just follow my dad" . . .

right off the cliff.

[nxylas]

11. Well, most kids his age probably just follow their parents' opinions

It's really only when they get to high school age that most people start to form opinions of their own (though there are a few younger kids who are mature for their age).

[jobycom]

12. On the other hand, kids rebel against parents as teens, so maybe

it will backfire. He'll use politics as a rebellion point.

Who knows? I'm not going to criticize an 11 year old for not having a perfect understanding of politics, nor will I criticize any American for expressing a political belief. Now, the political belief itself is stupid, but that's not the issue. Half of what's said on DU is stupid, too. Which half is debatable. :)

[Buzz Clik]

5. Same old shit, only this time it's a Republican asshole.

This routine is followed with great regularity:

1. The kid shows up and either does something inappropriate or wears inappropriate clothing.
2. The kid's behavior is disruptive, usually, is in violation of some school rule.
3. The school administration tells the kid his options, and the kid tells the administration to take off.
4. The kid is suspended.
5. The media jumps on it, including the usual cast of idiots like Limbaugh and O'Reilly.

It never ends. And we're always surprised.

[donco6]

8. Love your mcain graphic!

Ha! That made me guffaw outloud.

Yes - and the kid will now make all the rounds on the usual programs, all shocked at his treatment at the hands of the evil public school. Never mind that the school probably saved his ass from getting pummelled into the ground.

[dysfunctional press]

7. i wonder how much money the freeptards will throw at him for a 'defense fund'...

what a worthless p.o.s. father.

[annabanana]

9. The whole class should show up wearing political t-shirts..

Obama/McCain/Barr/Paul.. everybody.

The rotten, slanderous t-shirt should be countered by lots of t-shirts, not by the suspension of the kid (who we now know didn't have much to do with it)

[donco6]

10. Right. And after that riot is over . . .

. . . and the parents are all at the gates asking for the principal's head because little Suzie or Johnny got the shit beat out of him, you'll be right there to support the decision, right?

Pfft.

[jobycom]

14. I would. I'd be there to condemn those who started the violence, too.

Freedom of speech is meant to piss off someone. The speech isn't the problem. If someone fights over that speech, the fighters should be punished, not those expressing their opinions.

If my kid wants to wear a shirt saying "George W Bush is a war criminal" to school, she should be allowed to, and if a fight erupts, the people who started the fight should be punished.

[donco6]

16. And the teaching is supposed to happen when exactly?

Schools should not be battlegrounds for provocateurs. We have a job to do - teach. Not stop fights or encourage them. Kids can and do get hurt - seriously hurt - in fights at school. We have knives. We have guns. We have brass knuckles. All of these have been taken from kids at school THIS YEAR. And you really think provoking fights is a good idea?

[jobycom]

30. No, provoking fights isn't a good idea, which was my point, and the one you argue against.

My point was that the person starting the fight is the one starting the fight, not the one expressing their First Amendment rights by wearing a political statement on a tee shirt. If the shirt made some offensive racial or sexist statement, or challenged an individual to a fight, or in some way could be interpreted as being an attack, or at least an attempt to disrupt, then sure, the shirt is the problem at a school. But otherwise, the reaction to the shirt is the problem.

That's what I'd like to see our kids learn at school. I don't care if my child knows the capital of North Dakota and can blacken the right circle on a test to prove it. I'd like to think she's learning something other than how to blindly obey authority no matter what rights that authority violates. We have gone far enough down the road to teaching our kids that they are simply automatons in the system, to be controlled by whatever government agency orders them around, and to only exercise the rights the government "allows" them to exercise. Too many of our kids have grown into unquestioning adults in that system, and those are the adults we keep facing across the picket lines when we protest wars and other illegal actions. I'd rather see a bit of teaching about critical thinking, ethical protest, and questioning of authority. Work in the capital of North Dakota, too, if you must, but I'd like our kids--my kids--to learn more than the answers to a Trivial Pursuit game.

This is exactly the same argument Bush and the Republicans used against us to silence our dissent against the war, and to attempt to ban flag burning and other expressions. Our dissent caused disruptions, therefore it was the problem. I see the disruptions as the problem, and not the dissent. Those who caused the disruptions were those reacting violently to our dissent. If we allow the disruption to prove that the dissent is wrong, then all BushCo or the next equivalent has to do is get someone to start a fight over our dissent, and label our dissent as disruptive.

This is a clear case of supporting a person's right to say something, even though what he says is idiotic and wrong. If we can't support that, how can we argue that the other side should support our rights?

[Trillo]

32. Good posting and thoughts.

Just wanted to give you a warm fuzzy for stating them so succinctly.

Carry on.

[jobycom]

13. What's going on here? If the kid had worn an anti-Bush shirt, we'd be all over the school for it.

I can't believe what I'm seeing here. A kid expresses a political opinion, gets suspended for it when other kids protest the shirt, and DUers are siding with the authorities who suspended him? I remember a lot of cases where the shirt was on our side, and everyone condemned the authorities.

[Buzz Clik]

15. WRONG!

The problem here is exactly the problem that arises every time a kid flips the finger to the school administration: the kid creates a problem, is given a couple of options to get past it, he tells them to shove off, and then is shocked when he gets disciplined.

Yeah, DU is filled with people who change sides depending on the political statement being made by the kid in question, but a lot of us think it's just the same bullshit on yet another day. It's not the shirt, it's the kid's defiance of authority that has him in trouble now.

[jobycom]

19. So you'd protest a kid wearing an anti-war shirt to school, too?

That's terribly sad. Maybe this is the topic for another thread, but I wonder sometimes what some people see as the difference between liberal and conservative. I used to think there was a complete difference in mentality, but the last year on DU here it seems to be just about what issues a person wants to throw out the Bill of Rights over.

[Buzz Clik]

21. You're struggling to comprehend my post, I see. Let me try again:

I have no trouble with the kid's shirt at all. I find the content to be symptomatic of being brain dead, but stupidity isn't against school policy. My problem is that the kid clearly and intentionally was creating a problem with his inflammatory shirt but refused to obey the administration when he was given three options to correct the problem.

If you don't want to follow the rules, then be willing to accept the consequences.

[jobycom]

27. No, your point is perfectly simple enough to be easily grasped.

Let's see if we can catch you up to the argument. It's about whether the school had the right to make a rule limiting a kid's right of expression. Supreme Court says no. Constitution says no. You say yes.

Let me spell it out more clearly. If I wear a shirt to school which says "Izod," and some kids start a protest over my shirt, who is to blame for the protest? Me and my shirt, or the kids starting the disruption? Now, if I wear a shirt saying "Join the KKK and lynch Obama and all other people of his color," and a disruption starts, clearly my shirt is meant to disrupt and attack, not to express a political opinion. In that case, the school--according to Tinker v DeMoine, cited in other posts--has the right to make me change my shirt or take appropriate action to get my disruptive shirt out of the school.

Somewhere between there is a line about what is considered free speech--the SCOTUS has ruled that free speech does apply at schools for school-age children, thankfully--and what is considered disruption. The mere fact that a disruption occured does not prove that the free expression was disruptive. The expression has to be disruptive in itself, and SCOTUS has ruled that there has to be a darned good Constitutional reason for the ban for it to be valid. In short, the burden is on the school to prove that the expression was meant to be or should have been understood to be disruptive, not just a statement of political expression.

Free speech protection ONLY matters when the speech upsets someone, as is frequently stated in and out of courts, so there has to be some reason beyond the simple fact that some people were upset to prove that the expression was disruptive. Free speech protection assumes that someone is upset by the speech, otherwise free speech would need no protection.

Now, again, back to the point which I thought to be beyond misunderstanding--if the kid had worn a shirt saying "Bush is a war criminal, indict him now!" and he started a riot and was sent home, DU would be all over the school for violating his rights. Rightfully so. Why are some being hypocritical here?

[donco6]

17. You're setting up a straw man - that's NOT what happened.

The t-shirt caused a disruption even BEFORE the kid got into school. The disruption CONTINUED in 1st hour class. That's really the end of the story as far as the law goes. Schools clearly have the right to disallow clothing that disrupts the learning environment - Tinker v. Des Moines.

[jobycom]

20. The people who caused the disruption should be punished, not the person wearing a shirt.

If my kid wears a shirt saying "War is Evil" and somebody punches her for it, the person who threw the punch should be punished, not the person wearing the shirt. If I start a riot because some kid wears Levis, would the wearing of Levis be considered disruptive?

Also, your citing of Tinker is odd, since Tinker agrees with me. A school can ban disruptive clothing, but it cannot ban clothing whose intent is to make a political statement, rather than to disrupt. If the shirt had made a racist or sexist comment, it could be banned. But it didn't. Those creating the disturbance should have been suspended, not the person wearing the shirt.

This came up over the Iraq war, when kids were sent home for wearing anti-war or anti-Bush teeshirts. DU went apeshit about the violation of rights.

[Buzz Clik]

23. Once again, you've chosen to rewrite the facts. Was this kid punched?

The kid's shirt violated school rules. He was called on it. He was told to correct the problem in one of three ways. He flatly refused. The logical consequence of his action was being suspended from school, which he was.

End of story.

[jobycom]

25. Hey look, I'm over here. Don't know who you are arguing with, but it's not me.

I'm not rewriting any facts, I'm simply stating facts you don't like. I didn't say the kid was punched. Schools can have bad rules.

The story is that this kid expressed a political view and got suspended for it, on the thin pretext that some people disliked his statement so that his statement was a disruption. As is always pointed out in First Amendment cases, speech that angers no one does not have to be protected. It takes more than people getting upset to make a statement disruptive. The intent of the kid had to be to upset, rather than express, and there's no indication of that.

Thus, the school rule was wrong. Luckily, the Constitution was written to provide redress for those bad rules, so that bad rules don't have to be the end of the story.

[donco6]

28. No, No, No. That's NOT what happened.

The shirt CAUSED a disruption. The father's intent was to cause a disruption. The disruption started on the playground before school and spilled into school at first period. The school has every right to protect the instructional environment of the school. It is not a bad rule in any sense of the term.

[jobycom]

29. You know, I read the story, so reciting the facts again doesn't do anything

that the story didn't say in the first place.

The fact that a disruption started does not prove that the shirt was disruptive. That was the point of my Levis example. The fact that a student's right to free expression is protected by the Constitution was decided by the case YOU cited--Tinker v Des Moines. Here's a link to the ruling: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/tinker.html and one more to the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District

And an excerpt from the decision:

(After noting that the school sought to punish "silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance on the part of petitioners" and further noted that the "armbands caused some hostile remarks outside of class"...)

"...in our system, undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression. Any departure from absolute regimentation may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority's opinion may inspire fear. Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk...

snip

"In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are "persons" under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views. As Judge Gewin, speaking for the Fifth Circuit, said, school officials cannot suppress "expressions of feelings with which they do not wish to contend."

--------

[Buzz Clik]

22. delete -- wrong reply

[tammywammy]

24. In the article it states this his sister also wore an anti-Obama shirt that day

And was not asked to change. The shirt was clearly causing a disturbance at the school, that's why he was asked to turn it inside out or wear a shirt provided by the school.

[LanternWaste]

26. Edit: Forget it-- intractable opinions at work here.

Edit: Forget it-- intractable opinions at work here.

[LeftinOH]

18. Asshole parent; kid doing what dad wants. Were any of us politically aware at age 11?

I certainly wasn't.. and my parents were thoughtful enough to let me be a kid, and not involve me in that stuff.

[Trillo]

31. A suspension is the wrong course of action.

It looks like the school is saying don't follow your dad, while the law says parents must be financially responsible for the kid until they're 18. This usually means the kid lives with mom and dad. Do progressives want to go the route of splitting children against their parents when the law gives the parents legal control over their children? This puts the child in a no-win situation of the state leveraging punishment against the parents through the child.

I've said this before, and will say it again, if an expulsion, suspension, whatever you want to call a permanent or temporary kicking out is executed by officials, then the child needs to be released from further compulsory education.

That also fixes the fighting problem.

The danger with any expulsion or suspension is that it teaches the correct way to handle one's problems is to cast them out of one's physical presence, and the corollary lesson which eventually sinks in, out of one's mind. In other words, it teaches denial.

Quite effectively, I might add, particularly when combined with the lesson that we kick you out but you still must attend. What greater push-pull denial is there?

Do progressives want neo-conservatives and potential future neo-conservatives to be in denial? The corollary question: Is neo-conservatism a state of denial? If so, then could it not be changed by eliminating those conditions that teach denial?