Originally posted by GK4Herd:
I suspect that if these kids used their recess to hold up signs supporting the police that you'd not be motivated to start this thread. I think your main objection is the fact that the protest goes against your personal views. I'm a teacher and I have mixed views here. If this was truly student driven I would have no problem with it. It was during recess so it didn't take class time. The right to peacefully assemble in protest is a constitutional guarantee. However, if this is something that is being driven by the teacher(s), I'd object because these students should not be used as pawns to express the views of adults.
I'd have to know more about this.
Law school professor and law board examiners LOVE (love, I tell ya) to write test first amendment questions using students, usually junior high and high school aged. As a consequence, when studying constitutional law the first and second times around, you get heavy doses of opinionated students and disheveled teachers and administrators, and you are frequently asked to evaluate student and teacher/admin actions with regard to standing first amendment doctrine(s). There are two biggies regarding student "speech" - one for speech in print matter and one regarding protests. Admittedly, I hate to look up the case names as they have long been shuffled down the rabbit trails of the mind.
Premise aside, while I generally agree with what you are saying, and tend to take a broad view of the first amendment (even for speech I'm not particularly enamored with), unfortunately, first amendment doctrine as it currently stands really puts teachers and administrators in a speech-squelching position. Tinker is the one applicable here - regarding "protest" speech - and awkwardly states that teachers and admins may only suppress of student speech if it will "materially and
substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school." You can immediately detect the issue of determining how something as malleable as the quoted language can be decided on a case by case basis (no hard and fast rule here). A teacher/admin has at least four decisions to make on language and definition: is this disrupting? if so, does it disrupt work? or does it disrupt discipline? even if so, is it materially disruptive of x? or, is it substantially disrupting of x? That's a lot of sketchy questions to try and answer to err on the side of more speech, while the instinct is the call everything disrupting to teaching and/or discipline, and err on the side of less speech to keep the peace.
And, it is a tricky paradigm to work within because where else but in school should ideas, pros and cons, popular and dissenting, be discussed? But since we live in a society that thrives on pop-culture controversy while steering clear of interpersonal controversies and conflicts, we are really encouraged to be a society of Springer audience members than participants in civil public debate, since it is more fun to oooh and aaah at those on the stage.
Tough gig and not many good choices available.
Needed to finish my thoughts -- in this instance, there is a reasonable chance that one or more parents will sue the district/board on some of the basis that you alluded to, that the students were coerced and any reasonable teacher/admin (other than the one(s) that promoted the protest) created a disruption or potential (future) disruption in the discipline of the students. These cases are always weird and fact sensitive, and sometimes lead to some sketchy or poorly reasoned decisions. All of those "words" above that need to be interpreted often turn on the level of abstraction applied, so predicting outcomes is uber-problematic, imo, but concede I don't keep up with the various circuits' development and treatment of this doctrine, so I could be wildly off-base on the "problematic" nature of the issue(s). FWIW.
This post was edited on 12/17 12:32 PM by -Olen-
