Depends on maturity, peers and parents too
That literally is not what the English word racism means. An Irish can be racist towards Italians, and Italians can be racist towards Irish. One of them doesn’t have to be the top in some sort of power dynamic. Racism is just when some directs animosity towards someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. That’s just what the word means in the English language.
It’s really weird when people try and redefine a word in order to… I don’t know, bake their ideology into the language? People should fuck off with that. It’s really annoying, and it isn’t a convincing argument. That’s just some weird double speak garbage…
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They’ll go get their GED like millions of other students. Actions have consequences. If they didn’t understand that, it’s the failure of their parents or guardians, and let’s be real, this sort of behavior almost never results in spite of parenting. They’re old enough to know what they were doing, and young enough to wise up.
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In order to avoid deletion and repetition, as a general response to all the Libertarian dudes who would prefer to make this story about a “clear-cut” violation of the racist students’ First Amendment rights I’ll just re-post a summary of my response to an earlier one:
First, to be clear, their right of free speech was not directly abridged by the public school (or the state, or Congress) – that these two dopes made the video and that it presumably remains somewhere on the Internet is evidence of that. This is not a direct case of state censorship or prior restraint.
What the state, in the form of the school administration*, is doing is imposing consequences for the content of said speech. That can indeed create an indirect chilling effect by the state, which is generally considered an abridgment of free speech by the courts. As @beschizza notes, the school needs to explain why that specific content deserved the specific consequences it does, lest the explusion become just another precedent for chilling the speech of K-12 students in general.
They do have a basis for claiming an exception similar to other applications of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School Dist. While no specific student was named or targetted, that elides the fact that any African-Americans in the student body could reasonably consider themselves members of a targetted group at the school.
They, along with their non-black friends, would likely take offense to the presence of racist classmates in the school (as exposed by said classmates’ free expression) in a way which in turn could disrupt school work or discipline That’s close enough to the ruling in S.J.W. v. Lee’s Summit R-7 School Dist. that the school might have an adequate defense working off that precedent if the families of these two idiots sue. The claim of exception, if successful, would effectively extend the classification of targetted individuals in a school (as in S.J.W. v. Lee’s Summit) to those who reasonably see themselves as members of a targetted group in a school.
Some might argue that this approach would be regarded as an appeal to the “heckler’s veto”, but it really isn’t in the context of a school full of teenagers. There is definitely a higher concern and justification in that context for allowing a public school to impose reasonable and non-violent “crowd control” (to use the legal term of art) on students through various disciplinary measures (e.g. failing grades, detention, suspension, and expulsion in general) in order to carry out its functions without disruptions.
Anyhow, we’ll see if the parents are foolish enough to roll the dice on what isn’t a sure thing, or just let their idiot kids finish up the year by homeschooling, taking the GED, or finding a Xtianist academy more welcoming to bigots. Given that racism has to be carefully taught, I’m guessing the former, which will at least enrich some local lawyers.
[* putting aside the fact that, as @dorgar pointed out, public schools aren’t always seen by Constitutional scholars as arms of the state]
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Looks like the earlier sub-thread was deleted.
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Ageism is kinda funny from a guy who’s pushing 50.
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People not being held accountable for abusing you is not a reason to not hold others accountable.
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The words used, and the video itself, were only possible if the students held beliefs about themselves and others which were dangerous to the well being of other students. No student who believed in equal rights or who treated their fellow students with respect could have said or done what was said and done in that video. And the students clearly expected their friends at school to approve of their video. It was obviously not a single, one-off incident of racism by students who’d never said or done anything racist before. So the video was evidence of a much deeper, much more toxic and dangerous situation.
The expulsion was not just about “mere words”, it was aimed at punishing, and stopping, an obvious ongoing effort by a group of students to deride, denigrate and devalue another group of students based on their racial category. The expelled kids were showing the kinds of racist beliefs and behaviors which have gone hand-in-hand with mistreatment of African American students in the past. Mistreatment up to and including murder.
And African American students, like all students, have a right to live without threat of attack.
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Well, yes, it of course has to do with the first amendment: they have not broken the law with their hate speech. Hate speech (without, say, calls to riot and violence) is specifically protected. The point is their first amendment rights are abridged when attending school, and they can suffer penalties imposed by that school, for which they have no legal recourse.
I think you are conflating two of my deleted comments there and misquoting me in the process. Regardless, thank you for putting a summary together, as I suspect we will be hearing the same repeated arguments.
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Sorry if I misquoted you. You had mentioned a case that highlighted a controversy over whether or not public schools could be considered agents of the state in a First Amendment context which I thought added to the discussion.
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I highlighted a case that added breadth to how “the state” deals with free speech issues in schools, in reply to a comment that “as agents of the state schools are required to do x” which was a false argument to begin with. I was pointing out that the “x” wasn’t so cut and dry.That argument is of course, no longer in the thread, so I can see where the confusion came from.
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The First Amendment, applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendments, restricts the consequences the state may impose for unethical speech. See e.g. Brandenburg v. Ohio and Texas v. Johnson.
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Oh, we’re just going to arm chair lawyer the f*** out of this now I see.
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In summary, there has to be special factors which would justify the public school regulating speech. From the article, none of these special factors are in play.
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Dumb question,
These people are now briefly internet famous racists.
Does that incentivize others to kick their ass and put them under constant threat?
The school might have also kicked them out because they are also now (almost justified) roaming targets for violence.
I knew someone who reported a theft at a school field trip, and this got the thief expelled. The people who reported the (brazen caught on camera) theft, were asked to stay at home for 2 days until tempers had calmed down (legitimate safety reason).
Does expelling them
A) send the message
B) reduce racism at the school
C) remove a potential for violence? (Either theor own,or retribution aimed at them)
Any way this goes,it is the end of the school year and the school can take this measure with the fewest negative long term consequences, for the best outcomes.
The First Amendment, applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, severely restricts the consequences the state may impose for unethical speech.
Dig deeper into that copy paste bucket. We also have some gun rights and climate change threads, if you want to sample from the buffet.
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The school is not the state, just like your boss is not the state.
If the school has a code of conduct, and this code of conduct includes “not inciting violence or hatred of others”, then they have more leeway to expell the students.
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True enough, but it’s not like all 17 year olds are ignorant of such things and how they can be hurtful. It’s a bullshit excuse for the failures of their parents and community. 
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