Do you think LEOs should have been called to drag him out of there? And do you agree that it’s more likely that happened because he’s black?
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The question is on what non-arbitrary and not-first-amendment-violating basis do you exclude the swastika and accept the African heritage indicator? That’s the question to be answered.
One is hatred the other is pride. Question answered, right?
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My point was there was a big difference between the two. [edited, as I mis-read your last sentence]. Also, (although there are non-Nazi versions of the swastika) most read it as a celebration of mass murder. As @japhroaig indicated, celebrating pride in one’s heritage is not the same thing and wearing a symbol associated with one of the most horrific attempted genocides in modern history. It’s closer to compare it to a symbol of one’s faith or a symbol of one’s heritage. Would people be wigging out over a celtic torque or a big cross? the cops would not be called for that, I imagine.
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I have no basis to make a judgment about how this particular set of school administrators makes their decisions. I know the school is more than two-thirds minority. I know that school officials often work pretty strictly on the basis of policy in the face of open defiance. But that’s really all I know about the situation.
You may know more, but it seems to me that a lot of folks are impugning the motives of folks here on the basis of their own assumption that all that really matters here is that the student in question is black and their own impulse to congratulate themselves on knowing better than these benighted morons at the High School. I think that, probably, a lot more enters into the incident and that the rounds of self-congratulation have gotten more than a little bit tiresome.
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Yes: “I, the authority approve of this expression and disapprove of that one.” Yes, that absolutely gets you by any First Amendment challenge.
Hey thanks man. Really weird but eh.
I am sure the administrators and LEOs involved are all good people. Similar to how people that enforced segregation were likely good people. I don’t impugn the individuals, but I do question their motives, ethics, and actions. We all make mistakes due to internal biases, and this seems to be a fucking stupid one.
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This isn’t a first amendment challenge. Expression is regulated at the discretion of the school the moment you walk in. That is settled. You don’t have full first amendment rights at school. Full stop.
In the school context, the United States Supreme Court has identified three major relevant considerations:[6]
The extent to which the student speech in question poses a substantial threat of disruption (Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist.).
Whether the speech is offensive to prevailing community standards (Bethel School District v. Fraser).
Whether the speech, if allowed as part of a school activity or function, would be contrary to the basic educational mission of the school (Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier).
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The cross is to make sure the ‘christian’ republicans can’t remove it.
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The first amendment exists (partly) to prevent public authority from using its power to arbitrarily suppress certain forms of expression based on the content of that expression. No one denies there’s a difference between one expression and another. But that isn’t the issue. The issue is on what constitutionally allowable basis is one allowed and another excluded. Constitutionally allowable, in most cases, would mean content independent.
How about “clothing from your cultural heritage is allowed”? That also allows the swastika if you are Hindu/Jain/Buddhist, but not if you are a white supremacist.
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I’m afraid you don’t understand how that authority can be exercised. If you forbid, say, political expression, you have to forbid all political expression, not just the political expression you don’t like. If you forbid religion or heritage touting at graduation, you have to forbid all religion and heritage touting. The application of that authority has to be broad, even-handed, and non-arbitrary. You don’t just get to pick what expression you like and allow it while shutting up those you dislike.
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That’s just not true. See updated post above.
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Isn’t this precisely what happened in this case - the supression of constitutionally protected speech? The school wanted to enforce their dress code, in their capacity as a public authority. And they called in a cop to eject the kid from his own graduation. Someone could have allowed it, because it was not offensive in anyway nor was it distracting. But instead, they called the cops. The likelihood of this happening to others not conforming to the dress is likely rather low, I’d guess.
I do object to the notion that this young man’s kente cloth and the swastika are on the same level (when not in the context that @anon73430903 indicated), which some have compared. [quote=“oranpkelley, post:93, topic:78756”]
You don’t just get to pick what expression you like and allow it while shutting up those you dislike.
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Maybe they shouldn’t have excluded any of these cultural expressions. But we don’t have a comparision from this particular school regarding other cultural forms, so we don’t know if they would have disallowed a hijab or a yarmulke or a cross. We just know they called the cops on a kid who refused to remove a symbol of his black heritage.
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A far as I know, and I could be wrong, the Jain/buddhist/hindus as well as the navijo people kinda removed themselves from the swastika because of the nazi connotations it now has to everyone. IE they saw a thing so horrible they realized them trying to go ‘but we had it first and it meant something different’ wouldn’t exactly do much more than sound lame, so… away it goes now. You win hitler, keep it and go fuck off in a ditch somewhere.
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I happen to work at a school that has been sued (successfully & unsuccessfully) on precisely this basis and helped rewrite policy as a result.
On the face of it, the school has to be evenhanded in how it censors student expression. I can’t decide that African heritage statements are OK while, say, Southern heritage expressions aren’t.
The first amendment operates differently in schools than elsewhere, but that doesn’t give school administrators arbitrary power to suppress whatever they feel like suppressing.
You could, of course, make an argument that swastikas, say, are uniquely disruptive and are can be prohibited on that basis. That’s probably already been done. But there are probably loads of other offensive symbols and statements that haven’t been adjudicated and that you’d be on pretty shaky legal ground barring. As a school or district, you are generally far better off with a uniform policy that requires no distinction as to message.
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Right? Isn’t that the real question here, why were the cops called in the first place and is that connected to the race of the young man in question?
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I did. I said I don’t know. I’ll also say you don’t know either. Though it apparently pleases you to think otherwise.
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Could you point me to something I’ve said that brings you to that “fact”?
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