Supreme Court rejects appeal of student who wanted to wear 'only two genders' T-shirt

[essentialsaltes]

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was reasonable to predict that the T-shirt will “poison the educational atmosphere” and disrupt the learning environment.

And SCOTUS saw no reason to intervene.

See also:

School faces lawsuit for making student remove 'only two genders' shirt: 'Censoring a 7th-grader'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/school-faces-lawsuit-making-student-remove-two-genders-shirt-censoring-7th-grader

www.christianforums.com

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Activist judges need to go!

 

[durangodawood]

You could get around it by wearing a "there are only two genres" T shirt.

 

[RileyG]

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was reasonable to predict that the T-shirt will “poison the educational atmosphere” and disrupt the learning environment.

And SCOTUS saw no reason to intervene.

See also:

School faces lawsuit for making student remove 'only two genders' shirt: 'Censoring a 7th-grader'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/school-faces-lawsuit-making-student-remove-two-genders-shirt-censoring-7th-grader

www.christianforums.com

He has a right to wear the shirt if he chooses. People need to learn to control their reactions. My opinion only.

 

[durangodawood]

He has a right to wear the shirt if he chooses. People need to learn to control their reactions. My opinion only.

I'm ok with school dress codes. In fact, I think school uniforms would even be a good thing.

 

[RileyG]

I'm ok with school dress codes. In fact, I think school uniforms would even be a good thing.

View attachment 365561

Eh? I believe in freedom of expression, but you do you.

 

[durangodawood]

Eh? I believe in freedom of expression, but you do you.

Freedom of expression is naturally limited in school. This applies for every school really, secular, religious, liberal, conservative, you name it.

 

[RileyG]

Freedom of expression is naturally limited in school. This applies for every school really, secular, religious, liberal, conservative, you name it.

I guess that’s true. Yes.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

I'm ok with school dress codes. In fact, I think school uniforms would even be a good thing.

View attachment 365561

So you want everyone to dress like Japanese school girls? Why not Sailor Moon?

 

[adrianmonk]

So you want everyone to dress like Japanese school girls? Why not Sailor Moon?

The school I attended had uniforms, however it was the same as chefs/kitchen employees at restaurants.

Very awkward going to any restaurant after school. :\

No chef hat, white shirt and checked pants.

 

[seeking.IAM]

No surprise. Schools have always been authoritarian regimes, limiting the rights of the individual for the sake of the whole. Their rules change over time as a function of societal mores, but it is still their turf, their rules. My wife was sent home from public school to change clothes after being reported to the office for wearing blue jeans, now commonplace attire that would not turn a head. She needed to be in a skirt with its hem dutifully measured with a yardstick to not offend anybody's sensibilities. A generation later, another relative was suspended for having a beeper on school grounds; today kids sit in class with cell phones. I remember being pleasantly surprised going from high school to college upon seeing that kids could still get an education wearing what they wanted, and the threatened disruption to learning was only a myth. One year they told me a girl in a halter top would keep me from learning. Three months later in college, I learned blue jeans and halter tops don't impair learning after all. Fact is that kids don't care nearly as much as administrators do.

 

[tdidymas]

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was reasonable to predict that the T-shirt will “poison the educational atmosphere” and disrupt the learning environment.

And SCOTUS saw no reason to intervene.

See also:

School faces lawsuit for making student remove 'only two genders' shirt: 'Censoring a 7th-grader'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/school-faces-lawsuit-making-student-remove-two-genders-shirt-censoring-7th-grader

www.christianforums.com

The court should have heard the case, Alito wrote, noting that “the school permitted and indeed encouraged student expression endorsing the view that there are many genders,” but censored an opposing view.

It is no surprise that school administrators and Court of Appeals judges in Massachusetts are liberal hypocrites.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It is no surprise that school administrators and Court of Appeals judges in Massachusetts are liberal hypocrites.

And SCOTUS?

 

[tdidymas]

And SCOTUS?

There were 2 that were wise and 7 unwise. In fact one of the 7 unwise doesn't even know what a woman is.

 

[hedrick]

I looked into this a bit more. Students do have 1st amendment rights. But they are more limited than in other venues. Quoting from the Appeals court in this case:

'The Supreme Court was sensitive, however, to the "special characteristics of the school environment" and so took care to explain that there was "no evidence whatever of ... interference, actual or nascent, with the schools' work or of collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone."Id.at 506, 508. It also affirmed more generally that "of course" school authorities may restrict student speech that "materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others" or, otherwise put, "'materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school' [or] ... collid[es] with the rights of others." Id.at 513 (citation omitted).In the more-than-half century since Tinker, the Court has addressed variations of the First Amendment question presented in that landmark case. But it has not addressed the vexing question of when (if ever) public-school students' FirstAmendment rights must give way to school administrators' authority to regulate speech that (though expressed passively, silently, and without mentioning any specific students) assertedly demeans "

Here is the rule that was violated in this case:

"Clothing must not state, imply, or depict hate speech or imagery that targetgroups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other classification."

The principal had had experience with students being bullied, often because they were LGBT. This shirt was understood to violate that rule, and the rule was intended to avoid encouraging mistreatment of students on the basis of the characteristics listed.

I was actually surprised the Supreme Court didn't take the case, but this at least gives some idea of what the basis might be.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I am curious...

If a different student had worn a "gender is not a binary" shirt, would that have been viewed as "disruptive"?


While the shirt the student was wearing in this case certainly had the propensity to be disruptive (that's often the point of wearing a provocative message on a shirt), I do wonder if these rules aren't being applied equally.


As John Locke expressed: justice means being subject only to rules that apply equally to everyone, not to arbitrary will

So while I can understand why the SCOTUS didn't intervene in this one (because by the letter of the rules, they had no reason to), it does raise broader questions.


Example:
if a person of color got arrested for a drug charge, thereby on paper, violating the law, and was a in a jurisdiction where the cops and prosecutors had been letting all the white people off the hook for the exact same charge. That also wouldn't be a case where the SCOTUS would intervene, because according to the letter of the law, a person violated the rules, was arrested for it, and sentenced, so legally speaking, nothing wrong happened if everything was done by the book. (what is the SCOTUS gonna do? Tell them they have to go back and prosecute all of the people they let off the hook in the interest of fairness?)

However, there would be a valid unfairness complaint to be made none the less.


The court declining this particular case (they decline >90% of cases since there's an exceptionally high bar to have one's case heard in the highest court in the land) doesn't negate the possibility that there was some viewpoint discrimination happening...which absolutely is a first amendment issue with some previous court precedent.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hence the constitutional term "The Tinker Test"

Also a case where school administrators tried to ban students from wearing particular garments to protest the Vietnam war.

In a 7-2 ruling:
The Court held that for school officials to justify censoring speech, they "must be able to show that [their] action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint"

 

[Aryeh Jay]

The school I attended had uniforms, however it was the same as chefs/kitchen employees at restaurants.

Very awkward going to any restaurant after school. :\

No chef hat, white shirt and checked pants.

I despise the checkered pants. The cooks on my ship wear them, they always look dirty to me, which is why they are checkered, to hide stains.

 

[adrianmonk]

I despise the checkered pants. The cooks on my ship wear them, they always look dirty to me, which is why they are checkered, to hide stains.

I did not realize that they were kitchen uniforms till the last year of high school. Then it made sense why my game with girls from other schools failed in a spectacular manner.

 

[RileyG]

I did not realize that they were kitchen uniforms till the last year of high school. Then it made sense why my game with girls from other schools failed in a spectacular manner.

Public school? How odd.

 

[RileyG]

And SCOTUS?

If they want that shirt banned, then they should ban LGBT material as well. You know? Tolerance is a two way street