A Cheerleader expressed herself and got punished by her school. But she wasn’t at school, and the Supreme Court ruled her speech is protected. Skip touched on the in loco parentis ramifications here, but I had other thoughts about the ruling.
As Skip notes, the decision does put “limits on the reach of the school district,” but their 8-1 decision in Mahanoy Area School Dist. v. B.L. may have deeper implications for the modern ed systems march toward tyranny or, maybe, it’s just a necessary reminder of what education has become in America.
Related: Supreme Court Sides with Cheerleader – School Exceeded Its Authority by Punishing off-Campus Speech
Remember, the school is a government body that wants to regulate everything a student says or does, at its discretion, without interference from parents or the community (or even Supreme Court Justices).
“…from the student speaker’s perspective, regulations of off-campus speech, when coupled with regulations of on-campus speech, include all the speech a student utters during the full 24-hour day. That means courts must be more skeptical of a school’s efforts to regulate off-campus speech, for doing so may mean the student cannot engage in that kind of speech at all.”
That is what they seek. Generations of American’s trained to abrogate any or all speech rights to any authority at its (often partisan or bi-polar) discretion.
While the average modern Leftist has the intellectual agility (and curiosity) of a soap-dish, the idea that your rulers should control everything you say or do should be offensive, even to them. And yet, it so often is not.
One paragraph later, we get this:
Our representative democracy only works if we protect the “marketplace of ideas.” This free exchange facilitates an informed public opinion, which, when transmitted to lawmakers, helps produce laws that reflect the People’s will. That protection must include the protection of unpopular ideas, for popular ideas have less need for protection.
Again, bullseye but, SCOTUS neglected to secure these rights from not only the lawmakers but the will of the people or, more precisely, the tyranny of the majority of fifty plus one.
I know, Constitutions and such. We, the people. Bill of Rights. But the past year has taught us much about their value by rulers or ruled. It might as well be a restraining order where our Elected officials are the jealous ex-boyfriend with anger-management issues, and we’re the disarmed “girlfriend.”
It doesn’t mean anything to anyone, but it looks nice on paper.
Another box checked by the establishment. Give up your rights to free speech, and association, and whatever else we say, and good luck finding a Judge in a lower court to see it differently.
Our kids are being inundated by indoctrination into a Marsixt-based power structure that would – despite the obvious detriment to the free exchange of anything – enable rulers to silence any expression they found inappropriate by any means at their disposal.
And then this.
And while B.L. used vulgarity, her speech was not obscene as this Court has understood that term. To the contrary, B.L. uttered the kind of pure speech to which, were she an adult, the First Amendment would provide strong protection…. [The] First Amendment protects “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate” …. “The inappropriate … character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern[.]”
Based on this part of the decision, B.L, every student, has a right to express “even hurtful speech to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.” With rare exceptions, the Supreme Court has been united on this point. And that’s great, but does it have practical power on the ground?
The Critical Race Theory fanatics – see also Social-Emotional learning (SEL), Equity and Inclusion, and the host of other misleading attempts to hide systemic bullying and serial race-shaming by different names – are silencing students and parents who dare to have unapproved opinions. That is the end game.
Have Courts been clear enough? Does it matter? Are rulings like this just another piece of paper?
Without money and lawyers, they may not appear to mean much unless you are prepared to become a citizen activist. Attend school board and town meetings. Confront administrators and boards. Record the interactions, engage, challenge, share, and persist. Share them. Recruit allies to the cause.
You are not alone.
This decision, and others like it, can have an impact. Add another arrow to the quiver. But the government, the Ed System, believe they can race-shame your kids, silence them, and silence us. We need to be of an equal or higher cultural caliber or we lose a lot more than the right to criticize a school or a coach or a policy.
We’ll lose America.
