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Court Rules Schools Allowed To Ban American Flag In Order To Make Schools Safer

Lerxst said:
I fully appreciate their desire to ensure the safety of the students. I do not agree with how they went about it though.
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Yeah, there may well have been a better course of action for the administration.

Lerxst said:
Unfortunately there is an entirely different discussion occurring now about this incident. One geared towards vilifying Mexicans, vilifying liberals, and making this about one political persuasion "hating" America. To me that is just stupid and baseless.
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If all one has is a hammer...
 
rocket88 said:
I would however, put the wearing the American flag on a day to celebrate Mexican heritage was either stupid or intended to get the response it did. Acting to prevent a race war from breaking out may not have been the worst idea in the world.
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Anyone wanting to go to war over the US flag is welcome to do it. Mine is tattooed on, better bring a sharp knife if you want it.
 
Lerxst said:
I fully appreciate their desire to ensure the safety of the students. I do not agree with how they went about it though. Unfortunately there is an entirely different discussion occurring now about this incident. One geared towards vilifying Mexicans, vilifying liberals, and making this about one political persuasion "hating" America. To me that is just stupid and baseless.

I also believe I should have proof read my post before I hit the "post quick reply" button. Ugh.
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Seems not to be baseless at all. Its US day 365 days a year here.
 
blarg said:
I thick their mostly hear for money and a better life like the rest of us or are ancestors rather then a conspiracy on the part of the left to ban American flags at a school
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But everything's a leftist conspiracy!
 
CRUE CAB said:
Seems not to be baseless at all. Its US day 365 days a year here.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at. I understand that it's always "America" in America. But how does that apply to my assertion that using this as a platform to paint liberals and Mexicans as "America haters" has any merit? I'm fairly liberal and I love where I live. I just disagree with some others about what's best for it. And I know plenty of Mexicans who would love to be legal citizens here.

Could you clarify please?
 
From what I last read about the incident, I can't argue much against what the Administration did.

The kids may not have been trying to incite violence themselves, but seems students have in the past. I agree it probably would have been better to ban both the American and Mexican flag though. It also seems (from what I read), they hadn't done a good job to prevent it getting that far in the first place.

Also agree they should have had more enforcement there, when I was in High School we had some issue with some Black and Hispanic students (possibly white too, but not 100% sure still). For a few days we had a few extra police officers on campus and a cop car or two monitoring some of the student hotspots off-campus. As far as I know nothing happened, and the situation diffused. Something similar may have been a good idea for the school to pursue if they had the option.
 
rocket88 said:
I would however, put the wearing the American flag on a day to celebrate Mexican heritage was either stupid or intended to get the response it did. Acting to prevent a race war from breaking out may not have been the worst idea in the world.
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I don't disagree, but what the school also did was approve and condone the bully-ish behavior of the other students who threatened retaliation.
 
radcen said:
I don't disagree, but what the school also did was approve and condone the bully-ish behavior of the other students who threatened retaliation.
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While I think you're right to an extent, they did prevent a fight which "could have" escalated into race war. I say "could have" because there's nothing to back that up, but I think it was a possibility.
 
Such bull****.
 
RiverDad said:
Don't you just love the putrid smell of multiculturalism rotting out in the fields? American flags are now seen as a divisive symbol at American public schools:


Today’s Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School Dist. (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2014) upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. . . .

At least one party to this appeal, student M.D., wore American flag clothing to school on Cinco de Mayo 2009. M.D. was approached by a male student who, in the words of the district court, “shoved a Mexican flag at him and said something in Spanish expressing anger at [M.D.’s] clothing.

In the aftermath of the students’ departure from school, they received numerous threats from other students. D.G. was threatened by text message on May 6, and the same afternoon, received a threatening phone call from a caller saying he was outside of D.G.’s home. D.M. and M.D. were likewise threatened with violence, and a student at Live Oak overheard a group of classmates saying that some gang members would come down from San Jose to “take care of” the students. Because of these threats, the students did not go to school on May 7.

We hold that school officials, namely Rodriguez, did not act unconstitutionally, under either the First Amendment or Article I, § 2(a) of the California Constitution, in asking students to turn their shirts inside out, remove them, or leave school for the day with an excused absence in order to prevent substantial disruption or violence at school.​

This is a classic “heckler’s veto” — thugs threatening to attack the speaker, and government officials suppressing the speech to prevent such violence. “Heckler’s vetoes” are generally not allowed under First Amendment law; the government should generally protect the speaker and threaten to arrest the thugs, not suppress the speaker’s speech. But under Tinker‘s “forecast substantial disruption” test, such a heckler’s veto is indeed allowed.​
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Agreed, but then also no complaining if all Mexican-Americans go around sporting Viva Mexico on the fourth of July or fly their flag on their porches on the 4th of July. Or wear shirts with Mexican flags in school on days that are important to the US.

The stupid thing was to ask the student to wear his shirt inside out, but if they removed him purely for fear of violence toward him, then I think that is a valid reason. But the school will have to ensure that the next year on cinqo de mayo all students are put on alert that anyone assaulting or threatening a student who wears an American flag t-shirt will be expelled with no warning and will never be allowed back on school property. The student who did the threatening behavior this year should get suspended for 2 weeks with the warning that any other violent of threatening behavior will lead to an immediate expulsion.
 
rocket88 said:
While I think you're right to an extent, they did prevent a fight which "could have" escalated into race war. I say "could have" because there's nothing to back that up, but I think it was a possibility.
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It did prevent a fight, yes. No denying that. I fear, however, that it may have only postponed a fight, and that it will cause resentment to fester... possibly on both sides... that could explode later.

I guess the question I have to ask is: Has the school done anything since to tuirn it into a teaching moment, and address the underlying sentiments? Or, did they pat themselves on the back for a job well done and consider it solved?
 
Fiddytree said:
You're right that it demonstrates a greater failing to create a safe learning environment. That being said, I personally favor law and order over freedom of expression. Safety, authority, and discipline first.
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I prefer freedom, especially when punishments are given out to and/or restrictions made for one group and not another when a claim of safety concerns are made over a possible clash between the two groups. It would be just as wrong to tell girls that they had to wear dresses to school because of a potential threat to any girl in the school not wearing a dress.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
What about this case should have made the court overturn precedent regarding the relationship between students' freedom of expression and administrators' duty to maintain a suitable learning environment?

Anyone have any thoughts about that question?
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Sure, let's play. How about this variant - look at the suspension data, violence data, from schools and you see a very disproportionate presence of black students. It therefore follows that segregating schools by racial groups would certainly improve the learning environment for non-black students. If improving the learning environment is Job #1, then why don't we do that? Any thoughts?

Is it possible that there are missions of higher priority than improving the learning environment in public schools?
 
Peter King said:
Agreed, but then also no complaining if all Mexican-Americans go around sporting Viva Mexico on the fourth of July or fly their flag on their porches on the 4th of July. Or wear shirts with Mexican flags in school on days that are important to the US.
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Nope, that's worthy of complaint too. The problem is multiculturalism. If an immigrant from Mexico is accepted into American society, then they're American. Period. If they're favoring Mexico on the Fourth of July then they're forthrightly declaring their allegiance to another country while in the bosum of America. Time for them to go back to Mexico if that's how they feel.

To be clear, I have no issue whatsoever with Mexicans in Mexico flying Mexican flags on the Fourth of July. They owe no allegiance to the US. They can insult the US until they turn blue in the face.

The concept that there is no difference in play between an American displaying an American flag and a Mexican flag on the 4th depends on a notion that nationalism, nations, societies, and cultures don't really stand for anything particular. That's clearly not the case.
 
RiverDad said:
Sure, let's play. How about this variant - look at the suspension data, violence data, from schools and you see a very disproportionate presence of black students. It therefore follows that segregating schools by racial groups would certainly improve the learning environment for non-black students. If improving the learning environment is Job #1, then why don't we do that? Any thoughts?
Is it possible that there are missions of higher priority than improving the learning environment in public schools?
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Because there are priorities higher than creating a suitable learning environment, the court should have overturned precedents?

What is the guideline you would have courts across the land apply to cases where free expression of students' come into conflict with the duty of school officials to create a suitable learning environment?

Administrators' duty takes precedent except when an American flag is involved? Is that the guideline you would like our courts to switch to?
Feel free to use your own words to formulate whatever guideline it is that you are advocating for US courts to abruptly adopt.
 
RiverDad said:
Nope, that's worthy of complaint too. The problem is multiculturalism. If an immigrant from Mexico is accepted into American society, then they're American. Period. If they're favoring Mexico on the Fourth of July then they're forthrightly declaring their allegiance to another country while in the bosum of America. Time for them to go back to Mexico if that's how they feel.

To be clear, I have no issue whatsoever with Mexicans in Mexico flying Mexican flags on the Fourth of July. They owe no allegiance to the US. They can insult the US until they turn blue in the face.

The concept that there is no difference in play between an American displaying an American flag and a Mexican flag on the 4th depends on a notion that nationalism, nations, societies, and cultures don't really stand for anything particular. That's clearly not the case.
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How could it possibly be insulting for a citizen of a country to fly their own flag within their own country? Regardless what day it is. It's actually more insulting that one would feel the need to give them approval for said action.
 
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