Gainesville High School Students' Racist YouTube Rant Forces Girls To Leave School

[Oyeve]

Those stupid white honkey bitches got what they deserved.......wait, is that racist?

 

[HomerJS]

What makes your lack of tolerance any better then the girls in the video?

What they did was completely dopey. I'm a little puzzled by their surprise at soceities reaction. Notice how all this was done without using perjoratives connected to their gender or race realizing anyone is capable of this kind of behavior

 

[Texashiker]

What they did was completely dopey. I'm a little puzzled by their surprise at soceities reaction.

But its ok for all other minorities to talk bad about whites?

 

[piasabird]

1st amendment only applies to adults. School kids do not have freedom of speech. Better study up on the case law about this. Often Athletes are kicked off a sports team by their school for getting drunk on their own time. If a school has a standards of conduct, which most do, they can include what you are doing outside of school. This has been tested in court before. It is best not to make comments about race on the Internet. There is no privacy on the Internet.

If you are a white person you can not openly discuss race issues because everyone will call you a racist. This is why many white people will not talk to black people. White people do not have freedom of speech so we should not bother. This is the kind of attitude we have to live with. Do you really wonder why white people dont care about minorities? White people cant win, so they dont bother.

I understand something about minorities because my wife is Asian. When your half Korean kids come home and wonder why people call them names like Chinese or try to make fun of them it is hard to explain to them that kids are mean and they pick on everyone for every little thing. Then the Cops follow your wife around because she looks different in an all-white neighborhood. This is life and this happens all the time. I dont have any solutions.

 

[HomerJS]

But its ok for all other minorities to talk bad about whites?

Never said or hinted that. Based on the Lin story, society will react on more then attacks on black people.

 

[Texashiker]

1st amendment only applies to adults. School kids do not have freedom of speech. Better study up on the case law about this.

You are wrong.

http://www.dailydot.com/society/first-amendment-churubusco-high-school/

A federal judge in Indiana ruled that a high school principal violated the First Amendment rights of two tenth-grade students who were suspended from the school volleyball team after posting suggestive photos of themselves on Facebook, Myspace and Photobucket.

You really need to read up on court decisions before posting any more opinions.

There are dozens of cases where courts have upheld the First Amendment rights of people under the age of 18 years old.


Another ruling, this time the lady is in college, but suing for what happened to her in high school

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/education/16student.html

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

1st amendment only applies to adults. School kids do not have freedom of speech. Better study up on the case law about this. Often Athletes are kicked off a sports team by their school for getting drunk on their own time. If a school has a standards of conduct, which most do, they can include what you are doing outside of school. This has been tested in court before. It is best not to make comments about race on the Internet. There is no privacy on the Internet.

If you are a white person you can not openly discuss race issues because everyone will call you a racist. This is why many white people will not talk to black people. White people do not have freedom of speech so we should not bother. This is the kind of attitude we have to live with. Do you really wonder why white people dont care about minorities? White people cant win, so they dont bother.

I understand something about minorities because my wife is Asian. When your half Korean kids come home and wonder why people call them names like Chinese or try to make fun of them it is hard to explain to them that kids are mean and they pick on everyone for every little thing. Then the Cops follow your wife around because she looks different in an all-white neighborhood. This is life and this happens all the time. I dont have any solutions.

Students have first amendment rights but as Mursilis says it's not simple.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/studentspeech.htm

The relevant facts as I see them-

This is a public not private school.
The offenders did nothing on the school grounds.
They are of an age where they are able to understand what is going on.
They were not advocating (to my knowledge) a criminal act.
Offensive speech is protected. Urging violence is not.

As I've said, I do not approve of their actions, but the state has limited power and in any case this breaks no new ground.

 

[woolfe9999]

But its ok for all other minorities to talk bad about whites?

That was quite the straw man there. I'm not really suretwhat it has to do with anything in this thread actually. Or is this your knee jerk response every time a particular white person is criticized for being racist?

 

[woolfe9999]

One point of clarification on the First Amendment issue: asking whether minors have First Amendment rights is asking the wrong question. The issue is students, not minors. Schools have a limited ability to restrict certain student speech. That presumably would apply even at a public university where the students are not minors, or to 18 year old+ high school students. The proper question is, to what extent can public school authorities restrict student speech? There is no special limitation on the First Amendment rights of minors per se. They have them to the same extent that adults do.

 

[Darwin333]

Schools have a right to discipline students for off campus activities outside of school hours too. At least in California they do. Get into a fight off campus a mile from school and an hour after school ends, you can be expelled.

Thats some bullshit right there.

 

[woolfe9999]

Thats some bullshit right there.

It may or may not be bullshit that they can discipline a student for off campus activities, but punching someone isn't protected by the First Amendment because it isn't speech. You can disagree with the policy, but it isn't a problem in a Constitutional sense.

 

[Texashiker]

It may or may not be bullshit that they can discipline a student for off campus activities, but punching someone isn't protected by the First Amendment because it isn't speech.

Law enforcement should be left to the police, and not the schools.

 

[DrPizza]

Are we sure children have 1st amendment rights.

Yes and no. The case that is generally applied is is Tinker vs. Des Moines. The Supreme Court has said that, in essence, schools have the right to prohibit free speech in cases where such speech "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District#cite_note-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District

Nearly every free speech case having to do with students comes back to the Tinker decision. So, no, students do not enjoy the same degree of free speech as adults. And in this case, it seems that the girls' speech DID cause a significant disruption in the school, thus making their expulsion (if that's why they no longer attend there) perfectly constitutional, provided it's outlined in the school's code of conduct and due process was followed. IANAL.

 

[Riparian]

What makes your lack of tolerance any better then the girls in the video?

Are you honestly advocating for tolerating racism and racial stereotypes? Are you unable to differentiate between intolerance towards those who are intolerant of others based upon race (a characteristic people cannot control) and those who are just intolerant based on racial prejudice. It really only takes a few seconds of analysis to understand why in US culture, people are less likely to tolerate racial insensitivity.

Whoever was the first person to come up with this silly idea that being intolerant of certain things is hypocritical to those who advocate tolerance is really quite comical. Do we need to tolerate stoning of women? Do we need to tolerate mass genocide? If we're intolerant of those things does that mean people can never advocate tolerance. Please, just use some common sense when advocating absurd positions like that.

 

[DrPizza]

Those stupid white honkey bitches got what they deserved.......wait, is that racist?

People deserve death threats?

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[Texashiker]

Are you honestly advocating for tolerating racism and racial stereotypes?

Yes, I am.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the girls, you have to uphold their right to speak.

Who gets to determine if something is racist? You, me, the government? Whats next, we burn books from the 1700s and 1800s that talk about slavery? Do we censor the bible? Do we censor the Koran?

 

[Riparian]

Yes and no. The case that is generally applied is is Tinker vs. Des Moines. The Supreme Court has said that, in essence, schools have the right to prohibit free speech in cases where such speech "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District

Nearly every free speech case having to do with students comes back to the Tinker decision. So, no, students do not enjoy the same degree of free speech as adults. And in this case, it seems that the girls' speech DID cause a significant disruption in the school, thus making their expulsion (if that's why they no longer attend there) perfectly constitutional, provided it's outlined in the school's code of conduct and due process was followed. IANAL.

I have not gone through every minor student free speech case, so I may be wrong, but from what I have read in the past, most if not all of those cases involved speech by minor students while attending school or a school sponsored event. I have a hard time believing that Tinker could ever extend to speech outside of school. That would mean that if a student attended a socially conservative public school and posted support for something such as gay rights, he would be causing a disturbance at school and could be disciplined. I am sure there are a multitude of examples that would show that extending free speech restrictions to minor student speech outside of school would be much too over-broad.

Unless of course we go with the Clarence Thomas view that there should be no free speech at all for students (Morse v. Frederick) and that Tinker should be overruled altogether.

 

[MotF Bane]

Unless of course we go with the Clarence Thomas view that there should be no free speech at all for students (Morse v. Frederick) and that Tinker should be overruled altogether.

So a human being begins at conception, then becomes lesser for the first eighteen years out of the womb, then becomes slightly more a human being, and three years later gains full rights.

:hmm:

 

[woolfe9999]

Law enforcement should be left to the police, and not the schools.

If the school is disciplining the student, they aren't engaging in "law enforcement." They're enforcing school disciplinary policies. I can see criticizing them on the grounds that off campus activities shouldn't be disciplined because they don't affect the school in a significant way. Nonetheless, it isn't "law enforcement."

 

[Texashiker]

If the school is disciplining the student, they aren't engaging in "law enforcement." They're enforcing school disciplinary policies. I can see criticizing them on the grounds that off campus activities shouldn't be disciplined because they don't affect the school in a significant way. Nonetheless, it isn't "law enforcement."

I was going off your comment about fighting is not a right. Getting into a fight would be a criminal offense.

A school punishing a student for getting in a fight off school grounds, and outside of school hours, amounts to law enforcement.

The amount of control the school has over a student needs to be limited.

 

[DrPizza]

I have not gone through every minor student free speech case, so I may be wrong, but from what I have read in the past, most if not all of those cases involved speech by minor students while attending school or a school sponsored event. I have a hard time believing that Tinker could ever extend to speech outside of school. That would mean that if a student attended a socially conservative public school and posted support for something such as gay rights, he would be causing a disturbance at school and could be disciplined. I am sure there are a multitude of examples that would show that extending free speech restrictions to minor student speech outside of school would be much too over-broad.

Unless of course we go with the Clarence Thomas view that there should be no free speech at all for students (Morse v. Frederick) and that Tinker should be overruled altogether.

There have been numerous cases where the courts have upheld the right of schools to discipline students for actions taken outside of school. Most (all?) of the summaries have pointed that the school was able to show a disruption or very reasonable fear of a disruption. For years, every month, they toss pamphlets filled with recent court decisions into our faculty room at school. Finding educational law to be fascinating, I've read every one of them from cover to cover (to to mention grad classes in educational law.)

Also, it should be pointed out that even teachers lose their first amendment rights at the door. (As is generally the case at the workplace.) Just at a quick glance, here's one: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com...ourt_teachers_first_amendment_rights.html.csp

 

[DrPizza]

The amount of control the school has over a student needs to be limited.

It's ironic that on one hand, you have people saying "there's no discipline in the schools, the kids are out of control." And on the other hand, you have statements like this.

 

[woolfe9999]

I have not gone through every minor student free speech case, so I may be wrong, but from what I have read in the past, most if not all of those cases involved speech by minor students while attending school or a school sponsored event. I have a hard time believing that Tinker could ever extend to speech outside of school. That would mean that if a student attended a socially conservative public school and posted support for something such as gay rights, he would be causing a disturbance at school and could be disciplined. I am sure there are a multitude of examples that would show that extending free speech restrictions to minor student speech outside of school would be much too over-broad.

Unless of course we go with the Clarence Thomas view that there should be no free speech at all for students (Morse v. Frederick) and that Tinker should be overruled altogether.

Yeah, but look more closely at the majority opinion in the Morse case you mention (2007). There, the Court said it was OK to suspend a student for holding up a banner that said "Bong hits 4 Jesus" across the street from the school (off school grounds) because it "promoted illegal drug use." Pretty bad ruling IMO. "Bong hits 4 Jesus" LOL he should have gotten a medal.

Clarence Thomas is terrible on civil rights, in general. The worst in the Court by far.

 

[Linflas]

Thats some bullshit right there.

It is the logical outgrowth of parents expecting the public school system to act as de facto day care facilities. No longer does "wait until you are off school grounds" apply unless the students have been home after leaving school. If they leave school and go to the local mall and start fighting in the food court the school will be contacted and involved. If they leave school, go home, then go to the mall and get into a fight the school (at least where I live) will not be involved. Bullshit? Yes. What the parents that pay the taxes demand? Yes.

 

[Mursilis]

So a human being begins at conception, then becomes lesser for the first eighteen years out of the womb, then becomes slightly more a human being, and three years later gains full rights.

:hmm:

Essentially, yes, at least if you're talking about rights. Some rights never change (right to life, right to property), but some don't attach until adulthood (right to vote, right to contract).