We have previously discussed high school administrators and teachers who engage in censorship and speech regulation, often targeting religious and conservative students. These cases cost school districts millions in court costs, but the school officials never seem to face any consequences. In California, Piner High School has joined this ignoble effort, punishing the high school football captain for expressing support for the “Cornell 7” on his own Instagram page. Other students then protested not to support free speech but to demand further punishment for the student. I wonder where they learned that repressive view of free speech?
According to media reports, the unnamed student wrote “Free the Cornell Seven” on his personal Instagram account and the school called him out. As should be obvious to any teacher or administrator, this is entirely protected speech under the First Amendment. The student was not discussing the school, calling for some school disruption or destruction of property, or encouraging violence. He was stating his view that defendants who have not been tried, let alone convicted, are innocent.
This case has divided the country with many politicians and pundits declaring the guilt of these students before any charges are actually filed against them. A prosecutor previously declined to take the case to a grand jury due to conflict statements from the alleged victim.
Rather than acknowledge the serious free speech concerns raised by the school’s reported actions, Santa Rosa City school’s public information officer, Patrick Gannon, issued a virtue-signaling statement on how it will not tolerate students expressing such thoughts on their personal social media accounts, or presumably publicly in their private time:
“Action was taken by the school and the district, and we’re continuing to have conversations. We don’t tolerate making light of sexual assault. That’s why we have a zero-tolerance policy.”
Whatever success the school has had on basic subjects like English and Math, it has clearly taught the student body to disregard the free speech of others. The football team reportedly forfeited a game after 200 students walked out to the “Santa Rosa City Schools district offices to demand accountability and greater support for students speaking out against sexual violence.”
There was no statement from Principal Andrea Correia or the school denying the reported punishment. Instead, Gannon met with the 200 students and, instead of discussing the importance of free speech and due process, said the school “wants them to know that accountability and safety are top priorities.”
Students are demanding further punishment of the student for expressing his views on the case. Obviously, if the same students had posted “Justice for Jane Doe at Cornell” he would have been celebrated rather than punished.
In 1969, the Supreme Court famously declared that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” However, since that iconic case, federal courts have often given short shrift to the free speech rights of students.
As we have previously discussed, teachers around the country have become notorious as speech commissars who bar expressions deemed divisive or intolerant. That often includes any conservative or religious speech.
An elementary school in Kansas came under fire after Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell stopped the wearing of shirts reading “Freedom,” which became popular after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
In another case, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Boyko ruled in Ohio that students could be barred from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts — a coded political expression criticizing the media and former President Joe Biden. Other courts have also upheld such censorship by teachers, who claim that the expression is a substitute for a vulgar expression chanted by crowds (“F— Joe Biden”). But these shirts do not contain vulgarity. Rather, the expression is used as a defiant reference to the media bias that led to the original substitution of the words, allegedly to protect Biden — it is a “Yankee Doodling” of the political and media establishment.
Judge Karen Nelson Moore joined Sixth Circuit Judge John Nalbandian in a deeply flawed holding that, under the “vulgarity exception,” the action was constitutional. The Supreme Court was asked to hear the “Let’s Go Brandon” case, but recently declined to hear the case. It was a very disappointing denial from the Court for many of us in the free speech community.
In the California case, the underlying law is clear. Any punishment of this student would be a glaring violation of the First Amendment. The student can go to court to have any such actions set aside. However, it is equally clear that the administrators and teachers responsible for such actions will face no accountability.
The “zero tolerance policy” at Piner High School appears to refer to the exercise of free speech by those with unpopular or minority viewpoints. It is certainly a preview of higher education, where viewpoint intolerance and ideological orthodoxy are the norm. This chilling lesson has clearly taken hold at Piner High School.
The truth regarding Cornell will come out in all good time, in the meantime everyone can have their own opinion and express it without penalty. I wasn’t there so I’ll wait for all the evidence as should we all. The thing that bothers me is the lack of consistency from woman seeking “woman’s rights”. They support the woman in the Cornell affair without proof of any kind, support Clancy even after she admitted to the killing, but sit back for the most part and say nothing on bio-men in women’s sports. Put your pink C-caps on and get out there and protect your sisters for common sense.
Here’s some suggestions.
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A. Shutter the ‘schools of education’. Certainly all the state schools.
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B. Replace them with hands-on apprenticeship programs. To enter any program, you have to pass a general examination testing your mastery of English grammar, arithmetic, and elementary algebra. To enter a program for side subjects teachers, you have to have in addition 42 credits (excluding D credits) in the apposite subject (music, studio art, or physical education) and, as the case may be, pass a blind audition, submit a portfolio for blind examination, or pass a physical fitness strength and endurance course. To enter the program for academic secondary teachers, you’d have to have 42 credits of English, comparative literature, mathematics, computer science, biology, geology, physics, chemistry, history, geography, or a foreign language in which the state holds regents examinations; you might be able to forego the tertiary schooling in favor of a proficiency examination in re some subjects. To enter a program for voTech teachers, you’d have to have 42 credits in a trade at a technical college or to have obtained an alternative certification from an apprenticeship program.
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C. To enter the applicant pool for positions as dean, vice principal, or principal, you’d have to have a run of years as a working teacher and then complete a 48 credit degree in school psychology and (for principals) a 48 credit course in public administration.
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D. Limit superintendent’s offices support functions and recruit superintendents from the general civil service, the military, or the business world. The superintendent’s book would include budget, facilities planning, the motor pool, the comptroller corps, the grievance officers, legal counsel, itinerant employees, and liaison with outside agencies. They wouldn’t have anything to do with curriculum or with the discipline of students, or with employee discipline beyond those working for the superintendent’s offices. The principals would be selected by the school board and the assent of the board would be required to dismiss a principal, his direct reports, and the reports to his reports.
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E. Recruit and promote district employees outside of the faculties via timely civil service examinations.
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F. End collective bargaining for public employees, school employees especially. Unions enrolling public employees should be voluntary mutual aid societies which run credit unions, insurance agencies, and pension funds and have labor lawyers on retainer.
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G. In schools, as elsewhere, allow for employees to be removed via the signature of three persons in a chain of command on a letter of dismissal (or fewer if the chain of command is flatter). Provide for post termination reviews in front of ombudsmen employed by the state government where a terminated employee can make the case he was removed for one of a half-dozen impermissible reasons. If he receives a favorable ruling, he’d receive an indemnity and be free to apply for other positions in the public sector. The matter might then be referred to a different ombudsman to consider charges in front of a hearing examiner contra those who dismissed him. (The penalty for an adverse finding in such a case would be dismissal and blacklisting). It is important that hiring supervisors in the public sectors not control the composition of the applicant pool. It is not important to provide tenure for public employees.
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H. Subject all students to annual regents examinations administered by proctors employed by the state board. Each student would have a particular portfolio of examinations to take each year (which would vary from student to student). The examination series in which a student could enroll would be regulated by his performance on examinations he’s taken to date. It would be the passage of such examinations, not the discretion of teachers or administrators) which would determine what credentials are awarded a student. He reaches age 18, he is awarded a book of certificates which indicate his highest level of accomplishment in each course of study he followed.
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I. Limit common-and-garden schools to students who (1) do not have insuperable behavior issues, (2) are not addled by severe perceptual or cognitive deficits, and (3) are proficient in spoken English. Maintain consortial programs in English immersion for those in category 3 and make use of placement examinations as soon as is feasible to locate the best place for them in a common-and-garden school. Place those in category 2 in high-overhead programs adapted to their specific issues and do the best you can with them. Place those in category 1 in harsh day detention centers run by local sheriff’s departments.
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J. Track students assiduously. The students suitable for common and garden schooling would start out at age five on a uniform level, then separate into two tracks consequent to examinations, then into four tracks. Students near the performance margin might jump between one track and another, as might students who started out in English-immersion programs. Track one might consist of students at or above the 88th percentile, track two of the 53d to the 87th percentile, track three of the 29th to the 52d percentile, and track four of the 9th to the 28th percentile.
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K. Devote the first five years of common-and-garden schooling to the same content, but different paces of instruction. Have several years of the 3Rs, then add the fundamentals of American history, geography, and civics as an additional subject around age 8 or 9.
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L. Differentiate the tracks by content in middle school (10-14). Have tracks three and four continue to work on basic skills for the four years in question. Have track two study basic skills for two years, then sign up for a set of academic courses for two years. Have track one study a men of five academic courses.
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M. For high school students (14-18), there would be a modal (not exclusive) destination for each track. Track four would study basic skills supplement with life skills classes for an indeterminate period, perhaps transferring to voTech programs when mastery is demonstrated. Track three would devote itself to voTech programs seekng perhaps two certificates. Track two might follow a voTech program, an academic program or a mixed program and registered for four examination series. Track one would continue to study five academic subjects supplemented with exit courses in music and art appreciation.
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N. Hold classes for 240 days a year. Allow youths to leave school at age 14 and calibrate high school regents examinations such that the assumed pace of instruction dovetails with the assumed work schedule of the students in question. (I.e. assume high school students are all working part time).
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O. Provide in law for voucher programs and partial refunds of property taxes to allow parents to voluntarily opt out of their local district schools with a more circumscribed financial penalty. Students enrolled at voucher-funded private schools (which would be debarred from charging tuition), enrolled at tuition-financed private schools, or enrolled in homeschooling would be required to sit for regents examinations with all other students and the schools in question would appear on league tables published by the board of regents. All parents would have a rebuttable presumption of suitability to homeschool, to be withdrawn only in the case of poor examination performance by their charge.
Send to the school.
Impressive to say the least. Now find a community whose tax base will support the budget necessary to justify the remuneration due a professional with that degree of preparation. School budgets are funded by tax revenues, and the severity of the bite depends upon the construct of the jurisdiction that is served.
“can’t depend on Turley to accurately give us the facts. His record speaks for itself.” Maybe its high time you started thinking for yourself. Its not his responsibility to educate anyone on current issues, he’s simply expressing his thoughts in 500 words, not making a legal case.
They are hyper-credentialed, ideologically rigid underachievers: products of Sigmund the Fraud school of deceivers, where indoctrination replaces education.
I doubt they’ve had any instruction in psychoanalysis. The rap on schools of education a generation ago was that they traded in filler courses and in courses retailing ill-considered pedagogic fads. The issue today is that the course content largely consists at some schools of pushing obnoxious and ill-considered social ideology. (This is called ‘social justice education’). Again, state legislatures need to get off their duffs, shut down these cesspools, and blacklist their faculty.
I have two concerns:
“The student was not discussing the school, calling for some school disruption or destruction of property, or encouraging violence.” He may have discussed none of those things, but some people may consider supporting rape, encouraging violence on women. There may well have been a violation of the student’s first amendment rights here, but I can’t depend on Turley to accurately give us the facts. His record speaks for itself.
“can’t depend on Turley to accurately give us the facts. His record speaks for itself.” Maybe its high time you started thinking for yourself. Its not his responsibility to educate anyone on current issues, he’s simply expressing his thoughts in 500 words , not making a legal case.