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 conflicting 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.
It appears to be time to end all trial by jury. We The People seem to be able to judge every event by Tweet and Post. It seems so much easier and cheaper. We can even get rid of lawyers! SMH
Also spracht the Bard!
What is the verdict of the President and Vice President? (Asking for Kyle Rittenhouse.)
This nonsense will only cease when teachers, professors, and administrators are held personally financially liable for their negligent and unconstitutional actions. Maybe when they do not have unlimited public financial support in the defense of their unconstitutional behavior will they think before acting. “Educators” claim to be “professionals”, on par with physicians, dentists and, yes, even attorneys. Well, those true professionals are personally financially liable for their professional negligence. The same should apply to educators. Unless, of course, they really are not professionals.
The attraction for the NYC public schools historically was July and August off, a winter and spring recess, and legal holidays. The aforementioned professions did not enjoy said benefits.
“I wonder where they learned that repressive view of free speech?”- J.T.
Primal, emotional impulses to quash opposing viewpoints doesn’t have to be learned — it is the default, inborn social instinct.
What takes learning is the opposite: to listen carefully to dissonent information, and to reply with well formed questions that dig deeper into the opponent’s thinking. The art of constructive conflict is an evolved, learned skill.
The majority of US students are not developing nuanced political thinking, because fewer and fewer teachers knows how to practice it themselves, let alone teach it. Dale Carnegie outlines the key skills in “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, nearing its century mark.
I have to admit, as a senior in high school I attended a party at Cornell. The debauchery was shocking….I had no idea what went on in college until that day.
Perhaps the idea of eliminating mandatory military service was a gross error in judgment, as severe that of the adolescent brain which doesn’t mature until the mid 20s.
Military conscription was in effect (bar one 12 month period) from October of 1940 to June of 1973. Prior to that, you only saw it in effect for discrete periods of time (1917-19, 1863-65). It’s not been a historical norm in this country. (From 1948 to 1973, enlistments outnumbered inductions by about 1.8 to 1 and there were calendar years when the number conscripted was fewer than 1,000. During the VietNam War, a mean of about 15% of each eligible birth cohort was conscripted).
… and sent forth the ‘Greatest Generation’
Got facts x?
Primal, emotional impulses to quash opposing viewpoints doesn’t have to be learned — it is the default, inborn social instinct.
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No it isn’t and no it isn’t. You’re looking at terminally officious people who cannot leave others alone.
You’re looking at terminally know-it-alls who cannot print a single source, truth or fact.
pbinca,
did you mean “dissonant?”
I hate when people who pretend to be licensed professionals cannot spell the big words they use.
Looks like Piner High in Cali also has zero tolerance for due process of law and the presumption of innocence until proof of guilt. No wonder the rationals are “gettin’ out while the gettin’ is good.”
What has yet to be ascertained is whether or not they are leaving their political persuasions in the California dustbin as they depart. There are recent concerns in Montana that the political transplants fleeing the Golden State are bringing their garbage with them.
You could say that. What’s more salient is the bizarre officiousness of these people.
What’s bizarre is their resistance to change. Nothing more than a horde of locusts, completely devouring a crop, and moving on to the next.
For what it’s worth: I don’t care if the girl was indeed foolish and shouldn’t have been there – it doesn’t excuse the abhorrent intentions and actions of the boys in question. I personally think it’s disgusting, and yes, yes, it is very much a part of neanderthal frat culture and its mentality.
That said, I am absolutely a free speech absolutist, and there are plenty of things that could be said in dialogue that would make all of the above apparent. There are better ways to handle these things than censorship and silencing. Those of us who are sane see every problematic angle and are happy to say so. We can’t if we are muzzled. This snowflake sheet has got to go. It’s particularly important to openly talk about the things that are difficult.
From what’s emerged, it appears the woman arranged over the phone for attention from one of the youths in question and assented to a three way with that youth and with another (in addition to voluntarily snorting ketamine off the cock of one of them). Of the remaining five youths, two stopped by the room for a period of time, then left having no contact with her. A third kissed her and she swatted him away.
She assented to a threesome, which is only two-way. Did you not go to college?
Those who preach tolerance always seem to be the least tolerant. I guess it depends upon what and whom is being tolerated…..”Tolerance in all things except what or whom I just will not tolerate!” 🙄
The body of school administrators has long been a collecting pool of the world’s inadequate people. They cannot maintain order or design and implement a sensible curriculum. They busy themselves with monitoring students’ Instagram accounts and fancy their disciplinary authority extends to realms it should not and never has.
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Yes the superintendent of schools in Santa Rosa has an EdD degree. Dr. Monica Somethingorother. The twit you quote is a minion of hers.
If I’m not mistaken, you’re here monitoring others comments, whining to Turley if you don’t like somethiong. So what’s the difference between a school doing it and you doing it on this blog?
You’re mistaken. And obnoxious.
“Mmmm. Tolerance.” –Principal Correia
It is very clear that public schools are turning students into obedient marxists, communist dupes! We all know which party is responsible for this & I wonder how much longer the nation will have to endure having marxism forced down our throats.
It’s not like society isn’t aware that women have weaponized the legal system in their conflicts with men, is it. Consider the baseless orders of protection sought to move men out of the home in divorce proceedings. In our attempts to craft the law in order toprotect the weaker sex, a two sided coin,we are hoisted by our own petards.
Waiting patiently until there’s nobody left to protest.
Well, what the kid posted was dumb in this day and age of rage.
But the Cornell 7 do have a right to due process, trial by jury of their peers, and the presumption of innocence. That is the lesson that should be taught in this situation. Point out, objectively, we are a nation of law and order, how the justice system works and not a nation of mob rule.
…. except for when men and boys are accused of rape, the Duke case not withstanding. Then we all fall back to Louisiana law and riot in the streets.
The initial DA decision not to prosecute for sexual assault appears to have been correct, in the light of all the Jane Doe texts and statements that have been released. There should be no case to answer.
Daniel,
From what has been released/leaked/whatever, I agree.
However, for whatever her reasons, Jane Doe opted to make it into a case. Now if it goes forward, through discovery, evidence presented if this goes to trial for all to see, then we will get a much clearer picture of what happened and if it was consensual.
Unfortunately, this has already become a circus, due process and the presumption of innocence tossed out the window, and Hochul appointing James as special prosecutor only added to circus big top.
OT, anyone else see a Democrat candidate Cait Conley threw Hochul under the bus, saying,
“I have to tell you: I’m in absolute agreement with my opponent,”
(re: “We need a new governor. Kathy Hochul has to go,” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler)
For a criminal prosecution to be brought legitimately, the prosecutor would have to conclude that she could prove lack of consent beyond a reasonable doubt. That would require persuading a jury that Jane Doe’s public texts before being disinvited to the frat’s Halloween party, and her signed official statement to the campus police even thereafter, on this issue were not true, beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s a very heavy lift.
She made “conflict statements”. Them’s fightin’ words so they poked her in the kisser.
Hey Farmer what happened to your college career? A month ago you were blabbing nonstop how you’re gonna get a MBA and now you’re here all day long?
He’s been butchering hogs long enough. He’s getting his EMT so he can practice on donorcyclists.
He wasn’t dumb, just sloppy. The youths in question are not under arrest. They’re subject to a gratuitous investigation by the state attorney-general’s office after the local prosecutor concluded there was insufficient credible evidence to pursue a charge under the state penal law. The Governor knows the incumbent attorney-general is a submediocre lawyer as well as a malicious and wholly uncrupulous creature. She doesn’t care. Hochul is a pillar of New York’s Democratic nomenklatura and doesn’t know justice from tiddlywinks.
This is just one more bit of what to any intelligent person should be redundant and superfluous evidence that by far the biggest problem that the people of the US face is excessive, repressive, and authoritarian government, and that the primary symptom of that illness is the public education system, which has been the case for a very, very long time.
The biggest problem that the people of the US face is that there is no vaccine for stupidity, and if there were, we would have an unending debate as to whether or not to receive it.
Why do so many school administrators and teachers fail to learn? Because education seems to be the sink hole in which the intellectual sludge of our society tends to congregate. Many exceptions thank goodness, but especially not often found in the administrative ranks.
Those who can do. Those who can’t ……teach. Those who can’t teach…… teach teachers. Do not send to know who was elected to your school board. Sent to know who voted. There in lies the rub.
It was bad enough when college students demanded total compliance with their current emotional heat. Now, we have teenybopper rule demanding censorship, aided and abetted by teenybopper school administrators.
In olden times, like just thirty years ago, the posting would have been considered “rude and crude,” and the offending party might have been shunned internally. Then the matter would have vanished within a week or so. Now, it’s in the courts, probably for months or more, with everyone taking an incontrovertible position, making irrevocable claims, and thinking of the matter as nothing short of existential.
Do you have the case no.?
I’m wondering … Are the folks who choose to staff government schools as their worklife so insecure in their political beliefs that they are compelled to foist those beliefs on students? Students may not say or write or post anything with which those who run these schools do not agree – at the risk of punishment.
Its Cali Baby – What Did You Expect – the Land of Fruits, Nuts, and Dingle Berries!!! Any dissent is MYSOGONY, RACISM, and COLONIALISM! He/Him/Dude, did not follow the lead of the They/Them/It and thus must be sanctioned for an independent opinion whether based on fact, fiction, or preference. Viva the young Lunatics of Cali! Thank your local ‘teacher’ or is that Comrade?
@Anonymous–
Yes, it is indeed “Cali…the Land of Fruits, Nuts, and Dingle Berries!!!” The state of my birth and most of my excellent public education from kindergarten through Ph.D.
But I happily fled that state some 46 years ago and have never regretted it. It has only gotten worse since I left, with its once-great K-12 educational system in tatters and its increasingly ruinous governance by the Looney Left.
Unfortunately, the southwestern state to which I removed myself so very long ago is now being “Californicated” and, hence, almost unrecognizable from what it once was.
It is at times like these that I am grateful that I am an old man and that it is unlikely that I will live to see the complete and utter ruin of my adopted state and, indeed, this nation.
Interesting comment. Apparently the fear of Californication in the state of Montana, and elsewhere I expect, is not without a modicum of truth.
If we are bothered by this concept of school censorship, be ready for a nation-wide censor board if democrat/islamist/communists ever gain control of any part of our federal government.
I just can’t fathom the depth of ignorance, stubborn and willful blindness and plain lazy brain indoctrination that has been achieved so far with the media/education industry leading the way.
We are lost as a nation and the last bastion of western civilization if we do not stop this ideology in the same manner that Charles Martel stopped the islamists invading France and Jan Sobieski stopped the islamists at the gates of Vienna with his Winged Hussars.
Neither Martel nor Sobieski stopped “Islamists” as understood today, but Moslems, or more accurately Moslem-led forces. Bear in mind that both Moslem armies had Christians in their ranks. El Cid fought as often for Spanish Moslem states as he did for Spanish Christian states. Even the Arab armies that fought for Mohammed and his immediate successors in what is now mislabelled as “The Islamic Conquest” possibly had more Christian and Jewish Arabs in their ranks than Moslems; they were fellow Abrahamic monotheists who had no great argument with Mohammed in theological terms, and the attractions of looting Persians and eastern Romans were very significant.
Frankly, in any country other than the USA, there would be no defence of “free speech” for a moronic school pupil facing sanctions for moronic public statements
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Most people aren’t sociopathic enough to pull nonsense out of their ass and pretend they have comprehensive knowledge of school disciplinary practices the world over. (An old teacher of mine on school discipline as he knew it in Langue d’Oc as a student and as a teacher, “unless there is blood splattering the walls, they don’t intervene”).
Martel and Sobieski did stop Muslim conquerors. The implication I think you’re making is that Muslims of that era aren’t the same as jihadists now. Actually, they’re remarkably similar. The only difference is that the Ottomans were far more civilized than today’s jihadists, but that’s a low bar.
Your other contention, more plainly stated, is that the Muslim invasions, with the help of non-Muslims, were just for rioting and looting. No, the Muslims intended to convert Vienna and France to Islam. Anyone who didn’t convert under the Ottomans might not be killed, but they could have their infants taken and forced into sexual or military bondage and raised as Muslims. Many concubines and Janissaries were taken from Christian families.
It’s also true that many Muslims sided with El Cid because they didn’t want to be ruled by the extremist Muslims coming from North Africa.
Both Christianity and Islam became religions of conquest. The Christians, by fire, have almost all learned not to operate that way. Many Muslims are getting there, but jihadism runs deep. I’m Muslim, so don’t tell me I’m wrong. Jihadism has been the ruin of the Muslim world.
Religions of conquest have a bad habit of murdering more of their coreligionists that anybody else (the Thirty Years War, for instance; the slaughter of Iranians under the mullahs is another; the systematic killing of opponents by Hamas in Gaza). As Christian scripture says, we should judge a tree by its fruit.
Bending the history just to insult whimsicalmama’s intelligence doesn’t change the history.
What if the student had written “Guns Kill”?
not a peep from the inquisition in charge.
Or, what if the student had written “Tawana Brawley and Crystal Mangum are victims of The System”?
…… they would’ve rallied to his side and declared him a hero of the revolution.
You’re point please?
Given that you ask, clarification would be a useless task.
If what he wrote was simply, “Free the Cornell Seven”, then it is a massive leap by Turley to claim, “He was stating his view that defendants who have not been tried, let alone convicted, are innocent.” Frankly, in any country other than the USA, there would be no defence of “free speech” for a moronic school pupil facing sanctions for moronic public statements. I was not aware that any of the “Cornell Seven” were detained or incarcerated, so his comment is even more stupid. Funny how he just happens to be an American football player – the cancerous “jock” mentality at play, perchance?
@Anonymous–
Whether you like it or not, Anonymous, in this country, even “moronic public statements” are protected free speech, as are racial slurs, etc. As I understand it, the only speech that is not protected is speech that incites immediate violence, such as “Let’s drag the Jew out of his cell and hang him right NOW.”
But the Santa Rosa student’s statement was not “moronic,” it was merely inartful. If the student had instead said “Leave the Cornell Seven Alone,” it would have been more accurate and perhaps more to your liking. But be that as it may, even the student’s inarticulate statement, on his own social media page, is protected speech. Yet the high school’s administration punished him, which it had absolutely no right to do.
I hope that the student and his parents engage the legal help of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and sue the trousers off of the school’s administration.
And regarding your spelling of the word “defense” as “defence,” this leads me to believe that you are a citizen of one of those countries (perhaps the U.K.?) in which freedom of speech has fallen into such a sorry state of disrepair that even the most innocent of words (at least here in the USA) can lead to jail sentences.
This is truly a sad state of affairs, but then, what else would one expect from those countries to which P.J. O’Rourke presciently referred as Euro-weenies?