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Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

washingtonpost.com

241–250 of 474 posts

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#241
post #2

For those who can't read the article, here's a summary: > Brandi Levy sent a profanity-laden post to her friends on Snapchat in 2017, venting her frustrations with cheerleading and her school. When coaches at the Pennsylvania school discovered the post, she was barred from the squad for a year. The case will determine whether schools have the right to punish pupils for what they say off-campus. It is being viewed as…

This is a lot different than being "canceled". The school must abide by policies and incorporate student's right to free speech, access to education, and equitable access to related school services and programs (including cheerleading). Being "canceled" is a choice that private individuals and institutions make to not associate themselves with speech, actions, or views they find either objectionable or simply damagin…

> Conflating these things is a favorite straw man of people who simply feel scared and angry that they don't always get to be jerks with zero social or career implications (try going around saying you are a satanist and see how that affects your career, this isn't a new thing, just people are whining about it more loudly lately). They are very much not the same.

Can you direct me to any incidents where someone expressed support for Satanism, even as a joke, and was then summarily fired after a mob harassed his employer with angry phone calls/tweets expressing (almost entirely empty) threats to boycott or worse?

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lot different than being "canceled". The school must abide by policies and incorporate student's right to free speech, access to education, and equitable access to related school services and programs (including cheerleading). Being "canceled" is a choice that private individuals and institutions make to not associate themselves with speech, actions, or views they find either objectionable or simply damagin…

>Being "canceled" is a choice that private individuals and institutions You're making a lot of assumptions about the comment above yours. Language changes.

Your argument would be stronger if you proposed an alternate definition rather than just saying “you’re wrong, that’s not what it means anymore!”

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#243
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's worth considering whether we should care about stepping on the right-holder's toes. That's what got us into corporate controlled speech, doxing, and twitter mobs in the first place. Read, people wouldn't do it if it weren't effective. It probably wouldn't be -as- bad if in the US healthcare wasn't tied to employment. As it sits today, speaking your mind can literally be a death sentence, if you happen…

I'm super ignorant on this case but has there been a case in which speaking one's mind has caused their death and how was that death actually prosecuted, if it was?

"has there been a case in which speaking one's mind has caused their death"

The case that immediately sprang to mind for me was that of Alan Berg[1], a radio host who was assassinated (and about whom Oliver Stone made a movie called Talk Radio[2]).

But this has happened many times throughout history, where people were assassinated (or imprisoned/executed) for their beliefs.

More modern instances are things like journalists being assassinated in South America, for instance, for reporting on organized crime (similar things happening in Italy), or in Russia for criticizing Putin, or in the Islamic World for incurring the wrath of religious fanatics.. or the Charlie Hedbo attacks in Paris, or various beheadings of journalist and teachers.

Some older, but still relatively recent and famous cases have been the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Gandhi... etc.

Of course, speaking one's mind against the rulers or their system in a totalitarian state like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union has always been a quick path to the gallows or a concentration/labor/death camp.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Berg

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Radio_(film)

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#244
post #174

> I know a man who is rock hard – he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm – but most of all, his belief in you the students of Bethel, is firm. Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts – he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally – he succeeds. Jeff is a man who will go…

There's a gigantic difference, a hard distinction, so big it hurts, between prohibiting disruptive, norm-violating speech on campus within a school function (a central focus of the _Fraser_ decision), and prohibiting speech outside of school on social media. At school, the school administration is acting in loco parentis in regulating the behavior and speech of students. There are limits to how much it can regulate garden variety free speech, particularly non-disruptive speech or political opinions, but it can regulate it.

The nature of the speech is different. In _Fraser_, the language was specifically crafted sexual innuendo. In this cheerleader case, the language in question on snapchat was a garden variety swearword (f-) expressing frustration, not specifically sexual in context. Every high schooler, every middle schooler knows that word. A substantial part of the decision in _Fraser_ revolved around the audience being minors and how the sexual language was potentially damaging to them.

I think even that _Fraser_ decision was wrong... I agree with Stevens's dissent that it's not the school's or a federal court's business to decide what rhetorical sexual innuendo is or isn't damaging to minors unless it's clearly interfering with the "educational process" (a phrase mentioned in the relevant disciplinary rules, not some artificial scope-restriction Stevens made up), or unusually disruptive. The cited record mentions school staff opining that the assembly was not substantially more disruptive than other assemblies, despite some embarrassment and obscene mimicry of the innuendo. A student assembly isn't sufficiently connected with the educational process to merit the extra censorship you'd expect to be enforced in a classroom, which is what the cited school's disciplinary code contemplates.

As pointed out elsewhere, the cheerleader's signed "agreement" not to disparage the team or classmates as a requirement for being on a team is not likely to be valid for a public school. The fact that the school can more strictly regulate speech when a student is actively representing the school at an event, or in a classroom, is not relevant here (or in _Fraser_, for that matter). If school staff believe special behavioral criteria for attendance or membership at the school or on a school team is necessary, they should quit and join a private school where that kind of thing flies.

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Free speech" does not mean free of consequences.

Free Speech precisely means freedom from consequences. That phrase is perhaps the most insidious phrase that is often repeated on the internet. To believe that free speech should be met with "consequences" if it crosses some line is illiberal, and immoral. The principle of free speech is one we all ought to attempt to live up to, and that principle goes far beyond what the first amendment may protect. Take that phras…

Are you saying that I can't make any sort of negative decision about you no matter what you say, or I'm violating the principle of free speech?

> Alienation and banishment from society?

I literally have to still be friends with you, or I'm oppressing you? What are we using language for anyway, if we have to ignore it?

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#246
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it sits today, speaking your mind can literally be a death sentence, if you happen to say something a mob doesn't agree with. Exactly, this is a great reason to leave the USA, especially if you already have health issues. With AI taking hold and it getting harder to emigrate, the time to leave is now. Jobs with benefits for programmers are going to become more uncommon, with remote work being possible, as more c…

More people migrate from the EU to USA than the reverse. So it seems the majority disagree with you. https://mises.org/wire/3-times-many-europeans-move-us-other-...

Most Europeans from Western Europe speak English and have at least some cultural knowledge of the U.S. due to our cultural hegemonic status. It’s easier for Greeks to come to the U.S. and integrate than vice versa. Also the U.S. has a long history of taking in immigrants. I suggest that looking solely at respective numbers of immigrants doesn’t tell the whole story.

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#247

There is validity in the idea that off campus speech on social media can interfere with on campus activities, but I think the slope is far to slippery to allow the government (yes public schools are the government) to extend to all students and all times because social media posts can disrupt the learning environments. Kids already check their constitutional rights at the door of the school, and they can regulate the…

It's one thing for a school to exercise editorial control over a student paper (previous SCOTUS case), but it's quite another for them to try to control student speech outside of school. A lot of public schools in the US are miserable places with dumb and often hostile adults. I agree that they are the ones bullying the student here - I hope the school loses.

They can definitely regulate the use of the word fuck in the school or in class, I am fine with that, but I know others that would disagree.

You could definitely change the facts just slightly, where a student posts something on social media during school hours while on campus...then is it fair game for the school to regulate/punish? I have to admit myself I’d want to know the context, but it really shouldn’t matter, either yes they can regulate the speech or no they can’t.

I think SCOTUS cherry picked this case, so they wouldn’t have to take a case with more compelling facts like a social media post while at school by a student bullying another student. Then again the justices are older, and disconnected from a generation that grew up connected to social media.

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#248

Anyone else find it ridiculously coy that the Washington Post censors the word "fuck" in the quote that is the crux of the case. I'm sure the readers are all adults who can handle them accurately reporting the quote. Kids aren't reading the Washington Post Courts & Law section.

If you don't want to swear in your newspaper, you shouldn't have to swear in your newspaper to seem "adult." People reading the Courts & Law section are also old enough to know what the fuck "f--k" means.

They wouldn't be swearing in their paper, they'd be accurately reporting a phrase that is the subject of a Supreme Court case. It's not about seeming adult, it's about treating readers as adults who are capable of reading some naughty words in reported speech without being scandalized.

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#249
post #176
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly didn't mean to offend you, or to pretend things today are worse than at any point in the past. It was more an argument against this weird celebration of getting people fired. I mean, there's even a subreddit called ByeByeJob. Just pointing out it's not so simple as 'hur hur he got fired.' Imagine you just found out you got cancer, and had a public meltdown on the way home that someone happened to film. So…

That is exactly what happened to gays and lesbians and single moms in conservative places. That is what happens to anyone with history of sex work. There is actual organization right know to collect wrong thing said by liberal professors and to try them get fired. The abortion clinic volunteers that go with you so that you are not yelled at alone are a thing for a reason. And in civil rights era, white who did not su…

I mean... is what you said advocation to keep this cycle going? That's where whataboutism leads to. Justification to just swing the pendulum the other direction.

I don't agree with any of it happening to either side of the political spectrum. At some point the shit has to stop.

Re: Cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on speech

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a dude wearing a t-shirt with an upside down pentagram would be protected by the tree speech amendment, while a dude with a t-shirt saying that there are only two genders would be fired on the spot and blacklisted in all major organizations. Probably because one of those two is a religious statement, while another one is a political statement. Which makes sense, given that religious affiliation is a protected group…

If said dude had the bible quotation about there being two genders, will that change the statement from being political to being religion, and prevent him from getting fired? I don't think so.

Religious affiliation is protected but that doesn't mean every action taken based on a religious belief is protected. For example, if the individual started wearing the t-shirt the day after a heated religious debate in the office with an individual that identifies as non-binary, that could be perceived as targeted harassment.
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