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

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341–350 of 474 posts

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

#341
post #318
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

D_wnv_te ratio here is a decent indicator of the proportion of readers who are out of touch with the experience of being a teenager in an environment run by administrators who are violently hellbent on making sure no one is allowed to do anything they did as teenagers. Either you get it or you don't, but I'm not sorry for using HN's "B-word". Before you click the button, do some introspection.

FWIW, I downvoted you for the grossly unjustified implication that this sort of unconscionable malfeasance on the part of school administrators is in any way "shocking", unbelieveable, or specific to "lead-contaminated Boomer"s, rather than a predictable result of putting small-minded fascistic pricks (of any generation) in that sort of position of authority.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's a weird take on things for being a member of a voluntary group activity at school. I certainly wouldn't want someone to be banned from school, expelled or given detention based on what they said, but I don't see why a coach should be keeping people on the team who bad mouth the team, or a music director keeping a tuba player on who continually speaks out about how bad the flute section is on instagram. D…

That only makes sense if the "optional" activity is not funded by a public school and does not make use of any public school property. Otherwise it is a government sanctioned activity, however optional.

[deleted]

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you see an issue with it is orthogonal to the legality/constitutionality of the matter.

I don't see an issue with it legally/constitutionally. Case law has been pretty clear that it's not an unrestricted right, this punishment seems logical and thus likely acceptable under common law, and I haven't seen any real support for a theory in which this is not acceptable (besides 1A MFer).

While students do not retain all their First Amendment rights, case law is clear that they retain them to some extent, and in particular Tinker makes clear to what extent schools may restrict those rights. Further, I believe the school will not be able to successfully argue that her speech posed a substantial disruption. As it was neither bullying nor threatening and shared privately, the extent to which it may have constituted a disruption was caused by the student who shared it rather than her; if it did pose a disruption, it wouldn't have done so had it not been shared by (I presume) one of her classmates.

Anyway, another reason why I would be very surprised if SCOTUS rules against her is that criticism of government institutions is precisely what the First Amendment is designed for.

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

#344
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. There are already basic protections in place. For example, it would be expressly illegal for a workplace to fire you for being a satanist. I don't see a problem with extending such protections to include more free speech. The problem is, where does one draw the line? If one is against abortion and protests that, seems different than say if one is a full fledged neonazi spewing rhetoric. The way it si…

> The way it sits today, the majority of people are afraid to speak their thoughts for fear of workplace retaliation. I hear this argument regularly. Can you cite evidence showing it's actually true?

I've worked places with diversity and inclusion programs that I think are ridiculous. And I've heard of programs far worse. I smile and say nothing because it's not worth my job. I think there's a lot of people out there like that.

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

#345
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if I said that, I could see myself being cut for that season (year). I think that could be appropriate depending on the circumstances. To make it similar to this case, it wouldn't just be a friend who heard it, it would be the majority of that school. In which case, I can see that as reasonable. "You can't compare her venting to threats of throwing games or intentionally under-performing." You seem to be missin…

If you angrily told a personal friend "fuck this team" after a losing game, does that get you suspended? No it doesn't.. A 24 hour self deleting vent to a personal circle of friends should be treated similarly. As someone else in this HN thread eloquently said: > It's not just that it was expressed off campus. It was expressed privately. Her speech on its own never reached the school. It was deliberately recorded and…

Was she suspended? I saw that she was only cut from the cheer squad. I could certainly see getting cut from the tram for the year if I said similar things and the coach heard about it. It wouldn't matter how it got to the coach.

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

#346
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, isn't the suspension from participating in those activities (cheer) not from school itself? The former seems completely appropriate to me. The latter not at all.

It seems she could still be in cheer, just not on the higher status squad.

I read that she was cut from the cheer squad for 1 year. No actual school suspension. It seems she was also still allowed on the softball team.

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

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think schools should get involved in off campus speech or activities. However, we are seeing more and more of it. This case isn't even that extreme compared to others. There are people being suspended from actual school for non-threatening photos with guns or even just liking a photo of a gun. It's a symptom of a bigger problem in that U.S.A. schools and companies can terminate for arbitrary reasons. Such w…

>It's a symptom of a bigger problem in that U.S.A. schools and companies can terminate for arbitrary reasons. Is this specific case really arbitrary though? Did you read the contract/terms & conditions that this individual was under? Was this termination random or on personal whim? Because it sounds like it's the result of an individual's actions in violation of an agreement between that individual and another entity…

> Is this specific case really arbitrary though? Did you read the contract/terms & conditions that this individual was under? Was this termination random or on personal whim? Because it sounds like it's the result of an individual's actions in violation of an agreement between that individual and another entity.

Such contracts would not be enforceable of course.

Employer protections are not contractually waivable, they would be quite useless if they were.

> Yes, that mentality is literally part of American culture. In the U.S., governments, unlike citizens, are granted a monopoly on the use of force so a natural distrust is not only appropriate but warranted. The government is under no obligation to defend your rights if you literally sign them away (although there are some rights which cannot be waived). You can say whatever you want, but there may be consequences depending on what you say and where you say it.

Yet in most countries where the culture is not so, one does not for instance have a right to own firearms and self-defence in general is more curbed, so I do not believe that.

> People, including children, must learn there are consequences for what they say, particularly in a public forum (and this was effectively so). The only recourse in cases such as this is whether the response was appropriate e.g., within terms of a contract. I personally do not believe that what was said and who it was said to would warrant expulsion, but that's just an opinion, not a contract.

This is a circular reasoning; such consequences exist in the U.S.A. because the country allows employees to be terminated for it. — there are no such consequences in most developed nations.

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

#348
post #44

On the one hand: > The coaches said Levy’s snap violated the team rules she had agreed to, including showing respect, avoiding “foul language and inappropriate gestures,” and a strict policy against “any negative information regarding cheerleading, cheerleaders, or coaches placed on the Internet.” On the other hand: > Some cheerleaders complained about Levy’s message, and the coaches decided to suspend her from the s…

Even better yet the issue could be avoided if the school did not make up and therefore have to enforce bad rules in the first place. When the people disregard bureaucratic rules, more often than not it is the rules themselves that are the problem.

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

#349
post #332

I don't think schools should get involved in off campus speech or activities. However, we are seeing more and more of it. This case isn't even that extreme compared to others. There are people being suspended from actual school for non-threatening photos with guns or even just liking a photo of a gun. On the other hand, I don't see the problem with cutting a student from an extracurricular for actions that contradict…

I'd be more inclined to agree but the Snap was hardly public - it disappeared long before school resumed - and her parents were heavily involved, appealing this decision to all levels of school admin before launching a suit. A teenager saying "fuck this $whatever" outside of school hours is hardly disruptive enough to justify this level of punishment. And that level of punishment over something so trivial makes it mo…

It sounds like it was pretty disruptive to the cheer squad with the bullying and interference with the team dynamic. They didn't suspend her nor cut her from the softball team. The only "discipline" she recieved was being cut from the cheer squad that year due to the disruption she was causing there. She became an active participant in speech that is contrary to the purpose of the cheer squad. I don't know of any sport that will let you be on the team if you are sabotaging the goals of the team.

What other speech would be interfered with? It's not like she was suspended, given detention, etc like we see in other cases of off-campus speech issues. It seems this case is fundamentally different from those other cases since formal discipline was never taken and only involved an extracurricular activity. So I don't really see this impacting other areas of speech and I would hope the court acknowledges these differences and greatly restricts their powers. But I think this case would meet whatever guidelines they come up with.

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

#350
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. I take it, then, you are against existing laws against slander, libel, fraud, harassment and incitement to violence? And that if I were to try convince your famil…

> slander, libel, fraud, harassment and incitement to violence?

They're not saying that what speech qualifies as free speech has no exceptions whatsoever[0]. They're saying that you can't do a end run around the entire concept of free speech by laundering your enforcement under the vague heading of "consequences", when those consequences are a result of your enforcement.

0: It should have as few exceptions as possible, of course, but if nothing else you shouldn't be able to get away with murder by claiming that the nerve impulses to your trigger finger are free speech, and that shouldn't be a property of nerve impulses versus other ways of transmitting information.

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