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

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

#411

Post by sellyme »

rtpag wrote: post #282
pessimizer wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech, and everything to do with workers' rights. You can't be fired for belonging to a protected class, but you can be fired for literally anything else - hence people are still rarely punished for firing members of a protected class. There was an upheld case a few years ago where a man fired one of his employees for being too sexy . Not acting too sexy, or dressing too sexy,…

Where did the post you reply to mention "racists and sexists"? The post mentions people afraid to speak up, like Gen-X members educated by super progressive people from the real student revolts in 1970. Except that this education is not sufficient to keep up with the arbitrary word games of rich elites, who incidentally do not care about worker's rights .

> Where did the post you reply to mention "racists and sexists"?

The post pessimizer responded to explicitly mentions neonazis.

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

#412

Post by sellyme »

axaxs wrote: post #308
hodgesrm wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-th... I've read this multiple times over the last couple years. Please don't accuse me of cherry picking, I don't know anything about Cato, I just googled it and it was the first link(well, via thehill).

Extremely off-topic, but that URL is a great example of why using headline/lede text in links is a bad idea. Really loses its punch when the '%' gets stripped.

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

#413

Post by sellyme »

iczero wrote: post #266
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #74

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…

But is it really only jerks? I've seen attempts to get people cancelled for what they've posted on social media over 10 years ago. Sometimes cancellation happens over allegations that are later proven to be false. There was a TED talk once about a woman who found out she was fired after getting off an airplane because she posted an insensitive joke. Was she wrong for doing that? Probably. Should she have been fired o…

> Was she wrong for doing that? Probably.

You're being somewhat generous here.

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

#414

Post by nailer »

eagsalazar2 wrote: post #74
umvi wrote: 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

Speaking of straw men. There’s a legitimate concern that political discourse is run through a few monopoly providers with biased and inconsistent moderation. Stating that the actual reason is because they’re jerks is a fantastic straw man of your own.

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

#415

Post by em-bee »

watwut wrote: post #404
em-bee wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is a rather defeatist attitude. just because one person won't have much effect at changing a large group of people, doesn't mean their effort is worthless. (besides, it is also not correct that he didn't manage to change anything. read the above linked wikipedia page. he dismantled the kkk in one state. when a new leader emerged, he converted that person too. if a few more people do that all over the US, keep it…

Looking into history to see what worked and what did not worked is not "defeatist". It is absurd however to take one outlier and then talk about it as if this was the way social issue were solved - ever. Sometimes it works on individual level, but acting like this is how things gets changed, no. > pretending to agree does not make me believe what i pretend to. It somewhat does. More importantly, as you pretend you ag…

i may simply be unaware of this, but what other attempts have been made to solve this and other social issues?

as far as i can tell, also from personal experience, education and friendship are the only ways to solve social issues that actually have a lasting effect.

as you pretend you agree, the people who happen to disagree will slowly move themselves out

possible, but as i said, pretending is not actually part of the strategy. you don't pretend, you empathize, but that doesn't mean you agree or even pretend to agree.

There is strong social component

which is broken by your friendship. you show that they can find better friends, and you are one of them.

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

#416

Post by thyrsus »

ipaddr wrote: post #387
sanderjd wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit to a little frustration with people who act like current law (usually the first amendment) protects people from "cancellation" by private actors. But I'm more open to arguments that we should create new employment law that makes it harder to arbitrarily fire people. I don't think this is a good idea, for the record, but it is a reasonable argument to make. Many other countries have much stronger worker pro…

It is crazy the lack of protections around firing people. People fear that it would be harder for businesses to fire someone so they would be less eager to hire. But then you connect any health services to being employed and you created a big hole in the overall plan.

This is why I don't understand why businesses aren't demanding universal health care and a universal basic income. Employees are much less expensive when one is not providing health care, and also less expensive when pay provides a marginal increase in quality of life instead of all of subsistence.

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

#417

Post by mcny »

thyrsus wrote: post #416
ipaddr wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is crazy the lack of protections around firing people. People fear that it would be harder for businesses to fire someone so they would be less eager to hire. But then you connect any health services to being employed and you created a big hole in the overall plan.

This is why I don't understand why businesses aren't demanding universal health care and a universal basic income. Employees are much less expensive when one is not providing health care, and also less expensive when pay provides a marginal increase in quality of life instead of all of subsistence.

I think that’s the same reason why I subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the US military opposes both universal healthcare and free of cost college and university education.

I think overall businesses don’t care enough about higher costs because at the end of the day they can just fire me without providing cause if I cost more than I am worth to the business.

There was a thread about cloud services such as cloudinary and why businesses put up with the absurdly high bandwidth charges and someone explained to me that the business isn’t paying for bandwidth charges, it is paying someone to solve their business needs. As long as fragile meat bag humans serve the business needs, I think businesses will employ us.

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

#418

Post by giantg2 »

hluska wrote: post #365
giantg2 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spo…

Two judges have held that: - BL did not waive any constitutional rights when she signed the cheer contract. - BL’s Snap was off campus speech. - BL’s Snap did not cause any actual or foreseeable disruption of school activities. Here’s the appeal court’s ruling: https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/191842p.pdf

"BL did not waive any constitutional rights when she signed the cheer contract."

This is very interesting. I guess they mean any off campus rights. Many rights are clearly restricted on campus, including school events at any location. I also see the bring up that the prohibited conduct in the contract is not strictly defined. Yet we have plenty of laws which are also not strictly defined and they are upheld (so much for lenity).

Thanks for the link. It's interesting that the judges contend that they should only be looking at the first snap even though the background contains quoted testimony that both captions were part of the concern. Then they go on to say that the first caption is not information, which might be true. But the second one does have negative information about the selection decision. Although it's also interesting that opinions are not considered information, when by any other test they would be. I just find it odd that they would overlook the testimony they quoted in the background previously. And a similar issue with when they talk about the act occurring between seasons, yet tryouts were supposedly just held for that season.

It's also interesting that they didn't examine it from a performance aspect. They do mention a test of whether the person can be punished off campus for the speech. They only investigate this from the standpoint of the team being "the government". They do not look into whether private teams punish students for similar issues, and thus if the school team requires the same customary practices to effectively function. Essentially the same reasoning that schools are allowed to restrict other rights in the classroom - that they need the customary authority that comes with the implementation of activity (school, team, etc) because being restricted to only the role of government would make them an ineffective institution. It makes one wonder if the government should be involved in education at all if it requires constant exceptions to constitutional rights, that essentially the elements of running a school are in contention with the laws of the government and the rights of the students. I guess we just have to wait for the SCOTUS decision to remedy the split.

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

#419

Post by dragonwriter »

giantg2 wrote: post #418
hluska wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two judges have held that: - BL did not waive any constitutional rights when she signed the cheer contract. - BL’s Snap was off campus speech. - BL’s Snap did not cause any actual or foreseeable disruption of school activities. Here’s the appeal court’s ruling: https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/191842p.pdf

"BL did not waive any constitutional rights when she signed the cheer contract." This is very interesting. I guess they mean any off campus rights. Many rights are clearly restricted on campus, including school events at any location. I also see the bring up that the prohibited conduct in the contract is not strictly defined. Yet we have plenty of laws which are also not strictly defined and they are upheld (so much…

> This is very interesting. I guess they mean any off campus rights

No, they mean any Constitutional rights.

> Many rights are clearly restricted on campus, including school events at any location.

To the extent that that is true, that’s not a waiver by the student. But while it allows considerable regulation, the limitation on free speech on schools is quite narrow.

> Yet we have plenty of laws which are also not strictly defined and they are upheld (so much for lenity).

Lenity is not absence of strict definition of what is prohibited, but government’s power to not fully prosecutr what is prohibited. Strict definition is about the boundary of what may be enforced.

> They do mention a test of whether the person can be punished off campus for the speech. They only investigate this from the standpoint of the team being "the government". They do not look into whether private teams punish students for similar issues, and thus if the school team requires the same customary practices to effectively function.

That’s because the government has no inherent right to do what private entities may do that trumps Constitutional limits on government. If cheerleading teams need things that exceed the legitimate power of government to function (which I doubt, but whatever), then the solution is for the government not to run cheerleading teams, not for thr government to assume unconstitutional powers.

> Essentially the same reasoning that schools are allowed to restrict other rights in the classroom - that they need the customary authority that comes with the implementation of activity (school, team, etc) because being restricted to only the role of government would make them an ineffective institution.

That is not the basis for the (fairly narrow, in the case of free speech) power of government to regulate conduct in schools beyond what it can do in other contexts.

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

#420

Post by giantg2 »

mannerheim wrote: post #396
giantg2 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought her speech pertaining to the other girl constituted bullying. I doubt the privacy laws really hold snapchat as private communication. PA law is very restrictive about recording. If someone recorded her conversation so that it could be played beyond the 24hr period in snapchat, it's possible they could be prosecuted for a felony under the wiretap laws if snaps are actually considered private. Tinker doesn't…

> Love how me and [another student, whom Levy identified by name] get told we need a year of jv before we make varsity but that doesn’t matter to anyone else? I don't see how that can constitute bullying; the student mentioned here is her friend. It's critical of some freshman getting on the varsity team, but it doesn't appear here that she even mentioned said freshman. Privacy laws are not really relevant; I was spe…

If you're the only freshman making the team, then you don't need to be named to be identified. I did just see that text and agree that the text was not bullying.

You realize she sent this snap to 250 people? Do you have any privacy expectations when sharing stuff with that many people on a social media platform? I wouldn't expect anything to stay private if you put it on thr internet and tell 250 kids. This is not just a circle of friends. I don't see how privacy/recording laws would just stop applying if it was considered private. Which is sort of my point. If there was a valid invasion of privacy, I would expect legal action to be taken. It seems that did not happen.

"there's no way this qualifies as disruptive."

Unless it's disrupting team dynamic. It does goes directly against the goals of the team - promoting school pride and spirit.

"then they have to follow the Constitution"

That's not really true as that's not happening now. There are tons of Constitutional rights that are essentially ignored by schools including 1st, 2nd, and 4th. This case is basically up for seeing if those exceptions apply here or if a new exception is to be created. I think that this team policy will be found to acceptable because it's really a performance issue, not a speech issue as she is going against the goals of the team.

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