Arkady
President
The Supreme Court will be considering whether a bracelet saying "I Love Boobies" is protect speech under the First Amendment, for school children:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...could_decide_the_fate_of_free_speech_for.html
It sounds almost trivial, but I think it's actually extremely important. Over the last few decades, with the Supreme Court having been stuffed with Republicans (for a significant stretch, up until the Obama administration, seven Republicans to only two Democrats), the overall trend has been a roll-back of civil liberties in school. For example, these days there are practically no limitations on unreasonable searches and seizures of children on public school grounds. They can even be forced to pee in a cup on the perverse whim of school officials, with not so much as an inkling of suspicion of drug use, if they want to participate in any extracurricular activities.
This, predictably, has consequences for our nation. When you take children at an impressionable age and train them to see themselves as having no civil rights -- train them to submit to the demands of authorities no matter how unreasonable -- these children don't magically graduate from school to become citizens who zealously defend their Constitutional rights against government overreach. When you train children in the manner authorized by the courts during the last few decades, you raise generations of Americans who fully expect to have the government pry into their personal business with no reasonable basis, no warrants, no checks and balances.
If you look around the country today and find yourself confused as to how we degenerated into a nation of bleating sheep, eager to submit to the nearest shepherd figure, look no further than the degeneration of civil rights in our school systems. Look to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, New Jersey v. T.L. O. , Bethel School District v. Fraser, Veronia School District v. Acton, Board of Education of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, and other Supreme Court cases, all pushed through by a Republican majority, that came down against the idea that students have various basic cvil rights.
It was not always this way. As recently as the 1960s and 70s, the trend was in the other direction, before the court got packed with conservative ringers. Tinker v. Des Moines, decided in 1969, stood for the simple, and elegantly worded notion that students do not leave their rights at the school house door. Goss v. Lopez, in 1975, gave students due process protections for things like suspension reviews. But it's been all downhill fast since the 1980s. There's some hope, with the adorable Boobies case, that the court may finally move in the other direction. The court still leans Republican, but only by a 5-to-4 split. I've got my questions about Kagan, who was a poor choice by Obama, but assuming she stands up for students rights in this case, that'll probably mean drawing off just one of the five Republicans would be enough to stop the slide into schoolhouse totalitarianism and set the first real precedent for expanded student civil rights since the mid 1970s. That, in turn, could signal a wider improvement for the nation as a whole, as a new generation of kids grew up believing they actually have some rights against authority figures. That's how you educate a nation of citizens.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...could_decide_the_fate_of_free_speech_for.html
It sounds almost trivial, but I think it's actually extremely important. Over the last few decades, with the Supreme Court having been stuffed with Republicans (for a significant stretch, up until the Obama administration, seven Republicans to only two Democrats), the overall trend has been a roll-back of civil liberties in school. For example, these days there are practically no limitations on unreasonable searches and seizures of children on public school grounds. They can even be forced to pee in a cup on the perverse whim of school officials, with not so much as an inkling of suspicion of drug use, if they want to participate in any extracurricular activities.
This, predictably, has consequences for our nation. When you take children at an impressionable age and train them to see themselves as having no civil rights -- train them to submit to the demands of authorities no matter how unreasonable -- these children don't magically graduate from school to become citizens who zealously defend their Constitutional rights against government overreach. When you train children in the manner authorized by the courts during the last few decades, you raise generations of Americans who fully expect to have the government pry into their personal business with no reasonable basis, no warrants, no checks and balances.
If you look around the country today and find yourself confused as to how we degenerated into a nation of bleating sheep, eager to submit to the nearest shepherd figure, look no further than the degeneration of civil rights in our school systems. Look to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, New Jersey v. T.L. O. , Bethel School District v. Fraser, Veronia School District v. Acton, Board of Education of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, and other Supreme Court cases, all pushed through by a Republican majority, that came down against the idea that students have various basic cvil rights.
It was not always this way. As recently as the 1960s and 70s, the trend was in the other direction, before the court got packed with conservative ringers. Tinker v. Des Moines, decided in 1969, stood for the simple, and elegantly worded notion that students do not leave their rights at the school house door. Goss v. Lopez, in 1975, gave students due process protections for things like suspension reviews. But it's been all downhill fast since the 1980s. There's some hope, with the adorable Boobies case, that the court may finally move in the other direction. The court still leans Republican, but only by a 5-to-4 split. I've got my questions about Kagan, who was a poor choice by Obama, but assuming she stands up for students rights in this case, that'll probably mean drawing off just one of the five Republicans would be enough to stop the slide into schoolhouse totalitarianism and set the first real precedent for expanded student civil rights since the mid 1970s. That, in turn, could signal a wider improvement for the nation as a whole, as a new generation of kids grew up believing they actually have some rights against authority figures. That's how you educate a nation of citizens.
