10 ms·

Supreme Court sides with high school cheerleader who cursed online

96 points by stale2002 5y ago

ortusdux 5y ago
Full text: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
blakesterz 5y ago
Dissent from Thomas Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, writing that students like the former cheerleader "who are active in extracurricular programs have a greater potential, by virtue of their participation, to harm those programs." "For example, a profanity-laced screed delivered on social media or at the mall has a much different effect on a football program when done by a regular student than when done by the captain of the football team. So, too, here," Thomas wrote.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago
  It's not like this girl made a threat against someone. She's a teenager - it's pretty much in their job description to say stupid things that they'll regret later in life so I respectfully disagree with Justice Thomas. Thankfully the rest of the justices did, too. That being said there's a common trope coming from the loudest and most moral busybodies in academia that "Americans just want babysitters for their kids three quarters of the year". Sometimes I think it's projection.
- petercooper 5y ago
  I'm not American and free speech isn't an area I'm clued up on, but following on from that judge's words.. are there situations where more privileged/famous people have less freedom of speech (in a quasi-legal sense, rather than a 'social consequences' one) than others in the US?
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    No, famous people have the same freedom of speech as anyone else. But the reasoning of this case indicates that a message sent by a high school student who has a million followers on twitter could be regulated by a school, even if that same message would not have been allowed to be regulated if sent by someone with 5 followers. This is because the large number of followers increases the likelihood of a "substantial disruption" (a term of art from prior cases). An interesting question: what if someone with 5 followers sends a tweet, which is then picked up and RT'd by someone with a million followers? Should the school be able to regulate the original message (i.e., punish the student) simply because someone with a large following agreed with them? Presumably they couldn't punish the student before the RT, but what about after?
  - jasode 5y ago
    > are there situations where more privileged/famous people have less freedom of speech (in a quasi-legal sense, Not sure if this answers your question but some possible examples: - corporate insiders have "freedom of speech" restricted in the sense that they can be punished for "manipulating stock price". E.g. Elon Musk tweets: https://www.google.com/search?q=ceo+tweets+accussed+manipulating+stock https://www.google.com/search?q=ceo+tweets+accussed+manipula... - book authors writing fiction getting sued for libel/slander so some writers creatively get around it with the "small penis" rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule
  - KorematsuFred 5y ago
    You have to see this with two lenses. Free speech is always about freedom from government control. Your employer can put whatever restriction on your speech that they so desire even outside of your workplace. In that sense famous people do have less freedom. For example basketball players promoting Nike can't wear any other shoes publicly. Second case is of government putting those restrictions on you. Can public school put such restrictions on students ? I do not know and I am not familiar with this case.
    - walshemj 5y ago
      Tell that to Cristiano Ronaldo who dissed Coca Cola at the Euros. The cynic in me think he might have his own brand of flavored water to launch.
- lupire 5y ago
  Ironic, since Thomas is the person who didn't mind having a negative effect on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Supreme Court with his behavior toward women and atheists.
  - trdtaylor1 5y ago
    It's typically a good decision if Thomas is against it. In life and in court decisions.
  - EricE 5y ago
    You mean the sham of Anita Hill? You'd think people like you would be thoroughly embarrassed to continually push these tropes - then again embarrassment requires self awareness and humility. If you actually read his dissent, instead of a hack summary, you would see he thinks they didn't go far enough in constraining the schools. Quite the opposite of what is implied by CNN. But hey, as long as someone holds a dissenting political opinion they aren't human and therefor fair game, right?
- voxic11 5y ago
  Speech reasonably interpreted as bearing the school’s imprimatur falls outside the scope of this opinion so these comments would need to be made personally and not "as the school team". The opinion still allows students consent to additional restrictions on their speech. Requiring such consent to attend regular school isn't allowed because students are required to attend school. But requiring such consent to participate in extracurricular activities like sports teams would still be allowed. So in your example the school would simply need to require consent from students to have their speech restricted before they can participate in extracurricular programs like the football team.
- EricE 5y ago
  His stance is less confusing if you actually read it in context, instead of carless (being very charitable) summation that completely misses his point. Ignorance or malice? Either is terrible. Here's the relevant part from the introduction of his dissent. Note he doesn't have issue with the outcome, but the extremely sloppy and haphazard way in which the decision was outlined. I quote: "The Court overrides that decision—without even mentioning the 150 years of history supporting the coach. Using broad brushstrokes, the majority outlines the scope of school authority. When students are on campus, the majority says, schools have authority in loco parentis—that is, as substitutes of parents—to discipline speech and conduct. Off campus, the authority of schools is somewhat less. At that level of generality, I agree. But the majority omits important detail. What authority does a school have when it operates in loco parentis? How much less authority do schools have over off-campus speech and conduct? And how does a court decide if speech is on or off campus? Disregarding these important issues, the majority simply posits three vague considerations and reaches an outcome. A more searching review reveals that schools historically could discipline students in circumstances like those presented here. Because the majority does not attempt to explain why we should not apply this historical rule and does not attempt to tether its approach to anything stable, I respectfully dissent. " https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf Page 34 If you actually read his dissent, instead of a hack summary, you would see he thinks they didn't go far enough in constraining the schools. Quite the opposite of what is implied by CNN.
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    Unsurprising. CNN decided long ago that Thomas is "the other" and they'll never be charitable when it comes to people on that side of the political aisle. Before I get the deluge of "WHATABOUT fox news" comments. Yes, Fox news is horrible and they are never charitable either.
  - harshreality 5y ago
    I'm just an amateur occasional Supreme Court-watcher, but just reading his dissent I wouldn't go so far as to say he thinks schools need to be more constrained than the majority does. He might or he might not. Or maybe I missed something you picked up on. What is clear to me is that he thinks there are crucial unresolved issues that the majority punted on. The process of the court's opinion-writing sometimes involves several justices circulating draft opinions and trying to recruit others to sign on. Thomas might have written such a draft opinion with very careful reasoning, perhaps even concurring in the majority's judgment, but nobody else was willing to sign on to some of his specific reasoning that he thought was crucial, so he took his toys and went home.
- harshreality 5y ago
  While I strongly disagree with Thomas's decision, I disagree on the basis of several of the issues that he himself points out as unaddressed by the majority. Specifically, the widespread compulsory nature of schooling today vs in the 19th century, which Alito's concurring opinion outlines, as well as the limited-scope of snapchat "stories"; it is not the student's fault that speech intended to be transitory and limited in distribution was screenshotted and amplified. This case was much more like speech at a casual in-person meet-up outside of school than Thomas wants to admit. Furthermore, the nature of public schools (and even most private schools) today is far less serious than schools of the 19th century or before. Even if it weren't for the issue of compulsory schooling, schools have abdicated most of their traditional responsibility for moral instruction of students, and the SCOTUS is an inappropriate authority to try to undo that. If you read the last paragraph of Thomas's dissent, it's clear he's more troubled with the laziness of the majority opinion than he is by the specific result. It reads like he wanted to really dig into the issues Alito raised in a concurring opinion, but didn't feel like he should because only Alito and Gorsuch concurred with that one, and debating those issues at length would be like bikeshedding. Maybe they were on the cusp of getting him to sign on, but they ran out of time and there were unresolved differences that led him to write the dissent. Thomas's dissent should get everyone to think carefully about the scope of rights to discipline children in loco parentis in various circumstances. If you send your children to a friend's house, or with their friends' parents on some trip or to some event, you're granting those parents virtually unlimited ordinary disciplinary authority (subject to criminal and family law limitations). Voluntarily sending your kids to school could be seen (and, as Thomas points out, was historically seen) to create much the same dynamic.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Thank you - it's encouraging to see at least one other person not just absorb the pre-digested mass media swill as the gospel truth :p
neom 5y ago
The Oral Arguments are really interesting; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZElRV0oDM& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZElRV0oDM&
- remarkEon 5y ago
  Audio + transcript: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-255 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-255
- ortusdux 5y ago
  For those interested, the Free Law Project maintains podcasts & RSS feeds of oral arguments in front of the both the Supreme Court and all the district appellate courts. They are a great listen. I especially enjoy going into them without any prior knowledge of the cases. https://www.courtlistener.com/podcasts/ https://www.courtlistener.com/podcasts/
willcipriano 5y ago
Its not clear to me why it is permissible for schools to ever punish children for nonviolent speech in the united states, the fact that it's even up for debate calls into question if the constitution still is the highest law of the land. I don't see the part where the rights only kick in once you are 18.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Although it's not strictly about age (kids who go to private/home school cannot have their speech regulated by the government in any special way), the fact is that the vast majority of kids in the US do go to public schools. These schools can regulate speech like employers can — but the difference is that no one is required to work for a specific employer for 12 years. The Court was trying to find a balance that allows schools to prevent kids from going around spewing expletives all day long without consequence, while at the same time not treading too heavily on the legitimate free speech rights of students. BTW, what do you mean when you say "nonviolent speech"? Are you referring to calls to violence, or the more recent concept (not recognized by the courts) that certain speech is itself violence?
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    I mean the stuff that is already impermissible for adults to say, calls for violence etc. I totally understand the practical implications and what they are trying to do, I just don't understand how it's legal without a constitutional amendment.
  - himinlomax 5y ago
    The power Americans attribute to bad words has always astounded me. This is such a non issue here (France), I can't even think of a case where anyone has been punished, scolded or otherwise criticized for swearing. (There's standards for broadcasting, but they don't apply to single words, and in fact you could run afoul of them without saying a single bad word, while George Carlin's seven words routine would be absolutely uncontroversial.) At worst, swearing too much will paint you as uneducated or abrasive, but in fact if someone complained about it they would be more likely to be criticized.
lupire 5y ago
I hope that this ruling applies to UT Knoxville too. They kicked out a student and cheerleader based on false accusation of her using "a derogatory racist slur" in a leaked private conversation. (She said "nigga".) https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Incoming-UT-cheerleader-uses-racial-slurs-in-social-media-post--570991961.html https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Incoming-UT-cheerleader-use...
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  Sorry, it's a derogatory racist slur. Not sure what makes you think otherwise.
  - Phil987 5y ago
    Well, some people say it daily to their friends so it probably depends on the person and the context.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      It definitely depends on the context, along with thousands of other words in the dictionary.
      - fastball 5y ago
        So we should probably update and clarify that this is a word that can be used as a derogatory racist slur but it can also be used otherwise.
        kube-system 5y ago
        Who needs to update or clarify what? Even English dictionaries explain this.
        fastball 5y ago
        Well cool_dude85 claims it is a racist slur, when the reality is that it can be a racist slur, which I would argue (and you seem to agree) is not the same thing.
comodore_ 5y ago
on a side note, it is becoming a rare occasion that the ACLU is involved in a free speech issue and arguing for free speech, and they are using it to sell merch.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago
  The ACLU has fallen from grace. They're mostly just a mouthpiece for a particular brand of politics today.
  - comodore_ 5y ago
    they raked in hundreds of millions from trump resistance libs over the last couple years, yet their number of lawyers that specialize in free speech is the same as a decade ago: 4! four.
    - cmh89 5y ago
      It's almost like the 1st amendment is rarely under attack like other freedoms/laws are! You know the ACLU doesn't just fight for free speech right?
protomyth 5y ago
The SCOTUS blog entry https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/court-rules-for-high-school-cheerleader-in-first-amendment-dispute-over-snapchat-profanity/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/court-rules-for-high-scho... They have excellent coverage and commentary
cm2187 5y ago
Does the 1st amendment protection applies because it is a public school or would this also apply to a private employer?
- nwallin 5y ago
  Because it's a public school. It would not apply to private schools or private employers. Also note that this is a narrow ruling; the supreme court is not intending to set new precedent the way Tinker vs. Des Moines did. They just said this particular student's particular speech in this particular context was protected, not all speech by all students. This case won't be relevant to schools banning hate speech or bullying on social media, for instance. Nor would it have any consequences for public employers. There is a larger question here. Tinker, the existing precedent, was established long before social media. There will have to be a reckoning, the court will need to decide what speech on social media is protected and what isn't. Speech on social media is (by virtue of this decision) more protected than on campus speech, but less protected than speech by an adult who's not a student at the school. There's a line in there somewhere, and it's the court's duty to draw it. They did not draw that line today; they just said that the line is over there somewhere and saying "fuck" on social media didn't cross it.
  - EricE 5y ago
    "There is a larger question here." Which is the point of Thomas's dissent. He does an excellent job outlining just how poor a job the court did with this decision. It starts on page 34: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > There's a line in there somewhere, and it's the court's duty to draw it. No, not really. The courts often make an effort to narrowly define their rulings. Every last circumstance, and every last exception, does not need to be ruled on, immediately. Those can be addressed, as they come up.
    - 5y ago
jdavis703 5y ago
What happens if a rival sports team uses bigoted slurs to degrade a rival team on social media? Could the players still be suspended from games? Or would the coach and league be powerless to create an atmosphere of good sportsmanship? I rarely agree with Justice Thomas, but he was good to dissent with a more targeted opinion.
Simulacra 5y ago
I think this was the right move. Unless you're threatening violence, harm, self harm, or engaging in bullying, the schools have no business trying to regulate student speech off campus. I never saw this as anything more than a power move by the schools.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

96 points by stale2002 5y ago

Full text: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf

blakesterz 5y ago

Dissent from Thomas Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, writing that students like the former cheerleader "who are active in extracurricular programs have a greater potential, by virtue of their participation, to harm those programs." "For example, a profanity-laced screed delivered on social media or at the mall has a much different effect on a football program when done by a regular student than when done by the captain of the football team. So, too, here," Thomas wrote.

lp0_on_fire 5y ago
It's not like this girl made a threat against someone. She's a teenager - it's pretty much in their job description to say stupid things that they'll regret later in life so I respectfully disagree with Justice Thomas. Thankfully the rest of the justices did, too. That being said there's a common trope coming from the loudest and most moral busybodies in academia that "Americans just want babysitters for their kids three quarters of the year". Sometimes I think it's projection.
petercooper 5y ago
I'm not American and free speech isn't an area I'm clued up on, but following on from that judge's words.. are there situations where more privileged/famous people have less freedom of speech (in a quasi-legal sense, rather than a 'social consequences' one) than others in the US?
- gnicholas 5y ago
  No, famous people have the same freedom of speech as anyone else. But the reasoning of this case indicates that a message sent by a high school student who has a million followers on twitter could be regulated by a school, even if that same message would not have been allowed to be regulated if sent by someone with 5 followers. This is because the large number of followers increases the likelihood of a "substantial disruption" (a term of art from prior cases). An interesting question: what if someone with 5 followers sends a tweet, which is then picked up and RT'd by someone with a million followers? Should the school be able to regulate the original message (i.e., punish the student) simply because someone with a large following agreed with them? Presumably they couldn't punish the student before the RT, but what about after?
- jasode 5y ago
  > are there situations where more privileged/famous people have less freedom of speech (in a quasi-legal sense, Not sure if this answers your question but some possible examples: - corporate insiders have "freedom of speech" restricted in the sense that they can be punished for "manipulating stock price". E.g. Elon Musk tweets: https://www.google.com/search?q=ceo+tweets+accussed+manipulating+stock https://www.google.com/search?q=ceo+tweets+accussed+manipula... - book authors writing fiction getting sued for libel/slander so some writers creatively get around it with the "small penis" rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule
- KorematsuFred 5y ago
  You have to see this with two lenses. Free speech is always about freedom from government control. Your employer can put whatever restriction on your speech that they so desire even outside of your workplace. In that sense famous people do have less freedom. For example basketball players promoting Nike can't wear any other shoes publicly. Second case is of government putting those restrictions on you. Can public school put such restrictions on students ? I do not know and I am not familiar with this case.
  - walshemj 5y ago
    Tell that to Cristiano Ronaldo who dissed Coca Cola at the Euros. The cynic in me think he might have his own brand of flavored water to launch.
lupire 5y ago
Ironic, since Thomas is the person who didn't mind having a negative effect on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Supreme Court with his behavior toward women and atheists.
- trdtaylor1 5y ago
  It's typically a good decision if Thomas is against it. In life and in court decisions.
- EricE 5y ago
  You mean the sham of Anita Hill? You'd think people like you would be thoroughly embarrassed to continually push these tropes - then again embarrassment requires self awareness and humility. If you actually read his dissent, instead of a hack summary, you would see he thinks they didn't go far enough in constraining the schools. Quite the opposite of what is implied by CNN. But hey, as long as someone holds a dissenting political opinion they aren't human and therefor fair game, right?
voxic11 5y ago
Speech reasonably interpreted as bearing the school’s imprimatur falls outside the scope of this opinion so these comments would need to be made personally and not "as the school team". The opinion still allows students consent to additional restrictions on their speech. Requiring such consent to attend regular school isn't allowed because students are required to attend school. But requiring such consent to participate in extracurricular activities like sports teams would still be allowed. So in your example the school would simply need to require consent from students to have their speech restricted before they can participate in extracurricular programs like the football team.
EricE 5y ago
His stance is less confusing if you actually read it in context, instead of carless (being very charitable) summation that completely misses his point. Ignorance or malice? Either is terrible. Here's the relevant part from the introduction of his dissent. Note he doesn't have issue with the outcome, but the extremely sloppy and haphazard way in which the decision was outlined. I quote: "The Court overrides that decision—without even mentioning the 150 years of history supporting the coach. Using broad brushstrokes, the majority outlines the scope of school authority. When students are on campus, the majority says, schools have authority in loco parentis—that is, as substitutes of parents—to discipline speech and conduct. Off campus, the authority of schools is somewhat less. At that level of generality, I agree. But the majority omits important detail. What authority does a school have when it operates in loco parentis? How much less authority do schools have over off-campus speech and conduct? And how does a court decide if speech is on or off campus? Disregarding these important issues, the majority simply posits three vague considerations and reaches an outcome. A more searching review reveals that schools historically could discipline students in circumstances like those presented here. Because the majority does not attempt to explain why we should not apply this historical rule and does not attempt to tether its approach to anything stable, I respectfully dissent. " https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf Page 34 If you actually read his dissent, instead of a hack summary, you would see he thinks they didn't go far enough in constraining the schools. Quite the opposite of what is implied by CNN.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago
  Unsurprising. CNN decided long ago that Thomas is "the other" and they'll never be charitable when it comes to people on that side of the political aisle. Before I get the deluge of "WHATABOUT fox news" comments. Yes, Fox news is horrible and they are never charitable either.
- harshreality 5y ago
  I'm just an amateur occasional Supreme Court-watcher, but just reading his dissent I wouldn't go so far as to say he thinks schools need to be more constrained than the majority does. He might or he might not. Or maybe I missed something you picked up on. What is clear to me is that he thinks there are crucial unresolved issues that the majority punted on. The process of the court's opinion-writing sometimes involves several justices circulating draft opinions and trying to recruit others to sign on. Thomas might have written such a draft opinion with very careful reasoning, perhaps even concurring in the majority's judgment, but nobody else was willing to sign on to some of his specific reasoning that he thought was crucial, so he took his toys and went home.
harshreality 5y ago
While I strongly disagree with Thomas's decision, I disagree on the basis of several of the issues that he himself points out as unaddressed by the majority. Specifically, the widespread compulsory nature of schooling today vs in the 19th century, which Alito's concurring opinion outlines, as well as the limited-scope of snapchat "stories"; it is not the student's fault that speech intended to be transitory and limited in distribution was screenshotted and amplified. This case was much more like speech at a casual in-person meet-up outside of school than Thomas wants to admit. Furthermore, the nature of public schools (and even most private schools) today is far less serious than schools of the 19th century or before. Even if it weren't for the issue of compulsory schooling, schools have abdicated most of their traditional responsibility for moral instruction of students, and the SCOTUS is an inappropriate authority to try to undo that. If you read the last paragraph of Thomas's dissent, it's clear he's more troubled with the laziness of the majority opinion than he is by the specific result. It reads like he wanted to really dig into the issues Alito raised in a concurring opinion, but didn't feel like he should because only Alito and Gorsuch concurred with that one, and debating those issues at length would be like bikeshedding. Maybe they were on the cusp of getting him to sign on, but they ran out of time and there were unresolved differences that led him to write the dissent. Thomas's dissent should get everyone to think carefully about the scope of rights to discipline children in loco parentis in various circumstances. If you send your children to a friend's house, or with their friends' parents on some trip or to some event, you're granting those parents virtually unlimited ordinary disciplinary authority (subject to criminal and family law limitations). Voluntarily sending your kids to school could be seen (and, as Thomas points out, was historically seen) to create much the same dynamic.
- EricE 5y ago
  Thank you - it's encouraging to see at least one other person not just absorb the pre-digested mass media swill as the gospel truth :p

neom 5y ago

The Oral Arguments are really interesting; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZElRV0oDM& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZElRV0oDM&

remarkEon 5y ago
Audio + transcript: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-255 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-255
ortusdux 5y ago
For those interested, the Free Law Project maintains podcasts & RSS feeds of oral arguments in front of the both the Supreme Court and all the district appellate courts. They are a great listen. I especially enjoy going into them without any prior knowledge of the cases. https://www.courtlistener.com/podcasts/ https://www.courtlistener.com/podcasts/

willcipriano 5y ago

Its not clear to me why it is permissible for schools to ever punish children for nonviolent speech in the united states, the fact that it's even up for debate calls into question if the constitution still is the highest law of the land. I don't see the part where the rights only kick in once you are 18.

gnicholas 5y ago
Although it's not strictly about age (kids who go to private/home school cannot have their speech regulated by the government in any special way), the fact is that the vast majority of kids in the US do go to public schools. These schools can regulate speech like employers can — but the difference is that no one is required to work for a specific employer for 12 years. The Court was trying to find a balance that allows schools to prevent kids from going around spewing expletives all day long without consequence, while at the same time not treading too heavily on the legitimate free speech rights of students. BTW, what do you mean when you say "nonviolent speech"? Are you referring to calls to violence, or the more recent concept (not recognized by the courts) that certain speech is itself violence?
- willcipriano 5y ago
  I mean the stuff that is already impermissible for adults to say, calls for violence etc. I totally understand the practical implications and what they are trying to do, I just don't understand how it's legal without a constitutional amendment.
- himinlomax 5y ago
  The power Americans attribute to bad words has always astounded me. This is such a non issue here (France), I can't even think of a case where anyone has been punished, scolded or otherwise criticized for swearing. (There's standards for broadcasting, but they don't apply to single words, and in fact you could run afoul of them without saying a single bad word, while George Carlin's seven words routine would be absolutely uncontroversial.) At worst, swearing too much will paint you as uneducated or abrasive, but in fact if someone complained about it they would be more likely to be criticized.

lupire 5y ago

I hope that this ruling applies to UT Knoxville too. They kicked out a student and cheerleader based on false accusation of her using "a derogatory racist slur" in a leaked private conversation. (She said "nigga".) https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Incoming-UT-cheerleader-uses-racial-slurs-in-social-media-post--570991961.html https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Incoming-UT-cheerleader-use...

cool_dude85 5y ago
Sorry, it's a derogatory racist slur. Not sure what makes you think otherwise.
- Phil987 5y ago
  Well, some people say it daily to their friends so it probably depends on the person and the context.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    It definitely depends on the context, along with thousands of other words in the dictionary.
    - fastball 5y ago
      So we should probably update and clarify that this is a word that can be used as a derogatory racist slur but it can also be used otherwise.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        Who needs to update or clarify what? Even English dictionaries explain this.
        fastball 5y ago
        Well cool_dude85 claims it is a racist slur, when the reality is that it can be a racist slur, which I would argue (and you seem to agree) is not the same thing.

comodore_ 5y ago

on a side note, it is becoming a rare occasion that the ACLU is involved in a free speech issue and arguing for free speech, and they are using it to sell merch.

lp0_on_fire 5y ago
The ACLU has fallen from grace. They're mostly just a mouthpiece for a particular brand of politics today.
- comodore_ 5y ago
  they raked in hundreds of millions from trump resistance libs over the last couple years, yet their number of lawyers that specialize in free speech is the same as a decade ago: 4! four.
  - cmh89 5y ago
    It's almost like the 1st amendment is rarely under attack like other freedoms/laws are! You know the ACLU doesn't just fight for free speech right?

protomyth 5y ago

The SCOTUS blog entry https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/court-rules-for-high-school-cheerleader-in-first-amendment-dispute-over-snapchat-profanity/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/court-rules-for-high-scho... They have excellent coverage and commentary

cm2187 5y ago

Does the 1st amendment protection applies because it is a public school or would this also apply to a private employer?

nwallin 5y ago
Because it's a public school. It would not apply to private schools or private employers. Also note that this is a narrow ruling; the supreme court is not intending to set new precedent the way Tinker vs. Des Moines did. They just said this particular student's particular speech in this particular context was protected, not all speech by all students. This case won't be relevant to schools banning hate speech or bullying on social media, for instance. Nor would it have any consequences for public employers. There is a larger question here. Tinker, the existing precedent, was established long before social media. There will have to be a reckoning, the court will need to decide what speech on social media is protected and what isn't. Speech on social media is (by virtue of this decision) more protected than on campus speech, but less protected than speech by an adult who's not a student at the school. There's a line in there somewhere, and it's the court's duty to draw it. They did not draw that line today; they just said that the line is over there somewhere and saying "fuck" on social media didn't cross it.
- EricE 5y ago
  "There is a larger question here." Which is the point of Thomas's dissent. He does an excellent job outlining just how poor a job the court did with this decision. It starts on page 34: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
- stale2002 5y ago
  > There's a line in there somewhere, and it's the court's duty to draw it. No, not really. The courts often make an effort to narrowly define their rulings. Every last circumstance, and every last exception, does not need to be ruled on, immediately. Those can be addressed, as they come up.
  - 5y ago

jdavis703 5y ago

What happens if a rival sports team uses bigoted slurs to degrade a rival team on social media? Could the players still be suspended from games? Or would the coach and league be powerless to create an atmosphere of good sportsmanship? I rarely agree with Justice Thomas, but he was good to dissent with a more targeted opinion.

Simulacra 5y ago

I think this was the right move. Unless you're threatening violence, harm, self harm, or engaging in bullying, the schools have no business trying to regulate student speech off campus. I never saw this as anything more than a power move by the schools.

deleted 5y ago
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