Any posters here support greater government restrictions on speech?
At the link: "A new report has revealed that support of the First Amendment among college students seems to be decreasing, as nearly half of students believe that hate speech should not be protected."
Link: Disturbing number of students say hate speech is not free speech, report says
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Kids, especially those up through 10th grade at a minimum are very impressionable and honestly, don't have a lot of common sense yet. We have too many teachers that are indoctrinating kids before they are old enough to know better. Teach the kids actual history, based on facts, math, english, etc... leave it to the parents to talk to them about morals, etc...
Parents, step up to the plate and be an actual parent, not a friend.
I acknowledge that there are special categories of speech that can be restricted. Like incitement to immediate violence to a crowd. But, general statements like, "I oppose gay marriage." which are labeled hate speech by one side but which is really just expressing an opinion that some people disagree with...that is what the issue is here. If students think that is not protected free speech, then there really is no protected free speech. Everything is subject to the judgement of the State. We have a long history of protecting such "hate speech." Perhaps we should be asking judge/justice nominees if they accept the settled law on this, or if they want to overturn our free speech jurisprudence.
As to elementary schools, I would say that speech is regulatable to prevent disruption of the learning environment. Obviously, there will be problems at the fringes, and I'm willing to discuss them. And, people can take it too far, like prohibiting a kid from saying grace over his meal, which does not disrupt the learning environment. But, I think the general principle is valid.
What if we replaced the bill of rights with The Ten Commandments?
What if we replaced them with the 10 Principles of Burning Man?
As more and more assholes say stupid shit and get disproportionate coverage in the media and on social media, I find myself less and less in support of free speech and such. In this new world we may have to do another round of defining what is acceptable in our society. BTW, I think that the anonymity social media and the internet provides reduces a lot of people to the maturity of elementary students, the reason for my question...
There is a question as to whether the 1969 SCOTUS Tinker case that established some school speech rights even applies there.
In our circuit, the standard is if the speech can be reasonably forecast to cause substantial disruption to school activities, or to impact the rights of others, it can be regulated by the school.
failing. It is the same system that caused the students of Harvard to forget the lessons of To Kill a Mockingbird and demand that a Harvard professor be demoted for repping Weinstein.
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