American flag case: court sides with Morgan Hill school officials in flap over students' T-Shirts
Source: San Jose Mercury News
A South Bay high school did not violate the constitutional rights of students who were ordered to turn their American-flag adorned shirts inside out during a 2010 Cinco de Mayo celebration, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
In a unanimous three-judge decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Morgan Hill Unified School District, which had argued that a history of problems on the holiday justified the Live Oak High School administrators' decision to take action against the flag-wearing students.
Live Oak officials ordered the students to either cover up the U.S. flag shirts or go home, citing a history of threats and campus strife between Latino and Anglo students that raised fears of violence on the day the school was highlighting the Mexican holiday. The school's actions were reasonable given the safety concerns, which outweighed the students' First Amendment claims, the court concluded.
"Our role is not to second-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration or the precautions put in place to avoid violence," 9th Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel. "
The past events) made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real."
Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25240543/american-flag-removal-order-justified-u-s-court
Warning: Do not read comments section.
And do we wonder why public schools have such a negative image in America? Why so many people buy into right wing BS? Because they see bad things like this, they instantly hate hate HATE government and anything "progressive". ugh!
Oh yeah, most so-called "patriots" in America do not realize that if not for the Battle of the Puebla, the South would be speaking French.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Wed Sep 17, 2014, 10:42 PM - Edit history (3)
Spanish was only spoken in California prior to 1775 whenever Spain decided to send two Spanish speakers to California to make another claim to California. The language spoken in California prior to 1775 was native American languages (The actual move to settle California was in 1769, but no actual settlement till 1775). Now the Spanish had CLAIMED California since the 1500s and would land ships they every year (limit two and then from the Philippines on the way to Mexico, do to the Currents of the Pacific, it was faster to go North of Hawaii, hit Northern California, then sail south, you had the current and wind behind you on the entire trip.
On the way FROM Mexico to the Philippines it was faster to go SOUTH of Hawaii and take those currents to the Philippines. In fact the reason the US took over Hawaii had to do with these currents. US Citizens did not want to go to California via the Straits of Magellan (or Panama) and then to the Philippines and then to California. They wanted a quick way and the best way was to take currents to Hawaii, then cut north and catch the currents to California, in the days of sail it was quicker then going up the coast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California
http://www.seos-project.eu/modules/oceancurrents/oceancurrents-c02-p04.html
Thus Spanish has been spoken in California only since 1769. The Spanish kept out the French and English but that ended with Mexican Independence in 1821. By the late 1820s most of the trade in what is now New Mexico and Arizona had been diverted to St Louis (The Comanche Raids on Texas and Mexico was a factor in this shift, for by going to St Louis via the Missouri you avoided the Comanche controlled area of Texas which extended to include the southern half of present day Nebraska.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comancheria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comancheria.jpg
After the 1820s, English Speakers started to head into California, coming into contact NOT with Spanish speakers but Russians (It fact Sutter's had purchased his famous mill from the RUSSIANS before gold was found at that location). Thus English was NOT spoken in California in 1821, it was spoken by at least 1840 and some say 1830. Thus Spanish has been spoken in California only 70-80 years longer then English and north of San Fransisco, English has been spoken longer.
Now, when the US took over what is now the US Southwest in 1848 from Mexico, except for Southern California and the Rio Grande Valley (and that includes NOT only the Rio Grande along the Texas Border with Mexico, but the Rio Grande Valley in present day New Mexico), English was the more spoken language, with French a close bu declining second (French had been the language of trade among Native Americans from about 1550s when the French first entered what is now Canada till the 1840s when English finally supplanted it).
Just a comment that the language of California being Spanish prior to 1848, is debatable. It was spoken only since 1769 and then only along the coast and from San Francisco bay south. Most people spoke native American Languages prior to about 1849 (When you had a huge influx of gold seekers most of whom spoke English). Prior to 1848, North of San Francisco, Russian was the most common language till it started to be replaced by English in the 1820s.
The rationale for banning the US flag shirts was the possibility of violence ("campus strife"
that may occur as a result. The message from this is that if you want something banned, threatening violence if that thing is not banned will help you achieve that goal.
A heckler's veto occurs when an acting party's right to freedom of speech is curtailed or restricted by the government in order to prevent a reacting party's behavior. The common example is that of demonstrators (reacting party) causing a speech (given by the acting party) to be terminated in order to preserve the peace.
The term was coined by University of Chicago professor of law Harry Kalven.
......
In the United States, case law regarding the heckler's veto is mixed. Most findings say that the acting party's actions cannot be pre-emptively stopped due to fear of heckling by the reacting party, but in the immediate face of violence, authorities can ask the acting party to cease their action in order to satisfy the hecklers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler%27s_veto
See Post #2
Yes by all means it is always great to silence speech we do not like because one side threatens violence.
