Wednesday, September 24, 2014




Ninth Circus Says It's 'Reasonable' for School to Bar American Flag T-Shirts on Cinco de Mayo

On Constitution Day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined to hear an appeal by students who were punished by their California high school for wearing American flag-themed shirts on Cinco de Mayo because they might incite Hispanic students to violence.

In its Sept. 17 order declining the student’s request for an en banc hearing, the federal appeals court stated that “given the history of prior events at the school, including an altercation on campus, it was reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real.”

On May 5, 2010, the four Caucasian students from Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, CA were “asked to remove or turn inside out t-shirts bearing images of the American flag” on the Mexican holiday.

School administrators said that they feared the students would face violence from Latino students for wearing the American flag-themed clothing during the school-sanctioned celebration because there had been at least 30 fights between Caucasian and Hispanic students on campus during the preceding six years.

Give that history, the judges on the appellate panel ruled that school officials “acted properly to prevent a substantial and material disruption of school activities.”

However, in his dissenting opinion, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote that "the panel condones the suppression of the students’ speech for one reason: other students might have reacted violently against them. Such a rationale contravenes fundamental First Amendment principles.”

“The freedom of speech guaranteed by our Constitution is in greatest peril when the government may suppress speech simply because it is unpopular...it is a foundational tenet of First Amendment law that the government cannot silence a speaker because of how an audience might react to the speech,” he noted.

"It is truly a sad day when government officials are permitted to ban the American flag on a public high school campus for any reason," said Robert Muise, co-founder and senior counsel at the American Freedom Law Center, who argued on behalf of the students before the 9th Circuit.

"The liberal judges on the court were forced to do rhetorical backflips to come to this outrageous decision," said Freedom X CEO William Becker, who intends to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

SOURCE


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Ninth Circuit has a long history of being reversed.

Anonymous said...

Then deal with the problem, not the symptom. Oh wait, that would be hispanics and non-hispanics at the same school, pity.

Anonymous said...

If the school thought there would be violence or any unnecessary disruption it should have banned the display of ALL flag images that particular day, then there would have been no discrimination, or all equally discriminated against.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:27,

You sir, win the prize.

The school can ban things but they cannot ban on content.

That is what they did here.

Next up, the SCOTUS beats down the Ninth Circuit.

Bird of Paradise said...

I wonder whate Judge STUPID,JACKASS and DOPEHEAD would say about burning a mexican flag during this Cino DeMayo crap?

Anonymous said...

This is similar to billboard laws. Some towns ban non-local advertisement. This is always overturned based on freedom of speech. Only solution is to ban ALL billboards.

Anonymous said...

"School administrators said that they feared the students would face violence from Latino students for wearing the American flag-themed clothing"

I guess this is another example of the tyranny of low expectations that Latinos have so little control of their emotions that they could not provoke violence. My Dad made sure I always understood that if I became angry, that the emotion lay within me and no one else was responsible for it. The 9th Circus got it wrong.

Go Away Bird said...

Why we need to Arizona imagration law for all states round up and deport all these latino invaders

Anonymous said...

Go back to Mexico and celebrate cinco de mayo since it is not an American holiday anyway. Every day is a good day to celebrate America. If the students get violent because someone wears an American flag then they should be expelled. I'm sure they will get a similar high quality education back in Mexico.

Anonymous said...

No wonder they are referred to as circus courts.

Flu-Bird said...

They need a tsunami in San Francisco to wash the 9th Circus Court clean away these stupid judges should'nt allowed to judge a folwer show