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| America Last - according to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals |
The Judicial Assault on American Flag T-Shirts | FrontPage Magazine
By Arnold Ahlert On March 3, 2014
Last Thursday, a federal court unanimously determined that officials at Live Oak High School in California acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag t-shirts to turn them inside out, or be sent home during a 2010 Cinco De Mayo celebration. ”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,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the three-member panel of judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The past events “made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real,” she wrote.
The past events to which the court referred included problems between white and Hispanic students on that particular day, as a well as a history of violence between gang members and racial groups. UCLA law professor Eugene Volkh notes that the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), determined that students’ rights are limited, and that their speech can be restricted student if “school authorities [can reasonably] forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities” stemming from that speech.
The judges here believed that forecasting such violence was appropriate considering what had occurred the previous year:
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The past events to which the court referred included problems between white and Hispanic students on that particular day, as a well as a history of violence between gang members and racial groups. UCLA law professor Eugene Volkh notes that the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), determined that students’ rights are limited, and that their speech can be restricted student if “school authorities [can reasonably] forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities” stemming from that speech.
The judges here believed that forecasting such violence was appropriate considering what had occurred the previous year:
On Cinco de Mayo in 2009, a year before the events relevant to this appeal, there was an altercation on campus between a group of predominantly Caucasian students and a group of Mexican students. The groups exchanged profanities and threats. Some students hung a makeshift American flag on one of the trees on campus, and as they did, the group of Caucasian students began clapping and chanting “USA.” A group of Mexican students had been walking around with the Mexican flag, and in response to the white students’ flag-raising, one Mexican student shouted “f*** them white boys, f*** them white boys.” When Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez told the student to stop using profane language, the student said, “But Rodriguez, they are racist. They are being racist. F*** them white boys. Let’s f*** them up.” Rodriguez removed the student from the area….A similar chain of events unfolded in 2010.
At least one party to this appeal, student M.D., wore American flag clothing to school on Cinco de Mayo 2009. M.D. was approached by a male student who, in the words of the district court, “shoved a Mexican flag at him and said something in Spanish expressing anger at [M.D.’s] clothing.”
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