Education Dress Code Hate Speech Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly

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Where a public college dress code was enforced by defendants to prohibit a plaintiff student from wearing a t-shirt that read “There are only two genders” and then wearing that same t-shirt with the words Only Two covered with a piece of tape on which CENSORED was written, the grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants should be affirmed under Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District393 U.S. 503 (1969).

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), upheld the First Amendment right of public school students to wear black armbands to school to protest the country's involvement in the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court, however, showed itself to be sensitive to the particular characteristics of the school environment and thus took care to explain that there was no evidence of any interference, real or emerging, in the work of the school. school or a conflict with the rights of other students. to be safe and to be left alone. … He also asserted more generally that, of course, school authorities may restrict student speech that materially disrupts class work or involves substantial disruption or infringement of the rights of others or, in other words, materially interferes and substantially.[s] with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school [or] loss[es] with the rights of others.

In more than half a century since Tinker, the Court addressed variations of the First Amendment question presented in this landmark case. But it did not address the thorny question of when (if ever) the First Amendment rights of public school students should give way to the power of school administrators to regulate speech that (although expressed passively, silently and without mentioning specific students) are allegedly humiliating. personal identity characteristics, such as race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.

In these consolidated appeals, we face a dispute that raises this issue for the first time in our circuit, although other federal courts have faced it before. The underlying suit, filed in the District of Massachusetts, concerns the hate speech provision of a public college's dress code, which the defendants applied to first prohibit a twelve-year-old student from wearing a t -shirt on which it was written There are only two. Genders and then wearing that same t-shirt with the words Only Two covered with a piece of tape that said CENSORED.

Rely only on Tinkerinvasion of the rights of others limitation, and therefore not TinkerDue to the limitation on material disruption, the district court denied the student's motion for a preliminary injunction. On this same basis, the district court entered final judgment for defendants on all of the students' claims, which challenged both the specific applications of the dress code and two portions of the dress code contained in their text. We affirm the district court's decisions, although on somewhat different grounds.

We begin with LM's challenges to the rulings rejecting his claims as applied, which rely on what this record shows about the reasonableness of Middleborough's (1) interpretation of the messages at issue in each claim as demeaning from the type of personal characteristics. identity described above and (2) anticipate that each of these messages, because of its negative psychological impact on students exhibiting the humiliated characteristic, would poison the educational atmosphere and thus materially disrupt the learning environment, Nuxoll523 F.3d at p. 676. Because we conclude that the record reveals that Middleborough made each appearance, we conclude that his actions must be upheld under Tinkerthe limitation of material disturbances even if it is not also, on the basis of these same elements, by virtue Tinkerlimitation of the rights of others.

We end by highlighting a point which may seem obvious but which should not be overlooked. The question here is not whether the t-shirts should have been banned. The question is who should decide whether to ban them: educators or federal judges. Based on Tinkerthe cases that apply it and the specific record here, we cannot say that in this case the Constitution assigns the sensitive (and potentially consequential) judgment of what would make an environment conducive to learning to NMS rather than to educators closest to the scene.

LM v. Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-106-24) (70 pages) (Barron, Chief Justice) Appeal from a decision of Judge Talwani to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. David A. Cortman, with whom Rory T. Gray, Tyson C. Langhofer, P. Logan Spena, John J. Bursch, Andrew D. Beckwith, Samuel J. Whiting, Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute were in brief, for the plaintiff-appellant; J. Michael Connolly, Thomas S. Vaseliou, Rachel L. Daley and Consovoy McCarthy PLLC in brief for Parents Defending Education, amicus curiae; Joseph D. Spate, Alan Wilson, Robert Cook, J. Emory Smith Jr., Thomas T. Hydrick, Steve Marshall, Tim Griffin, Christopher M. Carr, Ral Labrador, Brenna Bird, Daniel Cameron, Jeff Landry, Lynn Fitch, Andrew Bailey, Austin Knudsen, Michael T. Hilgers, Drew Wrigley, Ken Paxton, Sean Reyes and Jason Miyares in brief for South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky , Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and the North. Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia, amici curiae; Robert Corn-Revere and Abigail E. Smith in brief for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, amicus curiae; Gary M. Lawkowski and Dhillon Law Group, Inc. in brief for the Center for American Liberty, amicus curiae; James L. Kerwin, William E. Trachman, and Ilya Shapiro in brief for the Mountain States Legal Foundation and the Manhattan Institute, amici curiae; Catherine W. Short and Sheila A. Green in brief for the Life Legal Defense Foundation and Young America's Foundation, amici curiae; Gene C. Shaerr, Jennifer C. Braceras and Schaerr Jaffe LLP in brief for the Independent Women's Law Center, amicus curiae; Deborah J. Dewart in brief for the Institute for Faith and Family, amicus curiae; Deborah I. Ecker, with whom Gregg J. Corbo and KP Law, PC were briefed, for defendants-appellees; Ruth A. Bourquin, Kirsten V. Mayer, and Rachel E. Davidson in brief for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Inc., amicus curiae; Chris Erchull, Mary L. Bonauto, Gary D. Buseck, Michael J. Long, Kelly T. Gonzalez and Long, Dipietro and Gonzalez in brief for GLBTQ attorneys and legal advocates and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, amici curiae; Charles McLaurin, Jin Hee Lee, Avatara Smith-Carrington, Janai S. Nelson, Samuel Spital, Alexsis Johnson and Colin Burke in brief for NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., amicus curiae (Dockets Nos. 23-1535 and 23-1645 ) (June 9, 2024).

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