I miss the First Amendment, wherever it is

Like, whatever happened to the Tinker decision?

The Nashville Tennessean tells us:

Norma Super and her daughter, Dani, proudly displayed "Free The Jena Six" T-shirts at a recent Nashville march. They didn't expect censorship, however, when they arrived at Smyrna High School last week.

The message was meant to support six African-American students charged in the beating of a white peer at Jena High School in Louisiana. While the case gained national attention, primarily for its racial overtones, locally it raised the issue of students' rights to free speech.

Super's daughter was prohibited from wearing the T-shirt inside Smyrna High, along with some other students.

"When I persisted to ask why, the quote was that 'It could cause problems,'" Super said. "It's a political statement. I feel strongly about free speech. I feel like (my daughter's) rights were infringed upon."

School systems throughout the nation have enacted stricter dress codes in recent years and have effectively banned symbols such as Confederate flags and those associated with urban clothing labels. They contend such symbols and images disrupt the learning environment and could jeopardize student safety by sparking arguments and possibly fights.

Messages were left for Smyrna High School Principal Robert "Bud" Raikes for this story, but he was not available for comment.

The Smyrna High administration treated the T-shirt as a dress code violation because it could have caused disruptions, Rutherford County schools spokesman James Evans said. Earlier that morning a handful of students made racial comments in the hallways, and administrators had to intervene, he said.

While providing a safe environment, schools must have a valid reason to stop reasonable student expression, a Nashville legal scholar says.

"Public school officials can censor student expression if they can reasonably forecast that the student expression will cause a substantial disruption of school activities or invade the rights of others," said David L. Hudson Jr., a scholar at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.

Students' First Amendment rights on campus are supported by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1969 decision in Tinker vs. Des Moines (Iowa) Independent Community School District. In that case, two students decided to wear black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War.

(snip)

"What educators can't do is censor simply because they don't like it or because of undifferentiated fear," Hudson said. "They have to point to facts in a school environment. They just can't say, 'Oh, we think this will cause a disruption.' It has to be reasonable."

Hudson teaches First Amendment classes at Vanderbilt Law School and Nashville School of Law. He's also written books on the topic.

When it comes to the classroom, teachers have a broad authority to censor student expression because the courts have determined that learning is more important than free speech, Hudson said.

Hudson, though, said he worries about school administrators who don't provide reasonable proof about causing a disturbance and instead create an environment "where students won't appreciate our Bill of Rights."

AMAZING, ISN'T IT, that it's the First Amendment that always takes it in the shorts when school administrators can't control roving bands of little racists obviously raised by wolves. As society continues to coarsen and people further eschew socialization, how many constitutional rights will we see disappear, all in the name of keeping order?

Don't answer that.