Free Speech In Public Schools

[An1m]

Can anyone help me find ANY relevant information about NJ law governing free speech in public schools? Specifically spoken forms of speech. I'm pretty sure that I read in NJ Law monthly or something like that, that Students can say just about anything they want to as long as they don't disrupt the learning process.

Also, if anyone can find information about appealing suspensions in New Jersey schools or Essex County schools in particular I would greatly appreciate it.

As Payment, I will get someone a 250 of Nakhla or AF or comparable tobacco for their help, shipped. Or the funds for Pay-Pal.

[Bye bye now have fun]

i cant remember if it was just maryland or not but you dont have free speech in highschools (thats what im assuming you are saying) if they consider what you are doing disruptive to other students or staff they can take action.

[annual]

"The New Jersey State Constitution guarantees children a free, thorough, and efficient public education. Other state constitutions contain similar guarantees. If a student’s behavior disrupts the education of other students, the other students’ rights are being infringed.

Courts regularly balance an individual’s rights against the rights of others. The right to be free from harm is only one of many. Also, I know of no right that permits an individual to infringe on the safety of another, regardless of the setting."



I did about 5 minutes of searching found these articles for you:

http://thestateofamerica.wordpress.com/200...ns-free-speech/
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/lawsconstitut...onstitution.asp

This is related to suspensions: http://family-law.lawyers.com/School-Discipline.html Edited April 22, 2009 by annual

[Bye bye now have fun]

also "hate speech" is banned so no swastikas, confederate flags, dixie on your car horn (someone got suspeneded for hate speech over it). also back in highschool a bunch of kids got suspended for portesting bush during lunch at the flag poll but they ruled it leaveing school grounds

[MechAnt]

www.sb4af.wordpress.com

Group on my campus talking about free speech suppression on University campuses everywhere in the US. might be some relevant info for you/

[Stuie]

it's been a long time but i think i have heard this debate a few times in high school 10 years ago... what comes down to is legally you don't have all the rights of the constitution till your 18. After that doing anything that might provoke disruption or violence, can be dealt with by any means that are not excessive....of course this was a decade ago.

[Vladimir]

FIRE Is your best resource. I will e-mail you a paper I wrote on the topic recently, not SUPER applicable for you because mine was written to a PRIVATE school so it had less to do with the legality and more to do with why it is harmful to the atmosphere.

Whats your e-mail address? Edited April 22, 2009 by Vladimir

[judgeposer]

Can anyone help me find ANY relevant information about NJ law governing free speech in public schools? Specifically spoken forms of speech. I'm pretty sure that I read in NJ Law monthly or something like that, that Students can say just about anything they want to as long as they don't disrupt the learning process.

Also, if anyone can find information about appealing suspensions in New Jersey schools or Essex County schools in particular I would greatly appreciate it.

As Payment, I will get someone a 250 of Nakhla or AF or comparable tobacco for their help, shipped. Or the funds for Pay-Pal.

Perhaps you already know this, but since free speech, as provided for in the First Amendment, has been incorporated, that is it applies to the States (see Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925)), the US Constitution offers a "baseline" of protection. That means that while states can expand those incorporated freedoms protected by our Bill of Rights, states cannot restrict those rights to an extent less than what is federally protected. Put another way, if we know the boundaries of our federally protected rights, such as speech, then we can have a good idea of the "minimum" measure of our rights.

In your research then, while it might be instructive to seek out state law, particularly the NJ State Constitution, from our US Constitution and susquent federal cases, we can gather the most narrow scope of those federally protected fundamental rights. Again, states cannot place limits on those rights more restrictive than what federal law protects.

The seminal cases for First Amendment speech having to do with high school are:
Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community School District (1969)
Papish v. Bd. of Curators of the Univ. of Missouri (1973)
Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986)
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
Morse v Frederick (2007)
(all from 'Exploring Constitutional Law')

From those sources, I found that Tinker presents the most explicit standard: A school may curtail students' free speech rights once they can present evidence that its curtailment was necessary to avoid "substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of other."The Court, in that case, held specifically:

1. In wearing armbands, the petitioners were quiet and passive. They were not disruptive and did not impinge upon the rights of others. In these circumstances, their conduct was within the protection of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth. Pp. 505-506.

2. First Amendment rights are available to teachers and students, subject to application in light of the special characteristics of the school environment. Pp. 506-507.

3. A prohibition against expression of opinion, without any evidence that the rule is necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others, is not permissible under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Pp. 507-514.

It seems then, that a school cannot curtail a student's exercise of his speech once his expression does not disrupt or impinge upon the rights of others, nor runs aground of an in-place disciplinary rule that can meet the Court's strict scrutiny (a compelling government interest, that's narrowly tailored, and that pursues the least restrictive means).

Your legal analysis must also include -as mine just did- that the Supreme Court (or any court of competent jurisdiction) will evaluate the curtailment of free speech using the standard of strict scrutiny. Also keep in mind the several exceptions to First Amendment protection, like fighting words, obscene speech, or clear and present danger. So, once you compile your legal research, filter your facts through the governing law, accounting for the strict scrutiny standard and the exceptions to First Amendment speech protection, then you will have your answer to whether the particular type of speech you're considering can find protection within the First Amendment.

[jayeee07]

There's not even free speech on this fucking public forum. Its pretty redic...

[judgeposer]

There's not even free speech on this fucking public forum. Its pretty redic...

This isn't a public forum, at least in the sense protected by the First Amendment, which generally prohibits government from limiting freedom of expression.

[judgeposer]

Can anyone help me find ANY relevant information about NJ law governing free speech in public schools? Specifically spoken forms of speech. I'm pretty sure that I read in NJ Law monthly or something like that, that Students can say just about anything they want to as long as they don't disrupt the learning process.

Also, if anyone can find information about appealing suspensions in New Jersey schools or Essex County schools in particular I would greatly appreciate it.

As Payment, I will get someone a 250 of Nakhla or AF or comparable tobacco for their help, shipped. Or the funds for Pay-Pal.

An1m, what I should've made clearer in my reply is that finding New Jersey-specific law for your purposes might not go the necessary distance in that any such law can only expand the federally protected freedom of speech. Though I didn't say this in most explicit terms, you probably put it together from what I did write.

Additionally, "that Students can say just about anything they want to as long as they don't disrupt the learning process," seems to me rather reductionist, and might produce bad analysis since terms like "disrupt," and "learning process" don't lend themselves to be easily defined. As I said, a proper legal analysis might entail considering other factors, such as whether the school has some sort of in-place speech code that governs "acceptable" speech, which requires one type of analysis, or whether the school administration simply responded ad-hoc, and in doing so curtails some expression of a student's speech; this requires a different type of legal analysis. Here's a great overview I found: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech...n/overview.aspx.

[Bye bye now have fun]

There's not even free speech on this fucking public forum. Its pretty redic...

cool story bro last time i checked the 1st only protected against the government from impeding on your speech.

[An1m]

All Right thanks for all of the replies everybody, I was trying to get my little brother un-suspended. He asked a sexurity guard in his school's lunch room "why are you looking at my ass" and then proceeded to ask the man if he was homosexual. He's lodged complaints against this guard bothering him before, with the vice principal, but nothing came of it. The principal said "tell your mother" On the day this cursing thing happened, the guy had been standing directly behind him, in the lunchroom, while my brother was eating. Eventually my brother's friends notified him that the creepy security guard was staring at his ass for 4 or 5 minutes.

He did not disrupt the learning process, I suppose they can consider that verbal abuse.

My main concern is that the principal refused to give us an appeal of the suspension. Which he is supposed to have the right to. Today is the second day of the 2 day suspension so it's almost a lost cause. But I still want to definitively answer these questions.

In reference to all of the precedents posted, I've read about them all already, except for the one from 2007, but I remember reading something that talked specifically about new jersey law, in regards to this. Now I can't find it.

[Bye bye now have fun]

he used obscenity directed at a staff member. in maryland its a 5 day suspension. i got hit with it because i was talking to a friend in the hall and said it was "crap that mr kennedy took off points because he said we didnt have to show our work" and someone over heard it. also on an unrelated note, i wouldnt have guessed that someoene living in your house would be a blatant homophobe. he could have easily said butt or rear.

[Vladimir]

This kind of speech is unlikely to be protected under any free speech laws. Your best bet is for your brother to grow up a little and apologize and move on.

[MechAnt]

I'm not sure his choice of phrasing was anything that could be properly defended. His words were inflammatory, offensive, and directed at a staff member.

[An1m]

he used obscenity directed at a staff member. in maryland its a 5 day suspension. i got hit with it because i was talking to a friend in the hall and said it was "crap that mr kennedy took off points because he said we didnt have to show our work" and someone over heard it. also on an unrelated note, i wouldnt have guessed that someoene living in your house would be a blatant homophobe. he could have easily said butt or rear.

Yup he's a little cunt but I was trying to help him out, simply because I remember reading something that seemed to protect his speech in that instance. I try to talk to him about being a homophobe and using words like bitch and nigger but to no avail. Ah well, what can one do? He's not my ideal brother. I sometimes doubt we are actually related at all.

[tinyj316]

I would actually look at some of the supreme court rulings on free speech in high schools. The majority of those rulings have laid out a fairly basic guideline as to what is allowed, and some standards for the oversight the school has.

For example: one of my co-worker's sons got suspended for three days for wearing a pink bandanna around his arm. His (public) school has a strict dress code, and the bandanna was breaking the dress code and seen as disruptive. He was wearing it because his grandmother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The school still suspended him. The next day, as word got out, 30-40 kids came to school wearing pink bandannas that friday as a protest. They all got detentions. One of the kids parents is a lawyer and filed a suit against the school and the board of education. The detentions and suspension were reversed as a result of symbolic speech being protected as a result of Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District....The school knew they didn't have any legs to stand on, so they issued an apology to all the kids and their parents. Unfortunately, this didn't make the local news.

The moral of the story: A competent student/parent/lawyer is the worst enemy of public institutions like a school district.


Edit: some grammar... it was pretty bad

[newjacksm]

you dont have any rights in high school, public school are starting to enforce a "No-Hoodie" rule and no more then 1 free period. Shit when I was in high school if you wanted more then 1 free period then by so be it have 3 or 4 free periods and enjoy your senior year!

[annual]

So who gets the 250g of nakhla?