Reflections From a Murky Pond

The 9th Curcuit of the US Court of Appeals has reaffirmed that Constitutional and Civil Rights are not fully applicable or to be enjoyed by juveniles in the setting of a state-run school with their decision upon Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District.

They have ruled that it is no violation of students’ rights to force them to either leave school or change clothes for wearing shirts with the US Flag upon them on Cinco de Mayo. Such juveniles don’t have the same level rights as adults enjoy under the law.

Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District

SUMMARY
Civil Rights

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in a civil rights suit brought by high school students who were asked to remove clothing bearing images of the American flag after school officials learned of threats of race-related violence during a school-sanctioned celebration of Cinco de Mayo.

The panel held that school officials did not violate the students’ rights to freedom of expression, due process, or equal protection. The panel held 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. The panel held that school officials anticipated violence or substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and their response was tailored to the circumstances.

OPINION

McKeown, Circuit Judge:

First Amendment rights and the operational and safety needs of schools. As we noted in Wynar v. Douglas County School District, 728 F.3d 1062, 1064 (9th Cir. 2013), “school administrators face the daunting task of evaluating potential threats of violence and keeping their students safe without impinging on their constitutional rights.” In this case, after school officials learned of threats of race-related violence during a school-sanctioned celebration of Cinco de Mayo, the school asked a group of students to remove clothing bearing images of the American flag.

The students brought a civil rights suit against the school district and two school officials, alleging violations of their federal and state constitutional rights to freedom of expression, equal protection, and due process. We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment as to the only defendant party to this appeal, Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez, and its denial of the students’ motion for summary judgment, on all claims. School officials anticipated violence or substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and their response was tailored to the circumstances. As a consequence, we conclude that school officials did not violate the students’ rights to freedom of expression, due process, or equal protection.

Given the text of the opinion in the 1969 case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District this was a solid legal decision on the part of the Court. Tinker did, after all, hold that school administrators could violate the constitutional and civil rights of students for the purpose of maintaining order and preventing disruption of the normal operations of the school.  As disruption in the form of violence was likely, Mckeown’s ruling, displeasing as it is, was right based upon earlier Court precedents.

It’d be better if the 9th Circuit had undertaken to decide that, even in the case of minors in school, “Hecklers’ Vetoes” are unconstitutional. Sadly, the 9th Circuit and Judge McKeown is particular has a trend in holding strictly to Tinker. Expecting a significant policy change isn’t really realistic.

A Small Thought Experiment

What actually happened was that during the school’s 2010 Cinco de Mayo celebration, a Hispanic Assistant Principal, Miguel Rodriguez demanded that some White students remove their shirts which had the US Flag on them because Hispanic students were likely to become violent towards them based upon both current and previous behavior by those Hispanic students.

That was not a violation of any the White students’ rights.

What could have happened in an alternate reality is that during that 2010 Cinco de Mayo celebration a Caucasian Assistant Principal, John Smith demanded that some Hispanic students remove their shirts which had the Mexican Flag on them because White students were likely to become violent towards them based upon both current and previous behavior by those White students.

Care to wager whether or not that would have been a violation those Hispanic students’ rights?

A Final Consideration

It might actually be that Tinker sets forth the correct constitutional rule in this case. Schools do have special responsibilities to educate their students and to protect them both against violence and against disruption of their educations. Thus a school might thus have and require the discretion to decide that prevention of disruption, even at the cost of suppressing speech, is acceptable.

That, however, does not address the fact that in parts of California it is utterly unsafe for White ,American students to wear or display our nation’s flag while at school due to the reasonable fear that Hispanic students will physically attack them for doing so. Worse, the only way that the schools can- or is willing protect them is by restricting their freedoms rather than punishing and/or reeducating the violent Hispanics.

Tags: 1st Amendment | America | California | Civil Rights | Constitutional Law | Courts | Federal Courts | Freedom | High School | Hispanics | Liberty | Politics | Racism | School | Society | Tyranny | Whites

This entry was posted on Friday, February 28th, 2014 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Up until now the Obama Regime’s most active and overt racist, Attorney General Eric “My People” Holder has remained utterly silent upon the predominantly Black criminal phenomenon of the Knockout Game. As long as it stayed mostly a Black on White thing they were more than happy to keep out of it and not bother to charge any of the captured thugs with federal hate crimes.

That has now finally changed. There’s actually been a case of a White thug playing the Knockout Game by assaulting an elderly Black man.

Of course, in what passes for the racism plagued psyche of Eric Holder, this is a hate crime and the the Justice Department is stepping right in to make a point.

The Justice Department said it filed a criminal complaint against 27-year-old Conrad Alvin Barrett on Tuesday and arrested him on Thursday. According to Justice officials, Mr. Barrett recorded himself on his cellphone attacking the 79-year-old man, laughing and saying “Knockout” as he runs away.

The charge marks the first time the administration has taken action on a “knockout” case after the game became an Internet and media phenomenon. It chose a case in which the person accused is white, even though most other cases reported in the news have involved black assailants.

Yet this is to be expected from the most active and overt racist within the Obama Regime. Of course the boy would only declare it a federal hate crime when it was White on Black. To thugs like Holder hate crimes can only be White on Black or Brown, never Black on anything.

A ghetto thug is a ghetto thug, whether it’s in a hoodie or dressed up in a suit. America’s laws were meant to control them, not be controlled by them. Holder certainly belongs more properly behind bars or hanging from a tree than he does in the DOJ or any other facet of civil society.

Tags: America | Blacks | Crime | Federal Courts | Ghetto Thugs | Hate Crimes | Holder | Knockout Game | Law | Obama | Politics | Racial Politics | Racism | Thugs

This entry was posted on Friday, December 27th, 2013 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

One can tell a great deal about an individual by who or what they fear. Even more than love or desire, fear is a telling marker of one’s beliefs and the content of one’s character. Insecurities make the man as it were.

Obama’s insecurities and who and what he fears should themselves strike a chord of fear or, at least, concern in hearts of the American people. This is because Obama fears us, not our enemies, and his actions clearly show this to be case.

Late Friday, December 20. 2013 the Obama Regime moved to prevent a federal judge in California from ruling on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance programs that they’ve been using throughout Obama’s tenure as POTUS. They claim that, despite all the recent exposures of National Security Agency domestic spying, litigating the case in an open court would jeopardize state secrets.

That’s a very telling position for the same regime that strove for years to have Muslim terrorists removed from Gitmo and tried in US federal courts, despite constant warnings from Congress, the military, and the intelligence services that doing so would would jeopardize state secrets and not be in the interests of American national security.

Obviously, Obama has no fear of Muslim terrorists but a great deal of fear of the American people. He’s seemingly only insecure about state secret pertaining to his regime’s covert surveillance of the American people.

Tags: Courts | Fear | Federal Courts | Freedom | Muslims | NSA | Obama | Politics | Spying | Terrorism | Terrorists | Tyranny

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 24th, 2013 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Politics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

A lot of Americans are less than totally pleased that Mitt Romney is the Republican Presidential Nominee, feeling that the choice between Romney and Obama is not really much of a choice at all. Romney is, after all, not fundamentally different from Obama in most meaningful ways.

The resulting apathy among Americans is compounded by the fact that Obama isn’t the great Socialist demagogue that he portrayed himself to be. He is, instead, a weak, petty, and narcissistic, and has no real agenda beyond his own aggrandizement. Additionally, with Conservatives in control of the House and having a strong enough force in the Senate to block the Liberal agenda, the tenant of the White House seems largely immaterial to the more casual observer.

Any Questions As To Why Obama Must Be Defeated?

The similarities between Obama and Romney once again compound the issue. Romney too is weak, petty, and narcissistic, and has no real agenda beyond his own aggrandizement. He has no moral or policy positions and will, as he has always done, flip-flop on one issue after another based upon what he and his handlers feel will serve him best at that moment.

This malaise must be countered firmly and put to rest. Beyond all foreign and domestic policy (non)positions, beyond all legislative attempts that can be altered or blocked by the Americans in Congress, it is imperative that Obama be defeated and removed from office in November, 2012. The threat he poses to America is dire and of a generational nature.

US Supreme Court justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Ginsburg are all expected to retire soon, quite likely within the next four years. Given the nature of the Court this means that whoever is President over the next four years will likely be able to shape the nature of the SCOTUS for a generation!

Are there any questions left as to why Americans must do everything and anything in their power to ensure that Obama is not the to be in a position to do that? Does any American want another Warren Court?!?

Tags: 2012 Elections | America | Conservatives | Federal Courts | Judicial Activism | Law | Liberals | Mitt Romney | Obama | Politics | US Supreme Court

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2012 at 8:50 am and is filed under 2012 Election. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

On Wednesday, January 11, 2012 the US Supreme Court delivered a well-deserved spanking to Obama’s boy, Eric Holder. In an unanimous decision the SCOTUS informed the worthless and murderously criminal Holder – and his overseer at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. – that, despite the Obama Regime’s best efforts, the Constitution is still the highest law in the land and it includes the right of religious freedom.

In the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC the SCOTUS Justices rendered a blunt 9-0 ruling that the Obama Regime does not have the right or privilege to tell a religious institution who may or may not be in their clergy nor under what terms they onboard or offboard such ministers and/or priests, overruling and reversing the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’ early decision.

The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

— Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
Writing for the Court

So, for now, the shades of the Founding Fathers are smiling. The Supreme Court unanimously slapped down the Obama Regime’s attempt to violate the 1st Amendment and Americans’ freedom of religion.

Tags: 1st Amendment | America | Christianity | Constitutional Law | DOJ | EEOC | Employment | Federal Courts | Freedom | Holder | Law | Michigan | Obama | Perich | Politics | Religion | The Constitution | Tyranny | US Supreme Court

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2012 at 10:48 am and is filed under Politics, Religion. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.