Guest AuthorOut there on the West Coast, the courts seem to have a demented understanding of the Constitution. I refer especially to the most reversed appellate court in the country, The Ninth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Often referred to as the “Ninth Circus Court of Appeals,” it has struck again.
This is the same court that has issued a number of opinions that are insults to patriotic Americans.
The Ninth Circuit has been a trail-blazing court in regulating every aspect of life, from redefining marriage to regulations on businesses. They have been leading the culture war — leading it in the wrong direction, siding with the left and engaging in “social engineering” rather than following the Constitution.
This is the court that ordered Google to remove “Innocence of Muslims,” the Muhammad video that President Obama blamed for the Benghazi jihad attacks, from YouTube. So much for freedom of expression in America.
Recently the court issued yet another ruling likely to cause the blood pressure of patriotic Americans to skyrocket. In this case, the court ruled that officials at Live Oak High School, in a San Jose suburb, were justified in ordering students to take off or turn inside out their American flag T-shirts to avoid racial violence.
Why would American flag shirts prompt violence? It seems that Hispanic students at the school were celebrating Cinco de Mayo, so the American flag had to be hidden.
Hispanic students felt that students wearing American flags were disrespecting Mexican-American students.
I recognize that school authorities have an obligation to ensure order and safety, but it should be a high bar to limit free expression.
School officials should be required to ensure the safety of students, particularly when it comes to students expressing their love for the country, a nation that guarantees free expression!
If there was a threat of violence, perhaps school officials should have directed their efforts at the Hispanic students who were celebrating a foreign holiday in an American school on American soil. Perhaps the Cinco de Mayo celebration should have been canceled.
Come to think about it, why is an American school sponsoring a Cinco de Mayo celebration anyway?
If the court believed that there was a record of past disruption on the campus at previous similar events, then the solution would have been for the school to cancel the Cinco de Mayo celebration, not to deprive patriotic students their right of free speech.
The case arose from an incident when three boys wore flag T-shirts and two others wore flag bandannas to Live Oak. The school had experienced strife between Hispanic and Anglo students on Cinco de Mayo the previous year.
When an administrator saw the boys in the cafeteria, he ordered them to turn the shirts inside out and remove their bandannas or face suspension. They choose to be suspended. Good for them.
This is the United States of America. The idea that it’s offensive to wear patriotic clothing — regardless of what day it is — is unconscionable.
This is a classic “heckler’s veto” — thugs threatening to attack the speaker, and government officials suppressing the speech to prevent violence. “Heckler’s vetoes” are generally not allowed under First Amendment law; the government should generally protect the speaker and threaten to arrest the thugs, not suppress the speaker’s speech.
The lessons being taught by this decision are appalling: Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. The school taught its students a simple lesson: If you dislike speech and want it suppressed, then you can get what you want by threatening violence against the speakers.
The school will cave in, the speakers will be shut up, and you and your ideology will win. When thuggery pays, the result is more thuggery. Is that the education we want our students to be getting?
Would the Ninth Circuit uphold a heckler’s veto if students wearing rainbow T-shirts were being threatened? How about if students wearing Mexican flags were being threatened by Caucasians? The question answers itself, at least in the Ninth Circuit.
As the Constitutional Convention was ending in 1787, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor Franklin, what have we got: a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Apparently, we can’t — at least in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals..
That’s My Opinion and I am sticking to it.
John Grant is a political columnist who served 21 years in the Florida Legislature and now practices estate planning law in Tampa. He can be reached at [email protected] Column courtesy of Context Florida.
