I've written previously about the Benjamin Arthurs case in North Carolina where a school told a student he could not wear a Christian t-shirt or hand out "Day of Truth" cards in response to the "Day of Silence" protests at his school. The ADF has announced a settlement in the case, with the school agreeing that it was wrong and changing its policy to allow t-shirts with religious messages on them. That's the right outcome, as the school ws clearly wrong.
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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
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Arthurs Case Settled
Posted on: March 6, 2007 9:47 AM, by Ed Brayton
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I think this case, like the one you mentioned earlier, begs the question: to what logical extreme can free speech in schools (or other environments with lots of children) be taken? Should I be allowed to run into an elementary school and yell "Jews suck, yay Hitler!" As I recall, I'd get sent to the principal's office if I used a curse word in class. Why is that not okay but having a shirt that says, "Jesus hates queers" just peachy?
Posted by: Brandon | March 6, 2007 10:23 AM
Actually, this case is much more benign than that. The t-shirt this kid wore said "I Love Jesus" on the front and "You Should Too" on the back. I can't imagine any serious argument for why such a shirt should be banned.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 6, 2007 10:29 AM
Brandon:
Yes there are limits.
No the limts were not reached in this case.
Actually, profanity - such as in the example you used - can probably be defined more easily than 'hate speech' and 'promoting terrorism' can be defined. Nevertheless, most primary and secondary schools ban all three categories of expression. I think the organization known as The Working Group has done a lot in helping communities navigate these waters.
But you would be hard pressed to categorize what this student was doing as falling under any of those.
Posted by: Poly | March 6, 2007 3:34 PM
testing
Posted by: Tim Murtaugh | March 6, 2007 5:53 PM
Ed and I have disagreed on this issue in the past, I believe the California case (Harper) is one where the student should have been told to remove the shirt whereas I agree with him here that this is a benign display of faith and free speech.
I believe a key way to look at this is, if you insert a racial slur for a slogan opposing homosexuality, and it would "fly" it is probably okay.
IE "black is beautiful" = no problem
A confederate flag on the front with "I just want to own what my grandaddy owned" on the back, no go.
Here on our campus the opponents to the day of silence handle is quite differently. They tend to, at most, wear their FCS (Fellowship of Christian Students) shirts, which are, as far as I've seen over the last three years, benign promotions of Christianity, not condemnations of Homosexuality, etc.
I believe the faculty sponsors have a rather positive philosphy of "love the sinner, hate the sin" that they actually seem to follow. Though I disagree with that philosophy, and generally find it to be a thin veil for gay bashing in most cases, in this case it seems that they (at least on the surface) live up to it.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | March 7, 2007 4:58 PM