Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Remember the case from Florida a few months ago where the principal forbid students from wearing anything pro-gay to school, including even rainbow stickers on their notebooks? Well he just got a major smackdown in federal court. But before even getting to the judge's statements, you have to see some of what the principal testified to in court the other day. A local TV station reports:
The string of incidents began last September, when a student who was ridiculed for being gay approached Principal Davis to file a complaint.Monday in court, Davis says he told the student not to discuss her sexual orientation with other students.
Days later, Davis heard of students making gay rights signs, and reports of 25 of them coming to school with the letters "GP" or "Gay Pride" written on their hands.
The student had actually gone to a teacher's aide to complain about anti-gay harassment. The teacher's aide then told the principal about it and the principal called in the student being harassed and interrogated her about it and told her she could not speak to other students about being gay and that she wouldn't be harassed if she'd just stay quiet about it. That was when her friends decided to express their support for her. They made t-shirts with slogans like this:
Gillman made t-shirts with slogans like: -"I support equal marriage rights" -"I support gays" -"Equal not special rights"
The principal declared that anyone who wore them, or who had rainbow stickers on anything or who put GP on anything would be suspended for 5 days. If they did it again, it would be 10 days and the school would recommend expulsion. And you're gonna love the reason why:
Monday in court, Davis said students who see the slogans and symbols would be distracted in class, even have mental images of gays having sex.
But guess what was acceptable to wear to school:
Another interesting point, Davis says clothes with the confederate flag are allowed at school. He says they haven't caused a distraction.
Bizarrely, the original response from the school when the ACLU sent them a letter challenging the policy was to claim that any symbols on clothing showed membership in an "illegal organization" or "secret society." Seriously. In his comments from the bench, the judge ridiculed that rationale and suggested that perhaps "wiser counsel" would have offered a better argument. Translation: your attorney is a moron and you should fire him.
He also blasted the school superintendent for an "investigation" of the incident that was was absolutely pointless:
I find that the investigation conducted by the School Board through its superintendent was so deficient that it was the equivalent of no investigation at all. I would have expected a detailed report on all issues raised by the ACLU September 25th letter. As I understood the testimony from the superintendent, he was basically told look into this, he called the principal, the principal said it didn't happen. And that was his report back to the School Board. No one else was interviewed.
This is clearly a school run by idiots. The judge has not issued a full ruling yet, but he granted a permanent injunction against this policy by the school. A big victory for free speech.
Comments
What is with Florida these days?
Can we just get the rapture over with, please? =P
Posted by: FastLane | May 15, 2008 9:53 AM
After the rapture the average IQ will shoot up rapidly. I predict it, god told me so. :)
Posted by: DingoJack | May 15, 2008 10:04 AM
No no no, you don't understand. The Confederate flag just demonstrates pride in the heritage (of white people descended from slave owners and those who fought for the state right to trade in human beings like livestock). It's no more distracting than would be other symbols of White Power, like swastikas and pointed hoods. Y'all just don't understand that Obama really does look like a monkey and that gays form secret organizations to overthrow Christian civilization because you're a bunch of ACLU-lovin' liberal Yankee commies.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | May 15, 2008 10:29 AM
The fact that the judge issued a permanent injunction off the bat is another sign of what an open-and-shut case this is. If the school district had anything approaching an argument, he would have issued a temporary injunction and ordered the school district to show cause why it should not become permanent.
Posted by: Bill Pose | May 15, 2008 11:24 AM
"What is with Florida these days?"
If you had to live on a limp wang, you'd probably be bitter too.
Posted by: Deepsix | May 15, 2008 11:57 AM
I wish some of the students were found to be forgetful fans of Grand Prix - ;) DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 15, 2008 12:22 PM
Or needed to remember to see thier General Practitioner.
Oh all right I'll stop now. ;) DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 15, 2008 12:25 PM
To Mr. Davis: Just 'cause you think you're being sneaky doesn't mean you are. Also, you seem a bit obsessed with the imagery bit. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Mac | May 15, 2008 12:30 PM
...because you're a bunch of ACLU-lovin' liberal Yankee commies.
Thanks! That's perhaps the best compliment this soldier has gotten in a while.
Posted by: Josh | May 15, 2008 12:31 PM
This unprincipled principal is no relation to Jefferson Davis, right? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 15, 2008 12:39 PM
This is blatantly stupid. Free Speech is free speech. The distraction it causes is irrelevant. If the kid is getting harrassed they need to put an end to it. There may be some truth about if you talk about it can bring more harassment but that is beside the point. All kinds of kids talk about all kinds of things all the time that bring distraction and draw attention to themselves. You would have to bring Hitler back from the dead to enforce the speech police to stop that.
THE ONE THING THAT CANNOT HAPPEN IS KIDS GETTING HARRASSED. I have a little girl that is 14 and looks 23 in my class. She went to Europe last year and got groped on the street. Kids heard about it and started blaming her for what she wore. Not knowing that she is Latina and it is part of her culture to dress a certain way. Anyway, it got around that she was a hooker and it came into the HS this year.
When she was out of class and I asked where she was they would say working. Since she was Latina I thought maybe she had an afterschool job that she left early to go to. Many yound Latino kids do this. When I asked where she worked they all started laughing. Since I am getting old I could not figure out why. Then it hit me they were saying she was working the streets.
I get groped for no reason overseas and now I am a hooker. I kniped that crap in the bud that day. Then I sat back and just wondered what we are teaching are kids and why they are so mean to each other. This girl is the nicest kids you ever want to meet and it has cut her to the core. When I asked her if she told anyone what they were saying she said no. Not even her Mom. I asked her if she wanted me to help and she said if I talked to those who were doing it then it would get worse. I have to respect her wishes.
So all that to say that they need to make it clear that if the girl (from Florida) is harrassed and it is heard people are going home. But then again you could lose your school to the Federal Government for having too high a suspension rate. NCLB is ruining what is left of the Public Schools. Much like Communism is promotes in the end the exact thing that is was created to solve: caous with our young people today.
Posted by: King of Ireland | May 15, 2008 12:44 PM
These nuts always seem to constantly sitting around imagining gay people having sex. Even gay people don't do that. Is that why they get excited watching football players slap each others asses?
Posted by: QrazyQat | May 15, 2008 12:47 PM
No! Qrazy, football is about being MANLY MEN! The ass-slapping isn't the exciting part. The part where a bunch of beefy, sweaty, Spandex-clad men all slam each other into the ground is the exciting part.
Wonder if he has problems with those pervasive "mental images" while thinking about J. Davis or his monument?
Posted by: Mac | May 15, 2008 2:19 PM
The transcripts of the courts comments read like they were done by voice recognition software.
Posted by: f | May 15, 2008 3:44 PM
So upon hearing that some students were interested in making a statement of support in protest against the administration, the principal responded by issuing a list of things they were not allowed to do??? Did he think he was on the organizing committee?
Posted by: Ex-drone | May 15, 2008 7:05 PM
West Florida, up on the Alabama border, with less than 20,000 people in the whole county, 90% of them crackers, so what do you expect. According to the newspaper report, this principal told a parent something close to, "If there was a man in your house and you went to church, you wouldn't be having this gay problem with your daughter." I kid you not, that's principal Davis' take on this situation.
Posted by: Elizabeth | May 15, 2008 8:41 PM
If 90% are crackers, the other 10% must be the wealthier white folks. The article said there are no 'African Americans' at the school. I was wondering how it happens that a Florida public school doesn't have so much as one black child, then thought about those Dixie flags that no-one "cares" about.
Posted by: tim | May 15, 2008 10:13 PM
The fact that this ruling was handed down by a federal judge just goes to show how very important it is for the good people of the United States not to allow John McCain and his crypto-fascist taskmasters to take over appointment of the judiciary for the next four years.
Posted by: Karl | May 16, 2008 1:36 AM
King of Ireland wrote:
This is not correct. As Ed will not doubt agree (since he has said it before), a school can argue that it has a compelling interest in curtailing the freedom of students in order to allow the school to carry out its function. This has to be so: if the school could not put any restrictions on any students, its ability to educate would disappear, and it would just be a waste of money.
However, the burden of proof is on the school to show that any freedom-restricting policy it wants to put into effect does in fact conform to this standard. In other words, in case of doubt, the school should allow the students to do or say any particular thing.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | May 16, 2008 8:38 AM
Not idiots, bigots. Their first tactic when faced with complaints about their behavior is always to tell the plaintiff to shut up and then do nothing to fix it. Its the same thing they'd do the first time an African-American individual would try to get his or herself on the county voter rolls.
Posted by: Julian | May 16, 2008 5:51 PM
up until the federal government started enforcing voting rights laws, I mean.
Posted by: Julian | May 16, 2008 5:54 PM
I am a teacher you do not have to convince me of the Nazi nature of our Public Schools and some of our policies. I am all for discipline but anything that bans free speech makes me nervous. And when I say I am all for discipline I am a disciplinarian teacher in an urban school. We need order for sure but not at the cost of self expression and the ability for all to do so. It is part of education. I would say the same for the Confederate Flag things too. Bring it all out in the open and discuss it. That is how we move beyond all the division in this country.
Posted by: King of Ireland | May 17, 2008 7:23 PM