Suppressing Free Speech

For John, BLUF:  If you wish to keep your rights you should avoid school.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today, over at Instapundit, Law Professor Glenn Reynolds calls attention to an item in The Washington Post by Law Professor Eugene Volokh, "Not safe to display American flag in American high school".

Professor Reynolds titles his post "K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE" and quotes:

Today’s Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School Dist. (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2014) upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.  (See here and here for more on this case.)  The court points out that the rights of students in public high schools are limited — under the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), student speech could be restricted if “school authorities [can reasonably] forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities” stemming from the speech.  And on the facts of this case, the court concludes, there was reason to think that the wearing of the T-shirts would lead to disruption.  There had been threats of racial violence aimed at students who wore such shirts the year before. . . . This is a classic ‘heckler’s veto’ — thugs threatening to attack the speaker, and government officials suppressing the speech to prevent such violence.”  Leaving aside the First Amendment aspects, this says terrible things about immigration and the state of our public schools.

It seems that students, high school and college, lose many of their rights as American Citizens.  Are we out of balance here?

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff