I'm going to go with the school on this one. That's not appropriate for a school election. By the same token, if it was a straight kid, I'd expect the officials to come down on him just as hard.

Whee!
The school is at least partially correct-- who he gets the hots for has not bearing on his qualifications for office. Of course, how he chooses to run his campaign is almost of no concern to the school...

I say “almost” because the school has a legitimate interest in keeping certain things from being posted around campus. If, for example, he were to post pornographic messages around campus as a “campaign flier”, or offer free recreational drugs to anyone who votes for him, that would be something the school would have a duty to stop...

As it is, the school acting ham-handedly. It needs to cut it out...

As a side note:
I wonder how the school would have reacted to the classic sign:

SEX!

Now that I have your attention, vote Jared Gamwell

Ben,

I'm not sure how a straight guy or girl for that matter would do it. To most the presumption is that a person is straight, unless they have a fabulous gaydar. What would a straight person say that would be equal to what Jared said?

It's not as if the kid was being sexually explicit. All he did was say he was gay. From the way the article is written, his gayness is not a new piece of information. He's out. So everyone knows that he's gay.

Where is the harm?

I think the harm is that high school should be a period where kids are prepared for life in the real world. Letting him think that stupid crap like that is going to fly in a real election would be doing him a disservice. Assuming that any similar stunt by a heterosexual would be similarly squashed, he really has no basis for a complaint.

Mark, you seriously want us to believe that you believe the school was right because the kid shouldn't be deluded about his future viability for public office? Give me a break.

I would love to see both the school's and the ACLU's response if a candidate were to put up posters that said she could be trusted to serve students' interests honorably because she's a faithful Christian. Just to be clear, I'd think it was a great idea, if brought off well.

Plenty of people have no problem identifying gay men as unusually detail-oriented and methodical when it's an opportunity to make us look neurotic, fetishistic, elitist, and bad around children. If Garnwell thinks he can convince students that being gay will make him a good organizer, surely the best way to find out whether it's stupid crap that won't fly in a real election is to see whether he's elected.

Sorry, I have to go with the school on this one. First, the school is not an area for unlimited free speech - see the Hazelwood decision regarding the student press.

Further, his homosexuality most definitely *does not* have any bearing on his candidacy, any more than would a woman who ran with the slogan "vote for me because I like guys" or a man who put up posters saying "I'm down with women."

Those who say that the way he runs his campaign is "of almost no interest to the school" are living in a dream world. High school campus are not the real world, and despite the catch phrase that "students do not shed their rights when they enter the school gates," the fact is that they do shed a lot of them (see Hazelwood above).

As for the ACLU, they're going to say the same boilerplate "free speech" mantra that they say any time they are called. It doesn't mean they're going to win.

I don't know whether the school is legally entitled to do this--it may well be. But it's certainly the wrong thing to do.

For the guy to mention being gay is *not* analogous to a straight guy campaigning that he's a "player," or a girl electioneering on the basis of whether or not she's "easy." He's only stating his gayness, not dishing about me. This is more like a semi-ironic statement by an Asian, black or Latino candidate that his/her ethnicity qualifies him/her for office above the white one for some reason (life experiences or whatever).

Ahem. "Not dishing about men."

Obviously, he emphasizes his gayness because he's hoping people will vote for him because he's gay. That would only apply for one of two reasons, either because people think a gay would be better than a straight for student government, or people just want to vote pro-gay.

Now, turn it around. What if there were a student aggressively advertising that you should vote for him because he *wasn't* gay? That is, encouraging people to vote for him because straights are better than gays for student government, or just to vote pro-straight. FOR SURE the ACLU would be getting involved then and there would be howls of protest for the gallery.

Sexuality, of any persuasion, has no place in a student government election.

Wow. You guys are REALLY overthinking this one.

The guy is a high-school student. Remember what it was like to be in high school? You have no judgement, experience or maturity. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So, the kid puts up a sign, has a good snicker. Then the principal falls for it -- he's suckered into taking it down. I bet the principal is totally clueless about other stuff in his school as well. When principals are bad, they're atrocious. I wonder if he actually picked up the phone and discussed this with the parents. Or the kid.

Now the ACLU is involved, probably because the parents got involved. Did I mention that I thought the principal was clueless? Right.

P.S. For the record, I don't think high school students' rights are protected by the Constitution.

To expand on what Attila Girl said
Since racism and opposition to homosexuality have been considered equal statements by the ACLU, should a student run on the platform "Vote for Me, Because I'm Black/White/Hispanic/Whatever"?

I'm all for him stating that he feels it is an opportunity for a homosexual student to prove leadership ability, but as campaign slogans, even for high school, they don't work.

ON the other hand, if the school just shrugged and said "Whatever, it's your election to win or lose" I'd go with that too. But the school administrators, as the responsible parties, should get the final word.

Rosemary, you're off to an amazing start!

Thanks, John. I'm trying.

I'm on the fence about it. I don't think that his rights are being violated for the same reason as Ara. I don't think student's rights are protected my the constitution.

At the same time, I don't thing saying vote for me because I'm gay is harmful.

I don't suppose saying he's gay is harmful, but there's no reason to include sex in a student campaign.

"Vote for me because I've got a huge penis!"

Some might say that's more explicit than Jared's campaign signs, but I disagree. Jared is telling everyone he wants dicks stuck up his ass by announcing his sexual orientation.

It has no place in the school. Kids don't have Constitutionally protected free speech in this arena. The principal is right. As usual, the ACLU should sit down and have a nice, steaming hot cup of Shut The Fuck Up.

Pardon my French. So to speak.

Like you said, Rosemary, it sounds ike the kid is out anyway, so no surprise there. It's a catchy slogan, so why not?! It's been a while since I was in HS, but I remember cheerleaders promoting themselves via cute little cheer oriented slogans that made it clear what they were, as if anyone didn't know, so why can't this guy?
Nice blog :)

Even though it's high school, it's not completely isolated from the Real World. I find it disturbing when a person gleefully proclaims that Free Speech doesn't apply in a specific situation, because I can't help but suspect that that person wishes such speech could also be stifled elsewhere. If you believe in Free Speech, you've got to be okay with getting offended once in a while. On that basis, I've gotta side with the silly and immature queer positive candidate.

Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 US 675 (1986). A student was suspended for giving a nominating speech in a school election that was "an elaborate, graphic, and explicit sexual metaphor." The US Supreme Court held that suspension was appropriate. While an adult may not be prohibited from making an inappropriate speech, the same does not apply to children in a public school. This is distinguished from Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 US 503. (In Tinker the student suspended wore a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War and was suspended). There was a difference between the non-disruptive political speech of the armbands in Tinker and the offensive, disruptive sexual content of Fraser's speech.

Likely the school's restriction of this student's posters would pass Constitutional muster.

Mike

The bottom line for me is the fact that the school should not be forced to keep ANY posters up that they do not wish to. It's not simply a free speech issue.

The school should, and to the best of my knowledge, does have the right to remove any posters that it feels are innapropriate.

There is quite a difference between protecting free speech and enforcing a venue for that speech.

DSmith:
"Now, turn it around. What if there were a student aggressively advertising that you should vote for him because he *wasn't* gay? That is, encouraging people to vote for him because straights are better than gays for student government, or just to vote pro-straight. FOR SURE the ACLU would be getting involved then and there would be howls of protest for the gallery."

Yes, but that says more about the degraded state of the ACLU than about rights in and of themselves.

Mike:
"

Goddammit, I hate this touchpad thing. What I meant to post was...

DSmith:
"Now, turn it around. What if there were a student aggressively advertising that you should vote for him because he *wasn't* gay? That is, encouraging people to vote for him because straights are better than gays for student government, or just to vote pro-straight. FOR SURE the ACLU would be getting involved then and there would be howls of protest for the gallery."

Yes, but that says more about the degraded state of the ACLU than about rights in and of themselves.

Mike (the second, with the capital letter):
"Likely the school's restriction of this student's posters would pass Constitutional muster."

That's assuming that just saying you're gay constitutes "an elaborate, graphic, and explicit sexual metaphor." I'm not saying that the courts wouldn't rule otherwise--only that you have to establish where both comparability and metaphor are applicable here.

Rosemary, I’m with you and Ara (?) on this one. Of course the school has the legal right to control what’s displayed on school property. The government can legally confiscate your property if they suspect you of drug dealing. That doesn’t make it right or in the spirit or the letter of the Constitution. Gamell’s slogans aren’t dangerous or inflammatory speech so the school is sending a terrible message to students about one of our most important and cherished liberty rights. The Principle is also sending the message that he feels threatened by certain student speech which only serves to give them a greater sense of control (not his intended effect I’m sure).

By the way, John, the ACLU would certainly get involved on behalf of someone who was having their right to proclaim, “vote for me, I’m straight”, violated. If you think that defending speech rights no matter what the speech is “degraded”, well I think that speaks more about you that the ACLU.

Sean: I recommend reading the full opinion. It is available on Lexis, or any depository library should have some Supreme Court reports (additional cites: 106 S.Ct. 3159; 92 L. Ed. 2d 549). I am basing my opinion on the very limited information in the article, but it appears that the student in question is deliberately using an obvious sexual theme in his campaign, is placing up a number of posters (more than one) with this theme. There is no valid reason for this conduct in this school activity. Based on the information in the article, it is likely to be considered inappropriate.

The student's sexual orientation is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this is a school setting, a school sponsored activity, the content of the speech in question has no relevance to the activity involved, and the rights of school children are not co-extensive with the rights of adults.

Mike

My first thought was that the school is being overly restrictive.

However, how would you handle these signs?

"Once you vote Black, you never go back"

"It's time a Girl wore the pants at this school"

"Vote Japanese, or face my samurai sword"

See what I mean? I think the school is right that you should NEVER campaign on a gender/race/sexual orientation basis.

I'm a strong supporter of gay rights, but I go with the school on this one.

Mike:
Is there an opinion--in the judicial sense? I thought the student was enlisting the ACLU to rule the school administration's decision invalid; BTW--and I've tried for work, having relied on it in college--I don't think you can subscribe to LexisNexis with a foreign-issued credit card, so if a ruling has been handed down, I don't know where to find it.

In any case, the link QOAE cited was from FOXNews, which isn't exactly likely to downplay homo explicitness out of sympathy for the cause, and it didn't include anything that seemed sexually explicit, unless you count the words gay and queer.

Mark:
"However, how would you handle these signs?

'Once you vote Black, you never go back'

'It's time a Girl wore the pants at this school'

'Vote Japanese, or face my samurai sword'"

If I could stop being so hot and bothered by that last one, I'd applaud the candidates for using whatever traits they thought they had at their disposal, though I'd think it only fair if non-black, non-girl, and non-Japanese students were able to state without rancor or invective why they thought the posters were misleading.

Hi.

I think the school should let him run his election campaign the way he wants to. "Guided democracy" is not democracy.

Mark, if some kid wants to run on "Vote Herb for Head Heeb," or whatever, I'd say let it ride, it's his call.

Sean: Those cases I cited are opinions of the United States Supreme Court. Fraser was 1986 and is still precedent. Tinker was in the early 1970's and is still precedent, although modified by the Court's ruling in Fraser. My opinion is, of course my own, but I do have eight years of lawyering under my belt. I am not a Constitutional Law professor, but based on the facts I have, I stand by my opinion.

N.B. This is not researched to the fullest extent I would normally do a legal question; my time is a bit restricted.

Mike

I agree with Dsmith on this one. One way to look at free speech is to advocate that one can say whatever one wants without fear of government reprisals. We all know there are limits to that (slander, incitement, pornography laws, etc.). So therefore, the only real way to define free speech is that the limits have to apply equally to everyone.

The point is not that Jared has the right to unfettered free speech, (he doesn't), but if it is to be limited the limits have to apply equally to everyone. And they have to be reasonable. I think this meets that test.

Forget the ACLU- I wouldn't like it if someone said "Vote for me because I'm white," or "Vote for me because I'm straight." I think the high school may have thought they needed to head off that kind of reaction because I sure could see some mischievous high-schoolers doing just that. As a society, someday we'll all get to the point where that is seen as a big joke, but it isn't now.

All supreme court cases are available at findlaw.com, oyez.com or at the supreme court web site. findlaw.com also has many lower court cases available.

Mike, I know you were citing SCOTUS opinions, but thanks for clarifying; I know it's obvious I'm a layperson. Whether the posters in question would Tinker, as it were, with the appropriate discipline in the operations of the school, let alone be comparable to a metaphor that could be characterized as "elaborate, graphic, and explicit" isn't apparent to me. Maybe that's why I'm not a lawyer.

Sean: Not a drama, man. I just wanted to make sure that I was being clear about where the Court was speaking (and I was paraphrasing) and where I was speaking. The question is related to the content of the speech. A political statement is one thing, sexual innuendo or an explicit sexual statement in a school setting is another. This is especially true when it is a school sponsored activity and by its actions (or inaction) the school could appear to be endorsing this student's speech. Schools have a lot of control over the content of school newspapers, for example, and stories regarding the amount of sexual activity among the school's students have been censored by the school administration and these instances of censorship have been upheld. Could sexual matters be brought up in a school setting? Certainly there are class settings where it is done so, and quite rightly. (And for all of those who have ever been in the halls between classes, the cafeteria, or the locker room, it is a staple of conversation. However, the instant situation is distinguished from these private conversations.)

As there does not appear to be any legitimate pedagological reason for the student in question to be bringing this issue up on his campaign posters in a school sponsored activity, the posters may be taken down by the school administration.

I hope that I made myself clear.

Mike

Since, shep, I didn't say that the ACLU was "degraded," I believe that was someone named Mike, I think you have failed in your online pshrink attempt.

The ACLU has proven to be fairly inconsistent of late actually defending civil liberties and primarily defending left-wing causes. This is their choice and they are free to do so. Based on your statement, though, I presume that you are an opponent of hate-speech codes of conduct and hate-crime laws, and therefore have one conservative stance in the midst of your repetoire of fairly left-wing katas (grin).

Mike,
I am willing to stipulate that the school has the right to tear the posters down. What interests me is not whether or not the school can (in the legal sense), but whether or not they should...

You and I seem to be putting the burden on different agencies. Whereas you are putting the burden on the student to prove that his signs are not injurious, I would put said burden on the school to prove that the signs are harmful...

In my mind, the school has not demonstrated that there is any actual benefit to be gained from this particular act of censorship. The school makes 2 claims:

(a)"The language in the two campaign posters in question was determined to be disruptive to the educational process and (b) to have no relevance to the student's qualifications for office,"

To take these in reverse order:
(b) is specious at best: If the candidate can’t win on that argument, that’s his own business. Under that criterion, I’d never see campaign posters that said simply “Bush/Cheney” (or “Kerry/unnamed potential-VP”, if you prefer); there’s no criterion present in a poster with just a name...

(a) is a more substantive claim. If the student is “out” (and it appears that he is) then the only disruption to the educational process would seem to be how other people react to his posters. Unless we are prepared to say that an admission of Homosexuality is per se obscene, I don’t see how it is the student’s fault that other people don’t like gays...

Arne,

Someone already sited that case, I'm not sure if that case established much. Points 2 & 3 clearly allow the school leeway:

"2. First Amendment rights are available to teachers and students, subject to application in light of the special characteristics of the school environment. Pp. 506-507.

3. A prohibition against expression of opinion, without any evidence that the rule is necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others, is not permissible under the First and Fourteenth Amendments."

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Schools limit constitutional freedoms of students, all the time.

Dress codes, surprise locker sweeps and searches, & metal detectors, are a good example of that.

Regardless, do you think that there is or isn't any harm in using your sexual preference as a campaign slogan?

Arne,

No. Not okay. You are full of shit. My statement was not firm. I clearly stated that "I didn't think" students rights are protected by the constitution. Your link didn't prove me wrong. Your link was dealing with protests, that is not the same thing. Try and keep up.

If the student IS GUARANTEED freedom of speech by that 30+ year old judgement, then why are schools allowed to impose dress codes, surprise locker sweeps and searches, & metal detectors.

HUH??????

That was an excellent explanation.

Was it within the school's right to remove those posters or does the kid have the right to use them as worded?

The burden of proof would be on the school, right?

"Not a drama, man."

Mike, just so I'm clear: (1) I was being humble, not pissy; sorry if I sounded that way. I probably shouldn't be on-line at 2 a.m. (2) Everything is a drama.

BTW, the four-letter male name that called the ACLU "degraded" was mine. I wouldn't say that it hasn't been consistent in defending people's Constitutional rights, but it does seem to take up any and every complaint in a way that makes it look foolish and nebbishy.

And I still have the question Arne just brought up: what rules were in place before? I doubt that any school would allow, say, the head cheerleader to run for class president with posters that read, "I've done the whole football team, now find out what I'll do for the class of '06!" But what if she had a demurely cheesecakey photograph of herself in uniform, and the text was...I don't know..."What you see is what you get with Lucinda!"

I have the same question, Sean. Somehow, I have the feeling that it would have been seen as cute and they'd let it slide.

No, Arne, I'm trying to establish how, if we're going to say that banning Gamwell's posters is not an inequitable application of the rule, the rule could apply analogously to a non-gay student. The only other line of reasoning I can see is that homosexuality is a special case, but I don't see that argument being made here.

I understand that beyond a certain point, law has to be too technical for us non-lawyers to get, and that's fine. But we're not talking about how we can legally structure derivatives here, or anything. You referred to "similar rules for other types of content," and while it's clear what that literally means, it is not clear what it would mean when concretely applied. You weren't after all, talking about legal precedents at that point.

I guess it's a good thing we aren't following any rules in my domain, isn't Arne?

You certainly have derailed you fair share of threads by changing the subject as you see fit.

Stop being such a rude bitch to people, or do you want to inspire more "Faux Arnes" to start showing up?

Play nice or get the fuck out.

Lev. 20:13, "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; Their bloodguiltness is upon them"

Sean,

The last two Arne comments were NOT the real Arne. Just a troll posing. Ignore the troll.

Arne,

The faker is using a proxy. You are just going to have to deal with it.

Darn, and being dourly civilized in the face of churlishness was so much fun...though not as much fun as lying with mankind, of course.

I have no clue as to the specific legalities.

I'll just say that from my own memories of high school, that 'correct' or not, it seems administrations can pull in loco parentis on just about anything, regardless of whether they specifically quote it as their reasoning.

The second poster mentioned sounds extremely funny in its play on pop culture, and probably for that reason alone they'd take it down :P School administrations have no sense of humor.

To answer the question in the post, I personally think 1) that it was the wrong choice, 2) if someone, especially a parent, complained, they had no choice in the litiganous era, and 3) given in loco parentis, they would get away with it legally since much more explicit examples of 'free speech' have been negated that way.