Brickbat: It's Official

The Rochester, Minnesota, school board has declared "Black lives matter," "Brown lives matter," "Indigenous lives matter," "Stop Asian hate," and the pride flag to be official "government speech." According to the board's attorney, that means the school system does not have to allow any speech opposing those statements. "So here with adopting the messages that you're adopting as government speech, you're saying these are the messages that we're communicating as a school district and by doing that we're not also creating a forum to allow other types of speech to enter the forum," said board attorney John Edison.

Comments

[Adans smith]

You know who else didn't allow speech that opposed the government?

[m4019597]

Facebook?

[perlhaqr]

Thread winner.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

John Adams?

[Gozer the Gozarian]

Twitter?

[Chumby]

Fartty Arbuckle?

[Utkonos]

Margot Honecker?

[Tyval Dayall]

I had to look her up because I was not familiar with her. Her "uniform socialist education system" sounds similar to our "common core"

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Abraham Lincoln?

[Brason Tay]

thanks http://review-oto.com/swift-traffic-app-by-venkata-ramana-review/

[perlhaqr]

That is an impressive level of crack smoking. Where did they even *find* softball sized blue crack rocks?

[m4019597]

Hunter’s stash.

[Fist of Etiquette]

By declaring certain phrases involving the Black Lives Matter movement as government speech, the board is protecting itself from legal action because it is allowing one type of speech, but not any speech in opposition to those phrases.

That's a crackerjack attorney the district has.

On the other hand, if BLM is the official government position now, the movement can disband. Job well done.

[Entelechy]

It took generations to turn Edison into the dimmest bulb in the room

[Jerryskids]

You know what else is government speech? Everything a politician says. Therefore it's official, there is/is not a crisis at the border, China is/is not going to eat our lunch, people who make less than $400,000 per year are/are not going to pay a single penny in taxes, 150 million Americans have/have not died from the coronavirus, and all sorts of other diametrically opposed ideas we are supposed to hold all true simultaneously. Which is exactly how George Orwell predicted the future.

[Longtobefree]

Racists gotta be racist.

[Rossami]

That is wildly unconstitutional. Please make the board's attorney personally responsible for the fees of defending this fiasco.

[Ed Grinberg]

That is wildly unconstitutional.

Agreed.

Please make the board’s attorney personally responsible for the fees of defending this fiasco.

So far, no one has sued them. If someone does sue, they won't get very far if Democrats' H.R.1 (For the People Act) gets passed:
"[T]he bill would strip 93 of 94 local federal district courts, and 11 of the 12 regional appellate courts that review their decisions, of their power to hear First Amendment challenges to Congress’s regulation of political speech. All such claims—by Alaskans, Floridians or anyone in between—would be confined to the District of Columbia. Appeals would be heard only in the D.C. Circuit..." (source)

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

That's scary.

[StackOfCoins]

Impressive concentration of political pull there. I just don't care anymore. I will say whatever I wish. If the statists jail me, then they jail me. We all die someday.

[Aladdin's Carpet]

That is not how that works, at all, and the attorney ought to be disbarred for proposing it.

[Will Nonya]

Sadly it is how it works, at least until someone throws the time at resources at a lawsuit to change it.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

"...at least until someone throws the time at resources at a lawsuit to change it."

Exactly; and as far as I know, you still cannot evict a tenant for not paying their rent per CDC directive, no matter how many courts say it is unconstitutional because FYTW.

[Rossami]

It depends on the jurisdiction. If you live in a place where no court has yet said it's unconstitutional, then the CDC moratorium is still in place. And even if you live in a place where the court said it was unconstitutional, the court may have stayed enforcement of that decision to get the tenant and/or the CDC time to appeal.

But if you live in one of the (very few) places where a court said it was unconstitutional and denied the stay, then you can evict the non-paying tenant.

[MT-Man]

Or you go back to little Italy style agreements...

[mad.casual]

Disbar him, his immediate family, and his children for 3 generations. Why not? Equality before the law? Presumption of innocense? Cruel and Unusual?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

So they think the government taking an official position means Noone can be opposed to it? So when trump was president they were legally obligated to agree with him?

[Don't look at me!]

Don’t be silly. He was a tyrant, remember?

[Jerry B.]

Why do you can if Peter Noone is opposed to it or not? What makes being in Herman's Hermits criteria for having a worthwhile opinion? No one cares.

[Rich]

"So here with adopting the messages that you're adopting as government speech, you're saying these are the messages that we're communicating as a school district and by doing that we're not also creating a forum to allow other types of speech to enter the forum," said board attorney John Edison.

One trusts board attorney John Edison is having his fifteen minutes of fame before his legal career ends.

[Chumby]

A professional Budd Dwyer moment.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

That name's a blast from the past.

[mad.casual]

Hey man, nice shot.

[Zeb]

He has a promising future fucking sheep, I think.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"...the school system does not have to allow any speech opposing those statements."

This is the most insane thing I have heard this week. And given the insanity present elsewhere, from Biden on down to local cops, that is really saying something.

[Cyto]

The article provides additional context. Teachers were plastering BLM stickers and related paraphernalia in their classrooms and making statements in class supporting these causes. Administrators were telling them that they had to take down political speech like that. So the school board is giving them cover. By making these catchphrases official government speech, teachers can post their bumper stickers about these things as they like.

They cannot, however, put any other political paraphernalia up. So no blue lives matter bumper stickers. All lives matter bumper stickers would still have to be taken down.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

Interesting. Thanks.

I am guessing that copies of the Bill of Rights would also be banned, unless "approved" -- meaning the first amendment would have to be penciled out.

[Chumby]

A Gun Owners of America sticker in a classroom would be a hoot.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

+

[squid_hunt]

Teachers are heroes, or so I'm told.

[Cyto]

On why the board had to take this action: "I feel incredibly sorry that anyone had to feel that way and that there was any question of our commitment to equity in that respect," Dr. Jessica Garcia, RPS board director, said.

"Equity" .... You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[D-Pizzle]

We all know what that word means here, and it isn't good.

[Morbo]

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw

[Quo Usque Tandem]

There goes the gifted program...

[Zeb]

"Equity" = forced equality of outcome. IOW, evil commie bullshit.

Dr. Garcia, you ignorant slut, your commitment to equity is the whole problem.

[mad.casual]

"Ownership of assets with debts or liabilities attached"

Take the e-word back.

[markm23]

But not actual equality, forced or otherwise - in any such system, some animals are more equal than others.

[Cyto]

Under the heading of actions also taken at that same meeting:. The school board renewed their contract with the police department to have armed police officers in every school.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

School resource officers [SRO] they're called; like Deputy Dick and Officer Orifice

[mad.casual]

Unless that's Dep. Mrs. Dick and Mr. Ofc. Orifice, that's sexist and transphobic.

[Chumby]

Did they require them to wear BLM branding?

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Where did this asshat go to law school?

https://kim_il-sung_university/