The Volokh Conspiracy
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"Principal Reportedly Asks Student to Remove Shirt with President's Name"
Tom Woerner (Dunn, N.C. Daily Record) reports:
Mike Collins said his son, Matthew, was participating in "USA America Night" Friday night [at a Harnett Central High School football game] which prompted him to wear a shirt with an American flag and the Statue of Liberty on the front. The shirt had the name Trump on the back with the number 45 on it. The shirt is similar to jerseys worn by athletes….
Mr. Collins said … Harnett Central Principal Cindy Gordon … told Matthew other parents in the crowd were upset by the Trump shirt.
Mrs. Gordon told Matthew he would have to change shirts if he wanted to remain at the game….
Of course, keep in mind the "reportedly" in the title of the post (quoted from the Daily Record subtitle). The story quotes Harnett County School Board Chairman Bill Morris as saying that "The superintendent is conducting an investigation and he is handling it internally," and that "At this point we have no further comment." The Principal and Superintendent apparently did not get back to the newspaper by press time.
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For the gazillionth time, school personnel have censored free speech of conservatives. After the investigation, they will say they ” “sorry, didn’t know.” And the they will do it again because there are no consequences.
I think the time has come for school personnel who espouse 1) partisan viewpoints, or 2) censor speech to be FIRED! Perhaps, in their newly found spare time, that will make them more knowledgeable and competent, or at least less openly partisan and bigoted. They should lose their credentials.
And inthink that the parents should aggressively pursue civil litigation (and ask for outrageous damages). Set them back on their heels and strip to their bfds. Apparently, school administrators/personnel are either slow learners or actively seek to oppress the speech of conservatives.
Fire the principal and make him unhirable. Also, get the names of the parents who were allegedly upset by the shirt. If this is true, investigate them for ties to subversive anti-American groups, like the democrat party.
I’m not sure how you make him unhireable for something like this, when most of the schools are run by people who’d approve of what he did.
They say elections have consequences. Ceding whole areas of society to left wing control has consequences, too. It’s going to be a long, hard slog reclaiming the media and education establishments.
The climb from Hillsdale and Liberty to Harvard and Berkeley, or from the New York Times and Washington Post to Breitbart and Fox News, isn’t a long, hard slog so much as a fairy tale.
Carry on, clingers.
“. . . isn’t a long, hard slog so much as a fairy tale.” Could you come up with better metaphor? Perhaps something involving fictional travel?
What the fuck does that even mean?
New dosage on the meds, Rev?
It is never going to happen. Conservative schools will never be nearly so good as strong liberal-libertarian schools. Teaching nonsense, banning dissent, disdaining science, mocking academic freedom, imposing old-timey conduct codes, collecting loyalty oaths, and the like have consequences.
Carry on, clingers. At your preferred, third- and fourth-tier, sketchily accredited goober factories, of course.
If you had read the article first then you would know the principal is a woman.
Firing seems harsh but…OK.
Of course the same should be done to the school administrators who try to force religion down students throats in direct violation of the Constitution.
I agree. Fire this one and the one who required students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Any government agent who violates or attempts to violate a person’s Constitutional rights should be fired.
Like having to read the Quran or Burka day.
Hardly a surprise given that students have been forced to take off American flag apparel
The student should have been permitted to wear that shirt.
Bigots have rights, too.
Very insightful!
Define, “bigot”, as it applies to these facts.
LOL. We all know that the Royal Arse Kisser is projecting his/hers/its own bigotry.
I noticed Art has commented on the thread in the last hour, but still no response to my request.
It’s almost like, deep down, he knows he’s full of shit.
yeah, or it could be one of Artie’s mockers who pose as him to comment. He’s a living example of Poe’s Law… it is impossible to tell mockery of him from the real thing.
If you can state your “request” in standard English, I might provide an answer, you half-educated rube.
The hit and run dumbass strikes again.
He was here before he was on Hit and Run.
By bigot are saying not allowing a white woman to follow a negro into the office of presidency is the offensive act? That was the reasoning for being accused of racism, correct? How dare the American system follow preset rules dating to our country’s infantcy to elect a candidate.
The principal’s action would, I think, have been improper even if it had been in a classroom context, but at a football game, in which the student plays no official role and is merely a spectator, does the school have any authority over him qua student? Is a football game not a limited public forum at which this student was a citizen like any other?
What’s the point of being a principal if you can’t be the alpha crapweasel?
The real crime here is sexual assault; a female principal demanding a male student disrobe.
Off with her head! (in a totally fair title 9 kind of way)
This is NC. We pretend to but don’t have a 1A here, and don’t observe the Bill of Rights. Our motto is Videri quam esse. To Seem Rather than to Be. But at least the Great Volokh got our Supreme Court to throw out our cyberbullying law.
Perhaps we should be grateful the sponsors stopped at “USA America Night” instead of going all-in with “United States USA America Night Night.”
Or maybe that town just isn’t patriotic and illiterate enough to be considered part of “real America.”
You are using freedom of speech. You are a real American. The kid was using freedom of speech. He is a real American. The principal, a government employee, tried to censor speech. He or she is not a real American.
The parents tried to use offended histrionics as reason to induce government to censor. They are programmed memetic actuators of sad, censorious developments in government-funded campuses.
The student should have been permitted to wear that shirt. Anyone who tried to force him to remove it was wrong.
Even half-literate Americans should recognize, however, that “USA America Night” is a wrong call.
The proprietor seems sympathetic to the reportedly censored student.
Kid’s name must not be Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob.
Great comment!
Thank you. Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob is not permitted to speak for himself here . . . because liberals hate free speech, or something.
Or Chiquta, Nagooshi, Hacula, Balusan, or Digirba. Sorry if I offended any of you mentioned.
But, wait: this happened all the time when Obama was president and his supporters were bullied, doxxed, and oppressed.
Nothing to see here, move on.
I hope that was a flood of sarcasm.
If you can’t tell, it doesn’t matter
“other parents in the crowd were upset by the Trump shirt.”
Triggered!!
The new heckler’s veto is the “triggered mentally ill snowflake veto.”
These are the people who rage about Trump on Facebook in between postings about their mental illnesses and veiled cries for help. I have come to empathize with and feel sorry for them generally.
The MSM works around the clock to create the impression that these people are a majority of the country, but in reality they are less than 5%.
The Trump jersey wearing kid will be whipped with a Kaepernick jersey until he complies.
Because the A in USA stands for America. We it first aires NCI was called Navy:NCIS and was roundly criticized for its redundancy.
O maybe it’s just the Monty Python Department of Redundancy Department.
Expecting the half-educated goobers to keep up is foolish.
Which is precisely why we give you a break, Rev.