Federal judge won't delay yearbook publication

[alwynsw]

<snip>A federal judge has refused to delay publication of a high school yearbook while a student fights to include a photo showing him posing with a shotgun.

Londonderry High School officials told Blake Douglass he couldn’t use the photo as his senior portrait, but offered to publish it in a specially created “community sports” section so he could show his interest in trapshooting.

Douglass rejected the offer and sued, arguing that for 20 years the yearbook has included photos of students “posing with weapons or simulated weapons, making offensive gestures (and) referencing the use of alcohol by minors.” He claimed the school was discriminating against him based on his hobby, violating his freedom of expression.

<snip>On Feb. 13, U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe noted that student editors of the yearbook — not school administrators — voted not to publish the photo as Douglass’ senior portrait.

Because the students are private individuals, Douglass doesn’t have a valid claim that the state violated his constitutional rights, McAuliffe said. Private decisions about what to publish and what to exclude, like those made by newspaper editors, are protected by the First Amendment.

I especially like the judege's idea that the students are acting as private individuals. There's a precedent for you. They use school property, work during school hours, and are essentially sponsored by the school while compiling the yearbook.

All that aside, I agree with the kid and his parents. What's wrong with displaying a legal and wholesome personal interest in the yearbook?

There are some interesting articles about similar idiocies at the bottom of the page linked.

on edit: OOPS! http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=14838

[wtmusic]

1. Decisions made by yearbook editors about what to publish

are also protected by the first amendment

[alwynsw]

5. True, but fair is fair.

From earlier reports, kids photos with other hobbies that didn't involve guns were allowed.

[wtmusic]

8. This is not a first amendment issue

Does not constitute free "speech".

[alwynsw]

9. I never said it was. The judge implied it.

I simply think fair is fair.

[wtmusic]

10. Fine

It doesn't belong in court. Just because it's "unfair" doesn't mean it's illegal.

[Scooter24]

11. Ever since,

and I hate to sound cliche, the Columbine shootings, Zero Tolerance policies have become the standard that most students have to endure today. Maybe they were influenced by reading stories where a 7-year-old boy gets suspended from school because he brougt a GI Joe with a toy plastic gun to class. I can't say I blame them, because if I was in that same position, I would have probably banned the photograph as well.

Now we are pinning two First Amendment rights against each other. The rights of the Yearbook Committee v. the rights of the kid who wants his picture in the yearbook posing with a gun. The judge simply said that the the committee has the full authority to make arbitrary decisions based on what they feel is in the best interest of their publication. The Second Amendment right to own a gun does not automatically grant him First Amendment protection to portray that principle publicly through a for-profit medium that is privately constructed.

[BR_Parkway]

2. You left out that most schools make money off their yearbooks

[Scooter24]

3. I happen to agree with the judge

The picture of him holding a gun doesn't bother me. But when students are given full autonomy over a project, their decision should stand.

My high school yearbook committee required all seniors that wanted to be in the book to be professionally photographed. Boys had to be in suits or a jacket and tie, and girls had to wear a white dress. It might be arbitrary, but those were the rules and we had no say in the decision-making process, except for those on the yearbook committee.

[alwynsw]

6. See my reply to Post #1. n/t

[iverglas]

12. now *that* one

Boys had to be in suits or a jacket and tie, and girls had to wear a white dress. It might be arbitrary ...

That would never have flown where I'm at. It isn't just arbitrary -- it's discrimination on an impermissible ground.

Sheesh. Not only would no public school get away with doing that, once the Canadian media or, more relevantly, provincial human rights commission heard about it, but no public school (or its power-wielding student bodies) would even think of trying it. Canadian girls aren't the kind of sissified submissive-wife types who would put up with being subject to such stereotyped idiocy.

"Discrimination" on the basis of hobby, however, isn't prohibited anywhere, as long as the hobby isn't closely associated with one's religion, sex, sexual orientation and such. And then, portrayals of one's interests could be precluded as long as everyone else's were too, and as long as the prohibition itself wasn't discriminatory (e.g. Christians don't ordinarily wear headgear as a religious expression, but Sikh men and Muslim women often do). Speaking of which, compelling a girl of Chinese to wear white would be appalling discrimination, if she holds to the traditional view of that colour symbolizing death.

Group sex is apparently a hobby that many high school students engage in these days. Who's to call it less wholesome and important to them than this guy's hobby? So who could justify barring photos of it in the yearbook??

Anyhow, I just never understand how anybody comes to think that his/her right of free speech means that s/he is entitled to "speak" (as if holding a firearm in a photograph were "speaking") whenever and wherever s/he wants. This guy should maybe go insist that the local fundie church put his pic in their weekly newsletter ...

[Scooter24]

13. ...

That would never have flown where I'm at. It isn't just arbitrary -- it's discrimination on an impermissible ground.

Sheesh. Not only would no public school get away with doing that, once the Canadian media or, more relevantly, provincial human rights commission heard about it, but no public school (or its power-wielding student bodies) would even think of trying it. Canadian girls aren't the kind of sissified submissive-wife types who would put up with being subject to such stereotyped idiocy.
----------
I'm not following as to the logic behind the standard dress for photos. I did go to a private boarding school, but I highly doubt that the laws that our school abides by are any different than those that public schools abide by.

The issue on the standard of dress is not about human rights, it's about uniformity and aesthetics. If a student objected to wearing the proposed dress because of their country or because of religion, we would have honored their request to break from the policy.

However, being in the yearbook is not a guaranteed right granted to students. Our yearbook was a student-sponsored fundraiser, endorsed by the student government, which was to raise money for various projects. Students who wanted their picture in the book was to present the committee a picture by a set date. That picture had to meet the criteria set in advanced. Allowances would be made for those who objected based on religious or other various grounds.

Last year I attended my a friend's graduation from Exeter Academy. Every girl I saw was wearing a white dress, and boys in a jacket. I seriously doubt that this issue is as big as you are making it out to be.

[iverglas]

14. I'll try again

Boys had to be in suits or a jacket and tie, and girls had to wear a white dress.

Canadians don't sit still for sexism like that, and Canadian laws prohibit it. Girls really cannot be required to dress like girls, or boys to dress like boys, for that matter. And a lot of girls, especially, just wouldn't do it.

Reading something like this makes me feel like I've entered a time warp. Really!

I'm not following as to the logic behind the standard dress for photos.

It *isn't* "standard dress". It's a dress requirement imposed on the basis of sex. It is the classic double standard.

The other point I made was that even something that *is* "standard dress" can be discriminatory, if it prohibits the wearing of something that people of certain religions or sexes or what have you normally wear and are made uncomfortable by being required not to wear, or requires them to wear something they are made uncomfortable by wearing.

If a student objected to wearing the proposed dress because of their country or because of religion, we would have honored their request to break from the policy.

Again, where I'm at, this would not be adequate. The policy itself would have to be designed in such a way that it did not contain something that discriminated against someone on a prohibited ground (race, religion, etc. etc.) and required him/her to seek an exemption.

However, being in the yearbook is not a guaranteed right granted to students.

And again, where I'm at, unless the activity were completely separate from the school -- not funded by the school, not given facilities by the school, etc. -- it would, here, be subject to the rules that govern the school. One of which is non-discrimination.

In your case, since it was "endorsed by the student government" which was presumably supported in various ways by the school, it would, here, have to comply with non-discrimination rules.

Last year I attended my a friend's graduation from Exeter Academy. Every girl I saw was wearing a white dress, and boys in a jacket. I seriously doubt that this issue is as big as you are making it out to be.

Well, not among the privileged little scions of the leisure class, I guess. Sheesh, this Exeter Academy?
http://www.exeter.edu/
No tuition fees listed there that I see. If you have to ask, you can't afford it?

Rich white folk don't tend to think that other people's issues are much of an issue, and the other people who want to hang out with the rich white folk tend not to want to rock boats.

Of course, the youth of today may not be what some of us youth of yesteryear were, 'tis true. Me, I wore trousers to my high school graduation (well, actually, I didn't graduate, it was an awards ceremony for the year I left) in 1969. Anybody who'd tried to make me wear a white dress would've found it stuffed in an orifice.

And I'm quite sure that there are students at my local public high school who'd react in exactly the same way. Hell, especially the boys, eh? Imagine trying to make one of you wear a white dress ...


The issue on the standard of dress is not about human rights, it's about uniformity and aesthetics.

Surely you see the difficulty with this. If it's about "uniformity and aesthetics", what's to stop the different-coloured students from being excluded from the photo? What's to stop the turban-wearing Sikh, or hijab-wearing Muslim, from being excluded -- or forced to make an issue of his/her difference and entitlement to be different?

What is it that makes one group's, or individual's, concept of "aesthetics" better than another's when it comes to how that other dresses?

[LiberalFighter]

4. School erred in the rules for the yearbook.

First, the advisor is responsible in guiding the students and approving the content of the yearbook.

Second, the yearbook is NOT about a student's activities outside the school. It is the student activities in the school and representing the school.

If the school sponsors a club or other extra-curricular activity that involves hunting or other gun related activity then it would be appropriate to have a group or individual pic assigned to that part of the yearbook for the club.

The other behavior that was permitted... gestures and suggesting the use of alcoholic beverages should never had been approved for the yearbook.

[alwynsw]

7. See my answer to Post #1. n/t