A Florida high school student is alleging school officials violated her rights when they banned her from participating in an anti-bullying observance and then suspended her from school. In April of last year, DeSoto County school student Amber Hatcher, then 15, was making plans to participate in the National Day of Silence. The event is [...]
If there’s one belief that unites Americans, it’s that First Amendment freedom of speech is a good thing. Everybody should have it: cigarette companies, SuperPACs, hate groups, Todd Akin, Cher, and Nichole Ritchie. Teenagers, not so much. They might say something wrong. Better to shut them up. The last time the issue of impudent teen [...]
TALLAHASSEE — A tenacious Boca Raton 17-year-old has helped other kids gain equal footing with adults in the political arena, after a federal judge sided with her and blocked a state law capping political contributions by minors at $100. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Monday issued a temporary injunction blocking officials from enforcing the [...]
From Facebook communications to tweets, you’re no doubt already aware that nothing you do online is truly private. But should you have a reasonable expectation that your superiors aren’t actively spying on you? That’s the question a lot of people are asking after Garrett High School in Indiana expelled a high school senior for cursing [...]
The Morgan Hill, Calif., high school students prohibited from wearing American-flag T-shirts on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo in 2010 have appealed their case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The students from Live Oak High School contend in Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District that the First Amendment protects their [...]
2012-02-15 Windy City Times http://www.windycitymediagroup…..36212.html JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal district court ruled today that the Camdenton R-III School District must stop censoring web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities through discriminatory filtering software. The ruling orders the district to not block content based on the viewpoints expressed by [...]
This is part of the Youth Rights 101 series. Please check out Youth Rights 101: Introduction for the rest of the series and more information. How are young people’s free speech rights violated? Look no further than the meme of “washing” a child’s mouth out with soap if she utters a swear word. Many probably [...]
02/8/2012 Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/arizona-state-senate-to-c_b_1260291.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications In what has to be the most hilariously unconstitutional piece of legislation that I’ve seen in quite some time, senators in the Arizona state legislature have introduced a bill that would require all educational institutions in the state — including state universities — to suspend or fire professors who say [...]
the First Amendment Center http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/student-loses-case-involving-religious-message-in-speech January 27, 2012 A school district in Craryville, N.Y., did not violate a former middle school student’s First Amendment rights when the principal told her to omit religious sentiments from her speech at a graduation-type event, a federal court has ruled. The student, known in court papers as A.M., [...]
November 28, 2011 – KMBC.com – http://www.kmbc.com/r/29869667…..etail.html Emma Sullivan Tweeted Insult About Governor During School Trip PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — In the uproar over a Prairie Village teenager’s tweet about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback during a school trip, it is the governor who is apologizing. “My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that, I [...]
IOWA — An Iowa appeals court ruled Wednesday in favor of a former newspaper adviser who was reprimanded by his school, in the first case testing a post-Hazelwood student free expression law. In 2009, English teacher Ben Lange was issued two formal written reprimands from principal Dan Diercks at Waukon High School stemming from two [...]
October 14, 2011 – NY Daily News – http://articles.nydailynews.co…..ness-month School officials aren’t cheering for breast-cancer awareness T-shirts with a slangy slogan. An Arizona high school has banned its cheerleaders from wearing pink T-shirts that read, “Feel for lumps, save your bumps,” CBS 5 KPHO in Phoenix reported. The cheer squad is crying foul, saying that [...]
Even high school girls have the right to freedom of speech, no matter how lewd their message might be. A federal judge sided with the ACLU in a recent case, stating that it was wrong for a high school principal to punish two girls for posting “racy” pictures on Facebook, according to Gawker. Apparently the [...]
Let’s say you have two middle school girls, whom we’ll call JC and CC. They don’t like each other. JC then makes a video of herself and a few other girls calling CC names, and then this video appears on YouTube. Obviously, CC is very upset by this. Perhaps she could create a counter video [...]
NYRA’s mission centers on challenging age discrimination against young people, both in law and in attitudes and supporting the basic freedoms afforded to young Americans in the Bill of Rights.