FL: Republicans Angry About 'Hate Has No Home Here' Flag in Teacher's Classroom

[T'Chenka]

It is not a political message to say all people are loved.

"Black Lives Matter" is a political message.

The Pride Trans Flag is a political message.

Arguably, the Peace Sign is a political message.

So does that mean the peace sign should be removed from schools? Or that there are criteria we should be using to decide WHICH political messages are allowed in school and which aren't, and the criteria by coincidence just so happen to align with what Republicans want?

[MasterJedi]

now I'm not saying they're right, but it's more than just some words on a flag

The words on the flag are printed in various colors on black fabric. On the flag are five hands holding up hearts. One heart is in the colors of the rainbow Pride flag, one in the colors of the trans Pride flag, another has a peace sign, one says “Black Lives Matter,” and one has an American flag on it.

the Pride flag and BLM are political messages and I can understand why someone would be against that and why laws making that "not cool" might be a good idea.  There have been lawsuits and other issues surrounding these issues throughout the country, from red to blue.

It is not a political message to say all people are loved.

"Black Lives Matter" is a political message.

The Pride Trans Flag is a political message.

Arguably, the Peace Sign is a political message.

That you couch this in "Hate Has No Place Here!" does not eliminate the political statements on behalf of specific political movements.  And these ARE political movements; BLM and the LGBTQI folks are political movements with specified political agendas.  It is not "Hateful" to oppose the POLITICAL agendas of BLM and the LGBTQI movements, nor it it "Hateful" to quote Scripture.  A teacher who has such a poster is attempting to garner support for highly political movements; that's more than just being loving.  And she got caught. 

BLM, by the way, is not just a political group; it's a Business Enterprise.  They have all sorts of materials under the cover of Black Lives Matter At School.  Just imagine a teacher advocating "Make School Great Again".  Whatever the merits of these political movements, they ARE political, and they DO wish to inject their politics into school curricula in a stealth manner.  It would be refreshing if people here were at least honest about that.

Political Christian Message Jesus weeps. 

[dead0man]

So does that mean the peace sign should be removed from schools? Or that there are criteria we should be using to decide WHICH political messages are allowed in school and which aren't, and the criteria by coincidence just so happen to align with what Republicans want?

the default should be no political messages endorsed by the school.  Individual teachers should have slightly more leeway and students should even more leeway to display political messages.  At least that's how I feel about it from a law perspective.  I personally wouldn't care if my kid's classroom had the flags discussed in this thread or a Don't Tread on Me flag or a Live Free or Die flag.  I bet some people in this thread getting recreational outrage out of conservatives getting pissy over this would NOT want a Don't Tread on Me flag in their classroom and I'm sure the strained logic they use to make that ok makes perfect sense to them.

Like I said in my second post in this thread, where we draw the line is a big part of the fun of democracy.

[T'Chenka]

Like I said in my second post in this thread, where we draw the line is a big part of the fun of democracy.

You can't JUST draw a line though. You have to present compelling reasoning for why that is the place that the line should be drawn. If schools have policies about being inclusive, then somebody would have to provide a good reason for why it's more important that the school not allow inclusive stuff like "black lives matter (too)" or something rainbow ("we don't hate LGBTQ kids") instead of just doing things that are in line with their policies of inclusiveness.

The reasoning I've seen so far is "it's political and that's bad and we shouldn't let political stuff in the school". Which means no peace signs, no anti-slavery and no anti-segregation stuff, one could argue. So we'll see if there's a more nuanced reasoning provided or not.

[Dan the Roman]

Like I said in my second post in this thread, where we draw the line is a big part of the fun of democracy.

You can't JUST draw a line though. You have to present compelling reasoning for why that is the place that the line should be drawn. If schools have policies about being inclusive, then somebody would have to provide a good reason for why it's more important that the school not allow inclusive stuff like "black lives matter (too)" or something rainbow ("we don't hate LGBTQ kids") instead of just doing things that are in line with their policies of inclusiveness.

The reasoning I've seen so far is "it's political and that's bad and we shouldn't let political stuff in the school". Which means no peace signs, no anti-slavery and no anti-segregation stuff, one could argue. So we'll see if there's a more nuanced reasoning provided or not.

The problem is schools both have inclusivity policies but also must be politically neutral. The former are policies, but the latter is a legal requirement which is why it takes precedent. It does not mean the school has to ban anything, but it must be viewpoint neutral with what it bans unless, and this is key, it is vital to maintaining order.

So this is why for instance schools can(and perhaps) should ban all Pro-Palestinian imagery AND Israeli flags, because they are honestly on dubious ground banning one and not the other. They do, however  have an excellent argument for banning both, namely that allowing students to display the symbols creates an unsafe environment and are used to bully whatever students are in the minority.

This leads to a final point. Context matters. Majorities bully minorities. LGBT+ kids in Florida probably do need pride flags on at least some faculty desks. But in suburban Boston or NYC, it functions as bullying of the minority of religious/conservative students. The same way BLM stuff would function very differently in a school which 90% black than in one which is 10% black.

[T'Chenka]

This leads to a final point. Context matters. Majorities bully minorities. LGBT+ kids in Florida probably do need pride flags on at least some faculty desks. But in suburban Boston or NYC, it functions as bullying of the minority of religious/conservative students. The same way BLM stuff would function very differently in a school which 90% black than in one which is 10% black.

- You're using "religious/conservative" here to mean homophobic / bigoted. There are plenty of conservative and religious people who are not bigots. Let me make this very clear: "intolerant bigots" are not a protected class in the same way that "black people" or "queer people" are.

- If there are white kids being bullied by black kids in a school that is 90% black 10% white, I would very much doubt that a couple of "Black Lives Matter (Too)" posters being in classrooms would be an actual serious factor in why that is happening.

[Dan the Roman]

This leads to a final point. Context matters. Majorities bully minorities. LGBT+ kids in Florida probably do need pride flags on at least some faculty desks. But in suburban Boston or NYC, it functions as bullying of the minority of religious/conservative students. The same way BLM stuff would function very differently in a school which 90% black than in one which is 10% black.

- You're using "religious/conservative" here to mean homophobic / bigoted. There are plenty of conservative and religious people who are not bigots. Let me make this very clear: "intolerant bigots" are not a protected class in the same way that "black people" or "queer people" are.

- If there are white kids being bullied by black kids in a school that is 90% black 10% white, I would very much doubt that a couple of "Black Lives Matter (Too)" posters being in classrooms would be an actual serious factor in why that is happening.

For the second one, it is less them being in the classroom, and more that other students can weaponized it. Is the same way that prayer is not intimidating when a girl in a class of 25 does it, but if you are the sole Jewish student in a class with 24 evangelicals, everyone "voluntarily" displaying faith is inherently intimidating. Quite simply, a vast majority of students expressing a view on any issue visually and demonstratively risks becoming intimidating of any group which is a minority.

Regarding your first, that is not what the Constitution says. Religion is a protected class. Being LGBT is not. It has some statutory protections under Bostock, but none whatsoever in schools. Anything there comes from state law. If, in effect you are saying someone's religious views are wrong, you are engaging in religious discrimination. Which means that if symbolism is being used by students or teachers to imply that student's religious views or those of their parents are wrong then it is illegal.

But there is a different issue. The moment anyone comes in with "There are only two genders" shirt you have a viewpoint discrimination issue, and need to explain why that is political but the alternatives are not. You can win that on safety, but it is unclear to me how you could justify it if there was no threat to safety which you could not possibly prove in a school which was overwhelmingly liberal.

[T'Chenka]

- You're using "religious/conservative" here to mean homophobic / bigoted. There are plenty of conservative and religious people who are not bigots. Let me make this very clear: "intolerant bigots" are not a protected class in the same way that "black people" or "queer people" are.

- If there are white kids being bullied by black kids in a school that is 90% black 10% white, I would very much doubt that a couple of "Black Lives Matter (Too)" posters being in classrooms would be an actual serious factor in why that is happening.

For the second one, it is less them being in the classroom, and more that other students can weaponized it. Is the same way that prayer is not intimidating when a girl in a class of 25 does it, but if you are the sole Jewish student in a class with 24 evangelicals, everyone "voluntarily" displaying faith is inherently intimidating. Quite simply, a vast majority of students expressing a view on any issue visually and demonstratively risks becoming intimidating of any group which is a minority.

Regarding your first, that is not what the Constitution says. Religion is a protected class. Being LGBT is not. It has some statutory protections under Bostock, but none whatsoever in schools. Anything there comes from state law. If, in effect you are saying someone's religious views are wrong, you are engaging in religious discrimination. Which means that if symbolism is being used by students or teachers to imply that student's religious views or those of their parents are wrong then it is illegal.

But there is a different issue. The moment anyone comes in with "There are only two genders" shirt you have a viewpoint discrimination issue, and need to explain why that is political but the alternatives are not. You can win that on safety, but it is unclear to me how you could justify it if there was no threat to safety which you could not possibly prove in a school which was overwhelmingly liberal.

There are - I think - religions that say that sinners of certain sins should be completely ostracized, bullied and then publicly executed. Would a school that has children that go there from that religion be violating those children's rights if they had anti-bullying policies / posters, or if they forced that kid to work on a group project with a kid who was a sinner (gay / eats pork / whatever that religion says is worthy of bullying ostracizing and death)? How far does this go?

If (I'm being hypothetical here) it literally said in the Quran that it was a huge sin for a woman to show her hair in public (it doesn't say that), would it violate the rights of muslim students for a poster to say something about how "it's okay to let your hair down" or something like that? This is kind of a silly hypothetical, but what I'm trying to get at is, how much power does a small group of anti-inclusive people get to prevent a school from feeling inclusive? Why does them feel excluded matter more than other kids?

[Dan the Roman]

- You're using "religious/conservative" here to mean homophobic / bigoted. There are plenty of conservative and religious people who are not bigots. Let me make this very clear: "intolerant bigots" are not a protected class in the same way that "black people" or "queer people" are.

- If there are white kids being bullied by black kids in a school that is 90% black 10% white, I would very much doubt that a couple of "Black Lives Matter (Too)" posters being in classrooms would be an actual serious factor in why that is happening.

For the second one, it is less them being in the classroom, and more that other students can weaponized it. Is the same way that prayer is not intimidating when a girl in a class of 25 does it, but if you are the sole Jewish student in a class with 24 evangelicals, everyone "voluntarily" displaying faith is inherently intimidating. Quite simply, a vast majority of students expressing a view on any issue visually and demonstratively risks becoming intimidating of any group which is a minority.

Regarding your first, that is not what the Constitution says. Religion is a protected class. Being LGBT is not. It has some statutory protections under Bostock, but none whatsoever in schools. Anything there comes from state law. If, in effect you are saying someone's religious views are wrong, you are engaging in religious discrimination. Which means that if symbolism is being used by students or teachers to imply that student's religious views or those of their parents are wrong then it is illegal.

But there is a different issue. The moment anyone comes in with "There are only two genders" shirt you have a viewpoint discrimination issue, and need to explain why that is political but the alternatives are not. You can win that on safety, but it is unclear to me how you could justify it if there was no threat to safety which you could not possibly prove in a school which was overwhelmingly liberal.

There are - I think - religions that say that sinners of certain sins should be completely ostracized, bullied and then publicly executed. Would a school that has children that go there from that religion be violating those children's rights if they had anti-bullying policies / posters, or if they forced that kid to work on a group project with a kid who was a sinner (gay / eats pork / whatever that religion says is worthy of bullying ostracizing and death)? How far does this go?

If (I'm being hypothetical here) it literally said in the Quran that it was a huge sin for a woman to show her hair in public (it doesn't say that), would it violate the rights of muslim students for a poster to say something about how "it's okay to let your hair down" or something like that? This is kind of a silly hypothetical, but what I'm trying to get at is, how much power does a small group of anti-inclusive people get to prevent a school from feeling inclusive? Why does them feel excluded matter more than other kids?

This is one of the worst things the Alliance Defending Freedom did by creating these fake test cases. For years most places operated an ambiguous policy of outsourcing this to administrators who acted when they "knew" the kids involved were likely using slogans/symbols as a cover for bullying and otherwise looking the other way, as they were best placed to determine "good faith."

As with workplaces and DEI, the generational shift from Gen X to millennials saw restraint based upon "we should not do this" to "who is going to stop us." There was no pretense of upholding institutional neutrality during the Trump years, and 2020 showed large numbers of administrators being stampeded into either tolerating teachers encouraging political activity(leaving class for protests/teach-ins) or actively endorsing it. This made them lose faith by voters who disagreed with the result that they responded with hamfisted attitudes of their own.

The LGBT stuff piggybacked on the wider racial/Trump stuff, which is why the Right has never managed to make it work electorally in isolation, but as someone who can't stand the Alliance Defending Freedom, the behavior of far too many institutions since 2017 has been disgraceful and there was no sign their corrective mechanisms were every going to work absent external stimuli.

[Cokeland Saxton]

now I'm not saying they're right, but it's more than just some words on a flag

The words on the flag are printed in various colors on black fabric. On the flag are five hands holding up hearts. One heart is in the colors of the rainbow Pride flag, one in the colors of the trans Pride flag, another has a peace sign, one says “Black Lives Matter,” and one has an American flag on it.

the Pride flag and BLM are political messages and I can understand why someone would be against that and why laws making that "not cool" might be a good idea.  There have been lawsuits and other issues surrounding these issues throughout the country, from red to blue.

It is not a political message to say all people are loved.

"Black Lives Matter" is a political message.

The Pride Trans Flag is a political message.

Arguably, the Peace Sign is a political message.

That you couch this in "Hate Has No Place Here!" does not eliminate the political statements on behalf of specific political movements.  And these ARE political movements; BLM and the LGBTQI folks are political movements with specified political agendas.  It is not "Hateful" to oppose the POLITICAL agendas of BLM and the LGBTQI movements, nor it it "Hateful" to quote Scripture.  A teacher who has such a poster is attempting to garner support for highly political movements; that's more than just being loving.  And she got caught. 

BLM, by the way, is not just a political group; it's a Business Enterprise.  They have all sorts of materials under the cover of Black Lives Matter At School.  Just imagine a teacher advocating "Make School Great Again".  Whatever the merits of these political movements, they ARE political, and they DO wish to inject their politics into school curricula in a stealth manner.  It would be refreshing if people here were at least honest about that.

People like you are why I left the Christian faith

[It’s so Joever]

“Hate has no home here” is a political message because the GOP is pro-hate so it’s like saying “MAGA has no home here.” Of course such posters shouldn’t be in schools. However I would like to add that the ONLY case of “brainwashing” in my high school in a lean Dem area came from my Spanish teacher who wore MAGA gear and complained about liberals in class. This is not a problem exclusive to one side.

[Badger]

now I'm not saying they're right, but it's more than just some words on a flag

The words on the flag are printed in various colors on black fabric. On the flag are five hands holding up hearts. One heart is in the colors of the rainbow Pride flag, one in the colors of the trans Pride flag, another has a peace sign, one says “Black Lives Matter,” and one has an American flag on it.

the Pride flag and BLM are political messages and I can understand why someone would be against that and why laws making that "not cool" might be a good idea.  There have been lawsuits and other issues surrounding these issues throughout the country, from red to blue.

It is not a political message to say all people are loved.

"Black Lives Matter" is a political message.

The Pride Trans Flag is a political message.

Arguably, the Peace Sign is a political message.

That you couch this in "Hate Has No Place Here!" does not eliminate the political statements on behalf of specific political movements.  And these ARE political movements; BLM and the LGBTQI folks are political movements with specified political agendas.  It is not "Hateful" to oppose the POLITICAL agendas of BLM and the LGBTQI movements, nor it it "Hateful" to quote Scripture.  A teacher who has such a poster is attempting to garner support for highly political movements; that's more than just being loving.  And she got caught. 

BLM, by the way, is not just a political group; it's a Business Enterprise.  They have all sorts of materials under the cover of Black Lives Matter At School.  Just imagine a teacher advocating "Make School Great Again".  Whatever the merits of these political movements, they ARE political, and they DO wish to inject their politics into school curricula in a stealth manner.  It would be refreshing if people here were at least honest about that.

People like you are why I left the Christian faith

People like fuzzy are why I embrace my Christian faith. It's important to demonstrate that our faith isn't hijacked by his Moral Majority bigot types.