Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote were banned from school grounds in Bow after wearing the wristbands to a soccer game in September that included a transgender girl on the opposing team. They later sued the school district, and while the no-trespass orders have since expired, they asked the judge to allow them to carry signs and wear the wristbands featuring the symbol for female chromosomes at school events while the case proceeds.
Both men testified at a hearing in November that they didn’t intend to harass or otherwise target transgender athlete Parker Tirrell, and their attorneys argued they did nothing more than silently express their support for reserving girls’ sports for those assigned female at birth.
But in denying their motion Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe said the parents’ “narrow, plausibly inoffensive” intentions weren’t as important as the wider context, and that adults attending a high school athletic event do not enjoy a First Amendment protected right to convey messages that demean, harass or harm students.
I don’t agree with their message at all, but it sounds like they were being fairly passive in their expression of that message, and if it really was just wristbands… were they really causing harm here?
Sometimes I wonder how America voted in a fascist government and then I read comments like this. This is the same as wearing a white hood to a game with a black student. It is a direct threat against the student. It doesn’t matter how passive they make the threat.
Oh come on. I respect your opinion but this is a completely ridiculous comparison. It’s the equivalent of wearing an “All Lives Matter” wristband, maybe.
An all lives matter wristband is just a white hood without the dry cleaning bill.
Not just wrist bands. They were seeking legal approval to escalate the harassment.
Which is a form of reactionary bigotry.
If a group of parents coordinated wearing “All Lives Matter (but Black Lives Matter Less)” wristbands to protest inclusion of a black athlete, sure.
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What other organisation wears white hoods?
Yes. Bigotry going unchecked is harmful.
Next question.
Just because they were polite with their bigotry does not make it less harmful, also asking whether polite bigotry caused harm is normalizing said bigotry.
So subtle bigotry is ok? What is the purpose of wearing a uniform visual identifier for a cause? It’s for people to see it. They were spreading hate against a child and refused to stop when asked by the school authorities.
That’s pretty sick and twisted.
The judge thought so …
Yup. Hate speech is not protected speech.
Yes it is.
https://uwm.edu/freespeech/faqs/what-is-hate-speech-and-is-it-protected-by-the-first-amendment/
From the linked article - yes, hate speech is protected, however harassment isn’t.
The judge in OP’s case ruled that it was harassment, so the school was well within its rights to eject the parents.
Right. Hate speech is protected.
Time place and manner.
Tell the person I replied to.
Everyone misunderstands free speech protections. The judge in this case ruled that the parents didn’t have a right to free speech in this circumstance because, as you say, time and place matter. You’re at a school event on school grounds you’re not allowed to say things the school doesn’t let you say. The bar is lower. BUT their speech is definitely not illegal because their hate speech is protected generally.
From the article:
They were just wristbands with the express meaning of telling trans kids they aren’t welcome. I mean, they’re in high school, they won’t care! The adults should be allowed to have a little transphobia, as a treat. /s
It sounds like they sent emails to the district and made some noise in online spaces that made their intentions clear. If it was just wearing wristbands as silent protest, we’d never have known, but they told the district via email, the general public online that they were going to do someone bigoted, and then they did a minor version of it.
Imagining the perspective of an administrator, they really should do something about that to protect their students. And it seems like they went with a temporary ban, which seems proportionate.
The fathers in question here were taking advantage of the paradox of tolerance. I, for one, support the fact that they were slapped down.
Let’s put it another way: how would you feel if they were wearing iron cross bracelets? Because that’s what this dog whistle is.
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The iron cross is a symbol from the Wehrmacht, which makes it a symbol of hate.
Yes, adult men protesting against a teenage girl causes harm. Full stop. No, nobody here needs to justify that position. You just need to imagine grown men wearing wristbands and holding signs, showing up at every school soccer game to protest against a teenage girl just living her life.
Is it OK for parents to show up wearing Nazi armbands when the team plays against a team with a large number of Jewish students on it?
Do you really not see a difference between the Holocaust and parents with the opinion that trans girls shouldn’t be on the same sports teams as AFAB girls? Is this really where we’re at here?
People’s passports are being revoked, the healthcare people need to keep breathing is being targeted for elimination, and it is the official policy of the sitting US president that being trans is by nature pedophilic, and that pedophiles deserve the death penalty.
Spare me your dismissive bullshit. If you think this is actually about sports, you are the dumbest motherfucker on the planet.
YSK that one of the early groups targeted by the Third Reich and the Holocaust were LGBT people. They just never got that much attention, especially compared to the Jewish people.
Fairly passive in their harassment. It’s still harassment. And yes.
It was still harassing a student all the same.
So wristbands are okay… Because they’re just clothes, not marching in circles and chanting? How about if it’s t-shirts instead? After all, both are just clothes. How about if those shirts or wristbands have wording that calls the student a slur?
The student will undoubtedly find any kind of protest clothing offensive because they’re protesting her existence… So where do we draw the line on parents’ right to offend a student? Is it just slurs that aren’t allowed? Who decides what is and isn’t offensive? It obviously can’t be the person doing the protesting, because their entire goal is to offend the targeted student.
How about if it’s signs instead of clothing? The student will likely find any kind of signs demeaning, but are they okay because they’re just passively holding them? How about if those signs call the student a slur?
The issue with allowing protest (especially one that targets a specific student) is that someone has to decide where to draw the line. And every individual will have a different line in the sand… So if our goal is to protect the student, (and again, this protest is 100% without a doubt harassing a student) they need to go by the lowest threshold, not the highest.
Shut up, asshat