Alright. I'll bite. So are schools breaking the First Amendment when they give a kid detention for talking in class? How about by enforcing a dress code? How about forcing the kid to sit still and listen in class for 8 hours?
IANAL, but the the rationale that giving a kid detention for acting up in class is that it is OK because the child undergoing punishment is actively harming another individual (they are denying the other children their chance to learn in an environment without undue interruptions). Dress codes are more iffy, and there's various arguments either way, but generally are OK, so long as the speech involved is not specifically protected, and as long as they are not targeted towards protected groups, as dress is not in and of itself considered to be in the class of protected speech, because it is not generally religious nor is it political in nature. Furthermore, if dress or something advocates illegal action, the presumption of protectedness is much harder to gain, which is the reason schools can ban clothing featuring ads for illegal drugs. The relevant cases are Tinker v. Des Moines (a dress code case that also established the right to free speech in schools, and is broadly applicable to any case involving protected speech in schools) and Morse v. Frederick (which established that promotion of illegal drug use is not classified under protected speech) in particular, but there are others. As regards the last argument, I suspect that it is generally assumed to be covered under the in loco parentis principle, in which it is generally assumed that without specific statements to the contrary, the school's faculty and administrators are assumed to have responsibility to act in the the child's parents or guardians behalf for the good of the child, and that it is presumed that ensuring an education meeting meeting the minimum required standards meets that responsibility.
To me, those are all clear examples of the School _actually_ infringing on someone's rights. On ther hand, how, exactly, are they breaking ANY amendments or infringing on anyone's rights by installing Blocker software on computers which they are providing to the students?
In comparison, the blocker software is illegal because it actively prevents students from obtaining information under the first amendment, infringing on their rights and arguably the rights of those publishing the information. Because they are denied information, the student may make choices which they would not have otherwise, and may open themselves up to harm that they would not otherwise face. In particular, potential viewpoint discrimination, as in this case, is generally going to result in the blocking methodology being considered to be infringing, as it can include infringement on religious, political, and/or commercial grounds, particularly if the scheme is not incredibly well-crafted to avoid such issues. This is basically impossible, at least as far as automatic blocking goes due to the presence of non-trivial quantities of errors, something noted by TFA. Potentially, non-automatic blocking could work, but is impractical in part due to the number of administrators versus the number of students and also in part due to the way the internet works. The classic example in this era of infringement without intent (for example, infringement due to a false positive from automatic site blockers) is the LGBT student who's still in the "questioning" phase or the child with LGBT parents and who lives in a conservative community where such things are looked down upon who wants to look at LGBT advocacy materials which are blocked. Chances are, in that environment, viewpoint discrimination is going to be hard to disprove, and therefore, the school needs to tread very lightly where their blocker is concerned. Even a smart blocking scheme, that lets teachers cancel blocks if necessary, may be a problem, due to embarrassment of the student, and potentially the problem of possible physical violence against the
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Alright. I'll bite. So are schools breaking the First Amendment when they give a kid detention for talking in class? How about by enforcing a dress code? How about forcing the kid to sit still and listen in class for 8 hours?
IANAL, but the the rationale that giving a kid detention for acting up in class is that it is OK because the child undergoing punishment is actively harming another individual (they are denying the other children their chance to learn in an environment without undue interruptions). Dress codes are more iffy, and there's various arguments either way, but generally are OK, so long as the speech involved is not specifically protected, and as long as they are not targeted towards protected groups, as dress is not in and of itself considered to be in the class of protected speech, because it is not generally religious nor is it political in nature. Furthermore, if dress or something advocates illegal action, the presumption of protectedness is much harder to gain, which is the reason schools can ban clothing featuring ads for illegal drugs. The relevant cases are Tinker v. Des Moines (a dress code case that also established the right to free speech in schools, and is broadly applicable to any case involving protected speech in schools) and Morse v. Frederick (which established that promotion of illegal drug use is not classified under protected speech) in particular, but there are others. As regards the last argument, I suspect that it is generally assumed to be covered under the in loco parentis principle, in which it is generally assumed that without specific statements to the contrary, the school's faculty and administrators are assumed to have responsibility to act in the the child's parents or guardians behalf for the good of the child, and that it is presumed that ensuring an education meeting meeting the minimum required standards meets that responsibility.
To me, those are all clear examples of the School _actually_ infringing on someone's rights. On ther hand, how, exactly, are they breaking ANY amendments or infringing on anyone's rights by installing Blocker software on computers which they are providing to the students?
In comparison, the blocker software is illegal because it actively prevents students from obtaining information under the first amendment, infringing on their rights and arguably the rights of those publishing the information. Because they are denied information, the student may make choices which they would not have otherwise, and may open themselves up to harm that they would not otherwise face. In particular, potential viewpoint discrimination, as in this case, is generally going to result in the blocking methodology being considered to be infringing, as it can include infringement on religious, political, and/or commercial grounds, particularly if the scheme is not incredibly well-crafted to avoid such issues. This is basically impossible, at least as far as automatic blocking goes due to the presence of non-trivial quantities of errors, something noted by TFA. Potentially, non-automatic blocking could work, but is impractical in part due to the number of administrators versus the number of students and also in part due to the way the internet works. The classic example in this era of infringement without intent (for example, infringement due to a false positive from automatic site blockers) is the LGBT student who's still in the "questioning" phase or the child with LGBT parents and who lives in a conservative community where such things are looked down upon who wants to look at LGBT advocacy materials which are blocked. Chances are, in that environment, viewpoint discrimination is going to be hard to disprove, and therefore, the school needs to tread very lightly where their blocker is concerned. Even a smart blocking scheme, that lets teachers cancel blocks if necessary, may be a problem, due to embarrassment of the student, and potentially the problem of possible physical violence against the