BY JOHN K. WILSON
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines, upholding the right of students to wear black armbands in school to protest the Vietnam War. The Tinker case established a standard of “substantial disruption” for punishing K-12 students, and it is a landmark case for student rights.
But this isn’t just history. At the same time that we celebrate how the Tinker ruling established more freedom in schools, right-wing forces are trying to silence political expression.
With the rights of students protected by Tinker, those who want political views banned from schools have turned to a more vulnerable target: Teachers.
David Horowitz is trying to suppress political speech in the classroom again. Horowitz, who is the founder of the modestly-named David Horowitz Freedom Center, was infamous for proposing an Academic Bill of Rights that he hoped to impose on colleges and use to stop professors from expressing controversial ideas in class. In recent years, Horowitz has largely ignored higher education (except to demand campus bans on Students for Justice in Palestine, and posting fliers on campuses falsely naming leftist professors as supporters of terrorism).
Horowitz’s organization created a group called “Stop K-12 Indoctrination” which proposed a “code of ethics” that’s actually model legislation for imposing a gag rule on teachers. Several state legislatures have introduced copies of this bill, and this week, a Maine legislative committee may vote on Horowitz’s censorship bill.
Under Horowitz’s bill, school boards “must prohibit a teacher in a public school during class time or while otherwise operating within the scope of employment as a teacher from doing the following:”
“Endorsing, supporting or opposing any pending, proposed or enacted legislation or regulation”;
“Endorsing, supporting or opposing any pending, proposed or decided court case”;
“Introducing any controversial subject matter that is not germane to the topic of the course being taught”;
“the rules must require a teacher to provide students with materials supporting both sides of a controversial issue being addressed and to present both sides in a fair-minded, nonpartisan manner. For purposes of this paragraph, ‘controversial issue’ means an issue that is a point made in an electoral party platform at the local, state or federal level.”
These rules are extraordinarily broad. The ban on opposing any enacted law or decided court case is incredibly repressive. It means teachers would not be allowed to say anything negative about Jim Crow laws, or the laws and discredited court cases that supported slavery.
The requirement to teach “both sides” would compel science teachers to present false, anti-scientific materials to students in a “fair-minded” manner and prohibit the teachers from telling the truth. Science teachers would be effectively banned from teaching basic scientific facts, such as the reality of climate change or even the existence of evolution.
Why do Republicans want to give the government the power to ban criticism of the government?
Advocates of the “indoctrination” bills claim that they’re trying to protect students from being silenced by teachers. But the opposite is true. When teachers are prevented from talking about politics (or basic science), students are silenced, too. They learn to stay quiet.
Some might imagine that higher education doesn’t need to worry about K-12 education. But the academic freedom of college teachers and K-12 teachers are interconnected, as is the freedom of teachers and students. The Tinker decision echoes throughout higher education, as almost every college has adopted the “disruption” standard in their conduct codes. And Horowitz’s efforts to suppress political expression may go after K-12 teachers today, but if he’s successful college teachers will be the next target.
There are many new threats indeed. As usual, Mr. Wilson’s posts are well-done, and fair-minded. I would add a couple of arguably related points for consideration if I may: One, Tinker is indeed central in case law, but it is interesting for example, how protest of IDF aggression in the West Bank, which is part of the US “Global War on Terror” or GWOT, has never really found a protest footing on college campuses. If such protests do occur, they face at least two rather mendacious free-speech challenges. a). anti-semitism; and/or b). Belligerency (in part from the Pentagon’s Memo threatening journalists and other writers with charges of non-combative belligerency, among others). But there are other suppressive free-speech legislative Acts (follows below).
Our modern “Vietnam” (our Middle East Transformation) has otherwise accomplished something the Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations did not: silencing campus and other dissent with legislative fiat (including the Patriot Act). Otherwise, Tinker as a purely free-speech case, is also accompanied by another landmark case founded in education, Hanover v. Northrup (which cites Tinker; and she was btw, my teacher at Booth School in Connecticut, and my father, on its Board, and as a Vet, naturally in opposition): https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/325/170/2594258/. She refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance as a constitutional freedom, and the case is still of course timely.
As for Mr. Horowitz: he is not in reality a Conservative, a Republican or Right Wing (although he opportunistically cloaks himself in such garb as is convenient). He is a radical special-interest advocate for certain Middle East interests and policy. His efforts in “gag rule” legislation are largely centered (or embedded in other initiatives) in resisting any protest of Israel (and in converting any such protest into accusations of ethno-religious bias). He also provided public affairs pressure in Anti-BDS efforts (in Illinois for example, under former Governor Rauner’s and soon to be former Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s programs) including if necessary, blackmail and tortious interference in labor contracts. He was also active in supporting a campus-related Bill sponsored by former House member Peter Roskam that sought to silence campus criticism of that country: https://teddeutch.house.gov/uploadedfiles/roskam_051_xml.pdf; and see also, https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/in-the-news/bill-to-fight-rising-anti-semitism-on-campus-introduced-in-congress. He was joined by Congressman Nadler and others who are aligned financially with its extra-territorial sponsors. The University of Chicago is an institutional ally.
The GWOT, otherwise, and the former executive office, in its radicalization of Title VI of the CRA, including its “Dear Colleague” campaign which was effectively forced on university administrations, are more causal to current campus free-speech difficulties, than current purported political party dynamics, per se.
Last, for an interesting example of current campus protest dynamics and free speech challenges, at the University of Chicago by its SJP and Student Socialists chapter concerning above, I attach a link to their Chicago Maroon protest letter. This letter, very well-written and mature, received little if any formal administrative attention. Thank you and Regards. https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2019/1/10/opposing-israeli-defense-forces-classrooms/