Reply #190: Slippery slope and I have seen it in action

[ProgressiveProfessor]

"Potential to hurt" can become the license or even requirement to ban anything that anyone finds objectionable. What is offensive/insensitive/racist/hurtful to one person may be fine to another. Who makes the call on that for the school? Who are they to determine what a person thinks is potentially hurtful.

When one group gets something banned because they consider it offensive, another group will ask to have something banned in retribution. An example was after the 2nd Confederate naval jack (which the ill informed call the Confederate flag) was banned at a school, a group of parents went after the Rastafarian and pan African flags and related symbols claiming they were of a form of intimidation and supported drug use (Rastafarian). Others went after other symbols, including Mexican flags. School was between a rock an a hard place. It could not support one ban and disallow the others. Eventually the school quietly relented on the ban.

Same goes with clothes. If schools allow Blue Pride Shirts, they have to allow Green Pride shirts. Schools do not have to allow Blue Sucks or Green is Superior shirts. Schools have already lost on that in the courts. Substitute for race, gender, sexual orientation of your choice, but it still holds true. If Mexican pride shirts are OK, so are expressions of American pride or any other nationalistic pride for that matter. If Gay Pride is allowed, then so is Straight Pride (been thru the courts). If Girl Power is OK then Boy Power has to be as well.

It can get stupid very fast when you try and ban speech potentially hurtful to others, even though it is well intentioned. Schools need fixed, deterministic standards to operate from. That is not libertarian, that is common sense. Allowing speech that is within the rules, even if you disagree with it is a liberal and progressive value.