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Many school districts have policies prohibiting employees from expressing political speech while carrying out their professional duties. For example, in such districts teachers can have a “Trump 2020” yard sign in front of their home, but they cannot wear a similar T-shirt to school. But sometimes determining what is, and what is not, political speech can be more tricky.
First, do you think districts should ban employees from expressing political speech while in school? Do you think that is a smart policy? Why?
Second, how should districts define political speech? For example, should they prohibit symbols like the so-called thin blue line flag? What about apparel showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement?
In “What Happened When a School District Banned Thin Blue Line Flags,” Michael Gold writes:
In late October, administrators in a suburban New York school district told employees that some of their apparel was making students feel uncomfortable, and even threatened.
At issue were masks showing the so-called thin blue line flag, which signals support for the police but which has increasingly been used to display opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, which rose in opposition to racism in policing.
Wearing the symbol violated a district policy prohibiting employees from expressing political speech, officials said. The logo, a black-and-white version of the American flag with a single blue stripe at its center, could no longer be worn by staff members.
Days later, a group of employees of the district, in Pelham, N.Y., appeared at work wearing shirts bearing the word “Vote” and the names of Black people who had been killed by the police, prompting accusations of hypocrisy and political bias.
The resulting controversy has divided Pelham, an affluent and mostly white Westchester County town of about 12,000 people just north of New York City.
The article continues:
The tense debate exemplifies the political tinderbox that much of the United States has become, where an emblem on a mask or a patch on a sleeve can ignite a dispute that consumes a community.
At the center of the conflict is a symbol that has come to mean vastly different things to different people, a black, white and blue Rorschach test whose significance continues to shift amid a continuing national reckoning over racism and police violence.
“It made a lot of people upset here, obviously,” said Ralph DeMasi, a school safety coordinator who was told not to wear the flag. “Clearly a directive was given. One side followed it, while another side was allowed to express their views.”
Facebook discussions have grown heated. Neighbors staked out clear positions and lined up in the cold to speak at a public meeting. School employees and parents said they had gotten threatening messages as the district attracted national media attention.
“People are taking this hard line,” said Solange Hansen, a Black and Latina woman who moved to Pelham last year and whose teenage son is a student there. “All of a sudden, overnight, you see these blue line flags on people’s lawns. You see them in people’s businesses. And that makes it really hard for the people of color.”
On Friday evening, The Pelham Examiner, a local news outlet, published a letter written by a Pelham high school senior, Nadine LeeSang, that expressed support for the district’s policy and said that the flag reminded students of color of “racist experiences they have had” with law enforcement.
“Nobody was really talking about how students felt uncomfortable, and it was kind of being dismissed,” Ms. LeeSang, 17, who is Black and Asian, said in an interview. Her letter was signed by 15 other people, most of them also students.
The article’s writer includes the debate about what the flag means to various people:
Those who support the flag say it has long been used to honor law enforcement officers who sacrificed their lives, and that it is not meant as a political statement.
“It signifies a memorial, a connection between officers killed in the line of duty and those who continue with their duties in the present,” said Carla Caccavale, a Pelham resident who has four children enrolled in district schools and whose father, a New York City Transit detective, was killed while trying to stop a robbery when Ms. Caccavale was an infant.
Ms. Caccavale has made sweatshirts honoring her father’s memory that include a thin blue line patch. Although she initially made them only for her family and another family, she has begun to sell them to support police-related charities.
When school staff members were told they could no longer wear the flag, her sweatshirts were included in the ban. She said the decision baffled her.
“You have to look at the intention of the sweatshirts,” she said.
But supporters of the district’s ban on the flag said the logo could not be divorced from its current context as a symbol for the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement that sprang up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The flag’s critics also say the image has acquired a racist connotation after being carried at demonstrations by hate groups, most notably a Charlottesville, Va., rally in 2017, where white nationalists staged a weekend of protests that turned violent.
“Now that you see this flag flown alongside this other flags and racist symbols, it’s very hard not to say, ‘Well, that’s a racist symbol,’” Annemarie Garcia, who has two teenagers enrolled in Pelham schools, said. “Even if that’s not what it meant to you originally.”
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
Do you think schools and districts should prohibit employees from exercising political speech while working? If you were a principal or superintendent, would you want a ban on employee political speech while in school? Why?
How should political speech be defined? And specifically, what do you think about the two examples at the center of the debate in Pelham, N.Y.? In your opinion, is wearing a mask with the thin blue line flag a case of expressing political speech? What about wearing shirts bearing the word “Vote” and the names of Black people who had been killed by the police? Should either of these examples, or both, be banned as political speech? Why?
Have you ever observed a teacher expressing her or his political beliefs in a school setting? What was your reaction?
The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Courts have ruled that students’ right to free speech in school is more broadly protected than teachers’ rights. Why do you think courts have made this distinction? Do you think students should have more rights to express political speech in school than teachers? Why?
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Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
