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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27241 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Fewer than what? When I said "thousands of schools manage to negotiate that ostensible labyrinth with little trouble," I meant virtually every school allows teachers to decorate their rooms as they see fit, as long as they don't violate controversial issues policies or include decorations that are inappropriate for children somehow. You are making a claim based on zero evidence of what constitutes the norm.

To rephrase: Thousands of schools manage to do it because the teachers in them are acting in good faith and aren't trying to push the limits. That doesn't prevent problems in other schools where the teachers are trying to push the limits.

No one claims there are no problems. I have seen such problems myself. But the claim that a blanket ban on all displays is necessary to address those problems is a claim that is not supported by any evidence.

How do you know the schools are successfully navigating it, rather than the controversial nature of said decorations just being hidden from parents, or schools just ignoring complaints?

Experience.

More importantly, the burden of proof is on schools to justify limitations on the personal liberty of their employees. So the burden lies on OP to show that the problem exists, not on me or anyone else to show that the problem does not exist.

Wait, how'd we get to civil liberties? We're talking about decorations on public property. As far as I know there is no such liberty and demanding the walls be painted blank white would violate no actual rights.

We are talking about limiting the free expression rights of public employees in the workplace. That might not be the most weighty of civil liberties, but it is not zero. Whether the First Amendment protects that right under current jurisprudence is separate question.

Public employees already have very controlled expression rights on the job. This argument seems really silly. Public employees are entrusted with unusual power and those powers come with limitations on speech while wielding that power. You would not be confused about this if cop cars were decked out in trump gear. They're decorating public property.

You would not be confused about this if cop cars were decked out in trump gear.

That is a strawman. I already noted that schools do, and obviously should, forbid teachers from prosthletizing on controversial issues. OP is proposing going far beyond that, to banning ALL decorations -- that means family photos, sports and alumni banners, references to hobbies, you name it.

And, again, the issue is not whether a school that banned all decoratiin would be held to have violated the First Amendment. It is whether they should enact such a policy, regardless if whether they can get away with it.

What does a "civil liberty" mean to you?

I already noted that schools do, and obviously should, forbid teachers from proselytizing on controversial issues.

No, they only forbid the topics more associated with Red tribe. The controversial Blue issues are a different story entirely.

If the system was working fairly, the Progress flag and the Christian cross would be equally acceptable on public display (that is the flip side but still the traditional definition of "protected characteristic"- that it is unacceptable for public employees, and the government in general, to promote one over the other). That we see a proliferation of one but not the other is an indication that the system is not working fairly.

No, they only forbid the topics more associated with Red tribe. The controversial Blue issues are a different story entirely.

I think you might want to follow the news out of places like Florida and Texas.

the Progress flag and the Christian cross would be equally acceptable on public display

A rather odd comparison, given that, unlike the Progress flag, the Christian cross is a religious symbol and hence its display on a classroom wall raises Establishment Clause issues.

How do you propose he do that? From what I heard American schools are notorious for blocking public scrutiny, so barring some teacher proudly uploading his controversial material to TikTok, how is the public supposed to know it's even happening?

  1. If he does not have evidence for his claim, then he should not be making that claim
  2. If what you say is true, then it is even harder to prove that it is not happening, right?
  3. It is exceptionally easy to find out what is happening in schools: Ask students.

And, let me see if I understand your position: Because schools (supposedly, based on "what [you] heard") block public scrutiny, those very same schools get a pass re proving that restricting the civil liberties of their employees is justified?

And, let me see if I understand your position

You didn't. I used to do the 00's era Skeptic "where is the evidence?" thing to, and my point is that demanding evidence for things where no one has a way to collect it makes no sense. You can have a perfectly normal conversation based on each person's personal experience, where you accept nothing is going to be conclusively proven, but you're acting like you want to have it both way - demand hard evidence for anyone contradicting you, while relying on personal experience when putting forward your ideas.

demanding evidence for things where no one has a way to collect it makes no sense.

Yes, it does, because we are talking about policy, not about personal experience. That was OP's claim: it was about what policy schools should enact. I am saying that, if a state entity is to enact a policy that limit sthe civil liberties of individuals, such as the policy advocated by OP, it has the burden of showing that those limits are necessary.

"Talking about policy" doesn't magically make evidence more accessible, so this is irrelevant to my argument.

If we were following what you propose here, the burden of proof would be on you. Since the policy you prefer is already enacted, and policy should be based on evidence, presumably the evidence the policy is based on, is published somewhere, right?

if a state entity is to enact a policy that limit sthe civil liberties of individuals, such as the policy advocated by OP

I don't see how the policy he's proposing is not limiting anyone's civil liberties.

We are talking about limiting the free expression rights of public employees in the workplace. That might not be the most weighty of civil liberties, but it is not zero. Whether the First Amendment protects that right under current jurisprudence is separate question.

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