ACLU sues Jackson-Reed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the students didn’t follow the proper procedures to get the film approved- they just put fliers up so that’s why the event was canceled.

It’s also my understanding that student clubs cannot do whatever they want- for example, a student couldn’t start a J-R White Supremecist Club. There are limits to free speech if students when it in a school-affiliated group.

There are no proper procedures for posting flyers, having meetings, watching films. JR is a huge sprawling school and the clubs mostly function at the discretion of their club sponsor. Yes, there are obvious things not to do but...really no rules. And it is part of what makes the school great. Everyone gets to do their thing there. Heck, kids walk in reeking of pot and no one does anything about it. Now that ones annoys me.

The burden of proof will be on the student group to show that they were singled out for not being allowed to do something that other groups were allowed to do...in this case, that they were not allowed to hold a specific type of event without following the specific process for doing so....and, given what we have seen on college campuses over the past few weeks, they will also have to show that the school could not have had any reasonable expectation that holding the event and showing that film would cause disruption to the learning environment. Again, I think it's an uphill battle for the student group.

You're half right. They will have to show that they were prohibited from doing something that other student groups were alloed to do. The burden for showing disruption will be on JR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is relevant because it demonstrates that this topic is a tinderbox. It is not unreasonable for a high school to be careful about what materials are distributed on its grounds.

I am one of the PPs and the issue is that they only material the material the principal checked was this event. If those rules and procedures were carefully followed in every instance that would be fine. This is the only time this type of material was denied and it was in the grounds that proper procedure wasn’t followed.

I’m not sure that’s true. The other clubs are not politically controversial. And as much as I thought it was absurd, the decision to paus Maus upholds that the school was equally cautious. My guess is that it will come out that an outside group was pushing to screen the film and it wasn’t reallt student group at all. Or that the student group refused to cooperate with reasonable requirements.

It may be an outside group, but my guess is that discovery will show JR's decision was arbitrary and that the plaintiff's lawyers will be able to find plenty of controversial films screened by student groups that were never formally authorized

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the students didn’t follow the proper procedures to get the film approved- they just put fliers up so that’s why the event was canceled.

It’s also my understanding that student clubs cannot do whatever they want- for example, a student couldn’t start a J-R White Supremecist Club. There are limits to free speech if students when it in a school-affiliated group.

There are no proper procedures for posting flyers, having meetings, watching films. JR is a huge sprawling school and the clubs mostly function at the discretion of their club sponsor. Yes, there are obvious things not to do but...really no rules. And it is part of what makes the school great. Everyone gets to do their thing there. Heck, kids walk in reeking of pot and no one does anything about it. Now that ones annoys me.

The burden of proof will be on the student group to show that they were singled out for not being allowed to do something that other groups were allowed to do...in this case, that they were not allowed to hold a specific type of event without following the specific process for doing so....and, given what we have seen on college campuses over the past few weeks, they will also have to show that the school could not have had any reasonable expectation that holding the event and showing that film would cause disruption to the learning environment. Again, I think it's an uphill battle for the student group.

You're half right. They will have to show that they were prohibited from doing something that other student groups were alloed to do. The burden for showing disruption will be on JR.

Was anothet group allowed to screen a flashpoint documentary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would be highly inappropriate to distribute hateful or religious information. The school is right. How can the ACLU support that?

I mean, the ACLU helped the KKK win the right to march. That's what they do.

https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/4156_ri_1978.pdf

That's what the ACLU was years ago. It has abandoned its strong defense of free speech and now advocates for speech it likes and policing speech it does not like. About 20 years ago key leaders split off from the ACLU to create the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) which is an awesome organization akin to what the ACLU once was.

https://www.thefire.org

FIRE backed the students weeks before the ACLU.
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-adc-second-letter-jackson-reed-high-school-march-22-2024

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is relevant because it demonstrates that this topic is a tinderbox. It is not unreasonable for a high school to be careful about what materials are distributed on its grounds.

I am one of the PPs and the issue is that they only material the material the principal checked was this event. If those rules and procedures were carefully followed in every instance that would be fine. This is the only time this type of material was denied and it was in the grounds that proper procedure wasn’t followed.

I’m not sure that’s true. The other clubs are not politically controversial. And as much as I thought it was absurd, the decision to paus Maus upholds that the school was equally cautious. My guess is that it will come out that an outside group was pushing to screen the film and it wasn’t reallt student group at all. Or that the student group refused to cooperate with reasonable requirements.

Exactly- actually, I'm not really sure how Maus and Night are "controversial", except to holocaust deniers. But they are extremely sensitive and the school was very cautious about how/when to teach them. And, to my knowledge, no student group has ever shown a controversial film (i.e., that one side calls a documentary and the other side considers to be propaganda).

[Anonymous]

For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it has nothing to do with the current war in Gaza....it is about political lobbying in the U.S., particularly AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a very conservative and powerful lobbying group. One of the main problems with the film is that it uses terms like the "Jewish Lobby" to refer to this one group, totally ignoring that there are progressive Jewish political action committees as well and that the vast majority of Jewish Americans are left leaning and don't vote on issues related to Israel. It therefore treats Jewish Americans like a monolith with dual loyalty (not to mention a lot of other antisemitic tropes, e.g., global conspiriacies, money grubbing).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it has nothing to do with the current war in Gaza....it is about political lobbying in the U.S., particularly AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a very conservative and powerful lobbying group. One of the main problems with the film is that it uses terms like the "Jewish Lobby" to refer to this one group, totally ignoring that there are progressive Jewish political action committees as well and that the vast majority of Jewish Americans are left leaning and don't vote on issues related to Israel. It therefore treats Jewish Americans like a monolith with dual loyalty (not to mention a lot of other antisemitic tropes, e.g., global conspiriacies, money grubbing).

That’s hugely problematic. One of the reasons that I think trying to silence any objective criticism of Israel (e.g. calling standard left of center Israeli political party talking points “anti-Semitic”) is dangerous is that when you silence people who don’t want to be thought of as anti-Semites, the only people left raising objections to obvious excesses by Israel are actual anti-Semites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it has nothing to do with the current war in Gaza....it is about political lobbying in the U.S., particularly AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a very conservative and powerful lobbying group. One of the main problems with the film is that it uses terms like the "Jewish Lobby" to refer to this one group, totally ignoring that there are progressive Jewish political action committees as well and that the vast majority of Jewish Americans are left leaning and don't vote on issues related to Israel. It therefore treats Jewish Americans like a monolith with dual loyalty (not to mention a lot of other antisemitic tropes, e.g., global conspiriacies, money grubbing).

That's an important point. It applies to with labelling all Gazans as terrorists (looking at you, Leon Cooperman).

How can these points be shared if the conversations are never allowed to happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it has nothing to do with the current war in Gaza....it is about political lobbying in the U.S., particularly AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a very conservative and powerful lobbying group. One of the main problems with the film is that it uses terms like the "Jewish Lobby" to refer to this one group, totally ignoring that there are progressive Jewish political action committees as well and that the vast majority of Jewish Americans are left leaning and don't vote on issues related to Israel. It therefore treats Jewish Americans like a monolith with dual loyalty (not to mention a lot of other antisemitic tropes, e.g., global conspiriacies, money grubbing).

Wow, that sounds like anti-Semitism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This the same school that indefinitely postponed readings of Maus and Night earlier this year. Is the JSU sewing too? Why don’t the groups get together and do a collective old fashioned sit in? Seems like a better use of resources. Where are the adults? Oh wait, the ACLU.

https://thejackson-reedbeacon.com/21675/news/students-teachers-struggle-to-discuss-israel-hamas-war/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/19/schools-speech-israel-gaza-protest/

"Five teachers met with Assistant Principal Marc Minsker, who oversees the English department, to discuss the delay of reading 'Night and Maus.' Minsker said that teachers were struggling with how to teach 'because [the conflict is] a sensitive topic right now.'

The department decided to postpone reading the books until tensions decreased."

Wow. I thought people were exaggerating.

So the school postponed/cancelled indefinitely the Holocaust lessons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it has nothing to do with the current war in Gaza....it is about political lobbying in the U.S., particularly AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a very conservative and powerful lobbying group. One of the main problems with the film is that it uses terms like the "Jewish Lobby" to refer to this one group, totally ignoring that there are progressive Jewish political action committees as well and that the vast majority of Jewish Americans are left leaning and don't vote on issues related to Israel. It therefore treats Jewish Americans like a monolith with dual loyalty (not to mention a lot of other antisemitic tropes, e.g., global conspiriacies, money grubbing).

That’s hugely problematic. One of the reasons that I think trying to silence any objective criticism of Israel (e.g. calling standard left of center Israeli political party talking points “anti-Semitic”) is dangerous is that when you silence people who don’t want to be thought of as anti-Semites, the only people left raising objections to obvious excesses by Israel are actual anti-Semites.

In my experience, it's the "actual antisemites" who have been shouting down people with standard left of center Israeli political party talking points, not Jews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This the same school that indefinitely postponed readings of Maus and Night earlier this year. Is the JSU sewing too? Why don’t the groups get together and do a collective old fashioned sit in? Seems like a better use of resources. Where are the adults? Oh wait, the ACLU.

https://thejackson-reedbeacon.com/21675/news/students-teachers-struggle-to-discuss-israel-hamas-war/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/19/schools-speech-israel-gaza-protest/

"Five teachers met with Assistant Principal Marc Minsker, who oversees the English department, to discuss the delay of reading 'Night and Maus.' Minsker said that teachers were struggling with how to teach 'because [the conflict is] a sensitive topic right now.'

The department decided to postpone reading the books until tensions decreased."

Wow. I thought people were exaggerating.

So the school postponed/cancelled indefinitely the Holocaust lessons?

No. As mentioned upthread, Night and Maus were taught last month—as planned when the teachers originally requested the delay so that they could prepare lessons that took the current context into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it has nothing to do with the current war in Gaza....it is about political lobbying in the U.S., particularly AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which is a very conservative and powerful lobbying group. One of the main problems with the film is that it uses terms like the "Jewish Lobby" to refer to this one group, totally ignoring that there are progressive Jewish political action committees as well and that the vast majority of Jewish Americans are left leaning and don't vote on issues related to Israel. It therefore treats Jewish Americans like a monolith with dual loyalty (not to mention a lot of other antisemitic tropes, e.g., global conspiriacies, money grubbing).

Wow, that sounds like anti-Semitism.

I watched it out of curiosity. It touches on the PR strategy employed by Israel after the 82 Lebanon war in response to the blowback they received from the American press. All of this is recognizable to anyone that compares coverage by, say, the UK media vs US.

Large parts are about the framing of the occupation and IDF operations.

There's a large segment about AIPAC - nothing really unknown.

There's a segment about the support of Israel border expansion by evangelicals in the United States (typical - God gave Israel to Jewish people, and only Jewish people).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This the same school that indefinitely postponed readings of Maus and Night earlier this year. Is the JSU sewing too? Why don’t the groups get together and do a collective old fashioned sit in? Seems like a better use of resources. Where are the adults? Oh wait, the ACLU.

https://thejackson-reedbeacon.com/21675/news/students-teachers-struggle-to-discuss-israel-hamas-war/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/19/schools-speech-israel-gaza-protest/

"Five teachers met with Assistant Principal Marc Minsker, who oversees the English department, to discuss the delay of reading 'Night and Maus.' Minsker said that teachers were struggling with how to teach 'because [the conflict is] a sensitive topic right now.'

The department decided to postpone reading the books until tensions decreased."

Wow. I thought people were exaggerating.

So the school postponed/cancelled indefinitely the Holocaust lessons?

No. As mentioned upthread, Night and Maus were taught last month—as planned when the teachers originally requested the delay so that they could prepare lessons that took the current context into account.

How did they change lessons to take "current context" into account? I'm having trouble understanding why the current conflict has/had anything to do with teaching Holocaust literature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The movie they wanted to show, Occupation of the American Mind, is very anti-semitic. It is narrated by Roger Waters who now freely wears Nazi uniforms to his concerts.

It's a documentary covering Israel's military campaign in Gaza in 2014, and the public relations strategy employed by the Israeli government to counter sympathy for the civilians killed and injured (they hired Frank Luntz, oddly).

If the students want to show it, I don't see why not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Occupation_of_the_American_Mind

See the above reasons re: anti-semetic themes and tropes.