Reply to Why are book banners showing up at FCPS SB meetings

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Why are book banners showing up at FCPS SB meetings"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Fortunately the federal courts have spoken clearly on this one. . .[/quote]

Not in the ways you say. Speech on broadcast TV is limited during prime time.  Freedom of expression isn’t absolute in government meetings. Etc. [/quote]

I don't want to belabor this, but a government entity cannot restrict the scope of permissible speech at a hearing simply by broadcasting the hearing on TV.  The speaker's First Amendment rights do not change simply because the hearing is broadcast.  (The other examples cited above re FCC fines are not relevant because none involved political speech or a public forum.)

You are correct that freedom of expression is not absolute at a government meeting.  But any restriction is subject to strict scrutiny.  A restriction against quoting from the text of a book that is apparently in FCPS school libraries would never survive strict scrutiny.  (Nor would an across-the-board ban on the use of certain language.  A ban on profanity may survive a facial challenge -- it's viewpoint neutral and there is arguably a compelling government interest, though that's far from certain -- but it would never survive an as-applied challenge in the circumstances being discussed.)

Here is the short of it -- the content of books in school libraries is unquestionably a relevant topic for discussion at a school board meeting (irrespective of whether one has a problem with the content or does not).  Quoting that content is also relevant to any discussion about the content.  A government entity cannot shut down that speech simply because it may offend other listeners, absent truly extraordinary circumstances (this is essentially the heckler's veto doctrine).[/quote]

Let’s see what the FCC says. I assume this mom got legal advice before doing this [/quote]

they'll possibly fine the tv station, but there is zero chance they will fine the speaker. [/quote]

I wonder what the consequences will be down the line from this abuse...

No more school board broadcasts?

No more speaker time?

[/quote]

Pekarsky and Keys Gamarra had a town hall last night, and I submitted this question.  They didn’t answer it.   But, they obviously can’t have this happen again.  And look at LCPS to see where this crap leads— parent standing on tables yelling and spitting.  Threats. Arrests.  At a minimum, they are going to have to put public comments on a time delay so they can interrupt the broadcast of these “adults” and their Freedumbs. [b]I think that’s a legally tough thing to do, because they are a governmental body making split second decisions about what to censor.   
[/b]
I guess their other options are to start the broadcast after public comments, stop public comments or post the meeting afterward with a warning if there is inappropriate content.  I hope they don’t do the last one. I like having the livestreams. I I like to listen to them with my teen and tween. They should understand how the decisions fetching their schools are made, and one will be a 2024 voter.

I guess my vote would be to start broadcasting after public comments.  I think the Indian community and virtual education is an example of a group using this  process well. So was Open FCPS last year.

I hate that it only takes one awful adult to screw up citizen engagement on important topics. [/quote]

the activists would love that because it would lead to lawsuits over viewpoint discrimination that they would end up winning. Either they have comments and deal with offensive material on occasion or they cut out the comments. I have no problem with them airing the meeting post comments because the rest will still likely be recorded by activists and posted if anything off the rails happens [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics