Rebekah Rice, a high school freshman, was teased about being Mormon. She responded by saying, “That’s so gay.” She was reprimanded by the school principal, and a “notation” was put in her file. She was upset, but she got over it. Ha! Just kidding. This is Overlawyered. Actually, she filed a lawsuit, claiming her constitutional rights (to call things gay?) were violated.
It’s not clear what sort of “notation” was put in her file, but the lawsuit demanded (in addition, of course, to money) that it be expunged. In the abstract, one might be sympathetic to the notion that informing college admissions offices that she was punished for using derogatory slurs might be damaging to her future prospects. (Rice denies — credibly, in my view — that the phrase was aimed at gay students.) Except, of course, that filing a lawsuit is hardly the way to keep her disciplinary history a secret.
(Previous posts about teenagers suing over school discipline: Feb. 22; Jan. 5)
26 Comments
Read “Cohen v. California” recently? Or “Tinker” for that matter?
This is not at all a frivolous lawsuit.
David: Please, comment on her not filing a suit for the school’s failure to stop her being religiously harassed. The principal knew or should have known religious bullying is discriminatory. Same goes for the ordinary competent lawyer.
“The job of a school is to deal proactively and consistently with all forms of bullying, name-calling and harassment,” she said.
So what happened to those who razzed the girl for her Mormon faith? Nada.
Guess this Christmas we’ll have to keep our “gay apparel” in the closet.
OK, I’ll bite: What is the way to keep her disciplinary history a secret?
I guess the principal is not a fan of South Park. The expression “that’s so gay” was used repeated on the TV show as a way of showing distain. The expression was also commonly used by teenagers at the time that this incident occurred. One would expect that the principal knew (or in the language of lawyers) should have known that the term had no (direct) homophobic meaning. In a less PC world the principal would have just admonished the student and that would have been the end of it.
“The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment,” the district’s lawyers argued in a legal brief. “In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase `That’s so gay’ … was a reasonable regulation.”
Since there was no mention that the students who had teased the Mormon student also had notations made on their school records, it appears that the school doesn’t believe that it has a duty to protect students from being harassed because of their religion. I guess that all insults are bad, but some are more bad than others.
Just another example of selective outrage.
Insulting someone based on their religion? Fine (if it’s a Christian group, which is what Mormons are considered by everyone but other Christian groups).
But insulting someone based on their Polically Correct attribute of any type (even if that’s not actually what was done, as “gay” is ofaten usd by the younger generation in a way similar to “lame” or “stupid”)? BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!
Par for the course.
If this had been the other way around (reverse who called whom what in this particular case), and the resulting lawsuit would be so common as to hardly merit comment.
I think BOTH lawsuits would be wrong, but as it seems impossible to get rid of BOTH, I would advacate some “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” activity. Silly and unjust status quo is only allowed as long as it is only nforced against the politically incorrect.
I’m not sure I agree. Bottom line, she was insulted for her faith and responded, and she was the one punished, albeit very lightly.
The problem is that school officials have created these goofy zero-tolerance policies. Well, they cannot really complain when people respond with zero-tolerance policies with respect to their rights.
The issue of selective punishment is also a biggie. A high school administrator in NYC just went on record saying that black students were treated more leniently. How fair is that?
I have to agree. There’s a bigger question here that needs to be resolved: Apparently according to this school saying the word “gay” in any sort of negative connotation is “hate speech” but directly mocking someone’s religion is not. Don’t our concepts of equal treatment and non-discrimination include religion? Why are some sorts of denigration considered to be acceptable, and others are not?
Anyone who has a teen ager at home knows that “gay” has three meanings to kids: 1) happy (archaic), 2) homosexual, and 3) lame or stupid.
In the end someone was going to sue the school. If they had not slapped down her free speech the district would have been sued by the gays because it failed to prevent a hostile environment.
The school should have dealt with this more like a parent; have the wounded partys sit down together, explain how their actions cause hurt and conclude with appology.
Problem is, since the exchange began with a religious slur against Ms. Rice it is clear she is an injured party. If no gay student was agrieved by her words (and the story does not suggest that any gay student was) then it does seem odd that she got the repremand.
I know what you mean.
When I was a kid, to call someone a Polack just meant they were stupid. It had nothing to do with thinking they were Polish.
And Dagos were guys that were greasy and dirty. Had nothing at all to do with Latin peoples.
I mean, you’d have to be a real Polack to think it did.
Kip: First, as Judge Posner noted in the suit I linked to at the bottom of the post, there’s a difference in a school context between punishing a student for speech that is actually intended to express a political message (Cohen) and punishing a student for offensive speech.
Second, there’s a difference between “has a colorable legal claim” and “non-trivial.” Just because one feels one has been treated unfairly, that doesn’t require one to file a lawsuit.
Frank: I am not denying that a gay person might be reasonably offended by this phrase. But that doesn’t change the fact that the phrase is a common teenage phrase that doesn’t necessarily imply a reference to homosexuality at all. (Heck, we used it a quarter-century ago when I was in elementary school, and we didn’t know what homosexuality was. I don’t use it any more, but then, I’m not 12.)
I agree with David N’s 3:05 comment, and I guess I’d want to know what the “notation” was. If the note said generally that she was disciplined for snapping at another student, then I agree that it’s trivial. But if the note made a more specific value judgment that she had used hate speech, then that’s something that potentially can ruin her college career, and I can see that she might deem it worth fighting over. (I agree that the demand for damages does not seem terribly worthwhile).
After thinking more about my question above, I have to wonder why the student’s lawyer did not file the suit under seal, or using only initials. Maybe they sought permission to do so and were denied.
She can use the her “gaydar” suit to hold their head under the water for a spell, then hit them with a religious discrimination/harassment suit when they come for air!
Frank,
You do realize that those terms aren’t QUITE the same thing (at all) in that “polack” and “dagos” are exclusively racist terms, while “gay” existed as its own word long before it was co-opted for political usage, right? For example, as best I know, Asians are offended every time someone mentions the word “chink”, as it actually does have other meanings.
David, several posters above give you a slap on the head for decrying this girl’s response to being punished for indelicate speech while apparently her opponents were not. Count this as another slap on the head. She’s right, you aren’t. More power to her.
elb
What’s amazing is this blog’s departure from its basic mission (unless I badly misunderstand) of promoting sanity in the law. Consistency of viewpoint would seem to demand that Overlawyered acknowledge there is something badly wrong about authorities who enter a “notation” in your “record” due to the mere fact that you speak your mind in this Republic, the founders of which wisely guaranteed free speech.
Perhaps the use of the word “gay” in the intended context (“lame”) is similar to the allegedly offensive use of the word “niggardly” in the proper context, leading to the firing of the speaker.
Why isn’t “That’s so lame” a slur against the physically challenged?
The students who provoked the ‘gay’ remark were harassing the student over her religion. They were not reprimanded for their harassment. Had that been done, the school might simply have been able to say that all forms of discrimination were treated equally. But they weren’t.
Frankly, the school system did a remarkably dumb thing by treating this ‘offense’ so gravely. It may have been an opportunity for them to actually educate students in a positive manner about language and discrimination, but they’ve turned it into a negative lesson about using lawsuits to resolve petty grievances. Go figure.
No, I do not see the difference.
Polack (spelled Polak by the Poles, meaning Pole) was changed to mean stupid. It received that meaning from the racist belief that Poles were stupid.
Words have origins. Most often those origins are logical.
“Gay” gained usage as “homosexual” through the perception of feminine sexuality in homosexual men.
Kids are using gay to mean something socially unacceptable, something less than they or their friends because…
To say that they don’t realize it means also (and today primarily means) homosexual is absurd.
David N. Are you sure you were using this phrase in elementary school 25 years ago?
I would certainly peg this usage as occurring after the acceptance of “That sucks.” as innocuous.
(Yes, an old fart – I’m barely able to accept modern usage of “that sucks” as innocuous. Again, there is nothing inherently bad about sucking. It became something bad by virtue of what was sucked.)
I may be incorrect, but I would put the age of “That’s so gay” at around a decade. TTBOMK gay as homosexual only gained currency after the early 70’s.
I’m hard-pressed to believe that the word transformed twice within 10 years.
The articles i have read do not say explicitly or implicity what the alleged religious insults were other than one noted as asking if the girl had 10 mothers.
Is it unreasonable to ask a Catholic if they do not eat meat on Fridays because of their religion, a Jew if they are circumsized because of their religion, a Muslim if they do not eat pork because of their religion, or a member of a religion that does indeed have polygamist sects if they have multiple parents because of their religion?
By the way – does anyone know anyone whose lives were negatively impacted by some ‘notation’ (not grades, activities, criminal offenses etc.)in their high school record?
As an aside, I always wanted to be different and to have people notice that I was different. It did mean that I was treated differently. Well, I wanted to be different.
It seems many people want to celebrate their diversity from others by having others fail to notice those differences.
“”Gay” gained usage as “homosexual” through the perception of feminine sexuality in homosexual men.”
No, “gay” gained usage as “homosexual” because the homosexual political movemnt wanted a nicer term. Go do a little research on it.
As an easy example, go do a little looking on the term “bright”, which an atheist group attempted (and may still be, for all I know) to mak a synonym for “atheist” in explicit referenc to how the homosexual movement did that with “gay”.
That treatment of words could actually create its OWN meaning of the term “gay”, referring to intentional co-opting of a word. In fact, I have heard usage of the term in ways that, were it a common discussion, would likely evolve quickly into that usage.
“To say that they don’t realize it means also (and today primarily means) homosexual is absurd.”
Congratulations, you are ignorant, and I mean that as factually as can be said. Having spent some time around teenagers in the last few years, I can quite authoritatively say that, at least to those in this area, while they do indeed know that “gay” means homosexual, the PRIMARY (and by a very larg margin) meaning for which they use the term is “stupid” or “lame”, with no homosexual reference intended or taken.
And for school-age children (up to and including high school), 10 years is a LONG LONG time… I’ve sen evidnce of words being transformed at least twice in 10 years. Some words that I used in high school have already changed meanings TWICE, and I graduated in the 90s.
Frank: (re: your 12:56 PM comment) I can specifically remember this phrase being used in middle school in 1982. I had a friend who used to say this all the time.
I do not know this school district. But based on my experience with others, it would be unusual if this student’s discipline were truly the product of a heroic and zealous commitment by school administration to eradicating student homophobia in all its forms.