The Journal-News: UC law professor weighs in on student rights

When two Warren County high school football players recently ran onto the field carrying flags honoring police and firefighters after being told not to, the resulting disciplinary action taken by the school against them drew national media attention.

The players, who were reinstated following a public backlash, even received accolades from President Donald Trump, who invited them to attend a political rally in Toledo where they were cheered by thousands.

While the incident comes as the nation grapples with heightened racial tensions, also at issu here, reports The Journal-News, is the long-simmering debate between students’ free expression of rights and school rules. In examining the complex issue, they turned to Ronna Greff Schneider, a University of Cincinnati College of Law professor who specializes in school law and is co-editor of the Education Law Stories.

“The intensity of the stories is due to the polarization for the country,” said Schneider. The record of court decisions forming the evolution of American legal rights for students long ago established “students don’t give up their rights when they walk through the school doors,” she said.

Schools, however, have their own legal precedence for maintaining a peaceful place to perform their educational mission.

In other words, said Schneider, “student rights in the classroom are not the same as adult rights on Fountain Square” in downtown Cincinnati.

The degree to how local school districts can restrict political-oriented signs, clothing and actions has in recent years been shaped by a general legal philosophy as determined by various court decisions, said Schneider.

The defining legal focus now widely applied in schools, she said, is whether school officials can make a “forecast of disruption” stemming from what a student is expressing.

Context is key, she said.

“Sometimes schools ban the display of the Confederate flag based on the history at that school and sometimes because of the racial relations at the time,” she said.

For schools, said Schneider, “there is a right in these contentious times to make this forecast of disruption.”

Read the full story here.

Featured image at top: American flag by pixabay.com