Monday, September 14, 2009

Is what "Green Man" did free speech?

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof; or abridging the freedom os speech..

Is Green man's antics a form of speech protected by the first amendment?

Why or why not?

3 comments:

  1. in my eyes it seems as though green man was simply exercising his rights to send a message,although in an unconventional and somewhat disrespectful way.The message in question i think would be that the prep ralleys being prepared by the school are boring and lack involvment of the "common" student at clear lake. furthermore there is no easy way to tell what the green man was thinking but maybe he could have made the same point to the school officials in a more respectful manner although i doubt he could have gotten the students attention any better

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  2. Well said. The courts have held that not all speech covered under the first amendment has to be verbal. Unsanctioned stunts such as green man's have been going on since they invented pep rallies- so it is not terribly original, but what I find an interesting issue is the fact that this student was apparently not just given school discipline, but was also charged with a crime.."disruption of the education process". Thoughts?

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  3. disruption of the education would first have to involve an education process to disrupt.seeing as how there is a lack of this would imply that the green man never "actually" disrupted said process.I think it would be interesting to hear Dr. morans response to "in what way was the green man a disruption" or "how is a pep rally actually considered education".Furthermore I think a better definition of the phrase "education process" would help to determine the legality of the situation would help us to categorize a pep rally as either an education process or something else entirely

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