ACLU - Rock Paper Scissors.
This entry was posted on 5/20/2007 8:11 PM and is filed under Domestic Policy.
I think we need a new law that says every judge in the country is issued a sort of "preemptive challenge".
It would say that a judge has 3 lifetime "preemptive challenges" allowing them to decide cases brought by the ACLU using Rock Paper Scissors !
This is not to say that all ACLU cases are wrong or unworthy.
What I'm saying is this: While I don't know exactly how many judges we have in this country, if they each knocked out just three of the silly ones during their career - its a start.
I know my whacky notion can never become law. But step through the natural chain of events if it did. Judges will be called out in a de-facto way as to their bias regarding the extreme ACLU issues. The ACLU will have to up the pace in their judge shopping and hopefully the public will actually mark their ballots when it comes to electing judges.
In the case of this particular school district I bet they could spend the cost of this trial more effectively than on Tigger socks.
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/05/20/news/local/iq_3959435.txt
ACLU v. Redwood dress code
'Tigger socks' case gears up for Napa court
By DAVID RYAN, Register Staff Writer
Sunday, May 20, 2007
When the ACLU helped a group of Redwood Middle School students and their parents sue the Napa Valley Unified School District over their school's dress code policy in March, it ignited controversy around the world in the court of public opinion.
The next round in the dress code battle will play out in the courtroom of Napa County Superior Court Judge Raymond Guadagni.
On Wednesday, lawyers involved in the case are scheduled to show up at a hearing that will determine whether the school can enforce the dress code policy or set up a system where parents can excuse their children from abiding by it.
According to court papers, the ACLU's motion for a preliminary injunction against the district is made on grounds the plaintiffs "have no adequate remedy at law and will suffer irreparable injury" unless the injunction is granted. The ACLU charges the dress code is a violation of the students' free speech rights under the state and federal constitutions -- and the state education code, which decrees students of public schools have the right to wear "... buttons, badges and other insignia."
School attorneys say the plaintiffs should not get an injunction because they bypassed the school's complaint policy, and because ACLU attorneys cite federal, not state law to show cause for it. What's more, school lawyers argue the injunction would unfairly disrupt the school with only 15 days before the end of the school year.
Redwood Middle School has the strictest dress code policy in the Napa Valley Unified School District, banning every color but white, yellow, green, blue, brown, khaki, black and gray.
Clothing must be made out of cotton twill, corduroy or chino -- no denim -- and brand labels, logos, words and flags are out, too, no matter how petite.
The rules were put in place in the late 1990s to discourage gangs on campus, a policy school officials say has worked in recent years.
Plaintiffs Toni Kay Scott and her sister, Sydni, however, are part of a small group of a dissidents who believe the policy violates their free speech rights. Toni Kay has said she's been punished, "dress coded", more than a dozen times, most famously for wearing argyle socks with a picture of the Winnie-the-Pooh character Tigger on them. School officials found Sydni in violation once for wearing a shirt that had the words "Jesus Freak" on it.
Yet courts have in recent years been struggling with the definitions of allowed free speech at schools stemming from a U.S. Supreme Court case called Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, where in the late 1960s students wore black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. Students won the right to some forms of free speech in that case, but among the legal questions facing judge Guadagni on Wednesday will be whether Tigger socks can be important enough to rank with a war protest.
"Plaintiffs cannot claim with a 'straight face' that, for example the wearing of Tigger socks rises to the serious level of political speech," school lawyers wrote in court documents.
"The freedom of expression the student plaintiffs seek is not reasonably calculated to render the educational experience at Redwood any less safe," ACLU lawyers wrote in their brief.
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