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Four California high school students who were suspended for liking and commenting on racistInstagram postshavefiled a federal lawsuit alleging administrators paraded them through the school and allowed their classmates to berate them as part of a healing exercise.

The plaintiffs were among more than a dozen students at Albany High School who were accused of liking or commenting on the posts, which showed pictures of female African Americanclassmates and the girls basketballcoach with nooses drawn around their necks. Other images showedthe girlsnext to photos of apes, according tothe Mercury News.

The posts surfaced in March, after some of the students classmates took screen shots of them and reported them to administrators at the public high school. The student who created the images not named in the lawsuit was suspended.

A complaint filed this week accuses the Albany Unified School District of going too far in suspending the other students. The lawsuit which names the school district, the school and several administrators alleges the four plaintiffswere punished in violation of their First Amendment and due process rights.

This action arises out of a private online discussion between friends that the Albany School system has pried into without authority, the lawsuit said. All conduct at issue in this matter occurred off school property, were conducted off school hours, and were otherwise completely unrelated to school activity.

Albany Unified School District Superintendent Valerie Williamssaid in a statementWednesday that the district wasreviewing the case.

The district takes great care to ensure that our students feel safe at school, and we are committed to providing an inclusive and respectful learning environment for all of our students, Williams said, as reported by the Mercury News. The district intends to defend this commitment and its conduct within the court system.

The lawsuit alleged that the plaintiffs, all juniors,were wrongfully suspended by the school in late March after some of their classmates took screen shots of the Instagram posts and reported them to administrators.

When the students returned on March 30, the lawsuit said, administrators forced them to march through the school while their peers tormented them.

School administrators allowed the student body to hurl obscenities, scream profanities, and jeer at the Plaintiffs and the other suspended students, who were all not allowed to leave what the school considered an act of atonement but was rather a thinly veiled form of public shaming, the lawsuit said.

Eventually, a parent stepped in and convinced administrators to stop the event, which was described in the complaint as a healing exercise.

Later the same day, they attended a voluntary restorative justice session organized by a community group. A few hundred students and parents gathered outside to protest. When the session came to a close, the demonstration grew tense, prompting the plaintiffs parents to ask for a police escort out, according to the complaint.

As two of the plaintiffs were leaving,an incensed demonstrator struck both of them in the head, leaving one of them with a broken nose and the other with cuts and bruises, the lawsuit alleged.

Plaintiffs have all have suffered emotional distress due to these incidents, the complaint read, including anxiety, fear, insomnia and other distress.

Thestudents want theschool to wipe their disciplinary records clean, refrain from any further punishment and allow them to make up the work they missed.

Some of the students on the receiving end of the racist posts told local media they felt threatened. The uncle and guardian of a teenage girl shown in one of the images told the Mercury Newshis nieces grades suffered after the incident.

Free speech is a fundamental right, said the uncle, who asked not to be named, but it cant be at the expense of hurting someone.

Awoman who said she was the mother of a sophomore at the school told the Mercury News:This is bullying. This is racist. This is sexist. They were attacking kids.

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Does the First Amendment protect 'liking' a racist Instagram post? Some Calif. students say it does. - Washington Post

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH)

The administration of Deer Creek Public Schools reports they are working directly with the ACLU to address First Amendment concerns.

Deer Creek Public Schools released a statement May 5 reporting that they "strongly support" students' First Amendment rights.

"No students were disciplined for their expression of the First Amendment. We support all students within the context of maintaining safe and orderly schools, and have policy and procedures in place to help keep all students safe." the statement said.

On May 3, the ACLU of Oklahoma claimed that an African American student from Deer Creek High School was forced to remove a shirt with the phrase "Black Lives Matter" because it was a dress code violation.

In response to the alleged incident, students planned to wear black in support of the student which led to an email to parents from Deer Creek High School Principal Melissa Jordan. The email allegedly threatened any students participating to be shown disciplinary action.

Deer Creek administration says they want a student body that is "inclusive and not divided". The district reports that all employees have gone through harassment and bullying training. Students have also gone through assemblies hoping to "further their focus on tolerance, kindness and acceptance of all students during the 2016-2017 year."

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Deer Creek Public Schools addressing First Amendment concerns ... - KOKH FOX25

In his book Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, Justice Stephen Breyer maintained that the primary purpose of the First Amendment goes beyond protecting the individual from government restrictions.

First and foremost, Breyer wrote, the First Amendment seeks to facilitate democratic self-government.

When it is correctly viewed, he maintained, one must understand the First Amendment as seeking primarily to encourage the exchange of information and ideas necessary for citizens themselves to shape that public opinion which is the final source of government in a democratic state.

In his dissenting opinion in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case, relating to limitations on the total amount of contributions a donor may make to candidates for Congress, in which he was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, Breyer argued similarly.

The First Amendment, he wrote, advances not only the individuals right to engage in political speech, but also the publics interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters. The First Amendment, he urged, must be understood as promoting a government where laws reflect the very thoughts, views, ideas, and sentiments, the expression of which the First Amendment protects.

These views offer a double-barreled First Amendment, one that addresses not only the risks of governmental control over speech but the desirability of a government truly responsive to the views of the public. But there is reason to doubt that the First Amendment can serve both ends.

First and foremost, after all, the First Amendment seeks to protect against the dangers of government overreaching into areas where government itself is especially dangerous freedom of religion, speech, and press. At its core, it is not about promoting collective speech but of avoiding the imposition of just such speech by the government.

One of the benefits of the First Amendment is that it generally leads to a better-informed public and ultimately a more representative government. But we surely would not allow particular speech to be suppressed because the government decided that it led the public to become ill-informed or less enamored of representative government.

That sort of censorship is the opposite of what the First Amendment is about.

The notion that First Amendment interests are served whenever laws genuinely reflect public opinion also seems to overlook the reality that the public too often seeks to suppress speech it disapproves of. Speech is sometimes ugly, outrageous, even dangerous. The understandable public response to such speech is often one of disgust, revulsion, and sometimes anger. And support for taking steps to ensure that the offending speech does not recur.

Floyd Abramsis the author of The Soul of the First Amendment(Yale University Press, 2017). He willdiscuss his book at noon Monday at the National Constitution Center. For information, visit constitutioncenter.org/debate or call 215-409-6700.

Published: May 5, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: May 5, 2017 3:13 PM EDT

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The Soul of the First Amendment - Philly.com

Omaha World-Herald

Campus High Jinks and the First Amendment NewsBusters (blog) WASHINGTON Well, she did not show up. I am talking about Ann Coulter, the svelte conservative firebrand who was invited to speak at the University of California, Berkeley, and, inadvertently, to show the assembled coeds how a stylish blond dresses. Don't let threat of violence silence free speechSt. Cloud Times The Public Pulse: The First Amendment protects even objectionable speechOmaha World-Herald A Free Speech Tipping PointTownhall Therogersvillereview -CALIFORNIA -New York Times -Young Americas Foundation all 152 news articles »

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Campus High Jinks and the First Amendment - NewsBusters (blog)

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow told NBC's Seth Meyers that"its a dangerous time for the first amendment and the free press" under President Trump.

Theres never been a president who is more addicted to news about himself and whos more responsive to the news that he supposedly thinks is so worthless, said Maddow on "Late Night." So its a weird tension."

"Its a dangerous time for the First Amendment and the free press in this country," she continued. "At the same time, were oddly influential with the guy who wants to kill us.

I talked to him during the primaries. He was an announced candidate, said Maddow, who indicated Trump's handlers initiated the off-the-record call in advance of a possible on-the-record interview.

I had this conversation with him. Id sort of said he had good chances against his Republican primary opponents and we kind of dished dirt on all the things he thought was wrong with all his Republican primary opponents.

The Maddow interview with Trump never happened, as the candidate mostly did phone interviews on MSNBC with the "Morning Joe" team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Trump has not appeared on the network in any capacity since May of 2016 after a falling out with the early morning hosts.

A recent analysis conducted by The Intercept shows Maddow dedicated 53 percent of her highly rated program over a recent six-week stretch to Russia and possible ties to Trump.

Maddows Russia coverage has dwarfed the time devoted to other top issues, including Trumps escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants (1.3 percent of coverage); ObamaCare repeal (3.8 percent); the legal battle over Trumps Muslim ban (5.6 percent), a surge of anti-GOP activism and town halls since Trump took office (5.8 percent), and Trump administration scandals and stumbles (11 percent)," the analysis reads.

The breakdown was conducted between Feb. 20 and Mar. 31.

During that stretch, "The Rachel Maddow Show" enjoyed its best ratings in nearly a decade, easily topping CNN and finishing at the top of all of cable news for four consecutive weeks throughout the month of March.

For the month of April, "The Rachel Maddow Show was the second-most-watched program in cable news, only behind the combined 8 p.m. ET programming of "The O'Reilly Factor," which went off the air on April 18, and "Tucker Carlson Tonight," which moved to 8 p.m. ET on April 24.

Overall, MSNBC was the second-most-watched network in basic cable for the third straight month, trailing only Fox News.

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Maddow: 'It's a dangerous time for the First Amendment' - The Hill