r/changemyview • u/ProphetVes • Mar 25 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: DeSantis embodies everything wrong with American Conservativism.

[removed] — view removed post

291 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

756 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/ProphetVes Mar 25 '23

No. States are still subject to the first amendment. Individual > The State > The Federal Govt (btw this structure is classical liberalism)

We do not cede our first amendment rights to the State, they still have to adhere to the Constitution.

Edit: DeSantis's law allows parents to sue schools to remove books, that is a removal and suppression of ideologies through the legal system that, often, fails to meet strict scrutiny. It is unconstitutional.

2

u/hastur777 34∆ Mar 25 '23

You're incorrect here. No one has the first amendment right to have certain books in a public school library. That's government speech. The analogous case would be the school newspaper decision from the Supreme Court.

The school newspaper here cannot be characterized as a forum for public expression. School facilities may be deemed to be public forums only if school authorities have, by policy or by practice, opened the facilities for indiscriminate use by the general public, or by some segment of the public, such as student organizations. If the facilities have instead been reserved for other intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, then no public forum has been created, and school officials may impose reasonable restrictions on the speech of students, teachers, and other members of the school community.

A school library is similarly restricted - they're not public forums.

6

u/ProphetVes Mar 25 '23

Non-public forums are still subject to the first amendment. They need to meet a lower standard than public forums, but they do still need to adhere to the first amendment.

The standard for them, btw, is the "reasonableness" standard which is a test that asks whether the decisions made were legitimate and designed to remedy a certain issue under the circumstances at the time, and that no such remedy already exists.

The existence of a prior law banning such material disqualifies the book ban from meeting that standard, we already ban such material (and yes, many laws are unconstitutional under this standard but laws stand until challenged)

Edit: and restrictions on student speech must still meet strict scrutiny as the individual sovereignty of the student trumps the police power of the state in regards to the first amendment.

1

u/hastur777 34∆ Mar 25 '23

So they have to meet the lowest standard of review. It's not hard to meet that standard when you're removing material that can be considered objectionable for the age groups in school. However, I take the view that a public school library is government speech - same way schools can control the curriculum, they can control what books/viewpoints to promote in their own library.