Month: May 2019

From U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen’s decision Monday in K.B. v. De Kalb County School Dist.:

Defendant Rebecca Braaten … was hired as [Chamblee Charter High School]’s principal at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year. During that school year, several public controversies related to Braaten’s performance erupted in the community. [Details omitted.-EV] In August 2018, Braaten returned for her second year as principal and K.B. began attending CCHS. K.B. was aware of the criticism regarding Braaten after discussing the issue with friends and family, reading about it online, and watching a series of television news programs about it in June 2018. After less than two months at CCHS, K.B. was concerned about Braaten’s leadership and discussed the matter with his friends at school. He and his family signed the online petition calling for Braaten’s reassignment.

On October 1, 2018, K.B. designed stickers with Braaten’s professional headshot photograph and the words “Fire Braaten” overlaid on a waving United States flag “to express his political views on the controversy regarding the principal.” K.B. placed a sticker on his phone case and openly displayed it at school. K.B. printed “no more than thirty-six” stickers and handed some to other students who requested them. He assumed the students would wear the stickers to express their viewpoints, and no one indicated to K.B. that they had other plans for display of the stickers. K.B. distributed some stickers to students during lunch who requested them. The stickers were openly displayed on personal backpacks, lunch boxes, and phone cases. K.B. was not aware of and had no reason to be aware of any stickers placed on school property and did not see his stickers displayed on anything other than students’ own personal property….

School authorities concluded “that K.B. had violated the code of conduct rules regarding ‘disrespectfulness’ and ‘creating a disturbance,” and suspended him for a week, though this was then reduced “to a one-day in-school suspension for ‘creating a disturbance.'” This violated K.B.’s well-established First Amendment rights, the court concluded, unless the school could show that the speech was indeed likely to substantially disrupt school activities—and, given K.B.’s allegations, a factfinder could conclude that there was no such likelihood. The case can go forward, in theory towards a trial in which the factfinder would indeed decide whether the substantial disruption standard is met (though in practice such cases often settle after the motion to dismiss is denied).

The school argued that, as a matter of law,

[C]onsistent with Tinker’s protective rationale and Fraser’s civility considerations, schools may discipline students for insubordination and open displays of disrespect or contempt for school employees.

But the court rejected this argument, concluding that (1) the Bethel School District v. Fraser exception applied only to vulgar speech, and not to all expression of “disrespect or contempt for school employees,” and (2) the Tinker exception applied only when there was a real showing of likely substantial disruption—such disruption can’t categorically be assumed just because speech calls for a principal to be fired

Sounds quite right to me; for more on K-12 students’ free speech rights, watch this:

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In the expanded progressive universe of the Democratic 2020 presidential field, Joe Biden plays the part of the moderate. In this role, he’s a squishy, sensible centrist with long ties to the party and its leadership, an average joe and a conventional, professional politician in an era where unconventional, unprofessional politics seems to have taken over.

That makes for a marked—and useful—contrast with his competitors, a motley crew of democratic socialists and ambitious progressives with socialists tendencies, eager to deliver the sort of political fan service the party’s online activist class increasingly demands. And it has helped him stand out in the crowded primary field, rising quickly to the top of the polls and drawing fire from President Trump, who spent the morning tweeting, or rather retweeting, anti-Biden comments sparked by pro-Trump provocateur Dan Bongino’s remark that he knows not a single fireman supporting Biden. (May we live in interesting times.)

But Biden’s moderation, such that it is, is as much a stylistic tic as an ideological outlook, a sense that he’s a practical politician and dealmaker who can connect with blue-collar voters.

Biden launched his campaign with an appeal to labor unions and promised he’d end the GOP tax cuts. In his speech, he attacked “Wall Street bankers, CEOs, and hedge fund managers,” echoing the class-focused rhetoric of Sen. Elizabeth Warren. He’s not for the single-payer vision of Medicare for All favored by his 2020 rival, Bernie Sanders. But like Sanders, Biden has called for making health care a “right for for all,” and he wants to both prop up Obamacare and allow more people to buy into Medicare. He’s previously backed increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, and he supports making tuition free at community colleges. Although he’s been quiet on climate change so far (he’s been officially running for less than a week), he backed a climate bill all the way back in 1986, and in recent years has continued to cast it as an existential threat.

So, while Biden may not support the most expansive and expensive aspects of the progressive agenda as it exists on Twitter, he is still very much of the modern left’s mold, in part because he has adapted to the times, and in part because the idea that the role of government should be steadily expanded, especially when it comes to economics, is an idea to which he’s long subscribed.

That doesn’t make him a stealth democratic socialist, but it does make him something rather familiar in American politics, a type that was once viewed as far from moderate: He’s what people used to refer to as a big-government liberal.

In the context of Democratic politics and the 2020 primary race, that probably does make him a moderate, at least compared to most of the rest of the field. But to understand that is to understand the limits of moderate politics, and the ways in which the moderate label can mislead, even while being correct in the moment. As the social climate changes, what once looked like strong ideological commitments have a tendency to slip silently toward the center.

It’s not that Biden hasn’t changed at all, nor that there is no upside to the Democratic party’s leftward drift. In particular, on criminal justice issues, Biden has backed off from some of the harsher and more aggressively punitive stances he took near the peak of the crime wave in the 1980s and 1990s. On this issue, at least, he appears to have moderated, at least a little) and moved toward an understanding of sentencing policy that is simultaneously a bit more libertarian and a bit more progressive. (The specifics of what he supports, however, remain vague enough that it’s worth remaining somewhat suspicious of his underlying commitments.)

But the sense that Biden is a moderate is largely an artifact of his personal style—the role, and it is a role, he plays—and how he stacks up to the other contenders in the race. It’s a relative distinction, in other words, rather than something fixed. And it’s all too easy to imagine a future in which the definition of moderate, on both the left and right, slips even further, in which Trumpian trade and immigration policy and Sanders-style economic ideas become the milquetoast middle-ground, pushed closer to the relative center by the radicals at the fringe.

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When voters in Denver head to the polls next week for municipal elections, they’ll be asked to decide on a ballot measure that would guarantee people a right to sleep in public places. The target of Initiative 300 is the city’s incredibly broad anti-camping ordinance that advocates say has effectively criminalized homelessness in the city.

Passed in 2012, Denver’s anti-camping ordinance makes it unlawful to camp on any public property unless camping is expressly permitted. However, what counts as camping includes a lot more than pitching a tent.

Under the law, any person dwelling temporarily in a place with shelter and conducting “activities of daily living,” like sleeping, eating, or storing personal belongings, is camping and therefore breaking the law. Shelter, too, is defined quite broadly as using any form of cover from the elements except clothing.

The camping ordinance includes explicit provisions that limit the ability of police to arrest or ticket people for camping, directing them instead to issue a warning and to offer medical help if needed. Nevertheless, advocates argue that constantly moving the homeless away from public places is disruptive for people already struggling.

“Police use that law to push people away. They sweep them, and then they confiscate property like blankets or sleeping bags,” Raffi Mercuri, the campaign manager of the Yes on 300 campaign, tells Reason. “What happens in sweeps is that communities get disrupted. People get isolated.”

Initiative 300 would put a stop to this by affirmatively guaranteeing people a right to rest in accessible, outdoor public places. Blocking sidewalks or other public rights-of-way would still be prohibited by the ordinance.

The measure would also guarantee people a right to sleep in their car (provided it’s legally parked), and to share food in public.

In addition to freeing the homeless from disruptive sweeps and the confiscation of their belongings, Mercuri says that the ordinance would help social workers trying to provide services to them.

“If you allow people to remain in one place, people can keep track of where they are and can get them on track to get out of that situation,” he says.

In addition to a coalition of Denver homeless advocates, led by the group Denver Homeless Out Loud, the initiative has the support of Colorado’s ACLU chapter.

Fighting the initiative is the city’s business community, which argues that the measure is overly broad and potentially damaging to public safety and the city’s image.

Initiative 300 “undermines public safety and the well-being of all Denver residents, including those experiencing homelessness, by preventing the enforcement of essential public safety laws,” reads a statement from the Downtown Denver Partnership, a business group.

The Downtown Denver Partnership has given $200,000 to the No campaign, as has the National Association of Realtors. All told, opponents have spent $1.5 million fighting Initiative 300, compared to the Yes side’s paltry $80,000.

They have also circulated a report arguing, in part, that the initiative could be detrimental to Denver’s ability to attract conventions and other large events.

Some homeless advocates, while denouncing the No side for fear-mongering about the homeless, have also criticized the measure, arguing that it would essentially codify an unacceptable status quo.

“We are concerned that if the initiative becomes law, it will lower the prevailing standard of human welfare in our community potentially reducing the expectation of ‘need’ met by our human service organizations, community members and government. Instead, the focus will be sheer physical survival in outdoor spaces that are not suitable for human habitation,” said the city’s Homeless Leadership Council in a March statement.

Yet, the argument that the homeless will need subsequent support seems beside the point when considering the question of whether it should be illegal for them to sleep outside or cover themselves with a blanket.

And while concerns about preserving public places are understandable, the libertarian solution would seem to be privatizing things like parks and letting the owners set rules for their use.

It certainly seems like a much better idea than using the police to chase the homeless away from public spaces that are supposed to open to everybody.

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