'Don't Say Gay' Bill Aimed At Florida Teachers May Violate Students' Right to Free Speech
Supreme Court has made it clear that public school students at all age levels possess First Amendment rights," Clay Calvert, a law professor at the University of Florida, told Newsweek. "If a student is just talking about his or her sexual orientation or sexual identity as part of their own speech—and not as part of the curriculum—the school is going to have to show that the speech causes substantial and material disruption of the educational atmosphere.""Say you've got students who want to talk about [LGBTQ issues] and now you can't encourage it—you shut it down," he said. "That's problematic."In 1969, the Supreme Court held that schools could not shut down student speech without passing the "substantial disruption" test established in the landmark case Tinker v.
Des Moines Independent Community School.In a hypothetical situation, if a teacher in Florida were to shut down a discussion about sexual orientation or sexual identity that was raised by a student, they could be sued by the student unless they could prove that the speech substantially interfered with the operation of their class."It's a complex issue because it really is about how much a state legislative body can do to limit speech and limit expression in the classroom about a matter of public concern and a matter of personal concern," Calvert said."You can imagine a child who is questioning their sexual orientation at a young age and then being shut down by a teacher who says, 'Well, by law, unfortunately, we can't encourage discussion of this,'" he added.
