SAN FRANCISCO — Officials at a Northern California high school acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during the Mexican heritage celebration Cinco de Mayo, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the officials' concerns of racial violence outweighed students' freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday. Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, had a history of problems between white and Latino students on that day.
The unanimous three-judge panel said past problems gave school officials sufficient and justifiable reasons for their actions. The court said schools have wide latitude in curbing certain civil rights to ensure campus safety.
"Our role is not to second-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration or the precautions put in place to avoid violence," Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel. The past events "made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real," she wrote.
The case garnered national attention as many expressed outrage that students were barred from wearing patriotic clothing. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based American Freedom Law Center, a politically conservative legal aid foundation, and other similar organizations took up the students' case and sued the high school and the school district.
William Becker, one of the lawyers representing the students, said he plans to ask a special 11-judge panel of the appeals court to rehear the case. Becker said he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses again.
"The 9th Circuit upheld the rights of Mexican students celebrating a holiday of another country over U.S. student proudly supporting this country," Becker said.
Cinco de Mayo marks the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, when Mexican troops defeated a French army of Napoleon III, then considered the mightiest military in the world. It is considered a bigger holiday in the U.S., celebrating Mexican heritage with parades and revelry in many major cities.
Nightly News
After what’s been a relentlessly cold winter, new potholes are testing the patience of drivers across the Northeast and Midwest.
Another in a seemingly endless string of brutal winter storms is gathering to unload its fury this weekend, starting as heavy snow Saturday in the Plains before moving east with the potential for treacherous ice accumulations Sunday and Monday from Ohio to Washington, D.C., and as far south as Tennessee, experts predict.
"This has been an unusual winter, with a lot of storms one right after the other," said Bob Becker, a maintenance engineer for the Missouri Transportation Department.
"All of the snowplows are on, the spreaders are in the trucks — all the equipment is ready to go for this weekend," Becker told NBC station KYTV of Springfield. Ice could accumulate as far north as New York by Monday, with heavy snow across the entire Northeast.
The remnants of the heavy rain system flooding parts of California were expected to drop 5 to 10 inches of snow beginning late Thursday night over an area stretching from Montana and Idaho south to Colorado and Utah, the National Weather Service said. Blizzard warnings were in effect Thursday night for parts of western Montana.
But it's a second system moving in right afterward that will cause the real havoc as it begins trekking east Saturday.
The storm will bring significant ice accumulation to much of the Ohio Valley by Sunday,
Frigid Produces Potholes ‘like Minefields
Precisely where it will hit hardest depends on whether it trends north or south. If it edges north, dangerous ice will likely coat the streets, trees and power lines of major cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio; if it tips south, the ice zone would be parked mainly over Tennessee and Kentucky.
Either way, the ice will then move into the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, threatening to snarl the Monday morning commute in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., according to The Weather Channel.
Heavy snow was expected around the ice storm, with as much as half a foot in Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis and Des Moines, Iowa, over the weekend and in New York and Boston by Monday.
"This is more likely than not to be a pretty big snow storm," said Greg Postel, a severe weather specialist for The Weather Channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment