ipl-logo

Lisa Simpson First Amendment Issues

1756 Words8 Pages

Lisa Simpson’s website, its creation and the ensuing reactions, raises several first amendment issues. The first issues focuses on the website itself, and subsequent suppression of the site. Lisa’s sight was shut down because of content and apparent community values which action raises serious free speech concerns. This leads into the picketing from the parents who argue that the website should not be visible to their children. With the website being shut down, a protest arises between Lisa and an anti-gay group who make many inflammatory remarks concerning the opposing side’s sexual orientation as well as the talks of burning an effigy of a person with the word “faggot” written across its chest. The school’s decision to ban the website was …show more content…

Since the high school Springfield is a public educational institute and Lisa created her website on the school’s server, she is under the school’s code. The code allows the school to suspend or suppress any student or speech that the school deems obscene or offensive. In order for the school to limit material on the basis of obscenity the material in question must satisfy all three components of the Miller test. The first two prongs of the Miller Test deal with the standards of the community. The community in which Lisa lives in is highly religious and conservative. While the website contain homosexual views and the school, according to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, has the right to censor speech if it goes against the school’s academic mission, the website serves an educational purpose. The third prong of the Miller test deals with the S.L.A.P.S test which states that in order for the material to be obscene it must not have any serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The content of the website serves political importance for the homosexuals in that community. Being of a religious and conservative nature, the community is not accepting of homosexuality. This website is a resource page to help promote students to come out in a non-threatening environment. The concurrence of New York v. Ferber, establishes that it is possible for the depiction of porn or sexual acts to have a serious literary, …show more content…

The problem with this correlates to the ruling from Hazelwood School District v Kuhlmeier, which states that school administrators have the authority to censor students beliefs and ideas they feel disrupts the education process or is viewed as obscene and or vulgar as they are representative of their respective states and the web page would be school sponsored. This was contradicted when the website was originally published and graded. The teacher who administered the assignment read and viewed the website Lisa submitted and she received a grade for the material. The teacher did not think the material was obscene or vulgar, because if she did Lisa would not have gotten an A on the

Show More
Related

Summary Of The Supreme Court Case Of Hazelwood V. Kuhlmeier

1910 Words | 8 Pages

They profess that school officials violated their First Amendment rights by deleting two pages of articles from the May 13, 1983, issue of Spectrum. Moreover, once the case was brought into the US District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri they proclaimed that Principal Reynolds was

Read More

Censorship: The Case Of Tinker Vs. Des Moines

125 Words | 1 Pages

As seen in previous cases like Tinker vs. Des Moines, students have the right to political say, unless it causes disruption at school of students are promoting something that goes against the law. In the case of Tinker v Des Moines the students were not promoting anything illegal but showed their thought on the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands (Tinker). Argued in court by Kenneth W. Starr in the Morse v. Frederick case, he gave the idea that the foundation for school censorship was the case of Tinker v. Des Moines (Morse). The Justices responded back saying, that case was a different scenario as the students weren 't doing anything against the law while Frederick was encouraging the use of marijuana which was illegal (Morse).

Read More

Ashcroft V. Free Speech Coalition Case Study

547 Words | 3 Pages

Citation: Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition 535 U.S. 234 (2002) U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Facts: The Free Speech Coalition which is a non-profit trade association of the pornography and adult entertainment industry in the United States filed suit, against the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA). The child pornography prevention act prohibits and sets penalties for activities such as depicting any visual image of the sexual abuse of minors. This includes pictures, video, and even modified images with the likeness or appearance of a minor engaging in a sexual act. The Promotion, advertisement, and distribution of such works are also prohibited and have consequences.

Read More

Supreme Court Case: Gregg V. Georgia 1976

1304 Words | 6 Pages

Kuhlmeier 1987 Constitutional Question: Does a school have the right to censor a students newspaper article or is this a violation of the students First Amendment rights of free press? Background Information: Cathy Kuhlmeier was a high school student at Hazelwood High School. Her and her friends were writers in the school newspaper. The schools news paper was written, edited and published by the students. Before publishing it was sent to the principal to look over.

Read More

Alfred E. Butler Case Summary

525 Words | 3 Pages

Roth was defeated in a 6 - 3 vote. The court announced that the obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment. “The Court noted that the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance or form of expression, such as materials that were "utterly without redeeming social importance. "(“Roth”).The court said the first Amendment was not planned to protect statements like Roth’s. The problem is the First Amendment does not specify what kind of speech is protected or not.

Read More

High School Censors Its Student Newspaper By Sarah Fenske

193 Words | 1 Pages

In the article “Globe High School Censors Its Student Newspaper”, author Sarah Fenske that Globe High School don’t allow their student pose negative news to the public. Her argument is high school student already can’t enjoy all the rights like adults do, but they should have their freedom of speech, school should not restraint on their students. And here are few supporting detail to her argument. Globe High School principal destroy all seven hundred copies. Because on December 7 O’Neal’s and McLonghlin who are the paper’s coeditors that they pose the issue of the Globe High School papoose on the newspaper, and the school don’t want any negative news announce to the public.

Read More

Roth V. United States Case Summary

963 Words | 4 Pages

Application: The Court’s rule regarding the constitutionality of the Comstock Act and other State Statues regulating obscenity is stated as, “We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press” (Roth, 1957, p. 485). Since obscenity was determined to not be protected under the First Amendment, this affirmed the lower court’s ruling. Justice Brennan sought to further clarify obscenity without facilitating censorship (Strub, 2013). His furthered clarification of the Hicklin test of what can be described as obscenity and how courts can legally differentiate the obscene from the non-obscene with due process (Alexander, 2008). This definition, or test, was used by lower courts and the US Supreme Court until it was replaced by Brennan himself in Miller v California, 1973 (Gaede,

Read More

Huckleberry Finn Should Be Banned

1456 Words | 6 Pages

She wishes to withhold this information from students merely to protect the painful feelings evoked from reading such disputed topics. Censorship is an incredibly

Read More

Summary Of A Cheerleader's Vulgar Message

1195 Words | 5 Pages

In the text, “A Cheerleader’s Vulgar Message” the author, Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, argues that the court case Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. The Supreme Court involving a 9th grade student in Pennsylvania that didn't make the varsity cheer squad and posted vulgar language with her friend on social media to show her frustration and getting punished for a whole year from cheer was a controversial topic and presents both sides. Liptak shows one side of the argument by stating, “The court said the First Amendment did not allow public schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds.” This helps to prove the author's claim that this was a controversial topic because he is stating what the court's response to the case was and that this is also improving his credibility because he uses the First Amendment to show why the court thinks the school was in the wrong for the students'

Read More

Prior Restraint In The Early 20th Century

249 Words | 1 Pages

Prior Restraint in the early 20th century was certainly different than it is today. In today’s publications legal action against free speech is of the post facto type, which means a message can be sent or delivered before the government can initiate an action against it. Prior restraint illustrates the principle of gatekeeping “like a gate on a channel, the intermediary gatekeeper allows some messages to get through and bar others” (238). In 1925 Minnesota legislature made an approval of a prior restraint law and it stated “obscene, lewd and lascivious or malicious, scandalous and defamatory publication was guilty of a nuisance and could be stopped by court order from further publication or distribution” (238). By doing this the law was tested

Read More

Let's Put Porn Back In The Closet Analysis

188 Words | 1 Pages

1. The Susan Brownmiller’s essay “Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet” is the debate between the First Amendment and pornography. There are also debates between what is obscene and what is used for educational purposes. Brownmiller believes that “…explicit sexual material has its place in literature, art, science and education” (62). Where literature broadens the mind with its descriptions and illustrations that words paint of the human body, art exposes children to what the human body looks like and satisfies their curiosity.

Read More

Mga In America Case Study

503 Words | 3 Pages

This brings up some very good legal questions. Has the Center High School violated Wanda’s first amendment rights to freely express her religion? Do they have the constitutional rights to do that? My answer, is yes they have violated her rights, and no they can’t do

Read More

Freedom Of Speech Vs Civility By Ann Wallace Scott Summary

839 Words | 4 Pages

This landmark case serves as a precedent for future instances defending students' freedom of speech. Furthermore, Scott presents several cases in the article where outcomes differed significantly from the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines ruling. Instances of speech restrictions extended beyond school grounds to off-campus events. This ongoing suppression of student voices prompted parents and school boards to voice their concerns. For example, in the 2006 case of Gals v. Marinel, a student wore a shirt criticizing then-President Bush with vulgar language, resulting in disciplinary

Read More

Rae Langton Silencing Argument

1653 Words | 7 Pages

Rae Langton (1993) offers a defence of MacKinnon’s claim in terms of speech acts. The main claim of Langton (1993) is divided into two: pornography is not the mere expression, but a speech act that subordinates women, and pornography which infringes women’s right of free speech silences them. However, for our purpose, I will only deal with the latter claim, i.e. silencing

Read More

Censorship: The Board Of Education V. Pico

1480 Words | 6 Pages

The case is known as the Board of Education v. Pico. The Board of Education wanted any literature that was deemed “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy,”(Legal Information Institute) to be removed from high school, and middle school libraries. The students then brought the Board of Education to court, claiming that the Board violated their first amendment rights. Court, however, ruled in the Board’s favor. This limitation of the first amendment is the beginning of censorship in not only public areas, but books and other medias.

Read More

More about Lisa Simpson First Amendment Issues

Related Topics

Open Document