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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I was anti Occupy because it was literally a protest about nothing, It was more about people sitting in a park, partying, smoking dope, pooping in a public place, denying a group who rented the park from actually using all of a park.

I don't think the validity of the cause should enter into any decision about freedoms, otherwise you simply limit freedoms for causes you don't like and allow them for causes you do like.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

My disagreement point is that I don't see anything on that shirt that is offensive, I think its a real stretch to make it offensive. I think its a really weak interpretation of offensive by the suspending body

"Life is wasted without Jesus", what is being wasted? Life. All life. All life without Jesus, meaning all life that isn't a Christian life (because life with Jesus is by definition Christian) is wasted, including any other religion.

It's targeted towards all others that are not like the wearer of the shirt, that makes it over the line.

If you want to disagree with the decision and think it's weak, that's fine, these things can be subjective. But it was their call to make.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

and I think that the punishment is extremely punative in the face of lighter suspensions for fighting for example or a lack of action in terms of bullying that we've read about in the paper over the last two years.

You're conflating two different issues that aren't related. This group was judging one shirt against one rule, and you're equating media reporting of bullying over the past two years to make a point that they're focusing on freedom of expression over child safety?

Sorry, that's not reasonable.

The suspension was for disobeying instructions from the school authorities.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I just don't see it as a denigration of anything, maybe he's born again and this is his testimony.

I'm sure it is, so? Again just because he believes it doesn't mean he's allowed to put it on his shirt. If it's his testimony, put "My" in front so it refers to him instead of having it off where it refers to everyone else.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Where does it state anything about other religions in that slogan? You can't banish or suspended based on filling in the blanks with your own personal interprestation.

"Life is wasted without Jesus", what is being wasted? Life. All life. All life without Jesus, meaning all life that isn't a Christian life (because life with Jesus is by definition Christian) is wasted, including any other religion.

If you want to argue that it means something other than all life, then you're the one filling in the blanks, because if there's no qualifier on the object then grammar means it refers to all instances of the object.

"I hate heat." No reasonable person would say that refers to just a particular heat, it refers to heat in general.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Photes that's a real stretch. The suspension is based on an interpretation, not on hard facts. If the shirt was actually naming other religions, or had a component of hate speech, suspend away, but I don't think that you can punish someone based on your interpretation.

Well it's not a speeding ticket so the only facts that are used are the rule in question, the words on the shirt, the language, and what a reasonable person would interpret it as.

The rule is "If a message can be reasonably interpreted by a person as negative towards another person's beliefs", and I think it can be reasonably interpreted as such, since many people in this tread reasonably interpret it so.

And I don't think it's a stretch at all, my example simply replaces his personal belief (Jesus) with his personal race (white).

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

You could argue that weeks of ignoring requests is a legitimate protest in this case.

I don't think so, because a) I don't think high schools are the right places for such protests (it's disruptive to others) and b) because he hasn't pursued other options and c) he wasn't making some cogent point about why limiting freedom of expression in that environment was harmful to society, he was just saying "your rules don't apply to me because I'm a special snowflake".

If he'd pursued other options first and had a compelling reason why the rule shouldn't be there or why his shirt in particular didn't run afoul of the rules, then I'd be more considerate of his "protest" (even though I'd still think it wasn't appropriate).

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Just playing devils advocate on this, but I would be more interesting in seeing what the warnings were like, if they were written warnings etc.

Sure, I'd also be interested in knowing the students actions in school around the issue. Was he respectfully wearing the shirt while trying to avoid confrontation and making it clear he's doing it as a freedom of expression issue? Or was he evangelizing?