CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – I can’t force you to say anything.
No matter how much I’d like everyone to stand up for and say the Pledge of Allegiance, or bow our heads and say the Lord’s Prayer, I can’t. Compelled speech violates your Constitutional right to free speech. This is settled law, based on multiple Supreme Court rulings. It’s not even hotly debated in our courthouses. You can’t mandate that someone say something that they don’t want to.
But, like all rights, this must be defended.
Consider what happened in the Kiel School District. Three eighth-graders were in trouble for refusing to call a classmate by their preferred pronouns. They know their classmate is a “he,” and they didn’t want to take part in the charade of calling “him” a “her” or a “they.” In other school districts, teachers have been suspended for the same offense. The investigation has since been dropped.
The non-binary student claims he/she/they’s rights are being violated under Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in education. There’s another obvious problem here. When Congress approved Title IX in 1972, there was no such thing as non-binary. Congress never intended, let alone debated, whether gender equality would cover girls who want to be boys, or boys who want to be girls. And the law can’t possibly mean something that its authors never even considered.
Now if these eighth-graders are harassing or teasing their classmate, that’s not okay. And, since every school has rules against bullying, they should be punished.
But you can’t force them to call a girl and guy, or a guy a girl. A student who claims to be non-binary doesn’t get to trample on the constitutional rights of others.
Chris Conley
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