32 | Young Students and Free Speech: Live from ELA 2024!

What First Amendment rights to free speech do students have in the elementary school classroom? How can schools teach the essential values of kindness, tolerance, and respect for others? In our first-ever live episode, recorded at the Education Law Association's Annual Conference in front of a "live studio" audience, we discuss B.B. v. Capistrano Unified School District. This is a recent case involving a first-grade student who, after a lesson about Martin Luther King Jr., gave a “Black Lives Matter” drawing to her friend and was disciplined by the school for including the phrase "any life" on the drawing. Listen in as we unpack some of the really interesting things the trial court had to say about the free speech rights of some of our youngest students. We also discuss an update on the Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District case that we covered in Episode 4. This is the case where the trial court declined to halt the enforcement of a school policy forbidding the intentional misgendering of transgender students. After a panel of the Sixth Circuit upheld the trial court's decision, the Sixth Circuit agreed to hear the case en banc, meaning that all sixteen active judges will now hear the case. -- We're building a Teaching Guide! You can check it out at our website, ChalkandGavel.com. We'd also greatly appreciate it if you would consider supporting Chalk and Gavel by becoming a subscriber on Patreon. Your support will help us continue to deliver the education law content you want to hear! ⁠https://www.patreon.com/chalkandgavel --- Keywords: Elementary Students, Free Speech, First Amendment, Black Lives Matter, Parental Engagement, Transgender Students, En Banc