Hush Don\u27t Say a Word: Safeguarding Student\u27s Freedom of Expression in the Trump Era

The controversy surrounding NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s act of kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality against people of color continues to permeate public discourse. In March 2017, President Trump referenced Colin Kaepernick’s symbolic act during a rally in Louisville, Kentucky, in an effort to illustrate his strong opposition to anyone kneeling during the national anthem. In this speech, President Trump stated that although many NFL franchise owners were interested in signing Colin Kaepernick, many were afraid of receiving a nasty tweet from him. Likewise, in another speech, President Trump stated, “I think it’s a great lack of respect and appreciation for our country and I really think they should try another country, see if they like it better.” Although President Trump is referring to professional athletes in both of the aforementioned public statements, what about the thousands of students who participated in the nationwide walkout to protest gun violence in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting? Or the hundreds of youth football players that are kneeling during the national anthem in an effort to mimic their professional idols? This article takes the position that students have the constitutional right under the First Amendment to engage in expressive activities, political speech, and symbolic speech without interference or censor from the state. Certainly, schools can educate, but they cannot indoctrinate based on a prescribed orthodoxy. Therefore, any attempts to limit or discipline students from participating in expressive activities, such as social protests, in K-12 schools that does not cause a material disruption to the learning environment is unconstitutional. Currently, students’ First Amendment rights in K- 12 schools reside in a sea of ambiguity where the Supreme Court has acknowledged that students are considered ‘persons’ under our Constitution and thus entitled to fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, yet in the same vein marginalize those same rights in subsequent decisions by permitting school authorities to limit freedom of speech under certain circumstances. This article offers a path toward safeguarding students’ First Amendment rights to engage in expressive activities, political speech and symbolic speech in K-12 schools by amending existing anti-Hazelwood statutes to explicitly include protections for student social protests, as long as such conduct does not cause a material disruption to the school learning environment. Furthermore, the proposed amendment to anti- Hazelwood statutes will limit the reach of Tinker’s Material Disruption Standard so that school officials do not have unbridled discretion to censor student expression

From Hoodies to Kneeling During the National Anthem: The Colin Kaepernick Effect and Its Implications for K-12 Sports

The article focuses on prospective path toward safeguarding students\u27 First Amendment free speech rights in K-12 schools and intersection of social activism and sports and the implications of this relationship for public school students and preservation of student freedom of expression rights

Dismantling Structural Inequality: Lock Ups, Systemic Chokeholds, and Race-Based Policing - A Symposium Summary

The prominence of the carceral state in American society serves to undermine basic principles of democracy and justice, disproportionately displacing people of color and excluding them from all viable avenues of citizenship

Enhancing legacy in palliative care: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of Dignity Therapy focused on positive outcomes.

BackgroundDignity Therapy is a brief psychotherapy that can enhance a sense of legacy while addressing the emotional and existential needs of patients receiving hospice or palliative care. In Dignity Therapy, patients create a formalized "legacy" document that records their most cherished memories, their lessons learned in life, as well as their hopes and dreams for loved ones in the future. To date, this treatment has been studied for its impact on mitigating distress within hospice and palliative care populations and has provided mixed results. This study will instead focus on whether Dignity Therapy enhances positive outcomes in this population.Methods/designIn this study, 90 patients with cancer receiving hospice or palliative care will complete a mixed-methods randomized controlled trial of Dignity Therapy (n = 45) versus Supportive Attention (n = 45). The patients will be enrolled in the study for 3 weeks, receiving a total of six study visits. The primary outcomes examine whether the treatment will quantitatively increase levels of positive affect and a sense of life closure. Secondary outcomes focus on gratitude, hope, life satisfaction, meaning in life, resilience, and self-efficacy. Using a fixed, embedded dataset design, this study will additionally use qualitative interviews to explore patients' perceptions regarding the use of positive outcome measures and whether these outcomes are appropriately matched to their experiences in therapy.DiscussionDignity Therapy has shown mixed results when evaluating its impact on distress, although no other study to date has solely focused on the potential positive aspects of this treatment. This study is novel in its use of mixed methods assessments to focus on positive outcomes, and will provide valuable information about patients' direct experiences in this area.Trial registrationISRCTN91389194

Words Volume 1 2007-2009

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/words/1000/thumbnail.jp

Plastome-wide rearrangements and gene losses in carnivorous Droseraceae

The plastid genomes of four related carnivorous plants (Drosera regia, Drosera erythrorhiza, Aldrovanda vesiculosa and Dionaea muscipula) were sequenced to examine changes potentially induced by the transition to carnivory. The plastid genomes of the Droseraceae show multiple rearrangements, gene losses and large expansions or contractions of the inverted repeat. All the ndh genes are lost or non-functional, as well as in some of the species, clpP1, ycf1, ycf2 and some tRNA genes. Uniquely amongst land plants, the trnK gene has no intron. Carnivory in the Droseraceae coincides with changes in plastid gene content similar to those induced by parasitism and mycoheterotrophy, suggesting parallel changes in chloroplast function due to the similar switch from autotrophy to (mixo-) heterotrophy. A molecular phylogeny of the taxa based on all shared plastid genes indicates that the ‘snap-traps’ of Aldrovanda and Dionaea have a common origin

Enhancing legacy in palliative care: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of Dignity Therapy focused on positive outcomes

BACKGROUND: Dignity Therapy is a brief psychotherapy that can enhance a sense of legacy while addressing the emotional and existential needs of patients receiving hospice or palliative care. In Dignity Therapy, patients create a formalized “legacy” document that records their most cherished memories, their lessons learned in life, as well as their hopes and dreams for loved ones in the future. To date, this treatment has been studied for its impact on mitigating distress within hospice and palliative care populations and has provided mixed results. This study will instead focus on whether Dignity Therapy enhances positive outcomes in this population. METHODS/DESIGN: In this study, 90 patients with cancer receiving hospice or palliative care will complete a mixed-methods randomized controlled trial of Dignity Therapy (n = 45) versus Supportive Attention (n = 45). The patients will be enrolled in the study for 3 weeks, receiving a total of six study visits. The primary outcomes examine whether the treatment will quantitatively increase levels of positive affect and a sense of life closure. Secondary outcomes focus on gratitude, hope, life satisfaction, meaning in life, resilience, and self-efficacy. Using a fixed, embedded dataset design, this study will additionally use qualitative interviews to explore patients’ perceptions regarding the use of positive outcome measures and whether these outcomes are appropriately matched to their experiences in therapy. DISCUSSION: Dignity Therapy has shown mixed results when evaluating its impact on distress, although no other study to date has solely focused on the potential positive aspects of this treatment. This study is novel in its use of mixed methods assessments to focus on positive outcomes, and will provide valuable information about patients’ direct experiences in this area. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN9138919