Under the First Amendment, public institutions cannot suppress free speech — or so most Americans thought. Oh, but speech can be violence, say leftists, and then government ought to stamp it out.

A case in New Hampshire pits the two ideas against each other, and, according to the judge, speech must give way. A school made a rule forbidding fathers from wearing pink XX wristbands as a silent protest against allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports.

Hans Bader writes about this unbelievable case in this Liberty Unyielding post. 

He begins, “Bizarrely, the judge wrote, ‘The message generally ascribed to the XX symbol, in a context such as that presented here, can reasonably be understood as directly assaulting those who identify as transgender women.’” 

So, wearing a wristband is an assault on people, so government can stop it. Would there be any means for those who oppose letting boys play in girls’ sports to express their point of view that wouldn’t be an “assault?”

Bader looks at a key First Amendment precedent: “Wearing a wristband to express your views is obviously protected. It is closely akin to what the Supreme Court ruled was protected, even for schoolchildren, in its ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines School District (1969). In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected the right of students to wear black armbands in class to oppose the Vietnam War, because they were merely engaging in ‘silent, passive expression of opinion.’ The fact that a ‘few students made hostile remarks to the children wearing the armbands’ was not proof of disruption warranting censorship of their speech.”

I think it’s a good bet that the judge (who was appointed by Bush 41) will get reversed on appeal, but it’s a bad sign that the left’s “speech can be violence” notion finds any support in the judiciary.