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The Flights Of Fancy And The Freedom Of Speech Essay

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In the hypothetical “Flights of Fancy and the Freedom of Speech,” Jeremy is a 16-year-old video game addict who is suspended after posting some fanfiction on facebook which involves characters from his favorite video game, Space Traveler XVIII, plotting to kill one of the characters, Waroomba. The characters are unable to kill Waroombra, however, because he has a copy of the United States Constitution. After the attempted murder, Waroombra grabs an assault rifle and says that he will bring it everywhere with him including the beach, gym, and school. The next day, another student reported the post to the principle, Principle Underwood, and Jeremy is suspended. After being suspended, Jeremy and his family are upset claiming that the school suspension violated Jeremy’s first amendment privileges. The question for this hypothetical is: “Did Principal Underwood violate Jeremy’s first amendment rights when she suspended him from school for his Facebook posting which, among other things, included a character’s reference to bringing an assault rifle to school? “ In the past, the Rule of Law for the First Amendment was that American citizens had the right not to speak (West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)), right for students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969)), the right to use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages (Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971)), the right

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