Op-Ed: SCOTUS decision a victory for student free speech

Op-Ed by Jennifer Lauren Hamad

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The F-bombs that a frustrated cheerleader dropped in a Snapchat post after failing to land a spot on the varsity cheerleading team at her school recently detonated in the U.S. Supreme Court into a victory for student free speech and student activist organizations, like the one I led, that collaborated in submitting an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court.

In the historic B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District case, the Court ruled that the school’s actions in punishing Levy for her undisruptive off-campus speech were unconstitutional. Although student organizations are overwhelmingly relieved by this ruling, we remain unnerved by the dystopian reality of what could have been had the Courts ruled in favor of Mahanoy.

Social media has become the indispensable virtual voice of youth that has galvanized youth activism by making national and global exchange of views possible. However, if public schools succeeded in punishing off-campus speech, social media would have become synonymous with a virtual school classroom where schools have authority to regulate speech just as they would in a physical classroom. This would blur the metaphorical dividing line that separates speech "in the school context and beyond it" (established by Tinker v. Des Moines), leaving students without clarity on when they are afforded their full constitutional right to free speech. This ambiguity would become oppressive and subject students to the feeling that their speech is regulated 24/7, effectively stifling youth activism and threatening the existence of the student organizations that depend upon it.

Although Tinker’s precedent established that a school could punish students for speech if it disrupts the educational process, Levy’s case quickly revealed that Tinker could be applied to stifle what the late Congressman John Lewis deemed to be "good trouble"- "fearless agitation designed to provoke, challenge, and move the nation forward". Instead of restricting Tinker’s application to off-campus speech that disrupts the educational environment (e.g. threats of violence, harassment, bullying, etc.), schools could turn any off-campus political/social activism or speech they disapprove of into a case of “disruption.” Student speech that criticizes an educational institution, its policies, or the behavior of its personnel would become particularly vulnerable to retaliatory disciplinary action from schools.

Perhaps one of the most concerning assertions made by the Mahanoy Area School District was that a student "targets" or "directs speech at a school" anytime he or she "refers to school affairs or sends speech directed to classmates". This suggests students "target" their school by merely offering their opinion about a school program or policy or discussing school affairs with their peers.

Under this notion, my organization would not have been able to speak at board meetings, lobby for educational legislation, speak out about issues like student mental health, write op-eds, speak to reporters, or merely share stories amongst members without the imminent threat of punishment. This excessive and unwarranted control of speech would inevitably disenfranchise and disempower students.

A school could overextend its disciplinary power to punish any and all speech that concerns the educational process. Such far-reaching censorship would mean the beginning of the end of American democracy, as our public schools would quickly transform from the cradles of democracy into totalitarian enclaves where students become accustomed to an imbalance of power that strips them of their basic freedoms.

As the looming threat of punishment causes students to decline to share their opinions and partake in activism, vital student representation would be lost. This strong push to punish off-campus student expression related to education is alarming and would suppress eyewitness accounts of issues in our American public schools that would otherwise be revealed through the sharing of student experiences through social and political youth activism. Criticism of everything from educational inequities to school safety issues could be hidden from public knowledge if off-campus student speech were regulated and punishable by schools, resulting in the erasure of the student narrative.

Conveying the student narrative is a powerful tool used by students to inform decision-making on policies that directly affect their education. In the absence of student voice, students would be subjected to policies implemented without their input. Before schools know it, students would be crying "NO EDUCATION WITHOUT STUDENT REPRESENTATION!," echoing the sentiments of our American Revolutionary forefathers.

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Jennifer Lauren Hamad served as Speaker of the Houston Independent School District Student Congress that represents HISD’s 215,000+ students and collaborated with other student voice organizations to submit an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court for the B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District case. She is also an incoming freshman at Stanford University.

Prep Sports Notebook: Spartan teams open season with victories

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SJO volleyball tops Trojans

There is nothing better than starting a new season with a victory. The St. Joseph-Ogden volleyball team return to action this month with Kennedi Burnett leading the Spartans' offensive effort with 13 kills. Becca Steinbach tallied 32 assists, nine digs and a couple of blocks in the non-conference match on Monday. After dropping the first set 23-25, the Spartans roared back to take the next two, 25-20, 25-18 for the road win.

Addie Roesch served up three aces while senior Hannah Fox led the team's defensive effort with 16 digs. Junior Shayne Immke contributed another nine kills and six digs.

The Spartans, who will host their first home match of the season on August 31, will play their next three contests on the road starting with Georgetown-Ridge Farm on Wednesday followed by another Vermilion Valley foe, Bismarck-Henning, 24 hours later on Thursday. SJO's road campaign ends on Monday after a trip to Decatur for a showdown with St. Teresa.

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Soccer avenges last season loss

Will Page settles the ball while playing in last Friday's Spartan Kickoff against teammates. Page scored one of two goals against the Comets on Monday.

Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Back in March, the Oakwood-Catlin soccer coop crushed the SJO soccer team on their home turf, 6-2. On Monday, the Spartans invaded the Comets' home field, scoring a goal in each half for a 2-1 season-opening win.

Aiden Cromwell notched the program's first goal of the season in the first half to put St. Joseph-Ogden up 1-0. Senior Brennan Haake was credited with the assist on the play. Later, in the second half, junior Will Page nailed a penalty kick to give SJO a 2-0 lead before an Oakwood-Catlin kick from Saul Carillo found net.

Starting keeper Hunter Ketchum fended off 15 attacks on his goal.

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Coaches, please send us your game scores

The 2021 fall athletic season is here and we want to make sure all Sentinel high school coaches know where to send box scores and other sports information this year. The Sentinel needs your game scores and stat leaders after each game. Our goal is to keep fans, college recruiters and area readers well-informed.

The Sentinel is looking forward to the days, hopefully soon, when we will have enough business advertising with us to help expand our coverage to more teams at each school as well as outstanding individual athletes and their accomplishments. Until then, we'll do what we can with the limited resources at our disposal. We really rely on coaches, managers, ADs, parents and even players emailing or calling us to let us know the stories, final scores and interesting features we are missing. If you don't see it on The Sentinel, it is probably because no one took the time to tell us about it.

If the team you would like us to cover has a team website, Facebook page or Twitter feed, do us a favor and email the link to us. If your team is posting scores, stats, and achievements it will give us a place to check. Send us a link so we can bookmark it. Let us know who is getting what honors from All-League and All-Conference, who is going to sign their NLI, and so on. The best way to send box scores and other info is via email to sports@oursentinel.com or editor@oursentinel.com. Do you have a player on the verge of breaking a school record, got a story idea or hot news tip? Don't hesitate to send an email to either address.

The Sentinel looks forward to covering your 2021-2022 season.

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Unity goes toe-to-toe with Tuscola Warriors

by Daniel L. Chamness
Special for The Sentinel

The Unity Rockets and the Tuscola Warriors are not that far apart. How close were they?

For three and half quarters, the Rockets, playing in the friendly confines of Rocket Center, hung in there. With 4:30 left to play, the Rockets and the Warriors were tied up at 47-47. Jalen Quinn, the Warriors superstar junior, had just hit a three pointer to tie up the score. It was that last four and half minutes the Rockets could not stay with one of the better teams in the area.

Quinn would lead the run as he would nail an old fashioned three pointer at the 2:37 mark in addition to his game-tying three pointer. Quinn would finish the final quarter with 11 points to lead Tuscola, who were playing without four seniors, to a 64-54 victory.

The fourth quarter started with Unity up by five points.

They stayed one step ahead of the Warriors until the middle of the final period after Unity got points from Blake Kimball, Austin Langendorf and Tyler Hensch early in the quarter.

Tuscola was not idle either. Preston Brown and Quinn scored in the first minute of the quarter and with a a pair of Josiah Hortin three pointers, one at 6:03 and another at 5:01, had clipped the lead to one, 45-44. Kimball gave Unity their final lead of the game, when he scored at the 3:35 mark.

Tuscola Warrior junior Jalen Quinn brings the ball up the court, while Unity sophomore Will Cowan keeps a close eye on him and plays defense. The visiting Warriors defeated the Rockets at the Rocket Center 64-54 on Saturday afternoon.

Photo by Daniel L. Chamness

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"We love to play Tuscola," said Matt Reed, Unity's head coach. "Quinn is a special player, anyone can see that.

"Both teams play hard and with intensity and energy. We did not want Quinn to beat us on his own."

Reed then explained: "We lost our composure in the fourth quarter. We play physical so we have a chance to win. We had a 10-point lead and with a team like that it does not take much to close that gap. We had a couple of bad possessions and they made us pay for it. Hortin's treys turned the momentum of the game."

Other than the final, the Rockets led at the other three breaks.

Holding a three-point lead (11-8) at the end of the opening stanza, a two-point (28-26) lead at the end of the first half and a five-point advantage (39-34) at the end of the third period.

Unity drew first blood in the contest, as Unity junior guard Damian Knoll hit a three pointer at the 6:15 mark. They closed the quarter with a trey as well, as senior Nate Drennan found the hole from the right wing with 1:35 left in the quarter.

The Rockets would extend their lead to as many as ten points, 28-18 with 2:17 left in the first half. Kimball nailed a three-pointer only to have the Warriors would clip the lead to just two by halftime.

After Quinn snagged a bucket in the first minute of the second half, Unity went to work.

They went on an 11-0 run as their lead ballooned to 39-28. The run started with a short jumper by Langendorf, followed by a lay in by Langendorf. Kimball would score the next five points, starting with a three pointer at 5:05 followed by a pair of free throws at the 3:20 mark. With 2:22 to play, Drennan put the ball through the rim on a regulation bucket to complete the run.

"We have played Unity four times over the last three years and they are always a physical team," said Tuscola head coach Justin Bozarth. "Unity threw some great defenses at Quinn, trying to get the ball out of his hands or denying him the ball totally. They did great on some junk defenses." The Unity Rockets are 3-9 overall. Tuscola improved to 11-4 overall. Kimball was in double figures with 24 points. Quinn led all scorers with 28 points.

Henry's rebounding effort not enough to save Rockets

Taylor Henry and the Unity girls basketball team suffered their second straight loss after a convincing win over Illinois Valley Central on February 8. Just a few days after picking up their first win of the season and despite another strong defensive rebounding effort while hosting the Knights of the Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond coop (ALAH), the Rockets dropped the non-conference game, 67-36.

Henry, a junior, tallied seven of the team's 18 rebounds and finished the game with seven points and one assist.

If was any consolation, the Rockets are just one of two teams to put up more than 35 points on the now 7-0 ALAH program this season.

Unity's scoring effort was spearheaded by Maddie Reed's nine points. The junior shooting guard found the rim three times out of six shots from three-point range. Her two buckets in the third quarter were the only field goals her team could muster when they could have used more.

Meanwhile, inside the arc sophomore Lauren Miller made 80% of her shots, going 4-for-5 to finish the game with eight points rounding out the top three shooters for the Rockets.

It didn't help Unity one bit that ALAH started the contest on fire. Their opponent dropped 16 points in the first quarter and tacked on another 20 in the second to Unity's first half total of 18 points, which was spread evenly across the two periods.

Knights' sophomore Charley Condill lead all scorers with 10 points at the intermission. She finished the game with 13 points, one of three players from her team in double figures.

In front of Condill in the scorebook was classmate Kailee Otto and her game-high 10 points. She went to finished with at game-high 16.

ALAH got another 10 points from Mackenzie Bowles to help sink the Rockets to a 1-4 record.

However, this week the Unity girls basketball team have two games on the schedule they can use to improve their record.

Tonight, the team welcomes 0-3 Olympia to the Rocket Center. Both games will be streamed on the NFHS Network. The JV contest begins at 5:30p and the varsity game at 7pm.

On Thursday, Henry and the Rockets will take a short bus ride to Monticello for another Illini Prairie Conference game. The Lady Sages dropped a 20-point decision last week to Tuscola, 58-38, and posted an IPC 58-39 win over Rantoul.

Box Score

Unity	9	9	8	10	- 36
ALAH	16	20	22	9	- 67

Unity
Reed 1 (0) 0-0 -- 2, England 2 (0) 1-2 -- 5, Renfrow 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Miller 4 (0) 0-1 -- 8, Stringer 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Steinman 2 (0) 1-2 -- 5, B. Henry 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Reed 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Moore 0 (3) 0-0 -- 9, Alagna 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, T. Henry 2 (0) 3-4 -- 7, Flesch 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0.

Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond
Frederick 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Condill 3 (2) 1-4 -- 13, Nichols 0 (1) 0-0 -- 3, Brown 4 (0) 4-2 -- 9, Seay 2 (0) 0-0 -- 4, Beachy 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Seegmiller 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, A. Miller 3 (0) 0-1 -- 6, Otto 5 (2) 0-2 -- 16, Bowles 4 (0) 2-2 -- 10, S. Miller 1 (1) 1-1 -- 6.

IHSA reconfirms no high school sports until 2021

Illinois High School Association Executive Director Craig Anderson reiterated in a statement yesterday that the Board of Directors for the organization has no expectation to begin any winter sports seasons until 2021.

Meanwhile, despite the state under the Governor J.B. Pritzker's Tier 3 Resurgence Mitigation restrictions, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) reported 9,757 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 238 additional deaths yesterday. The statewide December 2 statistics marks the highest number of single-day fatalities from the disease in Illinois since May.

The statement comes as no real surprise as a large number of communities and counties around the state continue to resist adopting and following state health department's mandates and governor's guidance during a time when normal seasonal airborne viral infections flourish.

"To reiterate, the Board has no expectation to begin any winter sports seasons until 2021, but will remain agile in their preparation and willingness to adapt should a window present itself sooner," Anderson said.

He explained that the Board remains committed to creating as much opportunity as possible for all sports that remain to be played this school year and they ask that schools be adaptable in the coming New Year as more information and guidance becomes available from the IDPH and the governor. The start and ending dates are fluid depending on when the winter season can official resume.

"Given Governor Pritzker’s current mitigations, the Board has no expectation of starting low risk winter sports prior to January. The Board and IHSA staff will continue to monitor the Tier 3 Resurgence Mitigation in effect currently. When there is a timeline for the state to emerge from these restrictions, the Board is prepared to restart lower risk winter sports quickly," Anderson said. "In addition, the Board hopes to reestablish contact days in January for any winter sports that cannot begin, as well as spring and summer sports. The introduction of the contact days will be based on mitigations from the Governor and the Illinois Department of Public Health at that time. Further guidance on contact days limits will be established at a future Board meeting."

SJO Fan Club fundraiser orders due November 24

There are just four days left to take advantage of the annual St. Joseph-Ogden High School fan club $10 T-shirt sale. If you haven't ordered yours yet, order today to help support all the athletic programs at the high school.

"It's the only fundraiser fan club is doing this year. Because of Covid and the uncertainty of sports seasons, there was no good way to do the all athletic fundraisers that we've done the past few years," Tammy Vallee said. "I know I'd never be able to complete the list of what the funds are spent on, but each sport receives funds to spend on items they need. The fan club purchases larger items as they become needed as well, such as weight room updates and equipment that were added this past year."

With Christmas just around the corner, Spartan fans can email their name, email address, cell phone number and shirt sizes to tammyvallee@comcast.net or via Facebook Messenger. Payment can then be mailed or dropped off at 800 East Lincoln, St Joseph, IL, 61873. Checks must be made payable to SJO Fan Club. All payment and orders must be received by Tuesday, November 24.

Shirts can also be ordered with a student at the high school, who can submit orders and deposit payments at the check-in doors when they arrive at school in the morning.

The fan club expects T-shirt orders to be available for pickup the week of December 14.

The $10 T-shirts are available in sizes from youth through adult XL are available for $10 each. Extended sizes are also available at slightly higher prices with 2XL at $12 each and 3XL at $13 apiece. The fan club reminds fans who order to make sure to specify YOUTH in their email or messages when ordering a children's sizes.

The SJO Fan Club is an organization of parents, staff and community members who actively help every athletic program at the high school with fundraising and volunteers when needed.