School Board Outbursts, Threats Highlight First Amendment Struggle
Unruly conduct, including death threats directed at school board members, has at times risen to a form of domestic terrorism that is rarely prosecuted.
Landwebs
Police in Enumclaw, a city about 50 miles southeast of Seattle, are investigating a “deeply disturbing” incident, called “zoom-bombing,” in which a school board meeting led by a Black superintendent was interrupted by virtual attendees displaying an image of George Floyd as a looped recording of racial slurs played, as a potential hate crime, reports USA Today. The incident at Enumclaw is only the latest in a surge of disruptive behavior at school board meetings nationwide as anger boils over during debates on pandemic precautions, racism and critical race theory.
The National School Boards Association has said the unruly conduct, including death threats directed at school board members, has at times risen to a form of domestic terrorism. Unfortunately, legal experts say prosecutions are rare because of the difficulty deciding what counts as a true threat and court rulings meant to protect free speech. And even as the Supreme Court’s failure to clarify which threats are punishable offenses and which are protected compounds the issue, lower courts trying to carve out exceptions to the First Amendment have added to the confusion. In some jurisdictions, a death threat is criminal if it would scare a reasonable person. In others, a threat is unlawful only if a perpetrator intended to terrify a target.
