Emboldened by the growing online presence of their fellow white supremacists, the organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally expanded their activities this year. This year's rally spanned 10 days and spawned additional hate speech. The organizers scheduled six large gatherings within 100 yards of public schools located in Charlottesville, Virginia. In an effort to indoctrinate the local youth, the organizers held those rallies during school hours and utilized powerful amplifiers so that the youth would hear their hateful messages throughout the school days. After the fourth such rally, local law enforcement fined the organizers, forced them to disburse, and barred them from holding any additional gatherings of more than 50 attendees (through the threat of additional criminal charges), citing local nuisance laws that barred the use of the amplifiers at rallies in general. Immediately thereafter, the organizers went to federal court to seek relief from the fine and the ban against future gatherings. In the meantime, Sam, a 16-year-old student who heard the gathering held outside of his high school, began wearing an armband with a swastika on it soon after the gathering. Many of the students at his diverse high school were offended by the armband, and several threatened to beat him up. School officials told Sam that wearing such a symbol is prohibited by school rules and, as a result, they suspend him for three days and tell him to never bring the armband to school again. You are a First Amendment lawyer who has been retained to defend both the organizers and Sam.

Instructions:

Do you agree or not with the following? Please explain why yes or no and apply the law. Thank you.

-Freedom of speech is protected under the First Amendment. -Content-based restrictions on speech generally must meet strict scrutiny (subject matter restrictions, viewpoint restrictions). -Content-neutral laws burdening speech generally need only meet intermediate scrutiny. -Symbolic speech. The government can regulate conduct that communicates if it has an important interest unrelated to the suppression of the message and if the impact on communication is no greater than necessary to achieve the government's purposes. -Freedom of religion- free exercise clause. ORGANIZERS Here, the organizers can exercise their freedom of speech by gathering and holding rallies. They gathered within 100 yards of public schools, which is a proper distance from the education/school system. The organization spread hateful messages to the students. For the government to ban the organization's speech, whether those hate messages are content-based or content-neutral restrictions are to be determined. Here, the hate messages are topic-specific and, therefore, should fall under content-based restrictions and the court would apply strict scrutiny. The government has the burden to prove that the law is necessary to achieve a compelling government purpose. SAM Here, Sam is wearing an armband with a swastika on it, which is related to his personal religious belief, and one's free exercise of religion is protected under the First Amendment. School policy may not conflict with the fundamental rights protected under the Constitution because of the Supremacy Clause. Religious is a suspect class and the court would apply strict scrutiny, therefore, the burden is on the public school to prove them to ban Sam is necessary to achieve a compelling government purpose.