Supreme Court again refuses to intervene in drag show controversy : NPR

The Supreme Court docket on Friday declined to get entangled in a First Modification problem to a drag present ban. It was the second time the courtroom has refused to step right into a drag controversy this time period.

College students at West Texas A&M College went to the excessive courtroom after two decrease courts refused to behave in time to save lots of a pupil drag present scheduled on campus for March 22. They requested for emergency intervention, claiming a transparent violation of their rights to free speech.

Final November, Supreme Court docket additionally refused to intervene when the state of Florida requested it to briefly reinstate its anti-drag present legislation. At the moment Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented. This time there have been no famous dissents.

The scholar group will seemingly have to maneuver its showcase campus this 12 months whereas it waits for a listening to from the Fifth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, extensively seen as essentially the most conservative federal appeals courtroom within the nation.

College President Walter Wendler first blocked the LGBTQ+ pupil group from utilizing a campus efficiency corridor to host a drag present final March. In an electronic mail to the scholar physique explaining his resolution, Wendler referred to as drag opposite to the “foundation of Pure Regulation,” in addition to “derisive, divisive, and demoralizing.” He stated the “ideology” underlying drag exhibits is demeaning to girls and couldn’t be condoned by the college.

Wendler appeared to know that denying public college sources to a gaggle based mostly on the content material of the efficiency violated the legislation, writing that he wouldn’t enable the drag present to go ahead on campus “even when the legislation of the land seems to require it.”

However when the scholars went to courtroom, they bumped into district courtroom decide Matthew Kacsmaryk. Earlier than his judicial appointment by former President Donald Trump, Kacsmaryk publicly opposed together with safety for LGBT people in anti-discrimination legal guidelines and referred to as homosexuality “disordered” in an op-ed.

Kacsmaryk denied the scholars’ request for emergency reduction, and the group needed to transfer their 2023 showcase campus. After permitting time for briefing within the case, Kacsmaryk once more dominated in opposition to the scholars six months later. He stated drag “doesn’t clearly convey or talk a discernable, protectable message,” so it doesn’t qualify for First Modification safety.

A distinct Texas district courtroom decide dominated final September {that a} statewide legislation proscribing drag exhibits was “an unconstitutional restriction on speech.”

Texas argued that the legislation is “not indisputably” on the scholars’ aspect, claiming drag exhibits should not inherently expressive, so they don’t benefit computerized First Modification safety. One of many state’s filings asserted that when muted, recordings of drag performances seem indistinguishable from each other.

Legal professionals for the scholar group caustically responded with a query: How may drag convey the entire horrible messages college President Wendler described if it did not categorical any message in any respect? That query, not less than for now, won’t be debated within the Supreme Court docket.