High Court Rules In Online Threat Religious Rights Cases ✓ Solved

High Court Rules In Online Threat Religious Rights Casesby Mark Wals

High Court Rules in Online Threat, Religious Rights Cases By Mark Walsh In two decisions last week, the U.S. Supreme Court touched on a pair of issues—potentially threatening online speech and religious accommodation—that are playing out in schools as much as in the rest of society. The speech case, Elonis v. United States (No. 13-983), saw the justices ruling 8-1 to overturn the federal criminal conviction of Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man whose postings on Facebook included talk of shooting up a kindergarten class.

But the majority stopped short of making any broad First Amendment rulings about Internet threats. Meanwhile, in a separate case being watched by educators, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc. (No. 14-86), the court bolstered religious protections for employees by ruling for a young Muslim woman who was denied a job at a clothing retailer because she wore a hijab, or head scarf. Both rulings, however, had some advocates saying they had hoped for more clarity from the high court on how the rulings should be applied by those seeking to make decisions in these contentious areas.

The Elonis ruling involved a 27-year-old amusement-park employee in 2010 who was experiencing difficulties with his wife and his job when he began posting violent material on Facebook, including; “Enough elementary schools in a 10-mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined. And hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten