What is the law regarding Christmas activities in public school systems? Consider a scenario where a public school that set aside some time to show Christmas themed movies and for the students to exchange some gifts with each other. Is this permitted? What is the law about religious holidays and public schools? What if some of the students gave dirty looks to other students who didn't bring presents? Is that permitted?
The law of Texas is controlled by federal law, viz. the First Amendment. This item by the ACLU summarizes what that law is. Regarding your concern, public schools are not required to be "religion-free zones". Individuals have the right to hold and express their religious beliefs, or their lack of such beliefs, as long as it is contextually appropriate. That is, you don't get to invoke the First Amendment in the middle of a math lesson in order to engage in a rant. Students are allowed to try to persuade others to believe whatever they want, and students are allowed to be snarky about people who don't share their beliefs. Schools can teach about religion as part of the curriculum, though they cannot teach religion. It is okay to teach the historical fact that some guy decided based on the Bible that the world was created 10,000 years ago, but it not not okay to teach as a scientific fact that the world was created 10,000 years ago. Although I can't name a specific movie about Christmas that would be plainly objectionable to a non-Christian, we could assume that there is some such movie which is plainly advocacy of a religious viewpoint and which mocks Yazidism. A Yazidi student could then be excused from this movie, just as Christian students could be excused from attending an analogous Yazidi-advocating movie.
This is a mixed bag of so-called &quot;laws&quot;, often interpreted in an unfavorable or satirical light. Because of this, you might say that none (save one) of these laws are literally laws, but they are the effects of laws that do exist. I'll do my best to sort this out. A fine of $25 can be levied for flirting. Almost certainly an anti-prostitution law taken to the extreme. I only found one example of a bill, but it failed, and was only tangentially related. It's not hard to imagine that at some point, flirting was technically illegal. A license must be purchased before hanging clothes on a clothesline. This is most likely a satire of the actual law, which probably states that you cannot hang anything out your window or in your yard without a permit. Many cities and states have rules about what you can, and can't, put on your property. These are usually related to health and/or aesthetics. Carmel: A man can't go outside while wearing a jacket and pants that do not match. It's too hard to track this one down right now, but that sounds like a satire of something like a specific situation where a person must be wearing specific clothing. For example, I would imagine a firefighter or school crossing guard having these requirements for safety reasons. Citizens may not greet each other by &quot;putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers&quot;. Edited for clarity While we do have the First Amendment right to Free Speech, it is sometimes recognized in jurisdictions that certain actions and phrases may pass the &quot;imminent lawless action&quot; exception. It is likely some kind of ordinance that prohibits being unnecessarily rude to the point where the offender may end up being assaulted or worse as a result of the gesture. This gesture was known as early as Shakespeare, with the &quot;I thumb my nose at thee&quot; line, also known as the &quot;cock-a-snook&quot; gesture in some regions. Of course, the actual law is probably much more nuanced than that, and this is just a funny way of reducing this law down to the most absurd example that someone could think of. Thanks to some comments, I just realized that this is very likely § 240.20 Disorderly conduct. A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof: ... In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or ... Several states have some sort of statute like this that are technically First Amendment Free Speech violations, yet generally recognized by those jurisdictions as having legal force, since the purpose is to discourage violence that can be caused by &quot;fighting words.&quot; Donkeys are not allowed to sleep in bathtubs in Brooklyn, N.Y. This is likely a structural integrity joke that doesn't hold up well (sorry, couldn't resist). Floors only have limited strength. If you look up the weight of a cast-iron bathtub and the maximum weight of a full-grown donkey, you'll find it weighs just less than a ton (about 1,800 pounds, assuming a heavy tub and large donkey). Someone probably saw a law about the maximum weight you can put on a floor, then looked up how much things weigh, and the joke practically writes itself. During a concert, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks. Again, this is probably taken out of context, but I presume that someone was doing something stupid and got hurt or killed, so a law was written about not walking on the sidewalk without paying attention to where you were walking. For example, if a sidewalk had a open manhole cover or something, and a person fell in. This is just a hyperbole example of the actual law, whatever it may be. In New York, you can teach your pet parrot to speak, but not to squawk. Easy. Noise ordinance law somewhere. A parrot's squawk can exceed 105 dB, and is generally disruptive to living next door to you in a thin-walled apartment. This person just found something really loud, and translated this law to match that law's prohibition. It's unlikely you'll find a law this specific, but noise ordinance laws exist in many areas. My area is 75 dB during the day, 70 dB at night. In New York City it's illegal to shake a dust mop out a window. That's definitely still on the books. It's part of the littering law. Littering, sweeping, throwing, or casting any material such as ashes, garbage, paper, dust, or other garbage or rubbish into or upon any street or public place, vacant lot, air shaft, areaway, backyard, court, or alley is illegal. Throwing garbage out of windows (for example, from buildings or vehicles) is also a violation. In addition, no person may allow anyone under his/her control (agent or employee) to commit a littering, sweep- out, or throw-out violation. Merchants must put all sweepings into suitable garbage receptacles for pickup by a private carter. Residential units must put sweepings into suitable garbage receptacles for pick up by DSNY. Sanitation litter baskets may not be used for this purpose. It is against the law to throw a ball at someone's head for fun. As far as I can tell, this has a serious history. Carnival workers (&quot;carnies&quot;) often had setups that involved heavy solid balls. The kind that could literally cause concussions if they were hit in the head. Dunk tanks, knock-stuff-over games, and so on. Presumably, people thought it would be funny to assault the carnies, so laws were written. Of course, assault is already illegal, but it was probably put there was a way to let people know it was a serious situation. Jaywalking is legal, as long as it's not diagonal. That is, you can cross the street out of the crosswalk, but you can't cross a street diagonally. This is really just saying that there's no law prohibiting jaywalking specifically, but there are laws about when you're allowed to cross an intersection diagonally. Again, making it sound weird or strange. It's just a loophole in the lawbooks. Presumably, if people started getting hit while crossing mid-street, they'd add a new law to address that. Slippers are not to be worn after 10:00 P.M. This is likely another oversimplification. It's probably something more like &quot;you have to wear solid-soled shoes at night to protect your feet from broken debris and rats&quot; or something like that. Staten Island: You may only water your lawn if the hose is held in your hand. This is likely a water conservation law. Automated sprinklers and lawn sprinklers waste water. In an effort to combat that problem, requiring hand-holding your hose makes you more likely to not overwater your lawn. While riding in an elevator, one must talk to no one, and fold his hands while looking toward the door. Of this list, this one is presumably a satire law that makes a statement about societal customs in some places of New York. It's highly unlikely this would be real law, but rather an expectation of how to behave in an elevator if you didn't want to have a bad experience. So, overall, I'd say that virtually none of the laws actually read like they do on this list, but some variant of the law in a more generalized form probably does exist.
I found a number of news stories and official documents about public schools with such policies including: &quot;Parents face more fines and rules if their children miss too much school&quot; from Public Opinion; &quot;School Adopts Strict Policy on Parents Picking Up Children Late&quot; from the Los Angeles Times; &quot;If you're late to pick up your kid at school, expect more than embarrassment&quot; from The Oregonian; &quot;Late Again? This School Fines Kids Who Aren't on Time&quot; from Parents; &quot;Late Pick Up Policy&quot; from Hazelwood Elementary; and &quot;School Issues Terrifying Threat to Parents Who Pick Up Kids Late&quot; from Yahoo Parenting The last story is about a school that threatened to call the local child protection authorities to take children into custody if parents were late, even by a short time. This was rescinded and apologized for. None of these stories mentioned any source of authority to impose such fines, nor any parent who had legally contested such fines. Public schools do not generally have authority to fine parents unless a law or ordinance grants such authority. Usually a school would need to file a report with law enforcement, and any fine be imposed by a court. But it may well be that parents are simply paying in such cases, rather than insisting on legal authority. If a student is left unsupervised, a school would pretty clearly have the right, and in some cases the duty, to notify the police or the appropriate child protection agency. Parents might fear that resisting the fines would lead to that far more drastic response, and so not challenge any fine. I did not include any of several news stories about similar practices in the UK, as the legal basis would be different there. But there were several such stories. There were also several stories suggesting that such fines can be counterproductive. It seems that some parents tend to come to regard them as fees, and are perfectly willing to pay, and the fine replaces the feeling of social obligation which might have been stronger. But that is not really a matter of law.
So I can block children under 13, but I can't tell them that? You can tell them after they fail, you cannot tell them on the asking screen. Then what is the correct way to block children under 13 to access my website and still comply with COPPA? I agree with you that it is odd that they recommend using a cookie but they do!* So you have a entry page with a simple question, "Please indicate your age" and then block based on the response. That's it. Note that the rule is neutral. This means that you do not need to disguise your purpose or try to trick people into entering their correct age. *I think that what is happening here is that any parent who wants to complain to their legislator can be met with the response, "If your kid is so sneaky that they are using different computers to lie about their age what do you want us to do about it?" The fact is, this scheme keeps innocent kids from seeing stuff they shouldn't; the sneaky ones are going to find a way.
In New South Wales it is entirely legal to film police (or anyone else). However, as discussed (What is considered &quot;public&quot; in the context of taking videos or audio recordings?) audio recording is more restricted: you must either have the permission of all the participants in a conversation or be a party to the conversation. I do not imagine the law is any different in Victoria.
Yes, barring any statutory prohibitions against such a rule. I would be very surprised if any existed. They don't exist in any jurisdiction I'm familiar with. Look up the local by-laws to be sure.
Yes, there is legal precedent against this that would only apply to a government employee. First, let's discuss the private sector. In this case, you are a private employee that comes to your place of work and accuses you of "stealing the cookies from the cookie jar" which is a serious criminal offense. They wish to talk and your boss is in the room. You plead the 5th, but your boss says you're fired if you don't talk to the cops. This is legal because you still have the right to refuse to talk, you just lose your job. A private employer has the right to free association, and wants nothing to do with cookie thieves, alleged or actual. However, in the government employ, your boss is an agent of the government. This same situation is different because the government pays the boss and the agent... so in essence the government is saying talk or be fired. This is unconstitutional as the government cannot retalitate against you for your refusal to talk. Generally, in order to talk to you, the investigator would need either a signed Garrity Statement or a Signed Kalkines Statement. The former is a statement saying that they are investigating a wrong doing but you cannot lose your job if you refuse to speak to the investigators, where as Kalkines says you must talk but you are granted immunity for your part in the wrong doing, so long as you make truthful statements. For more on this, check this legal blog. There is also the matter that a false accusation (and let me be clear... this is academic, I'm not saying the accusation in the real life topic is false, nor am I saying that the defense is false... we're merely discussing a possibility) is made to your employer and they do not offer the job on the basis of the accusation alone, this is grounds for defamation actions... and in certain jurisdictions, it's criminal defamation, so there could be jail time. It's interesting you mentioned teachers, because this happens alot. Kids do know that there are certain things that get a teacher fired quickly, so teachers do get the occasional false accusation of sexual assault (I know one teacher who has had multiple accusations over the course of her career). One of the few good things I can say about the Teachers Union is they cover the legal defense of accused teachers. The accusations do get the teacher removed from the class for sometime, but they don't lose their jobs over this matter. It's followed up but the accusation doesn't immediately lead to the teacher getting fired..
I think the Washington law and order is fairly clear: you must stay home unless you are engaged in certain allowed activities. The underlying law, RCW 43.06.220(h) empowers issuing an order prohibiting "Such other activities as he or she reasonably believes should be prohibited to help preserve and maintain life, health, property or the public peace". Therefore I can walk my dog. When I do, there are a lot of people also out walking their dogs, so that provides a letter-of-the-law permitted exception to the stay-at-home order. Nothing in the order specifically addresses the situation where you pause your dog-walk to talk to a neighbor (the "appropriate social distancing" sub-rule only applies to recreational departures from your home). It is well-established that the central legal issue is what the "compelling government interest" is, and whether these restrictions fail on grounds of narrow-tailoring or least-restrictiveness. The failure to include "go to your brother's place for lunch, provided you follow appropriate social distancing guidelines" as a permitted activity is a candidate for not being least-restrictive. The problem is that the courts will not engage in an infinite regress of second-guessings about whether certain measures are "truly necessary". There is a SCOTUS challenge where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld that's state's order, but a SCOTUS order requires the state to reply to a petition by Monday. The "status quo" is that these orders are legal, until someone constructs a compelling argument that they are not, and that matter is then resolved in favor of petitioner by SCOTUS (which has not happened). So far, governors have prevailed at the state level.