When I was in elementary school my classmate, Danny, drew a swastika on his arm. The principal saw the Nazi symbol and reacted with righteous anger, making it clear that he hated the Nazis because they had killed his buddies during the war. After getting the infamous school soap and paper towels, he went to work on that Swastika. I think he would have scrubbed that arm to the bone to remove the symbol of evil; fortunately for Danny the ink yielded before his skin did. I must be clear that Danny was not a Nazi or even a white nationalist; he was just a kid doing something he thought was rebellious or cool without understanding the implications. That day had a lasting impression on me—whenever I see modern Nazis doing their thing, I still think of the anger of a man whose friends had been killed by the Nazis. He was, obviously, right to be angry and Nazis are not to be tolerated. But what about uninformed kids who display Nazi symbols or seem to do the Nazi salute?
Perhaps the best-known recent example of this occurred in Wisconsin: a group of students appear to be doing the Nazi salute in a photo. The initial response from school officials was to assert that they did not know the intentions of the students and that they could not be punished because of the First Amendment. Oddly, it was then claimed that the photo did not really show students engaged in the Nazi salute; it was claimed that they were waving, and it just looked like they were saluting. That is, as a matter of pure chance, they just happened to have their arms and hands in that position at the same time. While this is not impossible, the photo had been posted with the caption “We even got the black kid to throw it up” and this suggests that it was no accident of photography. It could still be claimed that it was an accident and the person posting it just took advantage of this unfortunate shot. This seems improbable, but not beyond the realm of possibility. If the photographer were just clicking off shots and that was just one in the series, that it would seem to be a simple matter to show that the students are just waving and happen to all be captured at the same time doing what looks exactly like a Nazi salute. Obviously enough, if the students were just waving, then there is no problem here. But, if the students were doing the Nazi salute, then the first defense needs to be addressed: are the students protected by the First Amendment (or the moral freedom of expression)?
As many others have pointed out, schools routinely and legally restrict the First Amendment rights of students even in very minor matters and without agonizing over the intention of the students. As a legal matter, the answer would seem to be that the students are not protected—unless the other restrictions are also illegal. A reasonable reply is that asserting a practice is legal and common provides no moral defense. After all, what is legal need not be moral and what is common need not be right (to think otherwise would be to fall victim to the fallacy of common practice). So, it could be argued that the school acted rightly in this matter by respecting the students’ right of free expression. However, holding to this position would entail applying the same principle consistently. So, if students have the moral right to make the Nazi salute without being punished, then they should have the right to express views of equal or lesser evil. As such, students should be allowed to throw gang signs, wear shirts emblazoned with “Eat the Rich”, dress as they see fit, and so on. After all, one cannot know their true intentions and the First Amendment protects them.
Being a supporter of free expression, I do think that schools are overly restrictive of student liberty. Being rational, I do recognize that rights and liberties must have limits. As thinkers like Hobbes and Mill have argued, liberty requires restricting liberty (and rights requires restricting rights). While this sounds very Orwellian or paradoxical, it is not. To use an obvious example, your liberty to express yourself requires a restriction of my liberty to silence you. As another example, your right to property requires restricting the rights of others to take your stuff. The moral and practical challenge is balancing rights, liberties and other moral concerns to determine what is best (or at least good enough).
As the opening of this essay indicates, the students doing the Nazi salute immediately brought to mind the incident from my past. I think that the principal acted rightly: the student needed to be taught that Nazis are evil and that displaying their symbol in school or at a school event, even in youthful ignorance, is not morally acceptable. As such, restricting students from displaying Nazi symbols at school or school events is morally acceptable. In the case of the Nazi salute, let us assume that the students acted from their youthfulness and not from being real Nazis. As such, they should be taught the truth about Nazi and why doing that salute is morally wrong.
It could be objected that this approach violates the students’ right to free expression and thought: they should be free to do the Nazi salute and even to be Nazis, if they do not break the law or harm people. This position is tempting, since people who do not take it can be accused of not really supporting the freedom of expression. After all, one might argue, if I silence Nazi expression, how can I truly be for free expression? The easy and obvious reply is that we all draw the line somewhere—there is some behavior or expression that cannot be accepted. For example, imagine a student who is a necrophiliac who specializes in bestiality and wants to express their ideas in class with a video or (partially) live demonstration involving the classes’ deceased guinea pig? Surely it would be acceptable to restrict that expression. As such, the ethics of restricting expression is not a matter of whether one accepts it as absolute or rejects it utterly but where the boundaries are located. What expression one defends indicates one’s moral views; to fight for Nazi free expression is a moral statement. This is especially relevant when what one defends is contrasted with what one restricts; that provides an interesting map of a person’s moral values. So, if a person rushes to defend Nazi salutes but balks at defending the rights of those in Black Lives Matter, then they have shown part of their moral map. Someone who leaps to defend the expression of transgender people but balks at defending Christian conservatives has also revealed part of their moral map. But, getting back to Nazis.
We know what Nazism is and where it leads; there is nothing new worth learning here from expressions of Nazism. As such, I am morally fine with restricting Nazi expressions, even when the expression is but a youthful rebellion done in ignorance. I understand people can say the same thing about what they do not like—this is the problem of having some rather than no moral limits: if you have moral limits, you must accept that other people will have them as well. But this is not to embrace moral relativism or subjectivism—accepting that others have different views of ethics is not to accept that everyone (and hence no one) is right. While people tend to treat freedom of expression as special, it is no different from other aspects of morality. So, just as some behavior (like murder) can be restricted while consistently holding that some behavior is morally fine, one can hold that some expression should be restricted (like Nazi expression) while some is morally fine. That said, one could take the position of absolute freedom—the sort envisioned in Hobbes’ nightmare state of nature.
Nazis are too easy. What about the kid forced to remove his MAGA hat?
Good point – points to discussions we’ve had about Colin Kaepernick and his right to kneel. There’s a time and a place for expression, but none of us are under any obligation to provide a forum for that expression.
It would be wrong on many levels to tell one student to remove his MAGA hat while allowing another to wear a “Yes We Can” T-shirt, but perfectly OK to enforce a rule imposing a blanket restriction on political expression on school grounds on the basis that the disruption it causes may impede unrelated classroom activities. As Michael said, sometimes one person’s rights are in direct conflict with another’s, and we have to be open to compromise and understanding.
Of course, there are also the teaching and learning opportunities that arise, should we decide to take advantage of them.
Free speech; although a gentleman does not wear hats indoors. 🙂
I have a deep, personal, and visceral response to anything Nazi. I grew up in a Jewish household, my father was a surgeon in WWII, I am well aware of many family members who perished at their hands. In 2010, I was part of a project called “Living Voices”, which involved a series of interviews with members of our local Jewish community who had been involved in that war in one way or another. Many times we had to pause an interview while the subject needed a moment or two to compose himself.
As a result of all of this, I find that I am unable even to watch an episode of “Hogan’s Heroes”.
Anyway –
A similar issue recently came up in a class discussion – I was auditing a class in aerial photography, and we were talking about (photographic) point of view and the ways in which a drone can change the way we see things, etc., etc. The subject of a particular building came up – one on the Coronado, California Naval Base that looks like a swastika from the air. Apparently they thought they were just arranging four “L-shaped” buildings around a central plaza, but are now scrambling to add extensions to the buildings to alter the view from the air.
(what’s interesting here is that there are two additional buildings on the complex which someone noticed look like bombers … flying toward the swastika in some kind of bizarre, inadvertent narrative).
Images like these are like words – they have power only if we give it to them. A swastika is a kind of stylized spiral, the use of which dates back over 12,000 years. It has been used as a religious symbol, a symbol of luck, and for simple decorative purposes.
Maybe it’s too soon, and maybe we just can’t get over it, but to ignore 12,000 years of historical symbolism and cement the meaning of this shape to a few short years and the embodiment of evil in our lives allows Adolph Hitler to live on, with a posthumous power over our lives 70 years after his death. Seems wrong to me – I think we should be taking it back – just like we should be taking back certain words we’d like to use to color our language – demonstrating that they do not necessarily represent hate in all contexts.
“We know what Nazism is and where it leads; there is nothing new worth learning here”
I disagree. There is a lot missing from our understanding of Nazism. And as much as we erudite intellectuals might know – or think we know – these kids were in the dark. And in the dark they will remain if we allow political correctness and outrage to trump critical thought and open discussion.
This “teaching moment” is what is missing from this story. It appears that the entire discussion is about whether or not to punish these kids, and whether or not they meant or understood what they were doing. Where is the instruction? Where is the education about the Nazi era and about how blind obedience can lead to death and destruction? Where are the conversations about the psychology of authority? Outrage alone will do nothing, but to temper that outrage and seize an opportunity to educate will.
Believe me, I have an interview to show those kids. One of the people we spoke to in our project had lied about his age when he enlisted, and was a 17-year-old kid when his unit came upon and liberated one of the Nazi death camps. That was an interview that we had to pause quite frequently – and not just for his own composure.
Now that I think about it, we could just pull a tape at random.
I’m fine with people studying Nazism in the same way I am fine with people studying cancer and herpes. But, Nazis being free to Nazi is not going to add to our enlightenment.
I’m not so sure we’re that far afield in this, although my personal preference for dealing with Nazis would be pretty unconstitutional and downright criminal, so I may not be the right one to ask.
The “teaching moment” I refer to in my post is specific to the kids in the picture. What do they know about Nazism, and what do they know about the real meaning of a Nazi salute, and why it is so offensive to so many people?
All of the articles and opinions dealt with whether or not they “intended” to give the salute, and what should be done to punish them.
My guess is that they are trying to be controversial. They probably know that they’ll get a big rise out of the grownups and get their name in the paper. They’ve probably heard about Nazism in some abstract way, that they were the enemy in some distant war, etc. etc. And they know that by acting like Nazis in that way is about as anti-establishment as they can get.
They probably don’t know about the treatment of human beings at places like Auschwitz or Treblinka, they probably have never seen the piles of skeletal remains of children younger than them in giant holes in the ground, with lime thrown over them to facilitate decay.
I think these children should be educated very, very thoroughly as to what that salute really means, and whom they are hurting by using it, and how deeply.
They should not be suspended from school, nor should their parents be subject to fines. “Crime and Punishment” at that age does very little good. I think they need to go through some kind of Third Reich “Scared Straight” program, held every day after school, and taught by local individuals who were scarred by the Nazis. And no picture is too gruesome. Nightmares will be good for them. And continued until they truly understand the meaning of their actions. Then, if they continue to want to be Nazis, we will know that they are doing so with their eyes wide open.
As for “letting Nazis be Nazis”, well, I don’t think it’s that simple. To nip that kind of expression in the bud in people who don’t understand the true depth of it is one thing, but to deny any group the right to expression (beyond our pre-established ideas of hate speech, discrimination, and public disruption) would mean that we’d have to revise the Constitution, and I don’t think we want to do that.
We already do have one foot in that door with other groups, I think we need to back that up rather than go forward with it.
So if a bunch of neo-Nazis want to get a permit for a parade, I say give it to them. Then let the entire town show up and ridicule them, or just stay at home so they aren’t showing anything to anyone. Anything short of that would get them the media attention they want.
I ask not what right someone has to express views, but what right someone else has to prevent the expression, or punish the expresser, and where that right originates.
In the case of a private organisation, the organisation can set its own rules, however arbitrary, because the rules are set by the members, but with its power limited to expulsion from the organisation. If the Red-Headed League demands that all members be sporting red hair (even if a wig, or dyed) at all its functions, that’s their business.
Is a government then just a big private organisation in the same way? No, because it is an unescapable monopoly, and its powers go to imprisonment and execution.
Government schools and workplaces are in an uncomfortable position between these two. They act mostly like private organisations, with power limited to expulsion, but may be effective local monopolies, and constrained by the general limits of government even though they don’t wield the full power. I don’t envy them the task of determining the correct course of action in a given case.
If we believe that this photo was indeed a Nazi salute, then the question becomes: from where might the school derive the right to impose a punishment? Did the students accept some code of conduct that prohibits it? Might it fall under some catch-all about damaging the reputation of the school? Are the students without their hands up to be punished for taking part in the photo? What did those who raised their hands intend? Is intent a factor in whatever terms or code is alleged to be broken? Were they aware that this picture was going to be published? It seems this wasn’t some organised Nazi gathering, but perhaps a spontaneous joke: does that affect the intent? These are the questions to which we would need answers before forming an opinion on the school’s possible right to impose punishment.