[Judge] Benitez was confirmed despite overwhelming opposition from the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates the qualifications of judicial nominees. A substantial majority of the committee rated Benitez “not qualified” and a minority rated him as “qualified.” In 2004 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the ABA committee investigator reported that, “Interviewees repeatedly told me that Judge Benitez displays inappropriate judicial temperament with lawyers, litigants, and judicial colleagues; that all too frequently, while on the bench, Judge Benitez is arrogant, pompous, condescending, impatient, short-tempered, rude, insulting, bullying, unnecessarily mean, and altogether lacking in people skills.” …
On May 1, 2024, the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit publicly disciplined Benitez for judicial misconduct because he had unlawfully ordered a teenage girl to be shackled during her father’s sentencing hearing: “First, the shackling of a spectator at a hearing who is not engaged in threatening or disorderly behavior exceeds the authority of a district judge. Second, creating a spectacle out of a minor child in the courtroom chills the desire of friends, family members, and members of the public to support loved ones at sentencing.”
Nominated in 2004 by George W. Bush. Youth tansgender suicide rates will skyrocket under this holding, but I guess that’s lockstep the GOP’s desires: more dead LGBT.
In some contexts, a person waives their right to free speech. Like, for example, when someone voluntarily undertakes the role of protecting kids from abuse through their employment. Further the first amendment isn’t a universal protection of all speech. The Supreme Court has long recognized reasonable restrictions on that right to speech: governments do not impeed your right to speech by preventing you from blocking a fire exit by speaking, your speech rights does not protect distributing child porn, etc.
The majority, but not all. Add a religiously fundamentalist teacher’s beliefs into it, and things can get scary.
Yes, but teaching is not one of those professions. Medical professionals actually the only ones I know of bound by law to not speak. Lawyers are “protected” by law, but not actually bound. If they do speak they can be disbarrred, but not jailed I believe. Teachers are mandatory reporters, which compells them to speak, but nothing in law says what they can’t say. And yes, there are some exceptions against free speach, but if you look at them, they generally are things that endanger multiple people at one time. Like shouting fire in a crowded theater. So those don’t apply here. Also, those cases it is clear that the restriction only prevents a downside. In this case, there could be upsides. A child who hasn’t told thier parents and is struggling with it, but who’s parents could be supportive. In that case, not being allowed to tell them could cause harm. So it isn’t cut and dry like the others.
As for the bad teachers, yes, I addressed that in the next sentence or two after the quote you gave.