Current Events > Need some legal advice

(+) Yeah! (+)

My high school day screeched to a halt when an assembly was called for all seniors. The reason? Information on caps and gowns and all sorts of senior apparel. Lovely stuff, but this assembly was not held by the school; instead, it was held by the owner of a company that makes caps and gowns. The assembly went on for at least half an hour and ate up valuable instruction time for all seniors, and it was mandatory to both give personal and contact information to this company and take home a catalog of this private company's products. They will also be selling their products at my high school. I must stress this, the school, part of the government, allowed a private company to come in, essentially let them have a mandatory infomercial, and is now letting them sell their own products on campus.

It's pretty obvious, but I take offense to the use of instruction time on a private company advertising itself. My question is, can I pull the same thing and promote my own products (that don't exist) with time borrowed from instruction, make it mandatory to give contact information and take home a catalog, and sell my products on campus? If I can and the school refuses me, should I sue them for unfairly promoting one private business over another? Can I do that anyway, since all companies of the same type didn't get a chance to advertise? The fact that they're selling caps and gowns shouldn't matter, right?

I must stress, I don't take issue with an assembly to inform seniors about buying caps and gowns and all that palava, but I do take issue with a private company doing it. If the school contracted the private company to make all of the apparel and then sold it to the students, I wouldn't give a shit, but that's not what they did.
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They are probably paying for the privilege. Get your school newspaper on the case. Surely one of them has spunk.

NeoShadowhen posted...

Get your school newspaper on the case.

Eh, almost nobody reads the school newspaper. Wouldn't have much of an impact.
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fenderbender321 posted...

I don't like the fact that you had to give them your personal information, but otherwise this shouldn't be too much of a concern considering that if you didn't have to deal with that particular private company directly the school would have done so and just charged you for what they paid for the gowns.

In other words, the school has to get the caps and gowns and apparel from somewhere, therefore they're going to choose what company is going to get your money either way.

Garioshi posted...

I must stress, I don't take issue with an assembly to inform seniors about buying caps and gowns and all that palava, but I do take issue with a private company doing it. If the school contracted the private company to make all of the apparel and then sold it to the students, I wouldn't give a shit, but that's not what they did.

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fenderbender321 posted...

I see what you're saying....but I guess my question would be what do you take issue with exactly? Who is being wronged in this situation that wouldn't be wronged had the school handled it?

It's promoting unfair business practices because other companies did not get the same opportunity of advertisement and selling products on campus.
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fenderbender321 posted...

So you're okay with a company getting an opportunity to sell their products to a school whereas other companies do not get to do so, but you're not okay with them being able to advertise at a school whereas other companies do not? Just want to be clear.

No, I'm not okay with either. For a proper analogy, my school's gym uniforms are contracted to be made by a private company. The school buys these uniforms and then sells them to the students. No problem with that.
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You don't have to give personal information to anyone except social security etc. afaik
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SageHarpuia posted...

You don't have to give personal information to anyone except social security etc. afaik

They made the assembly mandatory and the staff wouldn't let us into the auditorium until they gave us a pen, a catalog, and a card to fill out personal information.
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I personally would have given him back the card with written instruction to stick the pen up his-

Wait there are kids on this site
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fenderbender321 posted...

Garioshi posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

So you're okay with a company getting an opportunity to sell their products to a school whereas other companies do not get to do so, but you're not okay with them being able to advertise at a school whereas other companies do not? Just want to be clear.

No, I'm not okay with either. For a proper analogy, my school's gym uniforms are contracted to be made by a private company. The school buys these uniforms and then sells them to the students. No problem with that.

But the school just functions as a middle man in that situation. The company still gets the benefit of getting to sell a bunch of products to a school whereas their rival companies do not.

In the former scenario, the company gets special rights to advertise and sell products with school time and on school property. In the latter, the company is selected and paid by the school to provide them with products that the school then sells to the students. No instructional time is wasted and the company doesn't get special rights.
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The company pays the school a flat fee to hold this advertising. You aren't required to buy a cap/gown/anything, so it is different from a gym uniform that is required.

Rival companies have the same contracts with other schools/districts/states.
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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

The company pays the school a flat fee to hold this advertising.

Can I get a source on this, please? I've only done a little Googling and I'm too busy with other things to find the specific text. However, assuming that it's true, could I hypothetically pay the school a flat fee and hold a mandatory assembly every single day? That's the only way this would hypothetically be fair, as it's exclusionary otherwise.
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"Fair" doesn't matter. It would matter if they chose one company over another because of some type of discrimination based on a protected class. Simply choosing to have company A supply uniforms or provide a service because you like them better than company B is not illegal.

If they actually required you to give your personal info to the company, that's more of an issue IMO.
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whitelytning posted...

"Fair" doesn't matter. It would matter if they chose one company over another because of some type of discrimination based on a protected class. Simply choosing to have company A supply uniforms or provide a service because you like them better than company B is not illegal.

If they actually required you to give your personal info to the company, that's more of an issue IMO.

Contracting is not the issue. If they did not allow every single company to advertise and sell their products with just as disruptive of an assembly, since they aren't being contracted, then that's an exclusionary business practice and is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
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So..where did you think schools got all their caps and gowns for graduation from? They don't make them themselves
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Garioshi posted...

whitelytning posted...

"Fair" doesn't matter. It would matter if they chose one company over another because of some type of discrimination based on a protected class. Simply choosing to have company A supply uniforms or provide a service because you like them better than company B is not illegal.

If they actually required you to give your personal info to the company, that's more of an issue IMO.

Contracting is not the issue. If they did not allow every single company to advertise and sell their products with just as disruptive of an assembly, since they aren't being contracted, then that's an exclusionary business practice and is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

You obviously have an expert handle on this situation and clearly don't need legal advise.

Well done.
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whitelytning posted...

Garioshi posted...

whitelytning posted...

"Fair" doesn't matter. It would matter if they chose one company over another because of some type of discrimination based on a protected class. Simply choosing to have company A supply uniforms or provide a service because you like them better than company B is not illegal.

If they actually required you to give your personal info to the company, that's more of an issue IMO.

Contracting is not the issue. If they did not allow every single company to advertise and sell their products with just as disruptive of an assembly, since they aren't being contracted, then that's an exclusionary business practice and is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

You obviously have an expert handle on this situation and clearly don't need legal advise.

Well done.

Trust me, I'm not. I have absolutely no idea if the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to the US government and by extension the public school system, and that's a big part of why I made this topic.
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Garioshi posted...

Trust me, I'm not. I have absolutely no idea if the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to the US government and by extension the public school system, and that's a big part of why I made this topic.

This conflicts with the statement you just made where you said it does apply. Sorry, I'm confused.
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if you have several companies selling caps, gowns, and tassels then no one will be uniform on graduation. That materials will be different and they will all look different. only the colors will be the same. you want that? also schools do not have factories where they can make gowns themselves.

whitelytning posted...

Garioshi posted...

Trust me, I'm not. I have absolutely no idea if the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to the US government and by extension the public school system, and that's a big part of why I made this topic.

This conflicts with the statement you just made where you said it does apply. Sorry, I'm confused.

Should have been more specific. The statement I made before would be my hypothetical defense were I to go through with what I described in the OP, but I don't know if it's legally sound or not.
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Oh my god high schoolers are annoying.
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cnekans posted...

Oh my god high schoolers are annoying.

is this legal advice
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