Freedom Of Speech?

If they stuck to writing anti-gay slogans and Bible passages on their hand they wouldn’t have crossed the line,

Students At Pennsylvania's McGuffey High School Organize 'Anti-Gay Day' And Allegedly Target LGBT Classmates
The Huffington Post
By Curtis M. Wong
Posted: 04/20/2015

A Pennsylvania high school has come under media scrutiny after a group of students organized an "Anti-Gay Day" in response to the nationally-observed Day of Silence.
[…]
Although the Day of Silence was observed April 17 nationally, McGuffey High School in Claysville scheduled their related activities for Wednesday, April 15 because of a planned field trip, BuzzFeed is reporting. This prompted the group of students to ask classmates to wear flannel shirts and write "anti-gay" on their hands on Thursday, April 16, in protest, according to WPXI-TV.

Okay, so far they didn’t do anything wrong, they were within the limits of the First Amendment, they have a right to be bigots but then,

"We came into school on Thursday and found a lot of people wearing flannel and we couldn’t figure out why,” Zoe Johnson, a 16-year-old McGuffey High School who identifies as bisexual, told BuzzFeed's David Mack. "People started getting pushed and notes were left on people’s lockers. ...I got called a dyke, a faggot. They were calling us every horrible name you can think of."

More troubling still was an alleged "lynch list," which the group was reported to have circulated around the school, according to WPXI-TV.

Now they crossed the line big time, if they called the when they started pushing the student that is called assault and battery and coupled that with calling them dyke and faggot makes it a hate crime. I do not know if Pennsylvania has a hate crime law, but the federal sure does, and it is called the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.” And if those students sat down together to come up with the list, that is conspiracy. The school system cannot brush this off, there felonies that were committed.