we made the news again.. sorta.. this is from yesterdays paper..
Editorial: Chi administration’s actions questionable




05/20/2004




A long, long time ago, before the current crop of high school students was even born, students in an Iowa high school wore black armbands to class to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The school administration didn’t approve of the demonstration. So, it did what administrations do -- it suspended the armband wearers.

But, activists that they were, the young protesters didn’t accept the ruling quietly. As a matter of fact, they fought it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1969, in Tinker v. Des Moines Community School District, the court ruled school officials could only limit student free expression when the expression would cause a material and substantial disruption of school activities or an invasion of the rights of others.

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All of which leads us to Chichester High School in the year 2004. It seems the administrators of the district made two questionable calls.

First, it changed school rules in midstream. It at least appears that way because the school handbook, accessed by anyone who calls up the school district Web site, states very clearly that the minimum grade- point average to participate in sports and extra-curricular activities is 2.0

But, when an eleventh-grader wanted to run for vice president of his senior class, he was told his 2.2 GPA wasn’t sufficient and his name could not be on the ballot. Sometime, somewhere the administration had raised the required GPA to 2.5.

Since the young man could not find that new requirement written anywhere, he scattered posters throughout the school proclaiming his write-in candidacy.

School officials confiscated the posters and suspended the would-be class officer. But it didn’t end there.

Six students who disagreed with the school’s action, six students who supported the candidacy of the suspended student, wore their feelings on their shirts the next day. And that illustration of freedom of expression got those six students the right to join their favored candidate in suspension.

What is the lesson those students learned? That those in charge can bar you from expressing your feelings? Seems so. And it seems in direct conflict with the Tinker ruling of long ago, unless we assume the six students who wore their feelings on their shirts caused a material and substantial disruption of school activities. Or did the suspensions do that?

One idea that gives this nation its place of honor on the world stage is the freedom it grants its citizens. And the First Amendment our founding fathers formed promised no law would abridge freedom of speech. It’s one of the great privileges of U.S. citizenship that each one of us is free to express our own point of view -- even if that view is offensive to some who hear it.

The action of the Chichester administration seems to cross the line between maintaining a proper discipline and plain, old-fashioned censorship. This is a slippery slope we do not want to go down.

In the 1969 words of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, "..fear or apprehension ..is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression. Any departure from absolute regimentation may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority’s opinion may inspire fear. ..But our Constitution says we must take this risk."

High school students should be allowed to peacefully express their opinions. If we take that right away from them, well, what group will have that right revoked next?

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