Students from two different schools - Omaha, NE's Westside High School, and the University of Colorado - are in trouble for not following the party line. Students being rebellious? Imagine that! (Both links found through Best of the Web.)
The kids in Omaha are in trouble because of their response to a contest for the school's "Distinguished African American Student Award." It seems that some students put up flyers nominating a South African student - who happens to be pretty pale of skin - for the award. Other students circulated petitions that criticized the singling out of black African Americans for the award. This was all done on - you guessed it - Martin Luther King Day. And everyone involved has been suspended, including the South African kid:
Karen Richards said her son, Trevor, who was pictured on the posters, was suspended for two days for hanging the posters. Two of his friends also were disciplined for hanging the posters. A fourth student, she said, was punished for circulating a petition Tuesday morning in support of the boys. The petition criticized the practice of recognizing only black student achievement with the award...
Karen Richards said her son and his friends were not trying to hurt anyone.
"My son is not a racist," she said. "He has black friends, friends from Bangladesh and Egypt. Color has never been an issue in our home."
"It was a very innocent thing," she said. Richards said her family moved to Omaha from Johannesburg six years ago. Trevor, she said, "is as African as anyone."
I'm fairly sure the suspended kids understood the spirit as well as the letter of the law, but it's a judgment call whether mere "offensiveness" justifies this sort of punishment.
Next up, the College Republicans of the University of Colorado have begun a website where students can report incidences of liberal bias in the classroom. And it doesn't sound like the teachers at UC like that one bit:
Most faculty and many Democrats deny liberal indoctrination exists on campuses.
"I'm shocked the students would resort to this,'' said Barbara Bintliff, a CU law school professor and chairwoman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly. "I'm concerned they may wind up with a blacklist."
To which I can only reply - get real. She's shocked that students created a website to help other students who might be victims of discrimination? Are students not allowed to decide what classes and what professors they prefer? Are they not allowed to ever mention that political ideologies can affect grades in college? Doesn't a law professor understand the difference between a "blacklist" that is created by someone in a position of power, vs. a website where students can trade war stories about classes where the teacher's politics are on display?
And would this professor make the same hysterical statement about blacklists if a group of minority students created a website to protect other minority students from professorial bias?
Update: The Volokh Conspiracy has more to say about the Omaha case:
Under Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), speech may be restricted if it's disruptive -- but not because it's "inappropriate and insensitive," something that many students no doubt thought about the anti-Vietnam-War black armbands that Tinker held to be protected speech.
Of course, if a school has content-neutral rules prohibiting students from putting up posters on doors or lockers, the school may evenhandedly enforce this policy; the doors and lockers are its property, and it may bar students from using them as their own billboards. But if it's punishing students for the views that their posters are expressing -- for instance, if posters are generally allowed, either officially or de facto, but these were the only ones that were punished -- then that seems like a violation of the Tinker doctrine. Likewise for the school's punishing the student who circulated a petition "criticiz[ing] the practice of recognizing only black student achievement with the award."
Volokh claims this is a legitimate First Amendment issue. Wonder if the school administrators stopped to think about that?
Posted by kswygert at January 20, 2004 09:03 PM