Free speech…sort of
We should just run the Bill of Rights through a paper shredder. We won’t be needing it any more.
This article is a bit old, but I just saw it today (the article was published on February 23, 2007). It deals with the freedom of speech assured by the first amendment to students in public schools. Specifically, a girl wrote an opinion article–her first for the school newspaper–telling other students she thinks it is wrong to look down upon people who have a sexual preference unlike your own. The teacher in charge of the newspaper was suspended for two months for allowing the story to be published.
I remember throughout high school being puzzled after learning that the liberties illustrated in the Bill of Rights apparently did not apply in school. The court case Tinker v. Des Moines made it clear that students do not “shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door.” For some reason, high school administrators have higher authority to limit students’ rights than the United States government does its citizens–despite the clear opinions of the high courts.
What exactly did she say? Here’s an excerpt from the entire editorial, which I have archived here:
I can only imagine how hard it would be to come out as homosexual in today’s society. I think it is so wrong to look down on those people, or to make fun of them, just because they have a different sexuality than you. There is nothing wrong with them or their brain; they’re just different than you. I’ve heard some people say that they think there is a cure to being homosexual. I can’t believe anyone would think that. It’s not a disease, or something that you catch from someone else; it’s something that they don’t have control over.
This is what the administration at Woodlan Junior-Senior High School would rather not be available to students. Assistant superintendent Andy Melin, who claimed that the opinion piece was biased and also stated that he hasn’t read the editorial, said school officials do not have an issue with the topic but with the lack of balance and thoroughness in the opinion piece. In one sentence, we can see just how twisted this guy is: he simultaneously has not read the article, knows it is an opinion piece, and claims that it is biased. If anyone knows how someone can possibly know that an article he hasn’t read is biased, please let me know. Also, does he know that it is an opinion article? It’s supposed to be biased. Hence, an opinion.
Presumably, the administration was angered because it only offered one viewpoint of the debate: pro-homosexual. But if you read the article, you will see that the student urges for compassion for everyone, because everyone is different. How is that a bad message to send to students?
Whatever the rationale is, it shouldn’t matter. Everyone is guaranteed a full right to free speech as outlined by the first amendment:
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
There are no obvious reasons why this should not apply in public schools–especially when the message in question is a message of peace and acceptance. One person’s private quarrel to some type of speech does not counteract the principles of the first amendment. It’s freedom of speech; not freedom from. This is exactly the type of thing that the first amendment was designed to protect, and here we have a case where it is being completely ignored. Students need to be taught how to think, not what to think.
If only we thought more like Voltaire:
I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
As someone who is studying to become a teacher, I shudder to think that I am supposed to limit my future students god and government given freedoms. This teacher was only respecting his students freedom of speech and press. I’m outraged that this institution is so narrow minded that they will not let someone’s compassion be shared.