These are ten and eleven year olds in the fifth grade. You must have some rules or you will have chaos. In my class you aren’t allowed to say hateful things about someone. That would include saying that someone is a terrorists best friend. Much as I enjoy these kids, I realize that they are only partially domesticated at this age. That must be taken into account.

By the way, I think the whole red, white and blue day was a bad idea. I’m just surprised that the over the top reaction came from the far right rather than the far left.

As educators, I believe it is imperative that we teach our children how to be good citizens and that includes exercising their First Amendment rights as well as recognizing the awesome responsibility that carries with it.

And yes, I know that under Hazelwood schools have broader powers to censor school sponsored speech. And yes, I know the courts have given broad latitude in allowing schools to censor things that can cause a “substantial disruption” of the school day–things like a confederate flag for instance.

I just fear that the more we try to stem the flow of ideas, the less chance we have of teaching our students how important freedom of expression is to the survival of our democracy. We have to be able to exchange ideas, discuss them, compromise when necessary, and then let the majority rule.

If you feel as passionately as I do about the First Amendment and need more info on court cases etc. you should check out the Student Press Law Center’s website at http://www.splc.org. There’s a lot of good info there and many resources for teachers.

I hope I didn’t ramble too much.

The boy is guilty of insubordination and was rightly suspended. The school was right to tell him to turn the shirt inside out. As far as the T shirt is concerned it is factual. Some facts upset people. You cannot operate a school when the students are agitated over political disputes.

What this incident illustrates is that the concept of freedom of speech is unworkable in a school setting. The only sensible way to protect the rights of students in these matters is to break the state monopoly on publicly funded schooling and tell unhappy students to go somewhere else that will take them.

If everything is expression, then nothing is. That’s the nature of definition.

Obi, we’re talking about children, not “people.”

Should children have the same rights as adults? Some people think so. I used to think so. But not anymore. We have to treat children like children. If we don’t, we’re guilty of parental neglect.

Before my school adopted a uniform policy, boys would come to school with T-shirts promoting certain strip clubs.

These boys needed to be told that that was inappropriate. By telling them nothing, it gave them tacit approval which was giving them the wrong message.

I’m a great believer in freedom of speech. But I also believe it’s a crime of neglect to treat children as if they were adults.

The key to this is the word “public.” Except for a very narrow band of expression, all expression is allowed. Some schools are requiring uniforms thinking that it will limit expression. It will not. There has already been a case to prove that point.

A young boy was very upset at the actions of his principal and taped a message to the back of his uniform shirt saying, “Principal X violated my friend’s rights.” He was suspended for being “out of uniform.” He sued and won.

The court made the decision with directions to the principal along these lines: You are an agent of the government. The students are citizens with all the rights of any other citizen with but a few exceptions. You must respect those rights or find a job that better suits you.

As to the point that boy’s red, white and blue shirt made, one has to wonder why that bothered anyone at all. As the news has been coming out just today, a very good case can be made that such sentiments about Obama is very very true.

Most of the supression of speach by government officials is that which they don’t want to be spread for personal reasons. The truth (maybe-maybe not) hurts and sometimes offends. You do not have a right to not be offended.

See more about this very issue at the F.I.R.E. website to get a full read of the law. http://www.thefire.org/pdfs/free-speech.pdf is the place to start.

Well, you can’t have both, because they contradict each other. “Tolerance” silences. That’s its purpose. And individual expression of all kinds? Really? So if a kid stood up in class and decided to express himself by masturbating, that would be encouraged in an enlightened school?

One of the many benefits of a Catholic school is uniforms.