School days
Mar 17, 2008 Lex scripta, Oppression
Nicole Black looks at an issue everyone has an opinion about but few people really understand — what the law does and does not allow school administrators to do to deal with student “dissent”:
It is the thorn in the side of every school administrator: organized student dissent, which “substantially and materially interfere[s]” with schoolwork and discipline.
She writes about a recent Second Circuit case, still pending, that tests the parameters of this issue.
I know, why bother learning about something when you can go straight to havin an opinion, but still — you’d like to have the option.
I actually talked my way into being admitted to the college of my choice largely on the “merits” of a jejune, but nervy, “underground newspaper” that a few fellows had been publishing and invited me to join in on — the Semi-Monthly off the Wall News. It was the beginning of a career in a certain kind of subversion that is still with me.
But I never really doubted at the time that Hightstown High could have shut us down if they’d wanted to. I’m still not so sure.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
The problem, I think, lies less with the school officials and more with Ms. Doninger’s parents. Miss Doninger’s sole punishment was to be prohibited for running for class secretary. Apparently, her parents consider this punishment sufficient motivation to defend Miss Doninger’s right to call somebody “scumbag” in court.
–|PW|–
March 17th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Sorry. Doninger used a rather less polite term.
–|PW|–
March 19th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
There’s a lot of “baby, baby, stick your head in gravy” to this, yes.
March 28th, 2008 at 5:59 am
[...] or even ruminate on the perfectly resonable consequences of those rights. Avery Doninger, recently cited by Ron Coleman, is a prime example. When you call somebody by that kind of epithet in a public forum, you face [...]