Tennessee Teen Fights For Right to Wear Confederate Flag

[auroranorth]

I cant believe the ignorance of most posters here, This nation was founded with political subversion, Ben Franklin didn't sign the worlds first political cartoon, out of fear from the ever present pinheads in society.
anyhow the real problem is that school administrators are uneducated buffoons for the most part who seek to grapple with issues already decided by the courts because they are not personally liable for their misconduct. here is the courts rulings
In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that neither students nor teachers
"shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the
schoolhouse gate." The issue then was three students in Des Moines who
had been suspended for wearing black armbands to peacefully protest U.S.
involvement in Vietnam.
The school argued that concern over possible conflict and disruption should
give administrators power to muzzle even unspoken political comment.
The court wisely set a higher standard, that mere anxiety about the possibility
of disturbance "is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression."
Principals, focused on the difficult task of maintaining order, can easily miss t
hat message, and too often, they do.


In recent years:


• Students in a Texas school were suspended for simply wearing black
armbands to mourn the victims of the school shootings in Columbine, Colo., and to quietly protest what they viewed as their school's authoritarian overreaction.


• An honor-roll student in a Louisiana high school had to go to court to enforce her right to wear a similar armband to protest the school's mandatory uniform policy.


• A middle school student in Kansas was suspended for privately doodling a Confederate flag during class.


• An Alaska high school suspended a student for displaying a sarcastic sign about drug use at a public event off campus.


Most of these students have won when they've gone to court, and that reality already appears to be inspiring a retreat from the bans on flags in California, Colorado and Arizona.


Rather than ban flags, schools should be looking for ways to make the most of a rare public-policy issue that has ignited student interest and passions. The subject matter - immigration and free speech - is tailor-made for history classes, which too often do a poor job of educating students about American values. And wouldn't students be drawn to assemblies where speakers discussed immigration's effect on the community?


One lesson: Maintaining order cannot become a facile excuse for trampling the freedoms that make so many immigrants eager to come to the USA in the first place.



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http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060411/cm_usatoday/studentsjoinimmigrationdebateandgetmuzzled;_ylt=Ak ldoRBA0UOv62bEKOYFIg.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BH NlYwM3NDI- (broken link)

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