Do Students Have a Voice?

In my past posts I usually focused mainly on the Freedom Speech.  However, as the url on my blog states this is about this blog is about first amendment rights.  Among the first amendment rights falls the Freedom of Religion.  In this blog post I am going to look in depth at one particular case that fits under the Freedom of Religion, but also Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Speech.

This case originally took place in December of 1999, but has made a reappearance in the news recently.  Brandi Blackbear was a 15 year old student at the time attending Union Intermediate High School.  She was suspended because school officials found evidence that she might disturb the peace of learning.  I think the easiest way to tell the story is to give factual background information and then present Brandi’s version of events.

Brandi Blackbear was a fan of Stephen King and idolized him.  She was an outcast who dyed her hair and wore gothic makeup.  She also practiced Wicca and would Hex classmates and teachers out loud.  Her transition in her look though, took place ten days after the Columbine shooting.  People started worrying that her transformation was because of the shooting.  When rumors started up school officials checked her bag for a gun.  When they failed to find a gun they took her journals where she would write short stories.  In one of the short stories a boy was shot on the bus (the boy’s description and name did not match any student).  She was then suspended for five days.

The following year Brandi’s parents sued the school, accusing the school of persecuting her for being a Wicca.  Brandi claims that when she was being suspended the principal made a comment about how she needed to stop casting hexes on people.  Brandi had apparently cast a hex on her art teacher and later in the day the teacher went to the hospital with appendicitis.  She claims the only reason she got in trouble was because the school officials did not approve of her being a Wicca.

If Brandi is right then the school did violate Freedom of Religion.  You cannot suspend someone for practicing a religion or accuse someone of committing a crime because of it.  That part is laid out clearly.  The courts, however, ruled in the schools favor since Brandi had not previously mentioned what the principal had supposedly said.

The part that is still open for debate and why it is still talked about in modern time, is the searching of her bag.  You are not allowed to have your bag searched in a public school without a police officer and a parent present.  Furthermore, the school officials were looking for a gun and failed to find what they were looking for.  If this was a search warrant the officials would not have been allowed to take anything else from her, including the journals.  Brandi claimed her short stories were inspired by her Wicca religion, including the one with a boy being shot on the bus.

The school suspended Brandi based on this story.  What this whole blog is coming down to is do you think the school was right to do it?  School officials feared Brandi would try to hurt other students since she thought of it before in her writings.  At the same time Brandi claimed her writings were an outlet for her emotions and religion.  If the Freedom of Speech, Religion, and Expression are taken into consideration, then she should have been allowed to write stories like this.  At the same time, even I would be worried about her intentions versus her thoughts.

Another way to think about this is if you were sitting next to someone in class who wrote about people getting stabbed in the bus or in class, what would you do?  Do you think the officials should have drawn the line here?  Do you believe her rights should have been protected?

In my opinion I think the school officials made the right call.  Her mood and attitude went through a dramatic shift after the Columbine shooting.  Furthermore I think writings about murdering students could show signs that something is wrong.  This is just my opinion. What do you think?

My sources for this post come from the following articles:

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20133065,00.html

https://www.aclu.org/religion-belief/aclu-oklahoma-files-federal-lawsuit-behalf-student-accused-hexing-teacher

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95218

On the last post I mentioned the Freedom of Speech controversies at Penn State (mainly focusing on a student’s art work that was thought to discriminate).  Previous topics on this blog looked at other cases with speech that were all debatable.  Each time in the comments below there have been varying opinions supporting either the accused or the school and to different degrees. This time my post will look to explore where the Freedom of Speech was clearly limited for no substantial reasoning.  There are times when the schools have made the right decision and have stopped discrimination and the interruption of learning, but other times these same rules can cause people with no ill intention to fall victim.  This example is an older case, going as far back as 2008, but it clearly demonstrates rules that are blown out of proportion.

The case is of Keith John Sampson who is a student employee at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.  He was originally charged with discrimination for reading “Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan” by Todd Tucker during his break time.  The Affirmative Action Office at the school heard about this and called for action for his discrimination as a Ku Klux Klan supporter and racist.  Due to the University’s Free Speech Rules he was charged was discrimination that went on his record and he was denied access to face his accuser and the committee who approved his charge.

The book he was reading, instead of supporting the Ku Klux Klan, told a historical account of how one school brought down the regional Ku Klux Klan members and combated racism.  The book was on the Ku Klux Klan’s downfall and is considered an anti-Klan book.  This book is even carried in the University’s public library for students to check out.  Eventually, with the help of organizations that were willing to battle the charges legally, the charges were overturned.  The school also apologized for the misunderstanding.

The problem is that this was allowed to happen in the first place.  The rules at the school allowed someone to get charged for racism and discrimination who was doing the exact opposite of that.  Furthermore, Sampson could not face his accuser and had to look to outside organized help to get the charges overturned.  Part of the problem with schools restricting the Freedom of Speech is that people who have been accused have a difficult time defending themselves.  It was later found out that in this case the person who accused him never read the book and of the group that charged him, not a single member read the book and when interviewed later could not recall the name of the book. Despite this incredible lack of information the schools policies favored the Affirmative Action Office Group leaving no official way for Sampson to appeal.

In government, who can restrict the Freedom of Speech as well, there are different players to balance each other.  If one group accuses you, you can face your accuser.  Furthermore, you can defend yourself and there are clear outlined paths to try and appeal to get your verdict overturned.  In normal cases dealing with the Freedom of Speech this is how this is handled.

In the case of schools the way to go about this is not clearly outlined.  In this case there was no way to defend yourself, except bringing the school to court.

What polices do you think should be put in place to account for this?  Do you know what Penn State’s policies are to handle situations like this?  Have you heard of any cases dealing with the First Amendment as of recent?

The information used in this blog can be found here (click if you would like to read more!): http://nypost.com/2008/05/09/my-racial-harassment-nightmare/ and http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25680655/ns/us_news-life/t/university-says-sorry-janitor-over-kkk-book/

As many of you reading this know by now, my topic is about the First Amendment Rights in schools. Every week I try to find different topics to share with you and there is always one website teaming with ideas.  Before I get into the main content of what I want to say in this blog I would like to give a nod to FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (www.thefire.org) whose goal it is to make the very issue this blog addressees into a more well known concept. I will mention that they are strongly opinionated, so while it is a good place to look for ideas, reliable research should be done elsewhere.

I have been doing some research into Penn State’s censorship since it directly relates to me.  On FIRE they were rated with a yellow color (on a green, yellow, red scale…red being the most censored and green the least). These color ratings are based on how loosely rules are written allowing the administration to have more power over speech.  The biggest problem areas concerning Penn State are listed as outdoor areas for expressive ideas and regulations in the residence halls (http://www.thefire.org/schools/pennsylvania-state-university-university-park/). 

The outdoor areas for expressive ideas cites policies from a Penn State page as, “The University expects that persons engaging in expressive activity will demonstrate civility, concern for the safety of persons and property, respect for University activities and for those who may disagree with their message, and will comply with University laws.” The part where this gets complicated is the respect for those who disagree with your opinions.  Where is the line drawn for expressing your beliefs and disrespecting another? If I was to say ‘abortion is a sin’ or ‘abortion is a right’ I am sure that someone on this campus will disagree and be insulted with one of those statements and someone else will disagree and be insulted with the other. It is hard to draw a clear line.

As for the residence halls regulations it pertains more about what messages you are allowed to post. What makes this a yellow light topic is that it says questionable posters are not allowed to be posted, but what qualifies as questionable?

In all other categories such as: code of conduct, policy on sexual harassment, policy against discrimination and harassment, and more, Penn State has received a green rating.

Besides for general policies, Penn State has not entered a serious heated debate about censorship for the last few years.  The last big case was in 2006 with a Student named Joshua Stulman. In this case a student in the School of Visual Arts had his art show cancelled.  His art show Portraits of Terror depicted anti-Islamic paintings. I have included one picture up above, but feel free to look at more through this link: http://www.joshuastulman.com/portraits_of_terror.html. His art work was censored because it was anti-diversity and there was fear that violence would ensue if his work was shown. I was surprised to come across a case like this because I do think the University was in the right to cancel the art show (I previously have not pictured myself agreeing with restriction of Speech). I think there were serious concerns at the time/ and still present that the work might upset some of an Islamic background.  At this time 9/11 was only five years prior and the thought of it was still present in people’s minds, more so than today.  Although it is important to show numerous views on issues, I think the University was right not to back this art show.  Interestingly enough, every private gallery that wanted to host this art work later eventually cancelled due to possible terrorist attacks on their galleries.

What do you think?  Should they have censored the art work?  Was the University’s concern legitimate? As for the beginning, do you agree with the ratings?  Have you noticed anything about the censorship on campus?

I also apologize for the weirdly inserted picture, technology doesn’t always like me.

When I was coming up with the idea for this blog, I went with the general theme of: ‘What first amendment rights do we have in school and how are they restricted?’  For this week’s blog post I have been doing my research and ran into a situation I did not consider.  In schools students are not the only who are having their voice limited.

I didn’t realize sooner, but the restrictions also apply to the teachers.  This post will be dedicated to two Tweets that caused a controversy, one by a student and one by a teacher.

The first case we will be examining involves a New York senior high school student, Pat Brown.  His school had recently rejected a budget proposal causing a high state of tension with different programs fearing they would get cut.  In protest of the school board’s inability to pass the budget Pat Brown created the #s**tCNSshouldcut.  The original uses of this hash tag were for jokes like cutting the air conditioning out of the budget and they could just have classes outside.  Other cuts being joked about include cutting the lights out of the budget because students can’t do school work if they can’t see it.

However, Brown then used the hash tag to propose cutting his executive principal out of the budget.  A few days later he was pulled out of class and given a three day suspension for harassing the principal, using a phone in class, and disrupting the learning environment (if you want to read more you can check out: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/us/new-york-twitter-suspension).

Pat Brown did admit to using his phone in class, but said the rest of the accusations are unfair and wanted the suspensions removed from his academic record.  This event took place several months ago, but no recent articles could be found on it so it’s unclear on whether they removed them from his record or not.

In the next case we will be looking at is similar, but this time involves a teacher who was tweeting.  A Kansas University journalism Professor, David Guth, tweeted, “The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.” in response to the Navy Yard Shooting.  Originally he was suspended with pay indefinitely with the University citing that the Professor disrupted a place of learning.  After the initial heat blew over he took the rest of the fall semester off and for spring went on his previously planned sabbatical.  The University has released a statement that they stand by their initial decision, but are withdrawing the suspension and allowing Professor Guth to begin teaching again starting in the Fall Semester of 2014 (for more about this story check out: http:// www2. ljworld.com/ news/2013/oct/24/guth-will-not-return-ku-classroom-year/).

In both of these cases the comments were made on the social media site Twitter on private accounts with no relation to the schools.  However, both cases were pursued by school officials under the common theme of disrupting a place of learning.

In the first case Pat Brown did technically make the statement during school time in class and about a school official.  Although, I am not quite sure that he actually did disrupt a place of learning.  Whose education suffered because of a comment about the principal?  The comment was inappropriate, but there were no stated repercussions towards the school.

In the second case David Guth did not involve his University at all.  The harsh criticism of his comment did get the school involved when people complained.  In this case students complained and Guth received threats throughout the nation some of which were death threats.  In this case the upset students and threats do indicate a disruption in a place of learning, but is it fair to suspend him for actions not involving the school?  One aspect that makes this scenario a little fairer is that the University was still willing to pay him even when he was on leave.

What do you think?  Do you think Pat Brown or David Guth should have been suspended?  Did they disrupt a place of learning?  Should the school even be allowed to get involved in the first place?  Do you think teachers should be constrained in their Freedom of Speech? Where should officials draw the line and should poor use social media sites like Twitter even be allowed to be punished in schools?

The Freedom of Speech is listed in the First Amendment as a right to United States Citizens.  It allows us to voice our thoughts and express who we are.  Growing up my mother would always tell me not to say certain things (whether it be curse words or commenting on my dislike of dinner), my reply would always be, “I have the Freedom of Speech to say whatever I want”.  Although I do have the Freedom of Speech that does not mean I get to say whatever I want.

In public schools the Freedom of Speech is allowed to be constrained.  In high school you may have been told not to wear articles of clothing promoting certain topics, you were not allowed to talk back to your teacher, and there were always things you could get in trouble for saying.

I think most of us can agree that there are some things that definitely should be monitored, such as someone shouting profanity or yo’ momma jokes in the middle of class.  However, there is a gray area when it comes to controlling speech.

On September 17th, 2013, Van Tuinen, from Modesto Junior College, was handing free copies of the constitution to celebrate its 226th anniversary.  He was stopped by campus police because he violating the rules.  He was only allowed to hand out copies of the constitution if he would first pre-register to reserve a free speech zone on the campus (to read more on this story check out: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/on-college-campuses-zoning-out-free-speech).

In this case Van Tuinen only meant to celebrate the anniversary of the constitution, but instead was not allowed to because his right are limited.

This gray area has tried to be defined by courts to erase the confusion, but it is not good enough.

Three major points the United States Supreme Court has tried to highlight to focus on are as follows:

1. Does the speech pose a substantial threat of disruption? (Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist.: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/tinker.html)
2. Can the speech be viewed as inappropriate in the current situation? (Bethel School District v. Fraser: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1985/1985_84_1667/).
3. Would the said speech go against the educational mission of the school function or event? (Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier:http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1987/1987_86_836 ).

Even though the United States Supreme Court tried to hammer out a better standard to regulate speech in schools, their standards still leave a lot of gray room that causes problems.

My original choice for choosing this topic is due to an experience I have with the freedom of speech at Penn State.  I wanted to set up tables in Pollock Commons to hand out flyers containing information about the blood drive, but was told I couldn’t because it is not a free speech zone.  Apparently I have to get prior approval (which makes sense), but I have to wait for people to approach the table.  I was not allowed to personally hand people flyers unless they came up to me.  On the other hand you have people like the Willard Preacher who can stand outside a school building on campus and talk about how if you don’t believe in G-d then you think its okay to rape a two year old (this is an actual conversation I heard).  I tried searching the Penn State Student Handbook and online sources to find a better specification of our own University’s policies, but they were unlisted.  The only websites I found said that the free speech zones and bans were lifted already, but either that is not true or the person in Pollock Commons has out dated information.

What do you think about Freedom of Speech restrictions in schools (high school and college)? What have your experiences been with Freedom of Speech at Penn State University or at your previous schools?  Do you think that its okay for controversial topics to be discussed in certain places (like the Willard Preacher’s preaches), but information for good causes is not allowed in other places (like information given out for the blood drives)?