The steady decline of student rights and free speech continues with another high school cracking down on free speech. In Redding, California, Shasta High School’s student newspaper Shasta High Volcano will be shutdown because administrators did not like a photograph of a flag-burning student.
Shasta High School Principal Milan Woollard appears to believe that conformity and censorship are important components to teach new citizens.
In true authoritarian style, Woolard announced: “The paper’s done. There is not going to be a school newspaper next year.”
The offense was a June 3rd edition an editorial written by editor-in-chief Connor Kennedy that defended flag burning as speech protected by the first amendment. Woolard, of course, misses the irony of shutting down a newspaper due to an article on first amendment freedom.
Woolard said that he was already concerned over the costs of the newspaper but that the controversial newspaper “cements the decision” to pull funding from the newspaper. Notably, the high school crows on its web site that further “it is highest performing high school in Shasta County.” For the website, click here. Hmmm. I am not sure how many high schools there are in Shasta County but I wonder if the other schools allow free speech.
This is only the latest in such crackdowns on free speech and other rights in our schools, click here.
For the full story, click here
This link is for a film made by Nathan Selove. He entered it in a film contest at Sherando High School in Stephens City, Virginia last month. In a classic high school overreaction to the violence in Newtown, the school banned this film. In the Hazelwood decision the supreme court basically said that the first amendment doesn’t apply to students in high school. So the school did have a legal right to censor the film. But it chose to ban this film which is a serious portrayal of the consequences of violence while allowing another film that treated actual school shootings as a joke.
This is an excellent film made by a very talented young man (He happens to have autism/Asperger’s). His film deserves to be seen. Please don’t let the censors win. Spread this link on your social networks.
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School censorship is violating our rights as students and as citizens. our parents pay for good education which should also practice our rights constitutionally. I grant that people may not agree with what we write say or do but they can be mature to ignore the problem but we should be allowed to practice our rights so all you people who think censorship should be in schools on tv well then fuck you and go suck on a fucking dick
Sincerely,
High school student
p.s this is directed to you badger and to anyone else stupid enough to believe in censorship
School censorship is violating our rights as students and as citizens. our parents pay for good education which should also practice our rights constitutionally. I grant that people may not agree with what we write say or do but they can be mature to ignore the problem but we should be allowed to practice our rights so all you people who think censorship should be in schools on tv well then fuck you and go suck on a fucking dick
You know what all u stupid old wrinkly people you are just jealous because we are better than you so go jack off with a dildo
Hello janice,
I’m glad your paper wasn’t shut down as well. Keep on writing and best wishes to you!
Jill
i am a student apart of the shasta high school volcano this year. it will be my second year on the staff. this may have flag burning thing may have been a bad idea, but i have seen the writings of the staff for 3 years now and they do nothing but incredible jobs. i am glad they didn’t shut it down.
Flag burning in the United States is an enormous problem! According to the most recent figures available, an average of 7 flags are burned in the nation annually. (Of course, this doesn’t include the thousands and thousands of American flags burned by Boy Scouts each year “legally,” when retiring them.)
But it’s those seven flags burned annually out of protest that compel the Congress to contemplate periodically banning flag burning because of the extreme threats such acts represent to the Union.
At the risk of revealing a portion of my National Flag Day blog to be posted tomorrow, I’ll include here a quote from a small book, “ET 101” which says:
“Earth cultures have one basic thing in common: They are all dysfunctional. Once a culture has decided which dysfunctional aspects it wishes to represent, it raises a flag to declare its position, packages its preferred brand of dysfunctionality for consumption at home and abroad, and passes it off as a national heritage to be proud of and protected at all costs.”
I regret that a handful of Shasta High School students had to learn the hard way that what they learned in the classroom about their rights, as guaranteed them under our Constitution, was not truth, but a lie!
p.s. And it’s not the fault of their “Hippy parents”…who are by now Hippy grandparents of this society’s “mutant” children. Happy Flag Day all!
Bindo,
Maybe you are getting too old. It is interesting that you have the unique inside information that the students involved in this newspaper were “ex-hippies”. First of all, the First Amendment protections are for everyone, hippies and non-hippies. It even protects people like you. Secondly, as someone who is way over 40, my high school newspaper in Skokie, Illinois wasn’t any better or worse than the ones I see in our town. Put your Metamucil down and read one of them.
Today’s school “newspapers” are nothing more than flaming liberal wannabe’s trying to get their names in the paper by doing outlandish unheard of things as “news”, with ex-hippie parents smiling and encouraging their brats to push it to the limit. I find it humerous that some here can only relate to this type of trash as a “school newspaper” when in fact the newspapers most of us older than 40 grew up with were something to be proud of.
Click on the “Faculty/Staff” landing page to see the priorities of this institution.
I enjoyed the sections dedicated to pregame rituals, homecoming, and riverbowl.
Check out the talent show. Perhaps “Best Fascist Shift” will be a category next year?
Badger,
Isn’t flag burning protected under the First Amendment? When will high school administrators learn that repressing free speech will only cause more problems down the road for their communities. Isn’t one of the reasons why you suggest the kids should burn the North Korean, Chinese or Venezuelan flags is that those countries repress free speech and you approvee of protesting against countries that limit Free Speech? And I guess that even the Badger is for free speech or he wouldn’t be posting on a site like this one.
God forbid we let kids actually think about or discuss important liberty issues in public school. Let’s talk “intelligent design” instead. John Stuart Mill has it right in a letter to a conservative friend: “I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.”
By the way badger, childish stunts like the Boston Tea party didn’t sit well with the dedicated military of that day either, or their parents either for that matter. We still honor that little cold-water “pool party” today, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of one parent of the Royal Dragoons.
The First Amendment was intended to protect speech that is unpopular or that others are tired of or regard as childish or offensive, not just speech that is popular or inoffensive to all. The fact that flag-burning is regarded as childish or offensive by many Americans is therefore irrelevant to whether it is protected speech.
Childish stupid stunts like flag burning do not seat well with the taxpaying parents of our dedicated military. It is just plain common sense that you don’t burn the flag of the country that provides, ensures, and secures more freedom than the world has ever known to so many. Go burn a Cuban flag or how about a Venezuelan, or a Chinese, or North Korean flag. Most in America are so tired of these childish demands for attention by committing offensive acts.