High School students punished for antiwar activism

In what is clearly an attempt to prevent antiwar students to protest against the war in the future, 250 Princeton High School students are facing 2 days of detention after walking out of class and attending an hour long rally and speak-out protesting the five-year US occupation of Iraq on March 19th, 2008. Principal Gary Snyder had originally promised that the students would not receive detention, but reneged when it became clear that hundreds of student were planning on walking out.

Four weeks earlier, the students were required to miss three periods of class while a New Orleans band played and Mardi Gras beads were thrown at them. What are the priorities of Princeton High School? We urge all student and community members to support students that have the courage to take a stand and educate themselves.

"This detention is unfair, because we were taking a chance to voice our opinions and educate ourselves, which we are not given the opportunity to adequately do so in school," said Aislinn Bauer, a Princeton High School sophomore and one of the organizers of the walkout. "We're turning this punishment into something productive."

"What I do not understand is how we were able to miss three periods to see Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience perform and throw Mardi Gras beads at us, which had little to no educational value," said Russell Cavallaro, another Princeton High School sophomore. "This walkout actually had educational value. Students were educated on the causes of the war, why it should never have happened, and had a chance to offer their respects to the fallen soldiers."

CALL and Email Princeton High School Administrators and demand that the students should be commended and not punished

SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION.

Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/...

Office of the Superintendent- Judy Wilson- 609-806-4220

Principal Gary R. Snyder 609-806-4280 [e-mail]
Assistant Principal for grades 10 & 12 Julianne Inverso 609-806-4280, ext 3503 [e-mail]

Assistant Principal for grades 9 & 11 Harvey Highland 609-806-4280, ext 3502 [e-mail]

•  Student Power!

  ...and then these same idiots wonder why today's youth are so disengaged and dissafected from politics...

  by Chilean Jew on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:45:34 AM PDT

  •  Fight the power

    

    is always my credo, but you have to be willing to do the time. I support these students for taking action and following their consciences. Their time was well spent, but if their principal punishes them, let that, too, be an 'action'. No reason they can't write lte's, post fliers announcing when and where there detention will be held, and encouraging vigils and more silent protest to gain further attention. Turning the punishment into another way to focus attention on their anti-war stance just takes it that much further.

    by Lisa Lockwood on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:18:51 PM PDT

•  Hmmm...

  Sorry, don't do the crime it you aint got the time...

  They SKIPPED CLASS....

  Fair punishment it sounds like to me.

  Just like you when you are performing Civil Disobediance.  You take the punishment without compaint.

  by rick on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:53:19 AM PDT

  •  They can't even *implement* this....

    Giving 250 students detention for two days?  Schools are not set up for that number of "detainees".

    by neroden on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:54:46 AM PDT

    •  Yeah

      They probably don't have 250 desks or a cafeteria. It could be a problem. It's like the antiwar Breakfast club. "Don't youuuu....Forget about meeee....Don't,Don't, Don't"

      by woodstock007 on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:59:59 AM PDT

  •  I agree, however...

    First off, I admire and support their effort.  Aislinn Bauer sounds like a very articulate and passionate young person.

    However, they broke the rules by skipping class and have to take the consequence.  If not punished, some young people might take any opportunity to join a protest and skip class.

    It's not so bad.  I'm sure it was worth it.  Their voices have now been heard all accross the county.

    I think this is the beginning of many.

    by diddosMN on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:00:02 PM PDT

    •  RE: Aislinn

      It’s hard, if not impossible, for children privileged enough to live in the United States to relate to kids in the war-torn nation of Sudan, where genocide in the Darfur region has raged for more than three years. Aislinn Bauer, a 13-year-old at Witherspoon Middle School  in Princeton knows this, so she worked with students from her school, Princeton University, and members of the broader community to help shed light on the atrocities in Darfur, which have taken an estimated 200,000 lives. Not only did she conceive of an educational program, she implemented it, coordinating a press release, raising money to support the program, obtaining sponsorship, and more.

      http://www.kidsbridgemuseum.org/...

      Eighth-graders Salima Adamou, Rebecca Beissinger, Steven Braun, Andy Grunther, Grace Klinges, Wadji Mallat, Talya Nakash, Jordan Schonberger, and Sara Wegman came up with a "Dollars for Darfur" campaign to raise money from the sale of baked goods on the nights of the school's annual Winter Concerts on Monday and Tuesday, December 11 and 12, at 7 p.m.

      "Last year's 'Change for Change' program collected over a hundred dollars and this year we hope the bake sale will raise even more, between $400 and $500," said Sara.

      The campaign was prompted during one of the group's regular lunch club meetings when Jordan wore a t-shirt with the words: Stop Genocide in Sudan. Jordan acquired the shirt after a presentation by Aislinn Bauer, now a freshman at Princeton High School, which made a big impression.

      http://www.towntopics.com/...

        On March 19, Princeton High School sophomore Aislinn Bauer will walk out of her seventh-period U.S. history class — where she’s been learning about World War II — to talk about another war.

        To mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by a U.S.-led military coalition, students at the school are planning a "walkout" to show their opposition to the war.

        The protest is being organized by members of the New Jersey Students for Peace, an affiliate of the Coalition for Peace Action that has held the event in years past. Aislinn is one of the group’s co-leaders.

      http://64.233.167.104/...

      by Catte Nappe on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:52:59 PM PDT

  •  Agreed

    The whole premise of civil disobedience is that there's a penalty involved, and you take the penalty in order to demonstrate your commitment to the moral force of your position.

    by CrustyPolemicist on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:29:01 PM PDT

  •  You take the punishment AND you complain. nt

    by beagledad on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 01:16:27 PM PDT

•  The thing is that one has to be able to

  accept the punishment when conducting civil disobedience and that what this is.  I commend the students and hope for more real on the street actions but leaving classes unless they get it approved for educational purposes is against the school rules (I assume.)

  Protesting and expecting no hardship is kinda characteristic of all of us nowadays.

  by dogheaven on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:55:41 AM PDT

  •  Heh. Agreed, and btw

    great sig. ;-)

    by Lisa Lockwood on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:19:57 PM PDT

•  Not Sure I Side With Them re: Walkout

  If it were some kind of peaceful demonstration between classes or at a time and place on school grounds when the students weren't obligated to be somewhere else, I'd completely agree.

  But a walkout of any kind, whether by students or workers, is a disruption of business as usual.

  The whole point is that the individuals are demonstrating their willingness to risk consequences in order to bring an issue to the public. In most cases I can think of, the risks are expected to be greater for the individuals than for the organization or society.

  That's what gives such acts their moral authority.

  by Gooserock on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:59:28 AM PDT

•  I wish my kids were given this kind of

  educational opportunity. Of course I also wish my kids were exposed to art and music at school as well. I think it is wrong for the Prinipal to punish the students (High School may be a good time to learn that sacrifice is often necessary in the cause of justice). Detention seems like such a wasted opportunity, why not have the students write about the experience and what they learned?

  by Sacramento Dem on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:02:06 PM PDT

•  Sorry to say it seems as if there is a core group

  here that was very serious about attending the protest and these students spoke to the administration and received a promise of no detention.  I'd say there were maybe twenty some such students and the remainder saw it as opportunity to get out of class.  So out of the other 260 probably half made to the protest.  The others?  The mall maybe?  The SCOTUS found in Hazelwood that school administraters have an interest in preserving order that trumps students' first amendment rights.  They're gone when you enter the school pretty much. Also there is safety and liability issue for the school here - in loco parentis!

  Very admirable.  This seems to have been a great lesson in civil disobedience though.

  by duckhunter on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:09:11 PM PDT

•  Teach em well

  Show your tits for beads is a very popular course of study these days .

  by JonBarleycorn on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:16:04 PM PDT

•  Stepping into the world

  Some questions?

  What proportion of students in the HS does the 250 represent?

  This kind of information - learning about war and the causes thereof - comes under the heading of contemporary history. Such a course would combine elements of history, civics, economics, geography,  certainly English and modern communications, and even comparative religion in the expression of information, plus the requisite organizational skills to translate the information. In other words, this would be a integrative course crossing many areas of class and student knowledge.

  While it is possible to have dkos members support that in response to the school officers, what would be more interesting would be if the students would come here (and other sites) to share their experience and upgrade their own contemporary history basis.

  I had such a course in high school in the early 1960s, the second such course in the nation at that point. We combined all those elements and more. The real function was to connect and involve us - a very small school in central Texas - with the world at large in many meaningful ways and to be able to express our knowledge and new understandings. Contemp, as we ironically called it, was the single most valuable course I've ever taken at any level.

  This isn't just about politics or school education, it is about that connection to the world and why it is important to each and every individual. In the classic civics sense of the American citizen, contemp lays the basis for personal responsibility.

  One of the underlying elements I constantly hear on this forum is how 'we the people' have been cut out of the loop, how the hierarchical downdraft blows away our concerns, how our involvement is minimized and our resources are allocated without our consent in so many ways. If we, relatively educated and aware citizens on this blog, feel this way, what must it be for students just stepping into this maelstrom right now?

  This forum is contemporary history in the making. It is about regaining voice that we have lost [you could say the SC Buckley decision in a tangible manner, but there is more, much more, including the DLC gambit]. The least we could do is share with those who are seeking to find voice for the first time.

  Good diary. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, CJ.

  by walkshills on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:22:40 PM PDT

•  They were promised no retribution

  and then they were punished post-facto.
  Great lesson to teach America's children...just in case their political leaders and their sports heroes haven't shown them enough about dishonesty.

  by Chilean Jew on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:32:58 PM PDT

  •  It teaches the most important lesson

    In America, never ever rock the boat, never take personal action in political matters, always be obediently docile, and you'll be OK.  Otherwise if you open your mouth and take any kind of stand, it's open season on you.  It's perfectly OK for authorities to misrepresent what freedoms you have that will be respected, just as in our post-9/11 America the rights embodied in the Constitution no longer have any bearing on anything. And if any of them were to read a blog, they'd know very well by now that "liberals" will NEVER EVER have your back if you stand up against the regime.

    by ActivistGuy on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:48:51 PM PDT

    •  Highschool and grade school students' do not have

      a right to free speech, this includes speech activities such as wearing an armband in protest of the vietnam war, if it is disruptive to the school in environment.  The SCOTUS decided this more than thirty-years ago.  Now, even though the students left the campus to protest their leaveing was a speech activity in and of itself that was disruptive to the order of the school - they got up and just left.  It's not like they all had a permission ship to go and got school buses to go.  

      by duckhunter on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 01:01:40 PM PDT

  •  I see this as pragmatism. What if the admin

    was told in advance and 260 students sought to excusd to walk out of class and go to a protest.  The answer would have been no way.  When high-school students are at school the school stands in the shoes of their parents - in loco parentis.  That's why you have to get signed permission to go on a field trip.  

    In loco parentis is not an issue in higher education because the students are adults.  But, something like this happens in a high-school and you have parents calling sayin why wasn't my kid at school, why you let them go to a protest, why wasn't I told, etc.??????  

    While I think that this is very admirable on the students' part I have no sympathy for their plight.  F!@# detention is nothing like a Birmingham, Alabama jail!

    by duckhunter on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:54:36 PM PDT

•  Sometimes we have to accept punishment...

  for doing the right thing.

  Instead of calling the school...send the students some books on civil disobediance.

  by David Kroning on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:52:11 PM PDT