Valerie Strauss, a great education writer in the Washington Post, had an article posted yesterday about some moronic administrators in NYC schools that censored a student play. Please give it a read; it gives one a great perspective on what students think about the "reform" they’ve endured and the people who’ve implemented it.
Strauss article
You can all read the article for yourself, but this is troubling from two perspectives. The students’ rights are being violated. Two cases come to mind. Tinker v. Des Moines and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier:
Hazelwood Case
Tinker Case
While I am not a legal scholar, merely a teacher of American Government, I believe firmly that these students in NYC had their rights violated. You all can feel free to pole holes in my logic, correct my conclusions, and/or direct me to better cases but here is my logic:
- This play provokes debate and does not create any type of disruption to the school environment. Therefore the protections afforded to student expression in the Tinker case apply to protect these students.
- This play is a form of publication. The Hazelwood case sets some guidelines about the censorship of student publications. This play does have legitimate educational purposes. The administrators in these two NYC schools had no legal justification to censor these students.
These students have every right to sue these administrators. Their right to free expression as students has limits, but is not 100% limited. We should not be telling our students to shut up and blindly accept authority or the crap "reforms" that are ruining education.