On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Eric Cordian wrote:
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has just upheld the right of schools to suspend or expel any student who speaks or writes about fictional violence, dresses differently, has a "disturbing" background, or "fits the profile" of a "homicidal student."
I wonder whether this is a problem brought on by the ideas of students, or by the students expressing their ideas within the confines of the public school system. See next.
The appeals panel said while the poem viewed by itself is protected speech, the school district had a right to suspend LaVine on fears he may have carried out what he had written.
This would be no problem if the school was private -- fear is good enough a excuse for expulsion if it is made explicit, beforehand, that explicit writing is not accepted. But when the student is forced to participate in the education, punishing for something that hasn't already transpired is certainly unjust. It clearly limits the breadth of thought the student is allowed. If one is frightened enough to think of poems written by teenagers as evidence of imminent violence, one should definitely have the option of enrolling one's children in a school where provocativeness is forbidden, stupid if that sort of move would be. But when people have no realistic choice of how to school their children, it is to be expected that the full spectrum of human literary talent will be present, too. The result is that some writings will certaily touch on controversial issues. Like the poem at issue here. The only problem here is that *all* children are being pressured to participate in education in an environment (public schools) where opinions and modes of expression that the more close-minded may perceive as threatening necessarily manifest. (BTW, the poem was pretty evocative, as far as I can tell.) Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front