Well written, James.  I'll throw another one at you.

My 16 year old daughter's sophomore high school class printed up T shirts
(as every soph class does) with a cute "notice us" expression.  In their
case, it was "score with the sophomores", or something to that effect.  It
was not obscene or pornographic in any way.  It was a play on words.  While
I don't advocate "scoring with sophomores" (especially my own daughter), I
do think they have the right to say it.  The Asst. Principal made them take
them off or turn them inside out at school, and told then they couldn't
wear them to the football game that night.  My daughter disobeyed, wore it
to the football game, was caught, and told to leave the stadium, which she
did.

I emailed the Asst. Principal to ask if my daughter had an attitude problem
(my main concern...she doesn't...she's trying to fit in).  At the same
time, I asked if her constitutional rights had been violated.  The response
I got was the same as the example you site...a bunch of jibberish designed
to avoid confronting the issue, which is the admins not knowing how else to
handle "flirty" behavior.  Or this admin wanting to be the morals police
(which she denied).  So they instead try to outlaw it, by sensoring what
kids can and can't say.  And she openly admitted that the school district
feels they are above the constitution and have to be to maintain order.

The school also has a "Gay, Lesbian, and Transexual Club" with it's own
yearbook page (was looking at it last night).  I could care less what
someone's sexual orientation is, but I find that an interesting
interpretation and contrast of the right to free speech and expression of
views.  And it bothers me, hence my posting here.

John Lee



At 12:54 PM 6/3/05 -0400, James B. Byrne wrote:
>On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 07:54:56 -0700, russ smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Back in the 1930's, politicians didn't use schools as pawns in naked
> > political games.  "You want funding for more books?  Okay, implement
> > this completely unrelated policy that my backers in the last
> > election insist I get passed."
>
>This is a rather naive view of the past that discounts entirely the
>elements of overt social control built into public education.  It
>is recalled that the prevalent model of public education in the
>west is Prussian in origin and was developed in the mid 1800s as
>much to engender a populace possessing cultural and social
>solidarity with the interests of the state as providing a more
>technically adept labour force.  To that end much of what is taught
>in schools, particularly with respect to history and civic affairs,
>is conditioned by overt political considerations. Consider the
>recent events in China with respect to Japan's revised history
>textbooks and the vast gulf that separates European and American
>treatment of both world wars in the classroom.
>
>It has always been thus, for all publicly funded and state
>supported activities are, by their very nature, political in origin
>and have political outcomes as their principal goal.  Even private
>institutions, such as organized religions and some large
>corporations, have overt social conditioning as an explicit part of
>their education programs. There is simply no escaping this aspect
>of education.  The contentious issues of social policy that are now
>evidencing themselves over overt control of student behaviour is
>more a slipping of the veil of respectability that formally covered
>these facts with a veneer of self-denial regarding their existence.
>
>The real issue is the apparent degrading of social cohesion brought
>about by many disparate factors, but which will most likely be
>traced to vastly improved and inexpensive communications
>technology.  As is usual in such intractably complex situations,
>the desire for simple direct action promotes equally simplistic
>solutions to the "problem."  A "problem" that everyone acknowledges
>exists but which, strangely, no one can express in a lucid manner
>that even a simple majority can agree with.  So we get such
>inanities as "zero-tolerance."
>
>Well, zero-tolerance is ultimately an admission by authority that
>the situation is no longer a problem, it has become part of the
>environment, and that the difficulty of administering its
>consequences has swamped the ability of the institution to deal
>with it.  The result is that individuals are forced to bear the
>iniquities of a system that is breaking down from its own weight
>and lack of internal consistency.  It is a Potemkin village
>approach to institutional reform.
>
>I give as an example of institutional cognitive dissonance a true
>story, one that happened (is happening) to a close friend of my
>son.  This youth was home schooled, so far as I can determine for
>no terribly profound reason, and, as far as I can discern to no
>great effect, good or bad.  He is intelligent and diligent in most
>matters and a bit of a layabout when he can get away with it.  His
>character is such that he is always welcome in my home and I am not
>known to be a tolerant man.
>
>He entered the parochial school system here in Ontario (we possess
>in this jurisdiction, as part of the original terms of the
>confederation of Canada, a publicly funded Roman Catholic School
>system) to obtain his high-school diploma.  He has maintained an A-
>average in the college/academic stream.  He was active in school
>social activities and was a volunteer stage-hand for the school
>drama productions.  I say was because around 7:00 p.m. last
>Thursday night, when he showed up at the stage door of the theatre
>where the production was being staged, he was stopped by two
>security guards and found to have in his possession a multiplex
>pocket-knife of the kind commonly found as part of a Boy Scout's
>uniform.
>
>Now, this is hardly surprising behaviour.  I carry a pocket-knife
>on my person at all times and have done so since I enlisted in the
>navy at 17, where it was REQUIRED.  However, the rules state that
>students may not bring weapons to school and apparently in today's
>society a pocket-knife can have no other function.  In this case
>the young man surrendered the knife to security without much
>thought and proceeded to enter the premises to carry out his
>duties. In retrospect he would have been wiser to turn away from
>the door.
>
>What happened next is the type of Kafkaesque nightmare that only
>hierarchical bureaucracies are capable of. The security guards,
>employees of a private company engaged by the school board for this
>event, turned the knife over to a vice-principal of the school who,
>on the next day, suspended the boy for 21 days which, in
>consequence, means that he is not allowed to write his final
>examinations.
>
>Now, I do not know how society is served by taking a year out of
>the life of a young man for carrying an object that is not, in
>itself, illegal to possess or carry and representatives of which,
>without any doubt, were carried on the persons of a number of the
>members of the audience that night, none of whom were searched.  I
>further do not see how a multiplex knife can be considered anything
>other than a tool unless it is actually used to threaten somebody.
>I also have grave reservations about a system that administers such
>draconian penalties without due process.
>
>I have no doubt that had that vice-principal been faced with
>orchestrating a hearing and producing evidence before an impartial
>tribunal who then would decide on appropriate action then this
>situation would have been handled in a far more enlightened manner.
>  I have observed that having to justify ones actions to those that
>can overturn them has an amazingly moderating effect on ones own
>judgements.  But, mainly because he did not have to answer to
>anyone else, he took the action he did without much evident
>consideration of the overall social implications. The sad fact is
>that students are still considered as somehow less than human and
>continue to be subjected to such arbitrary and callous treatment.
>
>My point is not that the boy should not have been confronted with
>the issue of carrying a knife onto school property and the risk
>that this action potentially posed to others.  It is that zero-
>tolerance is simply a euphemism for intolerance and often serves as
>nothing more than a shield for those that enjoy inflicting pain on
>others while hiding behind the skirts of respectability granted by
>institutional sanction.  It is at root no more than an
>administrative convenience that permits the institution to evade
>grappling with the complexity of the underlying issues and
>difficulties by diverting the public with a great show of having
>done something dramatic, notwithstanding that this something is
>usually completely ineffectual if not actually counter-productive.
>
>When regulations harm the very people whose protection ostensibly
>provided the rationale therefore, then what is actually being
>protected is the people running the institution making the
>regulations and not the persons in their care.  The disputes that
>are going on within the public schools systems are mostly proxies
>for the dissatisfaction arising from growing awareness that schools
>frequently are not, in fact, the neutral and benevolent
>institutions that they present themselves to be.  There is much
>good in public education, but there is a great deal wrong with how
>it is administered and it is not the students that are to blame for
>that. I see no reason why they should be forced to pay the price
>for our inadequacies as parents and as citizens.
>
>--
>      *** e-mail is not a secure channel ***
>mailto:byrnejb.<token>@harte-lyne.ca
>James B. Byrne                Harte & Lyne Limited
>vox: +1 905 561 1241          9 Brockley Drive
>fax: +1 905 561 0757          Hamilton, Ontario
><token> = hal                 Canada L8E 3C3
>
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