Freedom of Speech in school

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/vacaville-students-lost-2_n_987930.html?ncid=webmail14

                In the article titled “Vacaville Students Lost 25 Points Off Test For Saying ‘Bless You’ To Sneezing Peer,” a teacher punished students by taking off points on their test for saying ‘bless you’ when a student had sneezed. After talking about free speech the past couple of weeks in class, I have begun to notice that speech applies to many different life situations. In this case, the question is posed as to whether the teacher or the students is right.

            Mr. Cuckovich is a health teacher at Vacaville High School in California. In class, a student sneezed during a test and another student said ‘bless you.’ The student who sneezed replied by saying ‘thank you and they both continued with their tests. According to Cuckovich this behavior was disruptive and unnecessary. He took off twenty-five points on the student’s test who said ‘bless you,’ and the next time it happened he took off that many points from the entire classes tests without warning. In his opinion, saying ‘bless you’ or ‘G-d bless you’ is a reference to religion, but it could also be looked at his disagreement with the religion that the remark represents. In the article, they reported him saying that “’When you sneezed in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body. So they were saying 'God bless you' for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, what you're doing really doesn't make sense.’” Continuously in his interview, Cuckovich addressed that the punishment was not based off of religion, but because of class disruption. However, we have to question his reasoning because if it was just about disruption, why would Cuckovich bring up the point about the phrase ‘bless you’ not being necessary because it no longer applies to today’s religious views. Many parents were furious with his way of handling this, saying that he had no authority to guess at what students meant by saying ’bless you.’ They pointed out that for all he knows, they could be saying it because of their beliefs. Cuckovich continued to defend himself and not take back his actions when confronted not only with the parents of students, but with the school’s principal.
            The students’ opinion is that they were not saying ‘bless you’ to cause class disruption, but to be respectful to other students when they sneezed. They pointed out that they have been raised in a community where saying ‘bless you’ or even ‘G-d bless you’ is appropriate and is encouraged. Some kids when being interviewed said that they are religiously some form of Christianity, and that they were taught that not saying ‘bless you’ was an insult and looked down upon. Even students who were of other religions had the same beliefs. It is common for them to hear expressions such as ‘may G-d be with you’ if they are sick or even for tests. Many students upon first hearing about this did not believe it and said it was “absolutely ridiculous” and they had “never heard of anything like that happening before.” Infuriated parents said that new rules say their students are no longer required to stand for the pledge of allegiance, “and now this?” They do not like how the student population is being brought up in this manner and feels it is the school’s responsibility to ensure that the students are learning to respect and feel pride for the flag under which they live and not look at speaking for it once a day as a requirement, but as an honor.
            In my opinion, the teacher acted completely out of his authority. By no means is it rude or disruptive for students to say ‘bless you’ when another student sneezes. It completely relates to the difficulty we find in defining the fine line of freedom of speech. These students are saying something they have been raised to be expected to say, and are being completely confused when their teacher is punishing them for it. Saying ‘bless you’ requires a level of respect, and that is exactly what students show when they say it. When I am in class or even at a restaurant and I sneeze, I automatically expect for someone to say ‘bless you’ and I am ready to say ‘thank you’ back to them. If I sneeze twice, and someone says ‘bless you’ the first time I sneeze, I hold my index finger up to them during my second sneeze to say wait and then say ‘thank you’ after I sneeze again. It is just a commonality and something we have been raised with. Sure the origin of the fraise dates back to many years ago, but it is used everywhere today. In a court case in California from this past month, a school won when saying that “a math teacher for Poway Unified School District cannot display banners proclaiming “In G-d We Trust,” “One Nation Under G-d,” “G-d Bless America” and “G-d Shed His Grace On Thee.” I think that this ruling is completely ridiculous. Some of these sayings are written in our documents as the United States of America, and this ruling is basically saying that we cannot represent some of the defining words of our nation. “One nation under G-d, indivisibly, with liberty and justice for all;” Those words define our nation, our free nation. And our own courts are ruling that they cannot be said? That is a complete disregard not only to our freedom of speech, but to what we represent. If our own courts—that are supposed to protect the people of this nation—rule that the words that define our nation, ones that we learn before we even step foot in school, are not allowed, then what are we supposed to believe? Do we even have freedom? These words have been drilled into our heads from our earliest days, and if we cannot speak those words then how do we expect to be allowed to speak our minds at all?

Hate Speech and Campus Codes

        Hate speech and fighting words are the only things, according to the articles we read over the weekend, that speech codes can ban on college campuses. However, the question remains as to whether limiting just speech is enough to address the oppression minorities receive. In court cases, such as Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire  in 1942, Doe v. University of Michigan in 1989 and UWM Post v. Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin in 1991, courts repeatedly ruled that the schools’ speech codes were too ‘vague’ or ‘overbroad.’ The schools goals were to limit the use of fighting words that often led to violence, but the courts ruled that the speech codes weren’t specific enough and students were left to question what crossed the line.

 In the article “Jim Crow on Fraternity Row,” it depicted how students at a fraternity, that was open to both Jewish and Christian religions, became very discriminatory to African Americans. At a party, Caucasian members of the fraternity were photographed having painted their faces brown and black, or wearing KKK costumes. Some students even went far enough to wear shirts that represented the African American race or even wear ropes around their necks with other students holding onto them. This is where speech codes become confusing. There is such a conflict because the schools have to decide which matters more: the freedom of speech and viewpoint of the students, or the protection of minorities from oppression. The Supreme Court constantly ruled that students who used speech against a race or a person could not be punished just because the statements are offensive. I agree with this ruling. Speech codes cannot be so vague to try and cover all types of hate speech, because it is unclear as to what is actually prohibited. However, some sort of code needs to be put in place in the example of students dressing in certain ways for a party. A student painting their face brown or black, wearing a rope around their neck, wearing a shirt representing an all African-American fraternity, and another student dressed in a KKK outfit holding the rope is not acceptable. That is a clear statement that the students want to take violent actions against the African-American members.

Looking at the “Restrictions on Expression Rights” code at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I was not surprised. In Illinois, there is a wide range of races, religions and ethnic backgrounds. Students who live in Illinois know that, and have become accustomed to respecting people with different backgrounds than one’s self. I think that the policies that the university put in place are to address mostly people from other states that are attending the school, or even those from Illinois who were raised in a different way. If I were to attend U of I, I would definitely feel comfortable with these codes. There is a difference between joking around about race, religion and ethnicity and meaning it in a much more serious manner. I do believe that everyone makes fun of everyone else, but we all find ways to make fun of our own backgrounds as well. Because we have become accommodated to being around many different people, it only becomes natural to see the flaws in our own cultures. I think that the University of Illinois’ policies address the issues while understanding that someone saying a simple statement as a joke that may be offensive is not as serious as one that is threatening or harmful.

9/11 Affected Everything, Even the NFL

            After September 11, 2001, the people in America went into a state of shock and almost paranoia. No one trusted anyone, and security procedures went to a whole new level. Whenever people think of 9/11’s effect on security, they talk about airports, trains, and government buildings. But what people sometimes forget is that security was forever changed in places like Six Flags, public and private schools, and even malls. For the most part, people have just become accustomed to walking through metal detectors and having bags searched, but what we really pay attention to is the fact that it’s a waste of our time. When you’re attending a Blackhawk’s game, you don’t want to have to be crowded outside the doors in the cold to wait to have women’s purses searched. But at the same time, you don’t want to end up with a man’s Taser waving in your face when you’re just trying to enjoy a Sunday football game.

             At the Jets-Cowboys game this past weekend, everything seemed normal. But as I read in the article “NFL security should be more than a show” in Sporting News, nothing was normal. Leroy McKelvey, a Dallas fan, was escorted out of the game by security officials, after pulling out a Taser when he got into a fight with a Jets fan. The head of security claimed that his men search for weapons that can cause “serious injury,” but I think people would consider a Taser to be threatening. The article refers to NFL security as a “show” that goes on every weekend, just to meet the security requirements. A question people asked before this event, is if this security is necessary? Or if it is just something to keep people in the mindset of being safe?

            The article’s opinion is that the security at football games is “designed to give the impression that something is being done to enhance safety without providing any real security benefit at all.” I strongly agree with this statement. The security at things even like sporting events needs to be improved greatly. We can not just go through the motions, because someone will get hurt. No longer can we be reactionary to these things: we have to take action to ensure that our people and our country are safe.

September 11, 2001...Ten Years Later

                In the movie we watched this past week in class, I got a whole new understanding for what it was like in New York City on September 11, 2001. Usually, when I’m walking down the street and see someone from the army, I have the urge to go up to them and say thank you. But, I never find the courage to. After watching this movie about the New York firefighters, I now know that if I see a firefighter, I will have that same urge. The things those workers did on that horrible day saved people’s lives, even if just by giving them the hope to keep going. They risked their lives for hundreds of people they didn’t even know. On that day, we sat and watched the events on the television. There was always a power switch to turn the TV off—but for them, there wasn’t. The firefighters were in the middle of it. They couldn’t curl up in a ball and cry in fear like most of us could. They had to have courage to overcome their fear of death, or much worse, to even step inside Tower One. Then, they had to climb up hundreds of stairs, each step knowing they were getting closer to what had already taken so many lives. And as people came down past them, they had to tell them it was okay and to keep going down, even though they knew it probably wouldn’t be okay.

                In the article “Don’t Listen to Romney: America Is Safer Than Ever,” by Michael Cohen, he captures the contradiction of safety in America. We have deadly enough weapons to put an end to the world with the push of a button in almost every country, and yet, we feel safer than we did ten years ago. Cohen really addresses how Mitt Romney made a good point in his speech: “that the world is becoming a safer place.” We look back on September 11, 2001 and question as to how we could let it happen. It truly is reassuring knowing that now something like that is far less possible. We constantly complain about the procedures at airports, but the truth is that wouldn’t you rather get to the airport an hour early and stand in a line if it meant it could save your life? One of the interesting things Cohen pointed out was that China’s economy relies a lot on a strong American one. If America fell apart to the point where it could no longer purchase from China, they would lose the majority of their exports and income. That’s another reason why the world seems more safe and peaceful now more than before; we rely on one another. China isn’t launching off bombs at us due to our debt to them, because they know that if the situation were ever to be flipped around, America would help them. One last thing is that no one wants to enter into a nuclear war, because everyone will lose. If Iran nuked us, we would nuke them and someone else would nuke someone else and so on and so forth. No one wants that. Everything will be gone, and no one will have proven a point. It’s almost as if our paranoia of a nuclear war is keeping the world at bay.

                Nine eleven still seems almost unrealistic, like a movie. It just seems impossible that something like this could ever happen. It makes you re-think how you live your life every day. Every time I hear the numbers nine and eleven together, I know that I just won’t think of them as two numbers. They represent so much more. Those people woke up that day, thinking about a normal day; a normal life. But then everything changed. Every time I’m on a plane, I just consider it…consider what could happen. When I was little, I liked to collect a lot of things. We not only lost hundreds of lives, but we lost faith. We lost the ability to go on a plane and not think twice about it. We lost the ability to hear the numbers nine and eleven together and think of them as anything but numbers. We lost our ability to think about anything other than how evil reality can be. We lost our reason to feel safe—that when it came time when someone hijacked a plane that a miracle would happen to save us. We lost hope and faith, and just that tiny ounce of miracle we all sought. We gained reality, and the fact that miracles don’t always happen. That to you, you cannot die: this is your life, but to the man in that cockpit, you’re just another enemy. I would collect rocks, change, candy, scissors, pencils, string, and rubber bands and pretty much anything I could get my hands on. When I flew somewhere, I would pack all of these things loose in my carry-on bag for whatever reason. When I opened it up on the plane, people would ask me why I brought that stuff with me, and I would explain why each of my seventeen rocks was important. They found it cute…and innocent. Now, I see kids trying to do the same thing I did—bring the simplest things that they loved and made them happy on the plane. But no one sees it as cute and innocent anymore—they see it as a threat. I once saw a boy hysterically crying at security because he had sharp rocks in his bag that they would not allow him to bring on the plane. He was seven years old, and his name was Michael. Just ten minutes before he had explained to me what every rock’s super power was. He looked at them as if they were the only thing in the world that mattered to him. And now they were being taken away for a reason he won’t ever understand. How far will we go to ensure our safety? That’s the one question I cannot answer. 

is freedom of speech a legit freedom?

           I just read this article, Texas: Judge Halts an Abortion Requirement (published by the New York Times), about a lawsuit in Texas over a law that was going to be passed regarding abortion. This law "[required] a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion." On its way to be approved on September 1, 2011, Judge Sam Sparks of Austin, Texas, argued that this law was in violation of the First Amendment. His reasoning was that doctors were being violated of their freedom of speech by being asked to show women a sonogram of their living, breathing fetus, which might change their choice in abortion. Even further, this law required women who were pregnant because of a sexual assault to sign a form to allow the doctor to perform a sonogram. Judge Sparks ruled that “the state cannot compel a woman to disclose such private information that she may not even wish to tell the police.”

Over this past week in class, we rigorously discussed where the line of freedom of speech is drawn. Cases we covered included Tinker vs. Des Moines, Morse vs. Frederick and Bethel School Dist. No. 403 vs. Fraser. While these cases argued over rights of speech in a school setting, unlike the case of an abortion, the same question is still asked; where do we draw the line of what is freedom of speech and what isn’t? The truth is: you really can’t. The First Amendment of the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” Now some people may say, well abortion isn’t a form of speech—it is an action. But as we discovered in class, some actions we take are just another way of speaking out loud. For example, in the case of Tinker vs. Des Moines, Mary Beth and John Tinker wore black armbands to their public school to showcase their disagreement with the Vietnam War. The school made a rule that no students were allowed to wear these black armbands, and if they did wear them and refused to remove them, they would be suspended from school. When the Tinker kids were suspended for refusing to remove their armbands at school, their father filed suit. The court held that the school policy was in violation of the First Amendment.

I agree completely with the decision of the court. I also agree with Judge Sparks that putting the law into action would be unconstitutional. A doctor is being completely violated if he is being required to show a patient something he does not thing is right or necessary. As a doctor, he knows his patients well and would be going against any patient-doctor trust by following through with this law. Also, if a woman has made the decision to have an abortion, she should not be forced to witness the living and breathing fetus inside her. The guilt that would come with that is a complete injustice to her free right of choice between pro-life or pro-abortion.

the bear punch

this story is unreal...but what I don't understand is when you see a bear in your backyard, why your reaction would be to punch it??

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/brooke-collins-punches-bear-to-save-dog_n_945400.html?ncid=webmail12#s348076&title=Woman_Punches_Bear

I hate seeing things like this come up on my email current news feed...its so sad.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/sharon-west-missing-texas-teen_n_945662.html?ncid=webmail11