School Sells Out Students' First Amendment Rights, Apologizes And Deletes Article Containing Controversial Images

from the when-you-value-the-relationship-with-the-PD-more-than-the-relationship-with-stud dept

This line of thinking can never be reinforced too often by public officials: the First Amendment is great but only if your speech doesn't offend someone powerful. (via Adam Steinbaugh)

A California high school took matters into its own hands -- not even waiting to see if powerful people were offended -- and memory-holed both its physical and online student publication after a student wrote article about the relationship between art and activism made some parents take to Facebook to complain about "liberal propaganda."

The article contained images found via Google searches, including one depicting Trump with a Nazi symbol on his head and another with a cop in Klan hood pointing a gun at a black child meant to represent Travon Martin. The following image comes from the Facebook post that started the backlash against the school.

The cascade of criticism on Facebook led to the mayor of the California town (Don Kendrick) to offer this explanation of how someone at the Bonita High School made the mistake of allowing students to engage in protected speech. [Line breaks added for readability, since apparently even mayoral announcements on Facebook must be delivered as a wall of text.]

First, I would like to thank everyone for your interest in this topic. Yes, I was furious when I first learned about this and I am still concerned. But I have had discussions with a number of people and would like to share those with you.

I would like to address two issues. One, the incident, and the other, the clubs at Bonita High School. First the incident. As most of you know, the city of La Verne Police Department has a very good, if not excellent, relationship with our school district, and especially Bonita High School, with a police officer assigned to the La Verne schools as a School Resource officer. This is a relationship that has been ongoing for over 25 years.

This unfortunate incident with the school newspaper has turned out to be a very bad judgment call by a new teacher, not an example of what normally goes on at the school. One Bonita teacher went to the police station on his own, talked to the Chief of Police, and apologized on behalf of what he said was 99.9% of the teachers at the school. Further, the Superintendent of Bonita Unified School District and the Principal of Bonita High School also went to the police station, met with the Chief, and apologized. Mistakes are made. The Police Department is fully committed to working with everyone in the school district, including the students, to make our community the best it can be. The Chief said it was an unfortunate mistake, but should not be used to judge the school district or the relationship that exists with the police department, and one that will continue to exist.

The second topic is the Bonita High School clubs. Did you know that there were over 60 clubs on the campus? Why so many? Because there is a wide variety of interests among the students. There is a club for everything you can think of, and even a club if there is no other club to belong to. Engaged students, doing things they like, leave little time to become engaged in destructive activities like we have recently witnessed in Florida. Every student at Bonita High School is expected to be engaged and involved in something. We are a better community when they are.

Thank you for your time.

Within this announcement are several concerning statements and assertions. First, the mayor is ready to throw a single teacher under the bus for allowing students to freely express controversial ideas. Second, the school is apparently so worried local officers might be offended that it took it upon itself to make sure local cops knew this was the work of one bad apple. Third, the mayor insinuates that approved school activities, if there's enough of them, will either prevent school shootings (which I doubt is what he meant -- no one refers to shootings as "activities") or prevent students from engaging in activism (like the several protests/walkouts that followed the Parkland shooting). If it's the latter, the mayor is encouraging the school to further divert students away from any outlet in which controversial ideas might be expressed. This is bad for students and bad for the First Amendment.

The thread of comments on the Facebook post that started this all is the expected hellhole of ignorance and calls for heads. The two Fox articles covering this both claim officers were offended by the publication but feature no direct quotes from anyone at the PD saying as much. As quickly as staff rushed off to prevent public servants from having their feelings hurt by a publication they likely never would have seen, it's hard to believe any officers were offended until after they'd been apprised of the situation. It's not like the PD applied pressure on the school. The school just simply abdicated its responsibility to its students in favor of preemptive feather de-rufflings.

To top it all off, the school's statement on the issue is a non sequitur.

"There is a California Education Code that affirms the First Amendment rights of student newspapers," Carl Coles, the interim superintendent of the Bonita School District, said in the statement. "The student journalist's article does not represent the views of Bonita High School or the District."

Great. But what the hell does that mean in this context? A school vanished away speech it find uncomfortable despite this "affirmation" of students' rights. If the school had left the article live on the website and the physical publication untouched and simply informed parents, cops, and the mayor that it did not represent the views of the school, everything would have turned out much better than it has. Instead, the school has announced its subservience to local law enforcement and its willingness to silence students rather than overrule heckler's vetoes.

Filed Under: bonita high school, california, don kendrick, first amendment, free speech