HHS Teachers Getting Bad Rap over Conservative Issue

The Marlborough Enterprise/Hudson Sun ^ | 2-3-2005 | Lindsay Corcoran

[Ender Wiggin]

Ping to #39 and #40

[Ender Wiggin]

Sounds like a Worker's Paradise there! Thanks for posting and please post more!

I hear that teachers show violent films- don't they show the scene from Amistad where someone is whipped to death as a mom commits murder/suicide with her baby in the background? And Schindler's List, and the slaughterhouse movie?

"concerned about possible complaints"- can't be too careful!

And you are so right, it makes no sense to ban the poster with the website when the Hudson Sun publishes it.

Do you know anybody there who could put a camera phone to good use, showing what posters ARE allowed? I bet there are a raft of vegan, ACLU, Amnesty International, and so forth propaganda all over.

[Paleo Conservative]

Imagine what would have happened if freerepublic.com was at the bottom of the posters!!!

Or ProtestWarrior.com

[Congressman Billybob]

Here's the pedigree of the First Amendment Foundation that named this school as a "First Amendment" school. The Foundation was created at Vanderbilt University by Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today. Its Board is dominated by Al's relatives, friends and employees.

An indication of its politics is that the Foundation sent a representative to Cuba to give an award to Elian Gonzalez and his father. That's a pathetic clue of how twisted its view is of constitutional principles and freedom.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest, "Was Howard Dean behind a Daring Art Theft?"

[theDentist]

I haven't seen a poster, but I went to the site, and the violence must be a group of links to the videos of beheadings by Muslims. I can see how some parents would be concerned, and I can also see that it is necessary for these links to be made available nonetheless.

[Ender Wiggin]

The principal, Stapelfeld, and superintendent, Berman, were not concerned about anything concrete. They were concerned about the potential reaction of parents to what they may have seen.

From what I've heard, Hudson High School teachers routinely use violent movies in classes, and some students say that they have shown beheading videos too.

The "violence" issue is a convenient excuse to suppress knowledge of the website- the site has scans of anti-conservative, pro-liberal slanted handouts that are currently in use at Hudson High.

There is nothing on the website listed on the posters as far as violence is concerned that would be offensive or unusual.

Also, being "violent" the HHS officials can add the conservative site to their web filter software so it can't be viewed at school. FreeRepublic is blocked there too, I bet. (Can any of the HHS lurkers chime in on that?)

[Ender Wiggin]

You Bet!

[Ender Wiggin]

Thanks, didn't know that. Hmmm, gotta do more research into First Amendment Foundation.

[theDentist]

Hey, maybe we can get the Protest Warriors to show up and support the HS "policy"! :)

[Ender Wiggin]

Sheldon Berman

...snip...

Good curricula in the area of ethical development are harder to find than in the areas of empathy or conflict resolution. Hudson has selected material from an elementary literature program developed by the Developmental Studies Center in which students read literature that portrays prosocial themes.

In addition, we have created a core ninth grade English-Social Studies Civics course whose essential question is: "What is the responsibility of an individual in a just society?" A central part of this course is the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum. This curriculum engages students in the study of the roots of two twentieth-century genocides, the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. The curriculum confronts young people with the human potential for passivity, complicity, and destructiveness by asking how genocide can become state policy.

It raises significant ethical questions and sensitizes them to injustice, inhumanity, suffering, and the abuse of power. At the same time it is academically challenging and helps complicate students’ thinking so that they do not accept simple answers to complex problems. In the process of studying both a historic period and the personal and social forces that produce genocide, students confront their own potential for passivity and complicity, their own prejudices and intolerances, and their own moral commitments.

The curriculum develops students' perspective-taking and social-reasoning abilities and students emerge with a greater sense of moral responsibility and a greater commitment to participate in making a difference. The only drawback is that there aren’t more such curricula that are appropriate for other grade levels.

...snip...

So they teach about Holocausts and Genocides without violence? How could you possibly do that?

Seems like the use of links to Islamic beheadings on the HSCCA site is in context, at least based on what I read from Dr. Berman above. "It raises significant ethical questions and sensitizes them to injustice, inhumanity, suffering, and the abuse of power."

[stevebowl]

The school did filter the website to some extent. But they aren't smart enough to know how to do it right. It is their right to do so since they own the equipment. Chris had already noted that they showed a lynching video in class that included a mutilated body. And the Corcoran article admits that F 911 was shown in a class. Last week a teacher's husband showed video from his homeland in Romania of atrocities by the communists. So obviously there's only some violence (by Muslims maybe?) that's not allowed. Or maybe it's the presenter that's the problem.

[Ender Wiggin]

I think, as I mentioned above, it's not the links to Islamic beheadings that gives Principal Stapelfeld the willies, it's the stuff below that goes into what's going on in HHS.

The presenter is indeed a problem. A liberal can say things a conservative can't, like Kerry can say, "I will kill terrorists" yet a general cannot. There are things liberals can't stand to hear, as well.

From what I've read recently about Super Berman and the HHS, he's all over the web, he really does not want conservative attention drawn to "his" school and "his" favorite teachers, who are teaching a quite liberal agenda.

Remember when the president of Harvard U said that he felt women and men have different natural abilities? There was at least one liberal hearing these mere words who had symptoms of dizziness and nausea and had to stumble out of the lecture hall in shock, or so she reported. Dissent is not tolerated, at a visceral level, by those who would teach us to be tolerant of other ideas.

Saying that the website on the poster links to violence is a convenient way to suppress its dissemination, in a way that does not lead to more questions.

I think there may be something in what you mention about violence by Muslims not being acceptable you will find few people who even remember who it was that attacked the WTC the first time.

[Ender Wiggin]

Some books by Dr. Berman, the Superintendant. He is one of the founders of, surprise, surprise, Educators For Social Responsibility in Cambridge, Massachusetts! A major goal of the ESR is to is to "make teaching social responsibility a core practice in education so that young people develop the convictions and skills to shape a safe, sustainable, democratic, and just world." Lots of good stuff to read there, like teaching kids how to wage peace.

Link

"Service Learning" is making kids do community service projects for school credit.

We hear about Cambridge in the news once and a while. Is it as wacky as it sounds? The radio talk guy I listen to usually prefaces the name with "The People's Republic of".

---

Children's Social Consciousness and the Development of Social Responsibility Sheldon Berman This book breaks new ground in our understanding of the development of social consciousness and social responsibility in young people and the educational practices that promote this development. Berman shows that children's awareness of the social and political world emerges far earlier and their moral abilities are more advanced than we thought. Berman provides educators and researchers with the developmental understandings and instructional strategies necessary to enable students to become active, caring, and responsible members of our social and political community.

Promising Practices in Teaching Social Responsibility Sheldon Berman and Phyllis La Farge, editors This book is about teachers -- how they build social responsibility into the curriculum and day-to-day life in schools. It showcases the innovative practices of a number of teachers in diverse settings across the country and offers rare discussion on their insights and actual classroom practices. Each chapter focuses on integrating the skills and issues of social responsibility into K-12 classrooms and schools. William Kreidler and Sara Goodman discuss how elementary educators teach basic conflict resolution skills and train students to be mediators. Seth Kreisberg describes one teacher's efforts to democratize his high school classroom. Beth Wilson Fultz discusses how science teachers are addressing science-related social issues, and more. Promising Practices also includes chapters on community service, multicultural education, and global education. Promising Practices is a mosaic of the varied ways that educators teach social responsibility. But it goes further. It gives the reader an opportunity to hear, first hand, about the issues and struggles that teachers confront. It reveals the strength and commitment these teachers have to helping students understand that they make a difference to the world.

[stevebowl]

Well the service learning can be good except when it takes too much time away from core college prep courses in math and science. An interesting paradoxical situation came up this past term when a self-proclaimed atheist student did time as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army to get his credits. The kid did so willingly.

As far as Cambridge goes, it compares well to Haight-Asbury area of San Francisco. One teacher who commutes from there drives a VW with antiwar bumper stickers and other 60's vintage stuff. She's the source of the Bush effigy. She's best known for giving the daily body count from Iraq and calling President Bush a "traitor" before CBS forged the memos.

[rlmorel]

FYI, here is a response a friend of mine received from Sheldon Berman:

(My take: canned response, no truth here, trying to wallpaper over cracks in wall)

Thank you for your email.  I am sorry to inform you that you have been seriously misinformed.  The school administration supports the development of political clubs and has supported the Conservative Club.  We know of no harassment that has taken place based on a student's political view.

Sheldon H. Berman
Superintendent of Schools

[Ender Wiggin]

Ping for new article on the HHS thread

Arrogant censorship
David Limbaugh

February 11, 2005

An incident at Hudson High School in Massachusetts provides an object lesson in the occasional arrogance of liberal bias.

 A group of students decided to form a conservative club as "a counterweight" to the majority political viewpoint at the school. Student Chris Bowler put up posters to publicize the club's first meeting in December.

 Within hours, school administrators reportedly removed the posters because they contained a link to the Website of High School Conservative Clubs of America (HSCCA), a national organization for high school conservative clubs. HSCCA's Website included links to videos of beheadings by Iraqi insurgents, and the high school would not allow even an indirect reference to those links. It also blocked access to the HSCCA's Website on school computers.

 "The material was way beyond what I believe the school should be advertising," said Principal John Stapelfeld. What? Just because the school permits students to use its facilities to promote something doesn't mean the school itself is endorsing it. In fact, just because the local club listed the HSCCA's Web address doesn't mean it endorses everything HSCCA endorses.

 But for the sake of discussion, let's concede that the school's club was encouraging the viewing of those videos. What in the world is wrong with that, and what business was it of the principal's to censor the posters?

 Principal Stapelfeld insists his political bias didn't enter into his decision. According to the Boston Globe, he was initially "thrilled" about the idea of a conservative club that would spark political discussions.

 So, what's his beef with the video links? The Globe reports that he "said the brutal images implicitly condoned violence as a way of 'solving problems' and did not reflect 'mainstream conservatism'" -- as if this liberal were an authority on mainstream conservatism and as if it's fine to censor farther-right conservatism.

 When I first read this I did a double take, thinking I'd misunderstood. How can links to videos of beheadings of innocent people by terrorists -- unless shown by terrorists to potential recruits -- be construed as condoning violence, much less as a means of solving problems?

 It doesn't take a genius to understand that the HSCCA was linking to those horrendous videos to show how evil the terrorists are and how they use violence purely for the sake of violence and terror, without provocation and certainly not as a means of "solving problems."

 Let's give Stapelfeld the benefit of the doubt and assume he got himself confused on that one. Perhaps his other statements express his concerns more clearly. According to the Globe, he felt that showcasing these violent acts "did not address the more central problem of growing anti-Americanism abroad." "Unfortunately, said Stapelfeld, "we really haven't dealt with the fact that we're not well received in the world anywhere."

 In this revealing utterance, we have the principal's naked liberal mindset on full display. What he is really saying is that he -- like so many other liberals -- believes the Bush Administration has alienated the rest of the world because of its "unwarranted" military action against Iraq. And by promoting the viewing of these videos, his students would be engaging in offensive behavior that will further alienate other nations.

 But on what remotely legitimate basis would other nations have to be offended by American students encouraging Americans and other peoples to view videos the terrorists themselves produced and distributed, advertising their own violence? How could genuinely civilized human beings of other nations take issue with civilized Americans for reminding the world, via unedited terrorist-produced videos, of the abject depravity and brutality of the terrorists?

 Indeed, isn't it necessary for us to focus on their inhumanity from time to time to avoid becoming desensitized to it? Perhaps what really bothers the principal (and other liberals) deep down is that by showing the terrorists in their true element the videos demonstrate how utterly justified our cause in Iraq is -- a reality that liberals simply cannot abide. How dare we use the terrorists' own videos to turn people against them? I suppose that instead, we should be trying to negotiate with the sweethearts.

 In short, the principal is betraying his own transparent political prejudices. But what alarms me significantly more than his bias or even the high-handed censorship it produced is his arrogant obliviousness to it.

 This absence of individual and collective self-reflection is all too often the signature of today's liberal, who apparently believes his positions are so pure that his motives are beyond scrutiny.

 Memo to Principal Stapelfeld: Your wrongful removal of the posters is only exceeded by your refusal to own up to your reasons for doing it.

Article Link

[Ender Wiggin]

Ping to new article on HHS thread.

So the kids have "right wing lawyer" help now? Heck, they must be Right Wing themselves! Sounds much worse than conservative!

Lawyer joins fray in Hudson poster snit

By Carolyn Kessel Stewart / News Staff Writer Metrowest Daily News

Friday, February 11, 2005

Article Link

HUDSON -- A legal team known for supporting right wing causes is working to lift the high school's ban of a controversial Web site launched by the recently formed student conservative club.

     The Pacific Justice Institute of California has asked Hudson High School Principal John Stapelfeld to reverse his decision to ban the Conservative Club from citing the High School Conservative Clubs of America Web site on its posters. Stapelfeld has said the Web site promotes violence, because of its reference and links to videotapes of American beheadings in Iraq, and does not represent true conservatism.
     Matthew McReynolds, the lawyer from Pacific Justice Institute who wrote to Stapelfeld, said reference to the Web site is protected free speech for students and gave the principal until Sunday to allow Conservative Club founder Chris Bowler to include the Web site on his posters.
     "It was pretty clear (Bowler) was being discriminated against because of his viewpoints and this is not permissible," McReynolds said. "It would be a great case to litigate in a lot of ways, if it comes to that."
     Bowler and classmate James Melillo started the club as a response to the frustration they felt in a "liberal-filled school," with teachers who mocked the president or praised the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."
     When Bowler and Melillo hung posters for their new after-school group, school officials removed the posters because they affiliated the club with www.hscca.org. The Web site was created by a 17-year-old from California and his classmates, who started the High School Conservative Clubs of America.
     Bowler put the posters back up, without reference to the Web site and had no problems. Then, after the school blocked the Web site from school computers and the school newspaper referenced the Web site in one of its news stories, Bowler put the Web site back on his posters. Stapelfeld wrote him a letter this time, saying it was not OK to promote the site.
     Stapelfeld said he is still "delighted" to have the club at the school, stimulating civic discussion. The club has held and advertised meetings.
     "I wish they had chose a better Web site," he said.
     McReynolds said he was asked by Chris and his father, Steve Bowler, to act on their behalf.
     "We're not looking for fights, but it seems like school officials have decided to pick one," McReynolds said. "So we're going to stand by Chris and his dad and show there are other viewpoints."
     The Web site would not cause a disturbance in the school, McReynolds argued in his letter to Stapelfeld. That is the litmus test for limiting freedom of speech in schools, according to the 1969 lawsuit Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent School District.
     But since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has limited student speech further. A 1986 case initiated the "Fraser standard" that stops students from making lewd speech. Then, the even more restrictive 1988 Hazelwood case allowed school officials to censor any speech that might "associate the school with any position other than neutrality on matters of political controversy."
     McReynolds questioned how Stapelfeld could allow the student newspaper to cite the Web site, and allow a teacher to promote "Fahrenheit 9/11," but not allow reference to www.hscca.org.
     "How is it that the principal decides what is mainstream conservatism?" McReynolds said. "It seems to get clearer all the time that this is a struggle of viewpoints."
     Stapelfeld said he is considering the request and is running it by school lawyers.
     "We've taken into consideration everything they've talked about," he said. "We're certainly reviewing our policy."
     But the request of one lawyer is not going to be the deciding factor, he said.
     "If I changed school policy every time a letter came in asking me to change school policy, we would be making curriculum and policy based on every letter that came in."
     Chris Bowler said he is not hoping for a lawsuit, just the right to rip off stickers he had placed over the conservative Web address, that read "Censored by Hudson High School a First Amendment School."

[Ender Wiggin]

New article on Hudson High thread ping

Conservative Voice Link

National : Pacific justice takes up cause of Conservative Club

Posted by Senior Editor on 2005/2/10 16:44:10

Pacific Justice Institute, www.pacificjustice.org sent a letter to the principal of Hudson High School, John Stapelfeld, that seeks to force the school to allow the display of the website address for High School Conservative Clubs of America http://www.hscca.org on club posters. The letter states:

We have been contacted by Chris Bowler, a student at Hudson High School and founder of the Conservative Club. Mr. Bowler has suffered adverse treatment in the promotion of his club, in that school officials removed his promotional posters. It is our understanding that the posters were removed because they referenced www.hscca.org, the official website of High School Conservative Clubs of America.

Mr. Bowler has been told that the website cannot be referenced because it promotes violence. However, even a cursory perusal of the site reveals that, far from promoting or encouraging violence, it condemns terrorism and radical Islam through the most poignant means available—unmasking it and showing its true colors. At the same time, in keeping with the goals and mission of the Conservative Club, the site primarily promotes the ideals of freedom, patriotism, and traditional values. It is hard to imagine a site which is more devoted to civic issues—or more protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

As you are no doubt aware, the First Amendment prohibits content- and viewpoint-based restrictions on speech. Similarly, the Equal Access Act requires that Hudson High School treat the Conservative Club equally with similar clubs and student organizations. More than 35 years ago, in its landmark decision Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), the Supreme Court declared, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gates." Id. at 506. The court further stated that "students may not be regarded as closed circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. Id. at 511.

Ironically, Tinker upheld the rights of students to protest war-related violence and murder, much as Mr. Bowler is attempting to do. While political speech can often be controversial and cause uneasiness among some people who hear or see it, such effects are clearly inadequate justification for school officials to engage in viewpoint discrimination and censorship. "[W]here there is no finding and no showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would 'materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school,' the prohibition [on speech] cannot be sustained." Id. quoting Burnside v. Byars, 363 F.2d 744, 749 (1966).

It can hardly be argued that mere reference to an external website which condemns violence and extols traditional values somehow "materially and substantially interferes" with school discipline. We are aware that Hudson High School has not found it necessary to inhibit the promotion--by teachers, no less—of the violent and highly controversial film "Fahrenheit 9/11," or the promulgation of posters vilifying President Bush. These contradictions can only lead to the conclusion that Hudson High has practiced and is practicing viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of Mr. Bowler's First Amendment rights. This, in spite of the fact that Hudson High prides itself on being named a "First Amendment" school.

In the related and equally-controversial topic of religious speech by school clubs, the courts have provided further helpful insight: "While the school is certainly permitted to maintain order and discipline in the school hallways and classrooms by limiting the number and manner of both printed and oral announcements for all student groups, 20 U.S.C. §4071(f), it may not discriminate among students based on the religious content of [their] expression. . . ." (emphasis added) Prince v. Jacoby, 303 F.3d 1074, 1087 (9th Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 813 (2003). In like manner, censorship of the Conservative Club and Mr. Bowler because their reference to an external source of information is allegedly "disruptive" impermissibly restricts speech based on others' reaction to the speaker's views. See, e.g., Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949).

We therefore request that you immediately cease all speech restrictions on Mr. Bowler and the Conservative Club, specifically allowing the use of posters which mention the HSCCA website. The Pacific Justice Institute hopes that the articulation of constitutional principles set forth in this letter will serve to inform you of the obligations owed by your school district. Please let us know your position on this matter no later than February 13, 2005.

The letter is signed by Matthew B. McReynolds, Esq., Assistant Counsel

[Ender Wiggin]

Excerpt from Boston Globe Article on Hudson High School

Conservative teens say school is biased against them

By Peter Schworm, Boston Globe Staff | February 10, 2005

Soft-spoken and casually dressed, Chris Bowler does not look the part of a political firebrand. But his new conservative club has ignited considerable controversy at Hudson High School.

To advertise the club's first meeting in December, Bowler put up a poster that included the website of a national organization for high school conservative clubs. The page includes links to videos of beheadings by Iraqi insurgents, saying the links are meant to show what terrorists can do.

The posters immediately drew administrators' ire. Within a few hours, the posters were removed and access to the Web page was blocked on school computers. An attempt to display the posters last month was also squelched.

"The material was way beyond what I believe the school should be advertising," said principal John Stapelfeld. "It seemed to be supporting violence more than supporting the conservative message."

Bowler and his supporters believe the response stems from a political bias in the school against conservatism. To them, it's ironic that students should be censored in a school that has won praise for innovative civics and community service programs...snip....

Full Article

[Ender Wiggin]

Ping to new articles on Hudson High Conservative Club thread.