Posted on 05/10/2008 7:30:36 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Three Minnesota Junior High Students Suspended for Not Standing During Pledge
Saturday , May 10, 2008
AP
DILWORTH, Minn. — Fourteen-year-old Bishop Edens was suspended from school Friday because he wouldn't stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, but he was quickly invited back once his principal learned that rule might be unconstitutional.
The back-and-forth came on the second day of controversy at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High over the school's policy of requiring students to stand — but not necessarily recite — during the pledge.
Edens saw three of his classmates get disciplined by Principal Colleen Houglum on Thursday, so he decided to break the rule on Friday in protest. "I feel I should speak my mind about this whole thing," Edens said.
Edens was suspended Friday and went home, but his family told The Forum of Fargo that Houglum invited the teen back to school that afternoon.
Attorney Roger Aronson, who represents 1,700 secondary school principals in Minnesota, said he advised Houglum on Friday that requiring students to stand could violate their right to freedom of expression.
Houglum confirmed in a written statement to The Associated Press that three students were suspended Thursday for violating the DGF Student Handbook.
She said the handbook says "all students will stand" during the pledge but also says students aren't required to recite it.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Liberal activist parents using their children.
Deport them to Iran.
I’d give him some freedom of expression if he were my kid.
“freedom” to be an ass trumps responsibility and loyalty every time (to the Left)
—sounds like the school authorities will most likely be reminded of a certain 1943 SCOTUS ruling (during wartime , for the historically challenged) ,written by Justice Jackson, pertaining to US vs. Jehovah’s Witnesses-—
Am sure someone will call in the ACLU, sigh....
Am sure someone will call in the ACLU, sigh....
And how do his proud parents feel?
Maybe their entire families should be sent to Venezuela for a few years to give them some contrast to the blessings of a free nation under a flag of freedom....
Is that really in the Constitution? I couldn't find it.
The Supreme Court found that any requirement to recite the Pledge is Unconstitutional. The case involved Jehovah’s Witnesses, who refuse to cite the Pledge because their interpretation of Scripture views any such act as disloyalty to God’s Kingdom (a concept they take quite literally.)
Yep.
I’d have them lined up for the Marine Recruiter......
One said the he should’ve been made to write a paper explaining his view. Probably a readily downloadabled PDF from the ACLU, Nation of Islam, or ALA.
do more than suspend them....deport them!!
I still have more faith in the younger generations than my own generation of Boomers.
Hopefully for the purposes of target practice... I wouldn't want these unpatriotic swine putting our troops in danger.
If this were my child, I would be fit to be tide and there would be much discussion on this issue but in the end, I would support their decision not to stand if they so chose.
Right may not be the correct word in this case but they chose not to stand and should suffer the consequences if there are any.
The ACLU is already involved. It is likely the parents attitude toward the Pledge that is controlling these students. The comments after the article are telling. Sadly many of these young skulls full of mush are just parroting their parents anti American sentiments. I really dislike parents who use their children to further their left wing wacko point of view.
This is the land of liberals and so it is no surprise that it happened.
I was unaware students during school had a right to "freedom of expression"
So if this, 14 year old "freedom fighter" had decided that the subject matter in a class being taught was wrong, he has the right to express his opinion regardless of how stupid, inane and wrong it is.
Sounds like a case for chaos. Oops, guess it's too late for that
Deport the parents too. Our country is better off without these people.
Amen to that! Not only would I have gotten a few swats for being a toad and disrespectful. I would have had the pleasure of staying in my room for the next month while all my friends were going to the movies, etc.
I suspect their patriotism index would be notably increased after, say, 10 weeks in the Marines.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protected students from being forced to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_vs._Barnette
Some comments on here are disturbing in my opinion.
Or are we supposed to assume that next the Left will magically discover a Constitutional protected right for students to talk during the pledge, or during class or during tests? 1st Amendment rights and all that. Oh but that different right? Not really.
2ndly, the right of minor children (aka students) is not the same as the rights of the adult citizen. The student is a minor under the authority of the school in the absence of the parent. As a military person under discipline has legitimate restriction put on his Constitutional Rights in order for the military to be able to function, the student also does not enjoy the same unlimited exercise of Constitutional Rights an Adult Citizen has in order for the schools to be able to function.
The issues here are, as always, a great deal more complex then the simplistic arguments presented by the Dinasour Media and it collection of rather incompetent reporters
Why? Is it wrong to expect that US citizens actually have some love for this country? Personally I think that Supreme Court ruling is in error, and considering what else gets taught in schools today, expecting the pledge to be recited is not that much to ask.
BISHOP??? His name is BISHOP??? geesh.
No there is a teacher suing her class for not accepting her position on issues.
Natelie Maines said that you shouldn’t have to love this country to live here. She also said that patriotism was overrated.
The policy at the school is NOT unconstitutional.
The students are NOT required to recite the pledge. They are only required to STAND during the recitation. They may remain silent if they wish. This is the school policy.
And it was not a single time infraction. AND it was a one day inschool suspension.
-—I tend to agree with you in some respects, but the beating of dead horses is rarely productive-—
The SC ruling is completely correct. It does not interfere with your rights when others are not patriotic, ergo, it should not be illegal, nor forced. Forcing patriotism is as wrong as forcing socialism.
“I think that I have a good case because there were just so many instances – it was almost an incessant barrage – of hostility, nastiness and anti-intellectualism that I may just in fact have a case, but I’m not a lawyer,” Venkatesan said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Give you one example. Student Newspapers. According the Boomers notions, they can print what ever they want. Nope. The students supposed 1st Amendment rights are subject to the authority of the school administration. This is a school disciplinary, not a Constitutional, issue.
If I was their principal, my suspicions would be raised in that they would not give a reason for not standing. To me, this would suggest that they were coached, with an ulterior motive.
Therefore, if I was going to take disciplinary action, it would be for anything *but* the real reason. If they had been coached to make trouble for a lawsuit, it would suggest that they would probably do other things, if “plan ‘a’” was not working.
The first thing to do would be to tell the teacher to begin compiling a list of any other bad behavior, with low, if not zero, tolerance, and to counsel those students at intervals about *those* things, keeping a good record of the proceedings. This would create a good paper trail.
The teachers would be under strict rules to *not* make an issue in any way of the flag business. This is because both their parents and the ACLU would be fixated on that issue, and it would strongly undermine their case.
For example, teachers are free to assign extra duties to students at will. So these students would suddenly discover that they had a lot more work to do than everybody else. If they protested that, nobody is going to care. Any misbehavior at all results in detention or other standard punishments.
If the students are absent for a day, the teachers give unique test answers on that day, so that all other students will do very well, but the bad students will fail that test.
It is pretty easy to strongly punish them for trying to sue the school, but it takes preparation and planning ahead of time. If you have any bad feelings about punishing them, set them aside, for these students, their parents, and the ACLU think *nothing* of injuring dozens of other students by depriving them of the money they need for their education.
Don’t think of them as just insubordinate, think of them as the thieves and vandals they are.
—see post #40—
—I sincerely hope you are not in law enforcement nor in a supervisory position in anything remotely connected with my retirement income—
Future democratic party members....
I know of plenty of lawsuits led by the ACLU against schools for students to publish what they want in the school newspaper but I don’t know of any successful lawsuits by journalists to get their piece in the daily paper or weekly magazine unedited by the publishing editor.
If this were my child, I would be fit to be tide and there would be much discussion on this issue but in the end, I would support their decision not to stand if they so chose.
Right may not be the correct word in this case but they chose not to stand and should suffer the consequences if there are any.
Sending them to Venezuela for even more ostracism would just make them feel even more self-righteous ("You will be persecuted because of me"). Making the kids endure that would be cruel and unusual, even more so than making them grow up Jehovah's Witnesses.
Agree.
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