
From yesterday's New York Times:
The Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit supporting Mr. Agin’s free-speech rights to use the photo, and both sides have agreed to take the matter to the state education commissioner.Oh, in case you didn't catch on, the school is opposed to the sword. I guess they're afraid he'll leap off the pages, like some fantasy movie, and start swinging.
The civil liberties organization said the school’s position took zero tolerance well past the point of common sense.
“It’s a perfect example of bureaucratic ridiculousness,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island branch of the organization. “We have had zero-tolerance cases before, one where a district punished a kindergartner for bringing in a butter knife, and another where a school suspended two first graders who brought a toy ray gun. But this case is even more ridiculous, since Patrick was not even bringing the weapon to school.”
The school’s position is particularly untenable, he said, given that the school mascot is a Revolutionary War soldier carrying a rifle.
But here's the real absurdity:
The school has offered to let Mr. Agin buy a yearbook ad showing the photo. By itself, that takes the whole situation into the surreal, the civil liberties organization said.Hypocrites; that's all I can say. Hypocrites.
“I guess they think it’s a danger to the school system on Page 6, but not on Page 26,” Mr. Brown said.
While there is no freedom of speech in an independent school, I've found independent school leaders to be more reasonable than the (pardon the pun) gun-shy administrators in public schools. I'm reminded of the recent Captain Underpants incident out on Long Island... but that's for another post (or did I already post about it?)...
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