OUTRAGEOUS! (US Strikes Again)

This was published in the Daytona Beach News-Journal:


Hard lessons from poetry class: Speech is free unless it's critical

By BILL HILL

Last update: 15 May 2004


Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school teacher and personal friend, was fired last year and classes in poetry and the poetry club at Rio Rancho High School were permanently terminated. It had nothing to do with obscenity, but it had everything to do with extremist politics.

The "Slam Team" was a group of teenage poets who asked Nevins to serve as faculty adviser to their club. The teens, mostly shy youngsters, were taught to read their poetry aloud and before audiences. Rio Rancho High School gave the Slam Team access to the school's closed-circuit television once a week and the poets thrived.

In March 2003, a teenage girl named Courtney presented one of her poems before an audience at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Albuquerque, then read the poem live on the school's closed-circuit television channel.

A school military liaison and the high school principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to give substance to its "No child left behind" education policy.

The girl's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job.

Bill Nevins was suspended for not censoring the poetry of his students. Remember, there is no obscenity to be found in any of the poetry. He was later fired by the principal.

After firing Nevins and terminating the teaching and reading of poetry in the school, the principal and the military liaison read a poem of their own as they raised the flag outside the school. When the principal had the flag at full staff, he applauded the action he'd taken in concert with the military liaison.

Then to all students and faculty who did not share his political opinions, the principal shouted: "Shut your faces." What a wonderful lesson he gave those 3,000 students at the largest public high school in New Mexico. In his mind, only certain opinions are to be allowed.

But more was to come. Posters done by art students were ordered torn down, even though none was termed obscene. Some were satirical, implicating a national policy that had led us into war. Art teachers who refused to rip down the posters on display in their classrooms were not given contracts to return to the school in this current school year.

The message is plain. Critical thinking, questioning of public policies and freedom of speech are not to be allowed to anyone who does not share the thinking of the school principal.

The teachers union has been joined in a legal action against the school by the National Writers Union, headquartered in New York City. NWU's at-large representative Samantha Clark lives and works in Albuquerque.

The American Civil Liberties Union has become the legal arm of the lawsuit pending in federal court.

Meanwhile, Nevins applied for a teaching post in another school and was offered the job but he can't go to work until Rio Rancho's principal sends the new school Nevins' credentials. The principal has refused to do so, and that adds yet another issue to the lawsuit, which is awaiting a trial date.

While students are denied poetry readings, poetry clubs and classes in poetry, Nevins works elsewhere and writes his own poetry.

Writers and editors who have spent years translating essays, films, poems, scientific articles and books by Iranian, North Korean and Sudanese authors have been warned not to do so by the U.S. Treasury Department under penalty of fine and imprisonment. Publishers and film producers are not allowed to edit works authored by writers in those nations. The Bush administration contends doing so has the effect of trading with the enemy, despite a 1988 law that exempts published materials from sanction under trade rules.

Robert Bovenschulte, president of the American Chemical Society, is challenging the rule interpretation by violating it to edit into English several scientific papers from Iran.

Are book burnings next?

Hill is a retired News-Journal reporter.
Article can be found here.

I don't think there are words to express exactly how I feel--and the only words that come close are so vulgar only people over the age of 150 are allowed to hear them.

Katse

All I can think of is

Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

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Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned

No, Im sure they are not, but unfortunatley the minority seem to be in charge.

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"If you think I am a Condor, you may keep that opinion;
Though I am no Condor, my Skylines rusty enough."

I do apologize if I'm being overly sensitive about it. It's just that, I dunno, I guess it really is a sensitive point for me. Not so much the US stuff, but blanket generalizations in...er...well...general. Heh, and yes, "Israel kills 4" type titles tend to bug the fire out of me too. In fact, that's really the core of my twinge on the Christianity thingie on the other thread. Not so much the 'Christians are perceived as buttheads' angle, so much as 'ALL Christians are perceived as buttheads'.

I'm constantly beating my proverbial head against the bricks reading the junk that passes for news in the Media because of the overgeneralization and hype for the sake of attention and press.

As for this story, it galls me that a public school system would openly promote censorship. I'm sure they are viewing it as promoting patriotism, but that 'still don't make it right'. To me, true patriotism is promoting the principles we are founded on as laid down in the Constitution. I really believe if this went to court, it would be thrown out by the time it reached the final court.

Anyway, I'm in danger of rambling again. Is it ever possible for me to make a post without rattling off semi-literately?

Buffy toodles back to her corner for a Shweps and Chocolate.

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"Spider sense....tingling."

Well, the powers that be can stall things -- like not sending the guy's employement history.

Still, a letter from his lawyer formally requesting the info be sent, copied to old and new schools, should scare things a bit. Lawyer doesn't have to actually do anything but relay the request, but that letterhead often gets action.

Me, my biggest complaint about the school system is the stuff they teach for Canadian Literature (yuck!!) and science fiction (marginal). How about Spider Robinson or RJ Sawyer, and get two lines off the list with one good book, and have something to discuss about writing, ethics, tolerance, prejudice, evolution vs ID, and all sorts of other good stuff at the same time? But, no. We get the Stone Angel and the Asimov one about Doors. No wonder kids don't always like reading.

Wonder if they'll ever assign Harry Potter?

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Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor E. Frankl

I went to Mystic Connecticut the other day and I saw a wonderful bumper sticker. It said "Somewhere in Texas...A village is missing its idiot". I just thought I'd throw that out there given my thought about the article.

Now I'm not one to normally over react but if I were one of the sudents at that school and that was my principal telling me to "shut my face" I would have stormed up there, grabbed the mic, and told him to shut the fuck up. Of course he'd also probably be missing a few teeth, I would be in jail (at least for a little while) and it all might have made the national news because we all know how the media eats up these kind of things.

Now to those "I hate the US" thread. Damn I love those. Of course most of my best rants come from either something happening to the US or something being done by the US or more specifically "W". By the way, the American death toll in Iraq is up to 784. Ummmm when are our troop coming home again???

I'm actually going to Albuquerque in June. Should I break out my pool cue and go down to that school and announce that "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum"? Just a thought.

Hmmm...missing an idiot, you say? But I'm still here...

As to when our troops are coming home...remember that June 30 deadline date? Yeah, well forget it. A friend of mine has been told that he's being sent there sometime in the fall.

Our schools do have what we call "superintendants," though at times they're not all that super. ^_^ They are brought in from somewhere outside of the community, and they lead a committee of some sorts. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with the various powers and proceedings and what not, having been homeschooled from the fifth grade on through senior high.

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What if there is a spoon?

This whole thread has my attention as an american and as a teacher.
Different things go on in different parts of our country. I lived in the South for ten years and I moved back a few years ago to the state I grew up in, New York.
Down south they will never allow the students to read Catcher in the Rye but in NY it is on our reading list.
In the south an artist had to put a covering over her nude painting in a museum, why? Because the children might see. In NY, well you've heard about our museums.
I have a problem with censorship of any kind, especially in art. If my students create an off color piece of art, I do not fail them, but I explain how I can't hang it up because my prude of a principal will have heart failure.
My point? Different parts of the country do different things? Why, because supposedly we are free to do so.
Teachers are in a unique position, as we have to listen to a set of rules handed down to us by things like the Dept of Dread..er ED.
However being the eternal nonconformist, I bend them to their limits.
So, to stand with Buffy on this, we are not all the same in the US. Please don't lump us together and feel sorry for us teachers when our hands are tied. And shame on that principal, must be related to mine.
Oh and Cricket? We do have Harry Potter on our shelves.

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Stardust

A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. - Agnes Repplier

Stardust,

As far as your regs goes I leave that to you as you work int he field. I love the way you allow the expression and explain that sometimes the rules mean it cant be displayed.

Children are creative and wonderful and we all learn from our mistakes.

In relation to what Buffy said about titles for things. Its a sad fact but we all grew up with these sorts of headlines so I guess we all have become complacent and can forget that when typing something that we hope may attract someone to read what a thread is about we sometimes forget that the same title can cause some to typecast a whole people for the actions of a few.

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Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned