Students Disciplined for Award Campaign

[DevilsAdvocate2]

Why were these students discliplined? The kid was from Africa!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/22/king.controversy.ap/index.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Uh...give me a break

[Timefortruth]

2. It is explained in the article.

"The content of the posters, they believed, was inappropriate and insensitive to some members of our school community," Rupprecht said.

Likely it was an attempt to ridicule African-Americans, not celebrate their contributions, ya think?

[DevilsAdvocate2]

4. Yes, but...

Practically anything could be considered inappropriate and insensitive to SOME member of the community!

[Timefortruth]

11. What's your point, the school should tolerate any bigoted speech?

We aren't there yet, but you don't have long to wait.

[damnraddem]

15. So does that validate any material whatever, ...

no matter how inappropriate and insensitive? What about THESE materials, not some other hypothetical materials that might make someone mad? The thing is that student confidentiality means that we cannot know the content of the materials in question -- that is, unless the familieis of the disciplined want to make it public.

[DevilsAdvocate2]

17. My point is

If the school wanted to limit it to black people, they should've called it the "black achievement award" as opposed to the african-american award. While i have no doubt that the students were not adhering to the spirit of the award, they did a fine job of spoofing modern society's hyper-sensitivity. After all, to limit the African-American award to only black people is hypocritical. What percent of Africa's population is comprised of white people? Is it 10%, 15%? Black Americans comprise about 15% of the U.S. population. If it was wrong for the Ms. America or USA pageant to exclude black Americans at one time, and it was, then it is also wrong for an African-American award to exclude white Africans.

[Bill McBlueState]

3. a minor issue

Whether the "discipline" was warranted or not, this is a single incident at a relatively small high school. And the discipline was probably half an hour in detention or something like that. So this is by all means an insignificant story, with no relevance to real racial issues.

Yet this is at least the second time it's been brought up on DU today.

Why? Do you enjoy helping to create right-wing talking points?

[Buffler]

5. Small HS

1,600+ students is a small high school?

[Bill McBlueState]

7. relatively small

It's a little larger than the small-town high school I went to, which had 1100 students.

This is small compared to the big-city high schools of 2000-3000 students.

[DevilsAdvocate2]

6. Right-wing?

I don't feel it is a "right-wing talking point." I am of the opinion that people are just a little bit over-sensitive nowadays, as is evidenced by the Southwest Airlines eenie-meenie-miney-moe thing that's also being discussed.

[Bill McBlueState]

8. here's how it's right-wing

People like Limbaugh like to jump all over these stories as a sign that there's some serious problem that affects the entire nation. They use these minor incidents as a way to stir up fury among the stooges that listen to them.

Then, nobody knows what Halliburton is, or what PNAC means, or why the economy is in the toilet.

Focusing on these litle tidbits is how the right takes everyone's attention off the real, significant problems we face.

[Timefortruth]

12. The right likes to point to frivolous examples to prove a point.

The plaintiffs lost that case, as you may recall. It had no merit, except as an example for the right.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. more than half an hour's detention

2 days suspension, according to the article

[Bill McBlueState]

13. missed that, thanks.

:dunce:

[roguevalley]

16. good. As a 27 year teacher, these kind of idiots cause more trouble than

you can imagine. Where in the hell do minors think they have the same rights to be stupid as adults? They are in school. Open your damn little pin heads and learn.

[Lars39]

10. Dupe

Already in GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1044808&mesg_id=1044808

[demdave]

14. It is not a dupe unless it has already been posted in LBN.

That is how the rules go.