Turns out saying rape jokes are bad wasn’t the worst thing that could happen:
Cardinal Columns graphic designer Austin Klewicki was the one student who spoke to the school board Monday. He asked members to revoke the new policy regarding the school paper.
“Asking it be reversed, because we bring out the truth and we try to help everyone that’s affected by it,” said Klewicki.
Cardinal Columns editor-in-chief, Tanvi Kumar wrote “The Rape Joke” for the February issue.
District Superintendent James Sebert told us he doesn’t have a problem with the article as a whole, but questions parts.
“A picture inside the first cover that looks as if one of our students isn’t fully clothed. I had issues with some of the verbiage that was used to describe sexual assaults,” said Sebert.
The superintendent also took issue with an editorial in the February edition challenging the “Pledge of Allegiance.”
” It was actually encouraging students to test their teachers’ knowledge of their rights and encouraging them not to stand,” Sebert explained.
Sebert told FOX 11 these reasons led to the policy change. Now the high school principal has the final say on what will be published.
“We’ve now set up, what I believe, the the help of our legal counsel, to be very reasonable expectations for a publication that’s produced during the school day, with school resources,” said Sebert.
Telling students to challenge their teachers! We can’t have that! What will happen?
Look, if your teachers are so buttheaded stupid that they can’t answer reasonable questions about civics in a school environment (reasonable questions like if you are, in fact, legally required to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, which pretty much every citizen should know that no you’re not) then they deserve whatever criticism they get from the students.
I mean, is it me or are we not setting the bar very high here?
A.
Wonder what the probability is that the students, knowing that an article encouraging students not to stand for the pledge was quashed, wouldn’t communicate among themselves and on a given date, quietly sit at their desk with their hands crossed on top of the desk.
Just to clarify, my comment was directed entirely at the response to the article about students not standing for the pledge. (Obviously the administration would try some sort of retaliation and be in the pickle of teaching the students about how wonderful their freedoms are by quashing their freedoms. So assume at least one of the students has a pipeline to a lawyer to advise them).
OTOH- on the rape joke, the situation seems much more complicated with everything from who has the responsibility for what is written in a student newspaper (and any fallout it provokes) to plain decency that things you say and write may prove hurtful no matter how you meant them. That issue I intentionally avoid commenting on.