Tempers flare over Rancho Cotate club

The winter break comes none too soon for Rohnert Park's Rancho Cotate High, where the school's new Conservative Club has gone from debating controversial issues to becoming one.

During the last week of school the club president said he twice received threats of physical violence from some students -- prompting the principal to suggest without success that the 17-year-old junior stay home for the rest of the week.

Forty of the school's faculty, meanwhile, signed a letter objecting to the actions of the club, including a flier the club produced urging students to "take a stand against the liberal traitors who call themselves teachers."

Club members, who number about 50 and meet once a week, counter that the educators are belittling them before other students and said two teachers failed to take action when their club leader was threatened -- an allegation the school principal rejected.

The club's faculty adviser, necessary for any campus club to continue, recently stepped down from that position after the club president distributed a newsletter without her authorization. That has placed the club's status in limbo.

All of which drew a simple response from students looking from the outside in on the controversy surrounding their school:

The club, which may be unique among high schools on the North Coast, began this fall at the 2,000-student school after a group of students called for a forum to offer a balance to what they said were teacher opinions voiced from a liberal perspective.

At first Nordin (and others) said she admired the courage of students who wanted a club to express different views on campus. But she and five other student leaders said Friday the club's president, Tim Buehler, has repeatedly provoked controversy.

Buehler acknowledged he is provocative but denied his club promotes hate, as some students and teachers have suggested.

He said many of the school's teachers "simply don't want us here" and he likened his strategy in dealing with opponents to that of talk radio host Michael Savage, who has built a career on attacking liberals with vitriolic speech.

"We make it fun and we make it interesting and people want to come back," Buehler said.

With outside speakers from the National Rifle Association and the Eagle Forum, the club quickly drew attention, both from supporters and from opponents. But exactly what everyone is learning from the controversy is itself a matter of debate.

Teachers insist the club has accused them without any evidence of instruction that is biased against conservative views. And they objected to the club flier that urged students to report to a "conservative hot line" any "un-American comments" by teachers.

"To me that harkens back to McCarthyism," said business and computer teacher Trudy Nye.

Science teacher Mark Alton agreed and asked, "Who gets to decide if someone is a traitor or not?"

The club's members are equally insistent that teachers, whether consciously or not, are presenting a liberal world view and are using their role as instructors to criticize President Bush and other conservative leaders. They also said that during class time some teachers have belittled Buehler or other club members.

Gabby McGrath, a senior and a student government leader, said she has heard comments from a teacher that "weren't appropriate" about the club's members. But she and other student leaders said the club's participants are naive if they think they can say outrageous things and not provoke a response from teachers and students.

Senior class Vice President Jason Wang said students considered it denigrating when Buehler's newsletter included an article saying that "liberals welcome every Muhammad, Jamul and Jose who wishes to leave his third-world state and come to America -- mostly illegally -- to rip off our health care system, balkanize our language and destroy our political system."

This week Buehler said he was twice threatened by groups of students angry about the article, which dealt with illegal immigration. He said on each occasion he went to teachers for help but received none.

Last week, some of the 50 members of the club met with Principal Mitchell Carter to discuss concerns about the two incidents and the teacher responses. Carter later said he had investigated and found no evidence of inappropriate action by teachers.

"We take our students' well-being very seriously," Carter said. He said he earlier had suggested that Buehler stay home the remainder of the week in order to "let things settle down." Buehler declined.

The same day a San Bruno group, the European/American Issues Forum, said it had filed a formal complaint on Buehler's behalf with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, alleging the school was failing "to eliminate a hostile environment" against the club president.

For now the school is dark, beginning a two-week holiday break. But no one thinks the controversy will go away.

Under school rules, the club can't resume meetings until it finds another adviser. But Buehler insists the club will survive, even if it does so off campus.

Amanda Clarke, the club's vice president, acknowledged that "Tim's slogans can be a little outrageous." But she said the club has a worthwhile goal and she hopes eventually students with different views will be able to discuss their opinions in a respectful manner.

It began this fall after some students called for a forum to balance what they perceived as the teachers' liberal bias.

Here is an update on what the Patriotic Students are facing now at Rancho Cotati High School in Sonoma County, California.

If you wish to be taken off this list, please FR mail me. Thanks.

This is an email that I got from Tim Buler yesterday:

Conservative Club update — Rancho Cotati High School, Rohnert Park, California
Report by Tim Bueler

After Mr. Connich reigned from advising the Conservative Club, citing that other teachers were creating a “hostile” work environment for him, Gail Eagan, District Director of Student Services, stepped in as our interim adviser.

The following week the Conservative Club meet, and everything was OK, until ASB (Associated Student Body) decided to “reevaluate” our club status. They claimed concern that most of the money that our group was receiving to support us against the excesses of school administrators (and now, the excesses of the ASB, the administration’s apparent surrogate) went to the non profit High School Conservative Clubs of America (HSCCA).

HSCCA exists because when it became clear that our Conservative Club was under assault by the administration and liberal teachers who were doing all they could to destroy us, we started HSCCA as a way to help ourselves and other high schools around the country to start and defend Conservative Clubs.

The club officers did not want ASB to keep all our money under ASB control, let alone tell us how to spend it.
ASB held a meeting and voted 11-3 against the club. As it stands now, ASB has told us that they will write a series of questions that we have to answer, before we can be a club again. To date, the Conservative Club has waited for 4 weeks, while ASB takes its own sweet time to process the questions.

While the Conservative Club is left dangling on ASB’s bias and whim, the club officers decided that we had the right to meet in peaceful assembly — not as an ASB-approved club, but in exercise of our God given right to exercise our individual freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Friday, March 5, 2004

Though “officially” inactive, the Rancho Cotate HS Conservative Club officers and some members decided to gather in peaceful assembly, unofficially, as a non-ASB “approved” club during lunch. We met in Mr. Connich’s classroom.

Prior to the gathering, some of the club officers were told by both Principal Carter and ASB teacher/adviser Mr. Kempiak that we were still allowed to meet in a classroom, but we would not be recognized as an “official club meeting” and we could not participate in the “privileges” that school clubs have, whatever they are.

With that in mind, the Conservative Club conducted it’s unofficial meeting without the usual PA system announcement that only “recognized” clubs are supposedly “allowed” to have. Instead, the gathering was spread by word of mouth and was relatively small.

The students inside the classroom were the club officers: Tim Bueler, Amanda Clarke, and Shane Palmer; along with about 8-10 other members. The meeting was being supervised by two teachers: Mr. Connich and Mr. Whitman.

As more students entered, student Keith Butler was closely followed by a yard duty staffer, who told Keith to “grab his stuff and go to the office.” When asked why, the yard duty staffer said she “had been advised to not let any more students into the meeting.”

Keith went outside, but instead of going to the office, he stood by the window and listened in on the meeting. The yard duty staffer left without asking Keith to leave the window.

A few minutes later, after four or five more students had entered the room, Principal Carter and the on-campus police officer walked in, and Mr. Carter spoke privately with Mr. Connich, while the Conservative Club continued to conduct its unofficial gathering.

Mr. Carter and the officer left after speaking with Mr. Connich, but on the way out, Principal Carter attempted to force Keith away from the window by grabbing his shoulders and pulling him away. Keith resisted and pulled away, but Mr. Carter continued, until the Conservative Club members voiced strenuous dissatisfaction with the principal’s actions.

During the rest of the unofficial gathering , two more students entered, then three or four more students attempted to. However, Mr. Connich, apparently acting on Principal Carter’s orders, told them to leave. Meanwhile, various teachers looked through the windows, apparently to see if the meeting was still being conducted.

After the meeting, club president Tim Bueler, and vice-president Shane Palmer asked to speak to Mr. Carter, but were denied access.

So the question remains, why did Principal Carter, after approving the unofficial gathering of the Conservative Club “without the privileges of an ASB recognized club,” deny entry to the meeting, but only to some members? Why did so many teachers suddenly develop an interest in the obscure classroom-meeting site? And besides setting themselves up in position to appropriate Conservative Club funding, just what ARE the “advantages” of being an ASB “recognized” club?

Friday March 11, 2004- Rancho Cotati High School, Rohnert Park, California.

President Tim Bueler received a letter from Gail Eagan, District Director of Student Services, Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, regarding the March 5, 2004 meeting:

“As I told you on Friday, the only thing that can look like a club meeting is one that is a business meeting. Finally, I consider the "gathering" held last Friday at lunch to be a purposeful circumvention of my directive to you that the club was not to meet until it was reauthorized by ASB. Future acts of outright defiance of this nature will result in disciplinary consequences, which could include detention, Saturday School, or suspension from school.”
-signed, Gail Eagan
(Director of Student Services).

The members of the Conservative Club are outraged at this unconstitutional infringement of our rights of peaceful assembly and speech. The Conservative Club officers and members understand that we cannot represent that we are an ASB-approved club, and that until we are, we are forgoing whatever “benefits” ASB “approval” may confer.

However, we know we have the right to peacefully assemble and exercise our God-given Rights of freedom of speech, and we intend to continue to do so. We have begun to meet at lunch-time, outdoors, and are not using classrooms or class time. We are meeting voluntarily. We are not asking for school resources.
We meet, not as a club ordained by ASB, but as a club which meets under a charter from the High School Conservative Clubs of California, which is the state chapter of the High School Conservative Clubs of America.

We thank the ASB and the anti-American actions of the Rancho Cotate administration for forcing us to take this logical step to protect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, because they have forced us to create a structure that now benefits schools throughout the county, the state, and the nation.

Because of our principled stand against the coercion of the administration, and the threats of ill-informed students, we have received inquiries and offers of support from thousands of parents and students throughout America.

Friday, March 11, 2004

Conservative Club president Time Bueler got the biggest America Flag he could find, put it on a large pole, and walked around school all day, displaying his love for America in the only way that had not yet been taken from him by school administrators.

At lunchtime, Conservative Club members gathered out by the quad and rallied around the flag. Many other students join in, as others wondered what the crazy Conservative Club was doing now.

The students recited the Pledge of Allegiance, which some said they have not done since fifth grade. After the Pledge, Bueler asked, “What does this Flag stand for? What does America stand for?” Bueler suggested that the flag stood for freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peacefully to assemble, and he pointed out how those freedoms included the right to have a Conservative Club, with or without ASB approval!

“How dare the school, take these precious, constitutionally-guaranteed rights away?” asked Bueler. By this time about 300 people had joined the gathering, talking about many issues. Some agreed, and some disagreed, but all came to the conclusion that RCHS administrators and the ASB were not only censoring the club, but were chilling freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.

Yard duty staffers arrived and told the group that the Conservative Club cannot meet as a club, but the students refused to budge. Then vice-principal Steve Port instructed Bueler to follow him. Initially, Bueler said, “OK,” and had his vice president take over the meeting.

Then, Bueler stopped. Something inside him told him to stand his ground. He turned to vice-principal Port and told him, “Sir I respectfully decline to go with you.”

The meeting continued. Bueler told the group, “This is true diversity! We’ve gathered many different races, sexes, and minds, among the 300 who are here. This is what diversity should look like, not the politically-correct imitation diversity that we are taught.”

After the bell rang and our meeting was over, Bueler was called into vice-principal Port’s office and was suspended “for disobeying authority.”

So much for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to be judged by a jury of peers, as if that right ever existed in the government indoctrination centers called “public schools.”

Hours later Bueler was called by the district office to notify him that he was suspended for an additional 2 days.

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