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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.