School bans pro-life T-shirts, fliers - Officials fear other students will object

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | November 18, 2006

[cpforlife.org]

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows.
To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53017

Saturday, November 18, 2006

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MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
School bans pro-life T-shirts, fliers
Officials fear other students will object, consider message religious

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Posted: November 18, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A Virginia high school barred a Christian student from distributing materials and wearing a T-shirt that declared opposition to abortion, prompting a legal response.

Andrew Raker, a student at Millbrook High School in Winchester, Va., participated in a national pro-life event Oct. 24 called the "Day of Silent Solidarity" in which he distributed postcard-sized fliers with information about abortion, the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund said.

The next day, school officials pulled Raker from class and told him he could no longer distribute the materials because other students might object or consider them to be religious in nature.

(Story continues below)

ADF said Millbrook's principal, Joseph Swack, also threatened to force Raker to remove or cover his pro-life clothing if other students complained.

In addition, Swack deferred a decision on Raker's request to form a pro-life club, expressing doubt about its acceptability.

The Alliance Defense Fund responded with a letter to Swack contending the high school's refusal to allow a student to present pro-life speech violates the Constitution.

"Christian students cannot be treated as second-class citizens," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "Expressing a pro-life point of view, whether it is considered to be 'popular' or not, does not disqualify an individual from the right to free speech."

As WND reported in September, a California school changed its T-shirt policy after two students were reprimanded for wearing the "inappropriate" Christian message that life is valuable.

One of the messages, according to the Pacific Justice Institute, read on the back: "Help Cure Abortion" on the front, and "Abortion: The leading cause of death in America 1,200,000 every year."

One student was pulled from class by two instructors who told her she was not allowed to wear the shirt to school because it was "inappropriate." The situation quickly was reversed when the Pacific Justice Institute sent a letter to school officials expressing concern over the First Amendment implications of the school's demands.

In March 2004, another Virginia high school student was barred from wearing a shirt with a pro-life message because it violated the school's policy against profane or obscene language.

The shirt said: "Abortion is Homicide. You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation. Rock for Life."

As WND reported in 2003, a student in Cleveland was given two days of Saturday detention after two students in his 1,200-member high school complained about a sweatshirt with the same message.

In Pennsylvania, a junior high school principal barred a T-shirt with that message, arguing it was the equivalent of wearing a swastika to school. The principal later reversed his decision after the Thomas More Law Center explained the student's First Amendment rights and threatened a lawsuit.

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Previous stories:

School fixes policy to allow pro-life T-shirts

Pro-life shirt barred as 'obscene'

Another student penalized
for pro-life shirt

Pro-life shirt equated with swastika

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[cpforlife.org]

In post 39 I meant to say that you all made excellent points, but I didn't finish the sentence properly.

My bad.

[Freedom4US]

It might not be the place for politics, but SCOTUS ruled that it's OK. The precedent setting case had something to do with black armbands "protesting" the Vietnam war in school at Des Moines, Iowa.

[hunter112]

I wonder if they'd be able to use the "religious" label on a T-shirt that had a depiction of an unborn child in utero (preferrably taken from a sex ed book used in that school), along with text from Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who : "A person is a person, no matter how small."

[Chewie84]

"My sister in law teaches 5th grade public 1 hour N of Atlanta. She's getting scared for her physical safety, and that's a "good" public school."
My mother teaches second grade public. This year, things have been really tough for her, both because of her own class, which has its share of animals, and because of outside factors. For instance, she mentioned last week that it was recently discovered that a boy who she had taught last year was being beaten by his father. Upon hearing this, the boy's current teacher of course notified Child Welfare about it. Then, all of a sudden, on I believe Wednesday, the boy's father personally came to the school, confronted the teacher in question in the hallway, and loudly cursed her out in front of several students. Fortunately, that situation was peacefully handled, and that's so far been the closest thing to a physical threat against a teacher in that school (At least, that my mom was willing to tell me about).

[CaliGirl-R]

Oh I know. I feel bad for the teachers. They try and then little Johnnie's parents show up to sue the school for harrassment or violating his uh rights. I think the schools hands are tied. It's just a mess! I warn my sister and others who have school age children to pay attention to what their children are learning.

[A. Pole]

Officials fear other students will object

Great! Time came that OUR side should start to object and to claim to be offended.

[A. Pole]

School is not the place for political protests of any sort. School is only a place to learn the material presented.

Are you serious?! What material? Presented by whom?

What do you mean by learning? Memorizing?

[Neidermeyer]

That portion of my comment was a quote from JUDE24 , post#5.

I am not well versed in HTML and don't know how to italicize... I agree completely with you , schools are not supposed to produce robots. As long ago as the 1970's I was in a private high school and had to endure the far left indoctrination the most blatant example being in of all classes a comparative religion class.. I learned more from my own reading and working at a friends hot air baloon manufacturing business over the summers than I did in any science class.

If you've ever seen a high school graduation exam from the turn of the century (1880-1900) you'd be shocked , most of todays college grads would fail... I believe Neil Boortz is right in his contention that the governments near monopoly on the school system is designed to breed incompetent boobs who can be easily controlled by the lies of the socialists, my children may have to attend government school due to finances but I will be counteracting the slime they're fed.

[A. Pole]

I am not well versed in HTML and don't know how to italicize...

Do this:

<I>Text to italicize</I>

and you get:

Text to italicize

Same with bold: <B>Text to be made bold</B>

and you get:

Text to be made bold

And underline: <U>Text to underline</U>

and you get:

Text to underline

Now you might wonder how I got < and > :)

[little jeremiah]

If this is the standard, then this kid or other like minded kids should be able to complain about tee shirts with objectionable messages or pictures, or kids dressed like ho's and gangsters.

Schools are nothing but miserable pits of depravity and indoctrination centers.

[little jeremiah]

If you graduated in the last decade, then you must be so indoctrinated that you don't even know it. Unless you went to a private school or in some other country.

[little jeremiah]

I have a reprint set of McGuffey's Readers, which were used for several generations. Back in the days when an 8th grade education was usually sufficient to prepare one for life.

It's hard to imagine what would happen if kids now were to read those books. In addition to classic language, the stories and poems are instructive and teach moral values.

Everyone interested in education should check them out. What a difference between them and the school books of today.

[backslacker]

& lt ; (ampersand +lt +semicolon - no spaces)

& gt ; (ampersand +gt +semicolon - no spaces)

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

"schools are to learn math, composition, science, etc. not to spread political propoganda.
this stuff is garbage. would you like lefties coming in with their PETA, global warming, pro-choice, gay marriage propoganda on T-shirts and fliers? Sheesh.
Whoever's doing this are complete nut cases. Their disruption of the serious purpose of schools, that is educating students, is crazy and unacceptable."

You haven't been in schools much, have you? No need to wear T-shirts with such messages because "PETA, global warming, pro-choice, gay marriage propaganda" is part of the approved curriculum (and where it's not, NEA is doing its damndest to make it part of the curriculum, as anyone who checks out their websites can discover for themseleves). Wake up and get a clue, brother!

[A. Pole]

& lt ; (ampersand +lt +semicolon - no spaces)

You meant this: &lt;? :)

[traviskicks]

Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[gondramB]

>>schools are to learn math, composition, science, etc. not to spread political propoganda.

this stuff is garbage. would you like lefties coming in with their PETA, global warming, pro-choice, gay marriage propoganda on T-shirts and fliers? Sheesh.

Whoever's doing this are complete nut cases. Their disruption of the serious purpose of schools, that is educating students, is crazy and unacceptable.<<


We need to make some distinctions.

1. Students wearing Tee shirts or speaking is different than outside groups

2. The possibility of offending someone is not reason to ban speech - an extreme example - suppose I'm offended by something innocuous - should it be banned?

3. You've got a damn good point about remembering the main purpose - education of core subjects.

4. Religious speechl like press speech should be MORE protected rather than less - that freedom of religion thing is even in the constitution.

[Tired of Taxes]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL PING!

This ping list is for the "other" articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. If you want on/off this list, please freepmail me. The main Homeschool Ping List by DaveLoneRanger handles the homeschool-specific articles.

[inneroutlaw]

Officials fear...

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem.

[TradicalRC]

I was never taught in school that there is no God, that empiricism is the only valid epistemology, or that religion was the opiate of the masses. I was taught history, science, and literature. The chips fell where they may.

Science as its taught assumes secular humanism implicitly. If it didn't, science would merely observe that there are fossils without pushing their theories about them.