Posted on 10/11/2001 6:31:22 AM PDT by concerned about politics
Fairview student was disciplined for hanging patriotic posters
After the terrorism attacks Sept. 11, Aaron Petitt decided to make his school locker a symbol of his patriotism.
Today, it's a symbol of his constitutional rights.
Aaron, a 16-year-old junior at Fairview High School, was suspended for 10 days Thursday because school officials believed that signs on his locker depicting planes bombing Afghanistan were threatening to Arab- American students.
A federal judge over turned the sus pension yester day, sending Aaron back to class after a daylong civics lesson.
"If you're right, then it will all work out," Aaron said after the ruling.
Aaron and his parents sued the school district and its administrators in U.S. District Court yesterday for having violated his rights of free speech and due process. The suit also sought to end the suspension.
U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. said students have First Amendment rights, but they must be considered carefully and in the context of a school setting. But he stressed that if administrators found the signs troubling, they should have warned Aaron to take them down before disciplining him.
Oliver did not order school officials to allow Aaron to put the posters back up.
Aaron, a rugby player who hopes to serve in the military, said his sister received cuts to the head and face from debris that fell from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. His older brother is a firefighter in a Columbus suburb. Students are permitted to post signs on their lockers and Aaron wanted to use his to show his patriotism.
The teen's posters included an eagle with a tear dripping from its eye and the burning World Trade Center towers in the background. Another showed American Airlines planes dropping bombs. Below it, he wrote, "Good Morning, Afghan."
A third showed the planes and bombs and included statements that said, "May God have mercy because we will not" and "It's what dreams are made of . . . Dreams do come true."
School officials took the signs down Oct. 3 and called Aaron into a meeting. According to the lawsuit, Associate Principal James Haughtaling said the signs were inappropriate and could offend Middle Eastern students. Aaron was suspended the next day.
James Thomas, an attorney for the school district, said yesterday that one of the signs was placed near the locker of an Arab-American student and that the signs were inappropriate. Thomas argued before Oliver that if Aaron had truly been harmed, he and his parents would have filed the lawsuit last week.
Aaron, who normally wears jeans to school, dressed up in a three-piece suit yesterday. Surrounded by his attorneys, Avery Friedman, Ken Myers and Sarah Moore, he stood on the courthouse steps and defended himself.
"I just wanted to show my feelings about the situation," Aaron said.
"If I got anything from Arab-American students, it was compliments."
This isn't a color of skin issue with the school administrators.....This is the mamsy-pambsy, feel good, non-threatening, environment that most school administartors accross the country now follow right out of the NEA handbook...
Wake-up, we've allowed the candy-asses to sieze control of school administration's across the country and this is what we get....
This falls in line with gay right's in school to the riduculous anti-violence policies that have kidergarden kid's arrested for drawing a picture of a gun and going bang-bang.....
When is enough, enough sheeple???
NeverGore
"If I got anything from Arab-American students, it was compliments."
Yep, sounds like his compatriots of middle east extraction really felt threatened....NOT
DennisW; another discrepancy:
One may ask, is it inappropriate to place images of the NAZI death camps, on locker doors nearby German-Americans?
"James Thomas, an attorney for the school district, said yesterday that one of the signs was placed ......near the locker......... of an Arab-American student and that the signs were inappropriate."
It depends on what "is: is. The schools lawyer said the sign was placed next to an Arab-American locker.
So what does "is" mean? Maybe they just happened to be side by side!!!Maybe the kids lockers just happened to be in the same school!!!!!
WOW. And we could call it SCHOOL CHOICE!
Perhaps, we need separate libraries for all these kids who are "at risk?"
Where exactly IS Fairview?
Sounds to me like a bunch of parents should show the kid some backbone. ....when it's pick-up time after school, have a parent 'walk-in' with assorted PATRIOTIC gear! School board meetings are an EXCELLENT place to launch an 'attack' on the commie educraps.
BTW... if any 'student' had a problem with the kid's posters, perhaps the school should checking out the 'offended' party. MAYBE, they are bin larders in training.
If there is one thing that I have learned in live, it is
that you do not mess with a PO'd rugby player!
The school board is being taken to the wood shed in terms of public comment around here, and a good solid freeping wouldn't hurt.
Fairview High School
4507 W213th Street
Phone 440.356.3500 Fax 440.356.3529
Principal: Mr. Cary Willgren
Our Mission Statement: The Fairview Park Schools are committed to provide superior services and academic programs that challenge the mind and instill the joy of lifelong learning and responsible citizenship.
Nuff said.
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