Posted on 11/01/2001 5:29:16 PM PST by WVNan
Charleston AP -A Sissonville (WV) High School student who was suspended after trying to start an anarchy club says she wants people to know she supports world peace - not violence.
"I don't want war, I'm not for Afghanistan," 15-year-old Katie Sierra said after a hearing Wednesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court before Judge James C. Stucky. "I think that what we're doing to them is just as bad as what they did to us, and I think it needs to be stopped."
Closing arguments were to begin Thursday morning concerning Sierra's fight to form the club and wear T-shirts with hand-written messages opposing the attack on Afghanistan, criticizing the government and calling for tolerance.
"It's about the First Amendment being challenged in Sissonville," said Roger Forman, Sierra's attorney.
Sierra and her mother, Amy,filed a complaint in Kanawha County Circuit Court Tuesday against the county Board of Education.
The lawsuit accuses school officials of denying Sierra her constitutional rights, subjecting her to public abuse and jeopardizing her ability to get an education.
Sierra and her mother are seeking the protection of her right to form the club and wear her T-shirts, and as well as an order to remove the suspension from her school record.
Katie Sierra was suspended from school for three days last week.
Principal Forest Mann said the action was taken "because she was told that she could not in any way foster, try to advance, try to start an anarchy club. She had fliers sitting on her desk in a classroom, which is quite inappropriate."
Sierra, who wore a white T-shirt Wednesday with the messages, "World Peace," and "Abolish; Racism, Sexism, Homophobia," said she has been the target of negative comments on the radio this week concerning her beliefs.
"They wanted to kill me, they wanted to shoot me in the head, they wanted to send me to another country," Sierra said.
Amy Sierra said her daughter - who has uncles and a grandfather with military backgrounds - is against terrorism, and Sierra supports her daughter's right to express herself.
"She shouldn't be singled out," said Amy Sierra, who wore an American flag sticker on her shirt.
On Tuesday, Mann ordered Katie Sierra not to wear a T-shirt with messages that include, "When I saw the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a newly recovered sense of natinal security. God Bless America."
James Withrow, the school board's attorney, said the whole issue has caused disruption at Sissonville.
"It's the buzz of the school," Withrow said. "Public schools are not the same as...(a) public square."
Mann agreed.
Teachers tell me when students come into class they're discussing it," he said. "It's very difficult to get students into a teaching and learning frame.
Mann said some of his concern stems from his interpretation of anarchy, which includes terrorist attacks against the government. He said students might associate anarchy with evil.
The manifesto for Katie's proposed club states that it is meant to express interest in peaceful revolution and "will not tolerate hate or violence."
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines anarchy as the "absence of government," a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority" and "a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government."
Perhaps, but I've always wondered why you folks keep re-electing a Rockefeller to the Senate.
There's the problem.
That was Cleveland dude, much more multi-cultural community dontchaknow? PC rules however in both scenarios.
*gag*
How on earth are school officials responsible for "subjecting her to public abuse"? Seems to me the little airhead invited all the public abuse she can take by her own actions. She's a spoiled teenager with a parent or parents that are doing her a grave injustice by not letting her peers at school give her the usual high school response to an unpopular idea - freeze her out!
That is the way it STILL should be done. Mommy needs to have her Country Club membership revoked and forced to learn to read so she would know about WTC and could teach little missy that America isn't stupid enugh to believe we are at fault... Sorry - rant off
Although I live quite out in the "sticks" of Ohio, if I ever really wanted to "escape" WV is where I would go.
If it's good enough for Gilligan (Bob Denver) it's good enough for me!
Hey good luck getting rid of the Rock.
That is true enough. I would also point out that these ideas fall of their own weight. The rantings of children should be given all the attention they deserve, usually none. In times past people heard this kind of stuff and raised their eyebrows slighty, rolled their eyes, and moved on. Instead, today we treat these things as important and give these people an audience. A pity.
I think the biggest problem with people these days is that they haven't been taught that their actions have consequences. The whole liberal/democRat movement is all about removing, or having someone else pay for the consequences of their bad decisions.
This little girly has every right to express her strongly-held-views-based-on-no-life-experience, but she must also be made to face the reality that there will be consequences for doing so. Ostracism is the least of her worries.
Oh gee, here we go again. Wasn't it enough to watch those people jump from WTC to know that some evil doers just have to be killed? Someone should slap the little queen until she asks for help, gets none, and then reconsiders her 'philosophy.'
Whenever you argue with these types and they propose a course of action, it is only because others are willing to die for their ridiculous principles that they can even conceive them. Those silly ideas are never tested in any harsh environment with people who reject outright their substance. The restraint on critics of the little brat is enforced by the death of those who opposed her worst enemies and she doesn't even appreciate it.
The image of those who jumped from WTC is enough to understand why there is no collateral damage, either with us or with them.
I thought that was spelled L-I-B-E-R-T-A-R-I-A-N?
LMAO, now that is scary! :^)
I thought that was spelled L-I-B-E-R-T-A-R-I-A-N?
Nope. Ignorance is curable, though.
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