Anti-American Communist Lawyers Union Ping!
And in the case of the kid in Arizona...well...the silence speaks volumes.
Posted on 04/04/2006 6:30:28 AM PDT by chambley1
Anderson Urrutia, 8, complained of a headache on Sunday night. Then his tummy started hurting. At 2:15 a.m., he walked into his parents' bedroom and asked if he had to go to school. "I don't want to get in trouble again," he told his mother.
Anderson, a second-grader at Occoquan Elementary School, went to school on Monday with 5-year-old kindergartner Joseph Soriano after the two were not allowed to attend class Friday for wearing T-shirts that were deemed potentially disruptive by the principal.
Printed in large blue letters with red trim, the T-shirts stated in Spanish "Latino Forever" on the front and "100% Latino" on the back.
The incident -- which touched off a flurry of media attention and sparked a complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union -- is being brushed off by Prince William County schools officials.
Side-stepping interview requests from media, Phil Kavits, the school system's spokesperson, maintains that Friday's incident was a case of "a principal's best effort to keep his school safe and orderly, and nothing more."
The ACLU contends that the principal overstepped his bounds to limit the students' freedom of expression, and is asking for an apology to both students and parents.
The parents say it is too late for an apology.
Maria Urrutia and her daughter Carmen Soriano accompanied their sons to school Monday and had a brief interaction with Occoquan's principal, Todd Erickson.
"He was like, 'How're you doing guys?' " Maria said.
It wasn't the response she and Carmen had hoped for.
"I don't feel I should have to ask for an apology," Carmen said. "As an adult you know when you cross the line, you know when you should apologize, and he hasn't."
Maria and Carmen were contacted Friday afternoon and asked to come to Occoquan to speak with Erickson. When they arrived, they found their sons eating lunch on the floor of the main office, and no sign of the handmade T-shirts.
"They were buttoned all the way up to the top," Maria said. "You couldn't even know if they had a T-shirt underneath or not, that's how covered up these kids were."
Kavits heard a different account from Erickson, who said that the second shirts "didn't even button up, and left the whole thing visible."
Maria and Carmen said Erickson wanted the students to remove the T-shirts. That's when they took their sons home.
Three days after the event, Maria and Carmen are still smoldering over what they see as an unwarranted punishment of their children.
Maria worries about the lessons her son might learn from the event.
"If I stay quiet, what is that saying to my child?" she said. "That they can treat him like a dog and not apologize."
MORE THAN T-SHIRTS?
Friday's incident took place in the midst of a week of student protests against harsh anti-illegal immigration legislation pending in the Senate, an outburst of student political activism that ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis says is unprecedented in his experience.
"I don't recall anything like this on this scale in Virginia," said Willis, who has worked with ACLU in the state since 1987.
A Prince William County schools media release on Monday pointed out the danger lurking in such protests, referring to a student protest in Springfield when a student was stabbed.
Despite concerns for student safety, Willis says Erickson's preemptive action -- which the Occoquan principal made in part out of a concern that some of his students might join the protests -- does not meet the judicial criteria for such a decision.
First amendment rights are protected in schools unless it is demonstrated that an action will "materially and substantially" disrupt the learning environment, according to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969).
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a student who wore a black armband to protest the war in Vietnam was protected under First Amendment rights.
Willis acknowledged that the school officials have some leeway in making a decision where there is a strong basis to prevent freedom of speech.
For example, a "blatantly racist remark" on a T-shirt in an integrated high school where fights had broken out in previous cases might warrant preemptive action, he said.
What is unusual about the Occoquan case, Willis says, is the age of the students.
"These kinds of cases almost always develop in high schools and sometimes middle schools, where kids are educated enough to develop opinions on social issues and want to express them," he said.
THE AFTERMATH
Occoquan has yet to respond to the ACLU's request for an apology and a statement affirming the protection of students' free speech. Maria and Carmen have not decided on a course of action, but they've made an appointment with a lawyer. Meanwhile, Anderson and Joseph continue to attend school.
When she picked up Anderson at school Monday, Maria asked her son how his day was.
"OK," the second-grader said. "I had a headache all day long."
And I would only think that arbitrarily-imposed rules (i.e., rules which leave subjective decisions to be made to the administrators—"clothing which is offensive," in other words) would constitute a "zero-tolerance" policy. School uniforms, to me, wouldn't fall into that category, as they would be enforced equally, without selectivity.
My point remains that the "rules" making up the "dress code" should be fair—EITHER they should allow any speech on clothing, OR they should be defined so narrowly that no speech is permitted on clothing (at which point they essentially become the "dress code" defining a "school uniform.") Does that make sense?
Was this article about CBFs? No!
bump
And in the case of the kid in Arizona...well...the silence speaks volumes.
BTTT.....
When I read things like this, an old saying comes to mind... give them an inch, and they take a mile.
Maybe looking out for her child would be to teach him how very lucky he is to be in America and that assimilating and not seeing himself as 100% Latino is in his best interest.
susie
I have an idea for a T-Shirt:
Active Communist Luicrous Union
IMO, Carmen and Maria used their young sons to race bait. Their interactions with the principal were antagonistic at best. Shame on you Carmen. Shame on you Maria.
WHERE was the ACLU in Colorado whne Herr Stupf banned the AMERICAN FLAG???
Oh I wish it were a century and a half ago. The ACLU offices would have then been visited by vigilantes with nooses back then.
Today they are given a forum in our corrupt courts.
If the little dirtbag wanted to wear that shirt, he has every right to do so.
But students in Colorado who want to wear the American flag should have the same right.
As for dumb shirts that say Kiss me I'm Irish, or 100% Italian, or 100 % Latino, they're stupid and un-American.
I'm 100 % American and proud of it, regardless of where my ancestors came from. Like Teddy Roosevelt said, you can't be American and be anything else.
And while they're at it, they should stop this "dual citizenship" crap too.
A man can't serve two masters.
My brother and many friends graduated from that little high school and were furious. My buddy who runs a small landscaping design company was mowing a lawn across the street from the school when Fox was interviewing the dad. When I called to ask him what the hell was going on in Royse City, he hadn't heard about it but mentioned he was mowing across from the school when the news was there. "Doing the job Americans won't do? I asked. " Yeah no shit" he replied.
His dad was once mayor of the town so it will be interesting how this shakes out.
In any case, schools should just have a dress code - no T-shirts. It would avoid a lot of unnecessary distractions and hassles.
"Maybe looking out for her child would be to teach him..."
Maybe, but that's your opinion. In America, immigrant groups have always had the right to express ethnic pride. And to do so without being called nasty names. (Not by you, but others here.)
Precisely. The kids get in trouble after the women set them up, and then the women cry "foul!"
There is something foul here, alright. the kids go through all the crap and stress (literally worried sick!) and the wimmyn go looking for payday.
Grrrrrrr!
So, what's your opinion? Better to use your child as a tool to further your agenda, or to teach him how to have a better life?
susie
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I am guessing that it wasn't the 5-year-old and the 8-year-old who made those "hand-made" t-shirts. The parents apparently have no qualms about causing this kind of mental anguish to their kids just so they can use them as political pawns. "Social services" should look into taking the kids away from these sick scumbags.
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