Posted on 05/08/2002 1:11:25 PM PDT by NativeNewYorker
KIRTLAND, Ohio -- What if a class assignment forced you to choose between getting a passing grade or following your moral values?
NewsChannel5's Kareen Wynter reported that one student decided to fight it, but it almost cost him the school year.
Many students dream of graduating school with high honors, but this student said that he has little to look forward to in his final weeks.
"It's a moral issue I have," he said. "I pay tuition to come to this school. I shouldn't have to defend my moral issues."
A class project in criminal justice turned sour for the college senior, who we'll call Ian.
The assignment was to wear a pink triangle around school for the day as a symbol of gay rights and then write about the experience. Ian confronted his teacher.
"I asked 'What if a student were to feel uncomfortable with this -- would there be an alternate assignment?'" he said. "She said no."
He, in turn, got an F and faced expulsion.
So why wasn't the student offered a backup assignment? Lakeland administrators said that it is part of classroom policy.
"I think if the situation were easy, it wouldn't have been part of the curriculum," said Barbara Grano of Lakeland.
Still, faculty members said that they didn't break the rules.
"Absolutely, this student had an option," she said.
When NewsChannel5 spoke with Ian later in the day, his teacher had given him an apology note that read, in part, that the requirement was waived.
Ian said that he doesn't think things would have been resolved had NewsChannel5 not gotten involved.
"I appreciate everything you've done," he said.
His mother was happy, too.
"I was thrilled," she said. "Here's a young man who stood up for himself, and it worked."
Professors at Lakeland said that there's a list of things you can and can't challenge in the school's handbook.
I am sure you would support a requirement to make a Muslim go to Church and pray to Jesus and report on the experience.
Challenged?
Please tell us you're putting us on.
Sounds a lot like a post-facto excuse. If that were true, he could simply have been given an assignment to walk around for two days wearing a "choose life" button.
Or a WWJD t-shirt with matching cross. The kid would probably be in a casket by now.
I have a friend whose wife is identical in every particular to yours. Not only do they not send their only child to a public school, they're Jewish, and send him to a Christian school for its academics!!
Whooaa... that certainly does put a different perspective on this.
Young person, I'm a seasoned citizen ... I've probably hired more homosexuals than you have known, much less worked with. But you you seem to be totally out to lunch on what's being discussed here. Start with social mores. an individuals personal principles, and political correctness and think it about it for a while. Save your brave new world of liberal discovery for another thread.
So this teacher had such courage in her convictions, that she backed down when it was made public? And extended an apology, to boot? (I can imagine how half-hearted that apology was.)
Here is an instance where the media did a fine job, but it is too bad that this student had to resort to them for help. I'm glad he did, and I hope that school is inundated with Freepicisms.
You obviously are not in the U.S. armed forces. It is against the uniformed code of military justice to claim that you are gay if you are in the American military. I wish this dude would file a lawsuit against the teacher and the school. I'm sick of this gay agenda crap!
Imagine the horrors if the kid wore a straight pride t-shirt to class that day !!! Or any day !!! He'd be dead by now. Imagine the discrimmination essay he could write then !!!
I don't see this assignment as being that much different from a home economics class assignment that would require you to care for a sack of flour like it's a baby. Maybe that would be offensive to someone who's anti-wheat or anti-baby, and THEY would have to make the decision about doing the assignment or getting an F.
How much education do you have, anyway?
This was in a public indoctrination center. Those who wore the triangle probably had the rest of the students lick their shoes just for fun. Who would ridicule him for conforming to the brainwashing done there? He would have been praised!
I better get my tinfoil hat on before the indotrination rays set in because I thought this happened at a college.
Because he has ethics.
Yes. Where do you think all the liberals come from? The peacenick protestors? The new NOW members? Colleges are notorious for creating socialist clones. They take over where the lower schools leave off.
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