School Bans Pro-Life T-Shirt - Seventh Grader Sues
by Amy Hatch Jul 8th 2009 6:00AM
The mother of a California seventh-grader forced to remove her pro-life T-shirt is suing school administrators, claiming that her daughter's First Amendment rights were violated.Anna Amador says the principal at McSwain Elementary School, a K-8 school in Merced, Calif. ordered her daughter to take off the T-shirt she wore to school on "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day" in April 2008. The shirt displays two graphic photos of a fetus in the womb with the word "growing" under the images. A third box is black, and features the word "gone."The complaint alleges that school principal Terrie Rohrer, assistant principal C.W. Smith and office clerk Martha Hernandez mistreated the child, who was allegedly ordered to throw away her breakfast, dragged from the cafeteria, berated and forced to take off her shirt. Amador says he daughter was publicly humiliated in front of her classmates, and that none of the child's fellow students had complained about the shirt.
"Upon arriving at the main office, Defendant Hernandez, intentionally and without Plaintiff's consent, grabbed Plaintiff's arm and forcibly escorted her toward Smith's office, at all times maintaining a vice-like grip on Plaintiff's arm. Hernandez only released Plaintiff's arm after physically locating her in front of Smith and Defendant Rohrer...," reads the complaint. The document also states that the student was told never to wear the shirt to school again, and that the garment was not returned to her until the end of the school day.Anthony N. DeMaria, attorney for the McSwain Union Elementary School District, says that the school has a strong defense, and it disputes several of Amador's allegations. In fact, the district sought to have the complaint thrown out, but a U.S. Eastern District Court judge ruled last month that all but one of Amador's claims could go forward.
However, district officials do not dispute that they ordered Amador's daughter to remove her shirt. The district asserts that the T-shirt violated the school's dress code, which forbids any clothing advertising "inappropriate subject matter" like tobacco, drug or alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profanity or vulgarity. Amador says the school applies the dress code subjectively, and lawyers for the girl point out that the images on the pro-life shirt can be found in the school's own science textbooks.Because the school houses grades K-8, Amador may not have as strong a case as she hopes. Precedents have been set in similar cases, where certain kinds of speech have been ruled as detrimental to young kids. However, William Becker, Amador's lawyer, asserts that the shirt did not sport inappropriate messages."The message of the T-shirt is that life is sacred," says Becker, a First Amendment attorney. "One would be very hard pressed to find anything wrong with that particular idea, except that some people do object to the political message."As a journalist, I don't think speech of any kind -- no matter how distasteful -- should be censored. What if students who protested the Vietnam War had been censored? In fact, the Supreme Court ruled that students could not be stopped from wearing black arm bands to signal their dissent during that era. If what Amador alleges is true, the school district should, indeed, be held liable. Some might not like the shirt's political message, but squashing her right to speak -- or wear -- her opinion is a slippery slope, indeed.That said, is it right for kids that age to act as billboards for causes they may or may not understand? It's true that children grow up faster these days, but I'm not all that comfortable with seventh-graders sporting messages like those worn by Amador's daughter when they don't really have the maturity to grasp all the nuances of such a polarizing issue.Should kids wear politically charged T-shirts to school, and do officials have the right to ask them to remove them? Or is this the modern version of book-burning?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Strip Search
Court Says Teen's Strip Search Was Illegal
By JESSE J. HOLLAND,
comments: 670
WASHINGTON (June 25) - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday school officials violated an Arizona teenage girl rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen, saying U.S. educators should not force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk.
In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said that Safford Middle School officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches with their treatment of Savana Redding. However, the court also ruled that the Arizona school officials cannot be held financially liable for their search.
Redding was 13 when the educators in rural eastern Arizona conducted the search. They were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.
Skip over this content
The school's search of Redding's backpack and outer clothes was permissible, the court said. But the justices said that officials went too far when they asked to search her underwear.
A 1985 Supreme Court decision that dealt with searching a student's purse has found that school officials need only reasonable suspicions, not probable cause. But the court also warned against a search that is "excessively intrusive."
"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."
Redding said she was pleased with the court's decision. "I'm pretty excited about it, because that's what I wanted," she said. "I wanted to keep it from happening to anybody else."
"The court's decision sends a clear signal to school officials that they can strip search students only in the most extraordinary situations," added her lawyer, Adam Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation.
In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.
Officials had searched the girl's backpack and found nothing, Thomas said. "It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look," Thomas said.
Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."
The court also ruled the officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. Different judges around the nation have come to different conclusions about immunity for school officials in strip searches, which leads the Supreme Court to "counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law," Souter said.
"We think these differences of opinion from our own are substantial enough to require immunity for the school officials in this case," Souter said.
The justices also said the lower courts would have to determine whether the Safford United School District No. 1 could be held liable.
A schoolmate had accused Redding, then an eighth-grade student, of giving her pills.
The school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson, took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse's office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.
A federal magistrate dismissed a suit by Redding and her mother, April. An appeals panel agreed that the search didn't violate her rights. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was "an invasion of constitutional rights" and that Wilson could be found personally liable.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the portion of the ruling saying that Wilson could not be held financially liable.
"Wilson's treatment of Redding was abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it," Ginsburg said.
The case is Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479.
How has the US Supreme Court differentiated between a search by a public school official and a search by the police? Why did the Court say searching the student's underwear was wrong?
By JESSE J. HOLLAND,
comments: 670
WASHINGTON (June 25) - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday school officials violated an Arizona teenage girl rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen, saying U.S. educators should not force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk.
In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said that Safford Middle School officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches with their treatment of Savana Redding. However, the court also ruled that the Arizona school officials cannot be held financially liable for their search.
Redding was 13 when the educators in rural eastern Arizona conducted the search. They were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.
Skip over this content
The school's search of Redding's backpack and outer clothes was permissible, the court said. But the justices said that officials went too far when they asked to search her underwear.
A 1985 Supreme Court decision that dealt with searching a student's purse has found that school officials need only reasonable suspicions, not probable cause. But the court also warned against a search that is "excessively intrusive."
"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."
Redding said she was pleased with the court's decision. "I'm pretty excited about it, because that's what I wanted," she said. "I wanted to keep it from happening to anybody else."
"The court's decision sends a clear signal to school officials that they can strip search students only in the most extraordinary situations," added her lawyer, Adam Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation.
In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.
Officials had searched the girl's backpack and found nothing, Thomas said. "It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look," Thomas said.
Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."
The court also ruled the officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. Different judges around the nation have come to different conclusions about immunity for school officials in strip searches, which leads the Supreme Court to "counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law," Souter said.
"We think these differences of opinion from our own are substantial enough to require immunity for the school officials in this case," Souter said.
The justices also said the lower courts would have to determine whether the Safford United School District No. 1 could be held liable.
A schoolmate had accused Redding, then an eighth-grade student, of giving her pills.
The school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson, took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse's office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.
A federal magistrate dismissed a suit by Redding and her mother, April. An appeals panel agreed that the search didn't violate her rights. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was "an invasion of constitutional rights" and that Wilson could be found personally liable.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the portion of the ruling saying that Wilson could not be held financially liable.
"Wilson's treatment of Redding was abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it," Ginsburg said.
The case is Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479.
How has the US Supreme Court differentiated between a search by a public school official and a search by the police? Why did the Court say searching the student's underwear was wrong?
Monday, June 1, 2009
Reading 1st Amendment rights
Haircut sparks controversy at Staten Island middle school
by Staten Island Advance
Monday June 01, 2009, 2:41 PM
Staten Island Advance/Irving Silverstein
Dennis Reynolds,14, of Mariners Harbor, claims he was sent home from Barnes Intermediate school for shaving half his head.
Half-dressed is clearly against school policy, but what about half a haircut?
Dennis Reynolds, an eighth-grader at Staten Island's Barnes Intermediate School in Great Kills, claims he was sent home this morning because he arrived with half his head shaved.
And while the city Department of Education's Student Bill of Rights and Discipline Code has plenty to say about inappropriate attire, there's not a single word about hair do's and dont's.
"The assistant principal told me my hair cut wasn't good enough," Dennis, 14, said from his Mariners Harbors home when he should have been in school getting in one last review session before tomorrow's state social studies exam.
An Education Department spokeswoman called it "a misunderstanding." The phone call home was a formality to make sure Dennis' mom knew what he did to his hair.
"The principal did not tell the parent to take the child home," said spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. "The parent decided to take him home. He slept at a friend's house and had his head half shaved. If he wanted to go to school like that, he could have."
But Carmen Reynolds said her son slept in his own bed on Saturday and Sunday night -- and she was well aware of his new look.
"They're lying," the angry mom said. "I would never let my child sleep at a friend's house on a school night and why would I take him out of school first thing Monday morning when he has a state test the next day?"
Dennis said he was removed from his first-period math class by an assistant principal.
"I answered that a lot of kids have earrings hanging out of their mouths on their tongues, but I can't have a haircut? She told me not to compare myself to anyone and then I was told 'you have to leave.'"
He asked them to call his mother for a ride.
His fellow students, he said, barely batted an eye.
"They just asked why I had half a hair cut and that was it," he said.
And why such a style?
"I didn't want to go completely bald," he said simply, though he was planning to go back to the barbershop to have a star design shaved into his remaining locks.
His mother argued with the assistant principal that there is no policy about haircuts.
And she's right.
Political buttons, badges and armbands are OK.
Suggestive clothing, gang colors or anything that is deemed "libelous, obscene, or materially disrupts the school, causes substantial disorder, or invades the rights of others" is not.
But haircuts? There's nothing in the policy about them.
"Kids go with Mohawks and braids and dyed hair and they don't make an issue," Mrs. Reynolds said. "If a Mohawk is allowed, everything else should be allowed."
Dennis' mom wasn't splitting any hairs about her son's buzz cut -- she just wanted him in school, where he belonged.
"These young kids like all kinds of things on their hair," she said. "It's better than wearing his pants hanging down. That I won't tolerate. They would be totally right if they called me about that, but to call me for this, it's really ridiculous."
by Staten Island Advance
Monday June 01, 2009, 2:41 PM
Staten Island Advance/Irving Silverstein
Dennis Reynolds,14, of Mariners Harbor, claims he was sent home from Barnes Intermediate school for shaving half his head.
Half-dressed is clearly against school policy, but what about half a haircut?
Dennis Reynolds, an eighth-grader at Staten Island's Barnes Intermediate School in Great Kills, claims he was sent home this morning because he arrived with half his head shaved.
And while the city Department of Education's Student Bill of Rights and Discipline Code has plenty to say about inappropriate attire, there's not a single word about hair do's and dont's.
"The assistant principal told me my hair cut wasn't good enough," Dennis, 14, said from his Mariners Harbors home when he should have been in school getting in one last review session before tomorrow's state social studies exam.
An Education Department spokeswoman called it "a misunderstanding." The phone call home was a formality to make sure Dennis' mom knew what he did to his hair.
"The principal did not tell the parent to take the child home," said spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. "The parent decided to take him home. He slept at a friend's house and had his head half shaved. If he wanted to go to school like that, he could have."
But Carmen Reynolds said her son slept in his own bed on Saturday and Sunday night -- and she was well aware of his new look.
"They're lying," the angry mom said. "I would never let my child sleep at a friend's house on a school night and why would I take him out of school first thing Monday morning when he has a state test the next day?"
Dennis said he was removed from his first-period math class by an assistant principal.
"I answered that a lot of kids have earrings hanging out of their mouths on their tongues, but I can't have a haircut? She told me not to compare myself to anyone and then I was told 'you have to leave.'"
He asked them to call his mother for a ride.
His fellow students, he said, barely batted an eye.
"They just asked why I had half a hair cut and that was it," he said.
And why such a style?
"I didn't want to go completely bald," he said simply, though he was planning to go back to the barbershop to have a star design shaved into his remaining locks.
His mother argued with the assistant principal that there is no policy about haircuts.
And she's right.
Political buttons, badges and armbands are OK.
Suggestive clothing, gang colors or anything that is deemed "libelous, obscene, or materially disrupts the school, causes substantial disorder, or invades the rights of others" is not.
But haircuts? There's nothing in the policy about them.
"Kids go with Mohawks and braids and dyed hair and they don't make an issue," Mrs. Reynolds said. "If a Mohawk is allowed, everything else should be allowed."
Dennis' mom wasn't splitting any hairs about her son's buzz cut -- she just wanted him in school, where he belonged.
"These young kids like all kinds of things on their hair," she said. "It's better than wearing his pants hanging down. That I won't tolerate. They would be totally right if they called me about that, but to call me for this, it's really ridiculous."
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Exam #1
Click on the link below, take the exam, you must get all of them right!
Print out your results, or copy and past your results and email them to me.
http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=lia&wcsuffix=0201
Print out your results, or copy and past your results and email them to me.
http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=lia&wcsuffix=0201
Friday, February 13, 2009
Community Service Opportunities
http://charityguide.org/?gclid=CODimvmN2pgCFQVMtAodUH2Gbw
http://www.nycares.org/?gclid=CP6I_cWO2pgCFQRTtAodXhWZcw
http://www.dosomething.org/actnow?gclid=CMC8puGO2pgCFYwH3wodm3_nbw
http://www.where-to-turn.org/
http://www.nycares.org/?gclid=CP6I_cWO2pgCFQRTtAodXhWZcw
http://www.dosomething.org/actnow?gclid=CMC8puGO2pgCFYwH3wodm3_nbw
http://www.where-to-turn.org/
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