On Constitutionally Protected Speech in Schools and Leftist Bias

School has never been a friendly place. One would expect that students and teachers would be allowed to develop as individuals, and, as Americans, would be able to learn how to exercise Constitutional rights. After all, the purpose of school is not only to instruct, but to create and mold citizens for the Republic.

Academic freedom that once existed at the university level has never been available at the secondary and especially the elementary level because children must be guided and molded to think and act as in accordance with societal norms. Here lies the problem. Who’s doing the guiding and which norms are to reinforced or discarded? Not even at a school that has won awards for openness to political diversity do we find the lessons of true Americanism being taught. Schools are notoriously un-American and anti-Constitutional.

It is no secret that the American educational system and that of most, if not all, Western countries has been co-opted by the Left. The tables have been switched. Where there once was a token liberal voice among the faculty or among the student body, now we are hard pressed to find examples of conservative or even traditionalists in either body in many schools. Hudson High School in Massachusetts provides an object lesson in how liberals operate in schools.

A group of students decided to form a conservative club as "a counterweight" to the majority political viewpoint at the school. Student Chris Bowler put up posters to publicize the club's first meeting in December.

Within hours, school administrators reportedly removed the posters because they contained a link to the Website of High School Conservative Clubs of America (HSCCA), a national organization for high school conservative clubs. HSCCA's Website included links to videos of beheadings by Iraqi insurgents, and the high school would not allow even an indirect reference to those links. It also blocked access to the HSCCA's Website on school computers.

In the mind of Principal John Staplefeld, the liberal in charge of molding young minds a character, the videos were, “beyond what a school should be advertising.” Even before Columbine, many would agree.

Beheadings are violent and horrible. Should young people view them or should we, adults, protect them from such gruesome sights. In an atmosphere of zero tolerance for violence in any form, how can a school promote the viewing of such vile and despicable acts? Are the links a de facto acceptance of violence and pandering to the most base of human behaviors?

There is another problem. In the past, such material has been sponsored by liberals with little complaint from liberal school administrators. Anti-war groups from the Vietnam era to Desert Storm and now to Iraq have found the educational establishment to be both paternalistic and permissive, allowing liberal teachers to discuss and promote Anti-American views while shutting down conservative teachers that staunchly defend traditional American values and point out the religious background and underpinnings of American society.

Principal Stapelfeld wanted to counterbalance “the majority political viewpoint at the school” to initiate political discussion. Political discussion must present more than one point of view to be valid.

Censorship has always existed in schools. Staplefeld believes that the conservative website seems “to be supporting violence more than supporting the conservative message.” Ironically, this school is praised “for innovative civics and community service programs,” and for “giving everyone a chance to say what they feel” so that “people can hear both sides.”

Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., said schools in the United States can legally curb speech only if it will create a "substantial disruption" in the school. In this case, he said, the students appear to have the law on their side.

"That's not an easy standard to meet," he said.

Goodman said Massachusetts law provides even greater free speech protection for public school students than does the First Amendment.

Stapelfeld said his decision to limit student access to the site had nothing to do with the club's political views. He said he was initially "thrilled" about the idea of a conservative club to spark political discussions. But Stapelfeld said the brutal images implicitly condoned violence as a way of "solving problems" and did not reflect "mainstream conservatism."

"There are limits [to free speech] and there are clearly limits in the schoolhouse," he said.

He added that showing terrorist murders did not address the more central problem of growing anti-Americanism abroad.

"Unfortunately, we really haven't dealt with the fact that we're not well received in the world anywhere," he said. "That's the issue."

And then there the problem of not applying the principles evenhandedly for liberals and conservatives.

He and other club members say teachers have urged them to attend war protests, have confronted conservative students, and have inserted their liberal political views into discussions of both current and historical events.

Several club members said one social studies teacher hung in her classroom a poster of George W. Bush with a foolish expression and a comment he made in jest in 2000: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

Club members said they hoped that by banding together they could feel more free to express conservative views. "I think the teachers have tried to intimidate us," said James Melillo, a senior. "But it's had the opposite effect."

Stapelfeld said he wants the faculty to discuss divisive political and social issues frankly, but he acknowledged he had spoken with some teachers about injecting their personal views.

David Limbaugh has another take. He sees the principal’s behavior to be an anti-Bush act. By declaring that the “rest of the world has been alienated by the Bush administration for it’s ‘unwarranted’ military actions against Iraq, Stapleton is demonstrating that the viewing of the videos is “yet another act of alienation.”

Know your enemy. How can you understand your enemy without knowing his words and contemplating his actions? Knowing means more than reading and contemplating means more than seeing. Discussion is required to give words and actions meaning. But first you must read and see.

Principal Staplefeld doesn’t want true discussion. Like the liberal he is, he doesn’t see the value of demonstrating the inhumanity of the terrorists. As freedom fighters, they are the stuff of heroes for the Left. In as much as the conservative club wants to show them in their true element, he can’t allow the viewing for that would destroy the illusion.

Sad, but no surprise, Staplefeld doesn’t recognize his own political bias. Like all Leftists, his belief in the Leftist position drives his thinking and attitudes. Believing himself to be right and the rest to be wrong to the point that he no longer recognizes or accepts that he could have a political or ideological bias. He has become a zealot.

All zealots have this in common: In their attempt to demonstrate their purity and righteousness, men and women, good and bad, of faith and of ideology are willing to sacrifice your rights and mine on altars. Free speech, freedom of action, and the U.S. Constitution are impediments to the pursuit of their goals.

Discussion at Hudson High and the depiction of Principal Staplefeld’s Leftist anti-Americanism vs. the Islamist inhumanity that are not allowed to be shown shown in the linked videos is one tiny example of the lessons in political correctness and anti-Americanism that is built into the curricula of even a progressive school.