1. Notes: 1 / 1 year ago 

    Freedom of Speech or “incendiary”?

    I realize Cinco de Mayo was a week ago, but I feel like I need to comment on this anyway.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/06/california-students-sent-home-wearing-flags-cinco-mayo/

    Here is a link to the article from Fox News.  You can google “Cinco de Mayo Morgan Hill” and find this story all over the place.

    The basic story is this: Last Wednesday, on Cinco de Mayo, the administration at a high school in Morgan Hill, CA sent five students home for wearing american flag shirts and bandannas.  Apparently the clothes were “garments the school officials deemed ‘incendiary’ on Cinco de Mayo.”

    The school has a large Mexican population, and the administration did not want the American flag paraphernalia to offend any of the Latino population.  The students were approached and asked to remove or turn inside out the various articles of clothing.  The students refused.  The administration sent them home.  Cue huge uproar about freedom of speech.

    Later the Morgan Hill Unified School District released a statement essentially claiming that the high school administration was not acting on behalf of the district and that they had misinterpreted the district dress code.

    Okay… that’s all fair.  I understand that the school board cannot and should not try to enforce a dress code that disallows the wearing of American paraphernalia.

    But I feel like there is a secondary issue here that no one seems to be addressing.  Every article says that the administration approached the five boys, who were all sitting at the same lunch table.  That tells me that these boys were all friends.

    I remember when I was in grade 3, my friend Eric and I both wore the same Shaq Orlando Magic jersey on the same day.  It was one of the greatest days of my elementary school career.  It was an accident, but here we were both showing our Shaq pride on the same day!  For the rest of the year we tried to replicate the event, but either one or the other would forget to wear the jersey.

    Now I realize that High School kids have an easier time remembering something than elementary school kids do.  So when I consider the odds of not only 5 students, but 5 friends, all coincidently wearing American flag clothes on the same day, and not just any day but Cinco de Mayo, well… I just can’t help but suspect that this might have been planned.

    But that leads me to another question.  Why would five friends all plan on wearing American flag shirts and bandannas on the same day?  On Cinco de Mayo no less?  Why would you do that?  What’s the motivation?

    Should the kids have been sent home?  Maybe not.  Were they trying to start some trouble?  I suspect they might have been.  If five friends all wore Mexican flag clothes and bandannas on July Fourth, I’m willing to bet lots of people would be excusing them of anti-American sentiment.  Yet, when it goes the other way… nothing?

    I know a lot of people are up-in-arms about this because it apparently demonstrates a lack of free speech.  But at what point do we need to start saying “You’re being a douche.  Stop it.”?

    Did the administration have the right to send the kids home?  Probably not.  Was this event incendiary?  You betcha.

  2. Notes

    1. wurnig posted this
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