Jan 06 2009
ACLU Sues School on Behalf of Peace Activist
A lawsuit filed late this morning by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation (ACLU-NCLF) in Wilkes Superior Court accuses the Wilkes County school system of denying members of N.C. Peace Action the same access as military recruiters to students in the high schools.
The suit seeks court action requiring equal access for N.C. Peace Action representatives and that they be allowed to provide information on military service and alternatives to military service to Wilkes high school students in the schools. The suit also asks for court action declaring that N.C. Peace Action representatives are entitled to present truthful, job-related information about military careers, including disadvantages of military careers.
The ACLU-NCLF filed the suit on behalf of N.C. Peace Action and N.C. Peace Action members Sally Ferrell of Boomer and Bill Towe, who is state coordinator of the organization.
According to another story by the Charlotte Observer, Ferrell was given two opportunities to present pamphlets and brochures to students that discussed military alternatives. The superintendent barred her from returning on the basis that she was handing out leaflets which promoted a disparaging image of the military and other negative comments.
The question is are Sally Ferrell’s First Amendment rights being violated? I am a very strong supporter of free speech, but in my opinion I say no on this particular case. I think a school system has the right to determine who and what they allow into their classrooms. Is the school obligated to allow every speaker that requests an audience through their doors? What if someone from a radical group like PETA or ELF wanted to speak? Or perhaps a member of the Reverend Fred Phelps’ gay bashing church? You know, the guy whose followers protest military funerals holding up signs that say “God loves dead soldiers?”
School officials are entrusted with the protection of our children while they are within those halls and I think that gives them a right to allow or deny whatever third party they want from bringing in what they may feel is a negative influence. Nothing is stopping Ms Ferrell and Mr. Towe from standing outside the school on a public sidewalk and handing their information out to the students as they are walking home at the end of the day.
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How staggeringly dishonest, trying to link Sally Ferrell and N.C. Peace Action with hate groups and radicals.
Schools exist to give students information — all kinds of information.
Ferrell and her group only desire to give students information about their options vis-a-vis possible military enlistment.
They are not spreading hate like Phelps or pushing an extreme political viewpoint like PETA, or fomenting public disorder.
Why try to relegate them to the sidewalk, when it’s their tax dollars, too, that support the public schools/
Is pro-military propaganda the only information teenagers are to be exposed to in school?
God bless the ACLU for not permitting self-appointed censors to silence diverging points of view.
-freebooter48@yahoo.com
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