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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 16827
[Schools/Ed]
Date Posted:
12/12/2006
7:35:49 pm EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 8,351
RSS: 18,991
Comments: 16
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Mom Of High School Senior Sues Over Rejection Of Yearbook Photo
Author: The Associated Press Source: International Herald Tribune (France)
Title: MOM OF HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR SUES OVER REJECTION OF YEARBOOK PHOTO
The mother of a [R.I.] high school senior who posed in chain mail and held a medieval sword for his yearbook picture sued after the school rejected the photo because of its "zero-tolerance" policy against weapons.
Patrick Agin, 17, belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international organization that researches and recreates medieval history. He submitted the photo in September for the Portsmouth High School yearbook.
But the school's principal refused to allow the portrait as Agin's official yearbook photo because he said it violated a policy against weapons and violence in schools, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Community Thoughts: There are 16 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| This Is Bizarre | Dec 13th. at 7:19:28 pm EST
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ForestWolf (Cheshire, England) - Email Me
Our school had a zero-tolerance policy on a lot of things, in particular any sort of weapon. I once got caught when I went in and forgot I'd still got my Victorinox in my pocket. Luckily the teacher concerned knew I wasn't a troublemaker and used their discretion, hence I wasn't suspended/expelled/whatever - I was just sent home with something else as an excuse.
But banning a photo like this seems a bit alien to me. In the UK, we'd have no trouble getting a photo in the yearbook, if it was purely related to some sort of academic interest. In fact, our "zero-tolerance" school was surprisingly encouraging of sports and reconstructionism involving dangerous items handled carefully under controlled conditions!
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| *thuds Head On Head* | Dec 13th. at 6:53:01 pm EST
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Lady Katyara (Milford, Connecticut) - Email Me
Let me start by saying I am a Rennie, sword fighter and knife thrower. Now, no I am not as 'uber' as the SCA but I hold my weapons in high esteem and care for them well as a part of me.. that being said
If we let them pose with a sword we invite other weapons to be displayed. We CANNOT pick and choose. The fact that the mascot has a weapon has no bearing here. Let him pose with armor or maybe making armor which id a crucial part of the SCA. Let's choose our battles folks. The Mom's just looking to create drama.
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| Just Another Example Of . . . | Dec 13th. at 3:05:16 pm EST
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Tim Grimalkin (Sandy, Utah) - Email Me
. . .of how constipated and flat out stupid school administrators are. They don't know how to even define 'zero tolerance'. It is never supposed to keep pictures out of books, just dangerous items out of schools.
So what's the fear? Some other kid is going to see this kid with a sword and decide its gonna be cool to bring in a broad sword and start hacking up the place? Must be. This is nothing more than another element of the thought police ruining the freedoms we enjoy in this country.
No, a weapon is NOT a weapon! There's a big difference between bringing a weapon across international lines on board a common carrier and having a photo of yourself in a school yearbook.
I hope this kid and his attorneys make complete asses out of the administrators who invoked this fatuous rule.
Bright Blessings in Christ,
Tim G.
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| I Don't See A Problem.. | Dec 13th. at 1:09:50 pm EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
with the picture, since swords and chain mail isn't in use these days. The last known use for chain mail mesh wear has been to guard against shark bites!
Now if he had posed with a gun or a switch blade, I would say that was unacceptable. If the school was against weapons and violence then the History department might have to shut down- since history consists of violence and the use of weapons.
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| School Needs To Be Taught A Lesson | Dec 13th. at 11:26:52 am EST
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
This school and its admin's need to be taught some lessons, if the students, parents, and ACLU are willing to devote the effort doing so.
Though open to all, SCA as some (highly pagan skewed) members treat it in their own lives legally has the traits of religious practice, and in those cases deserves to be treated as such. This is the same kind of issue in some respect as styles of dress, hair, or jewelry, which is of trivial meaning to some, intentional expression for others, and alternately protected religious conduct versus banned criminal gang activity for others, over what facially appears nearly identical to a casual observer. The school is not entitled to squash all such student choices because in some cases they represent things it is entitled to regulate, and it's inconvenient for them to obey their legal obligations to not invade privacy or discriminate based on the prejudices and bigotry of some faculty or administrators.
Based on the facts as stated in this article, the school is wrong in its handling of this speech on three other grounds alone. When it allows the same speech it claims to have a zero tolerance for under alleged safety criteria, it proves the basis for the entire policy is a fraud. When it acts inconsistently and arbitrarily interpreting rules, it creates a policy whose meaning is "void for vagueness", and invalid as a legal standard. Based on the same history, the school fails equal protections of law obligations.
Nearly any weapons ban policy has serious flaws, as human body parts and blunt objects are the two FBI/NCIC defined classes of weapons used in most felony assaults and homicides. A school could not operate without both present in large numbers. Admin's pretending otherwise really need psychiatric examination for how extremely detached from reality they are. The ways such school staff tend to act often results in promotion of young kids drawing pictures of pistols in slashed red circles after illegal psych indoctrination via DARE programs with their hostility towards many political and religious beliefs, but equally illegal intolerance not just of select arbitrarily chosen classes of weapons, but speech about them necessary to understand national or world history, art, technology, etc.
If I were this student, I might try to organize a SCA meeting schedule on school property, including weapons practice. There's a good chance the Federal law designed to protect historic recreations preempts any school policies or local law used to restrict items not used to criminally assault others, but to stage historic lifestyle recreations under controlled conditions designed to ensure people play fair and stay safe within limits where common injuries are less severe and frequent than a typical school football team's. The equal access laws used by Gay-Straight Alliances, hate cult "pole people", and pagan groups alike would protect an SCA student group, while the yearbook photographers could have a field day catching the problem school staff inclined to illegally censor yearbooks watching an SCA weapons practice at the school. Having such activities could help to make the legal obligations of the school quite clear.
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| 3 Letters, One Word | Dec 13th. at 10:11:23 am EST
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Thoreyadin (Randolph, Ohio) - Email Me
WTF? Stupidity!!!!!
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| Bayonet? | Dec 13th. at 1:05:27 am EST
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me
"The complaint says there is nothing in the weapons policy that would apply to the picture Agin submitted. It also says the weapons policy is arbitrarily enforced, noting theatrical plays at the school have included prop weapons and that the mascot — a patriot — is depicted on school grounds and publications as carrying a weapon."
In view of the fact, that Strangling people is a possible usage of Thumbs, I think the Patriot Mascot paves the way for the inclusion of said digits.
I find in favor of the Constitution.
Arawn
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| I Would Agree With The School IF... | Dec 12th. at 10:27:28 pm EST
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Riding A Pale Horse (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho) - Email Me
the kid had brought the weapon itself to school for the photo, but since he submitted a photo that was taken off-campus and no actual school policies were violated, I don't believe the school has a leg to stand on. i wish the kid luck in his melee.
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| A Weapon Is A Weapon | Dec 12th. at 9:55:43 pm EST
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Siara (Annapolis, Maryland) - Email Me
I had an experience once when I was working at a prosthetics [artificial limbs] lab in Ecuador... It was a charity organization, so all the limbs were free, but there was this one guy who insisted on paying us for his son's artificial leg. So he gave us a leopard pelt and the spear he'd killed the leopard with.
Both objects were moving and gorgeous. But when we tried to bring the spear back to America we ran into an endless amount of bureaucracy . It was a "WEAPON".
So, this student's experience is consistant with mine.
I think that in both cases the authorities were right. A weapon is a weapon. Stabbing weapons are brought into highschools for horrible reasons all the time. There were knife fights in my highschool.
The kid should have posed with the chainmail but not the sword. I admire the schools zero-tolerence policy and I think the mom's in the wrong.
Too bad the court has to waste its time on something so silly!
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| Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Dec 12th. at 9:46:25 pm EST
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Lora (Leominster, Massachusetts) - Email Me
One school I went to had a policy that if you wanted to be in the high school yearbook at ALL, you had to go to a particular photographer, pay $150 for a particular set of photographs, and the photographer gave you a choice:
If you were female, you could wear
a. a black v-neck thing with a fake pearl necklace
b. a white v-neck thing with no necklace
If you were male, you could wear
a. a blue Oxford shirt and navy tie
b. a white Oxford shirt and black tie
Neither the girls' v-neck drapery nor the boys' Oxford shirts were ever washed between students, so you can imagine how great they smelled after kids sat under the hot photography lights with them on. Kids were known to ask for their money back and forego appearing in the yearbook upon being presented with the BO-stanky shirts, it was that bad. Unusual hair was also not allowed, no matter how much you paid. Complainants were treated to lectures about how yearbook photos were privileges, not rights.
Miraculously, we all survived to adulthood and were not unduly traumatized by our pimples failing to be immortalized on film. However, one school I attended really had the best policy: Very advanced third-year photography students could be selected by the photography teacher to be yearbook photographers, and they did the yearbook photography under the watchful eyes of several teachers. They used those pictures as portfolio pieces for art schools, and did quite well for themselves.
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