Posts Tagged ‘ Cicero North Syracuse School District ’

The Kid’s Alright: #FreePatBrown if you Believe in Freedom of Speech

May 29th, 2013. By AbiK

This kid’s onto something. Unfortunately, he’s also out of something: school. He was apparently suspended for exercising his First Amendment rights. Here’s the story…

Pat Brown is young. He’s engaged. No, not as in heading to the altar—he’s socially aware and he’s participating in the dialog about his local school board budget. That would be the Cicero-North Syracuse (CNS) High School 2013-2014 budget, which hasn’t yet passed—it was rejected by voters last week.

Pat Brown, student at CNS High, is a concerned student; and he should be—according to a report at CNN, the CNS school board had warned that if the budget isn’t passed, cuts would be necessary—to things like athletic programs, extra-curricular activities and even the elimination of some teacher positions. Things that create and support a robust learning environment for students.

Pat Brown is just a kid—he’s 18, but for all intents and purposes, he’s a high school kid. But he employed the one thing—most likely the only thing—that he could to make his voice, and the voice of his fellow students, heard: he created #shitCNSshouldcut. Humorous, in a shitmydadsays kind of way? Yes. A welcome mat for a wide range of both constructive and negative suggestions? Absolutely. But he achieved the most important thing—he got the conversation going and undoubtedly helped raise awareness among the budget’s main constituency, the student body of CNS High.

But the story doesn’t end there. Sure there were tweets using the hashtag. You can imagine the range of comments—but what really set this story in motion is that Brown, himself, tweeted that CNS High’s executive principal should be let go. And that was apparently a no-no. Result? A three-day suspension for Brown. According to his own Twitter stream, he’s out till this Thursday (5/30).

Now, what’s interesting here is that while some reports indicate that Brown was on his cell phone in class—which in many schools would lead to some form of disciplinary action, though perhaps not immediate suspension—that doesn’t appear to be the impetus for the suspension. According to the CNN article, Brown says he was “called into the office and told he would be suspended for three days for harassing the principal, using a mobile phone in class and disrupting the learning environment.”

There’s the key: “harassing the principal”.

Harassing? It was Brown’s personal opinion that the executive principal is not performing up to snuff. He tweeted it. Unless there’s a serious chunk of the story that isn’t being reported, that doesn’t sound like harassment—it sounds like free speech.

Earlier, I said this kid is onto something. Here’s evidence of that—he tweeted this on May 25th:

“People who are comparing this to me insulting my future employer need to realize one thing…I do not work for my principal.”

You got that right. It’s taxpayer dollars that are paying the school administration’s and teacher’s salaries. And it’s not the principal who determines how the U.S. Constitution is to be interpreted (shameless plug: that would be for trial lawyers and the USSC to handle.)

Given that, perhaps the best suggestion for a CNS school budget cut came from @Rant_rant_rant:

“#shitcnsshouldcut Cut U.S. History classes, since the North Syr. school district no longer acknowledges the Constitution.”

Of course, I’m being facetious. But the tweeter’s got a point.

We’ll have to see where this story nets out, but in the meantime, a new hashtag has emerged: #FreePatBrown.

Tags: #FreePatBrown, #shitCNSshouldcut, Cicero North Syracuse School District, CNS High School, first amendment, freedom of speech, Pat Brown
Posted in Discrimination, Emerging Issues, Human/Civil Rights | No Comments »