Sign the Petition and help the Morton West Antiwar Students!
By John Amato Monday Nov 05, 2007 5:01pmThis is awful. Arthur Silber has the full story:
About 10 Morton West High School students suspended over an anti-war protest at the school last week returned to the Berwyn school today to demand they be allowed back in classes.
The kids were accompanied by about 20 parents and anti-war activists at a press conference in front of Morton West. About 25 students were suspended and face expulsions after staging a protest against the Iraq war in the school cafeteria last Thursday...read on
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Breaking the rules to "promote peace and recognize that people are dying every day" is a damned good program. These students are a hell of a lot smarter than most adults -- and far more decent and civilized. To say nothing of much braver. More power to them.]
Sign the Petition: "In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students."
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... But this is AMERICA, that sort of thing can't happen here!
... I'm just going to go weep now.
will this be on their "permanent records"?
Well done, students!
Welcome to the United States of Crazylandia.
While the administration throws the book at peaceful protesters, teachers are restrained from "raising their voices" at children. [a NY friend is on suspension right now, for yelling at his students screwing around with power tools].
Hadenuf, MS Ed.
I hope some of the parents/students sue the principal. Sounds like the principal is a Rush Limbaugh listener or something. Why does he hate America?
This is a job for--
ACLU
Is there something missing here? Why wouldn't the principal just write a letter home stating that from now on any protests must be off school grounds. If a student misses class, they get demerited and the more classes missed, the higher the punishment. It's just simple common sense. This sort of activity should be applauded (as long as it doesn't interfere with classes) as a way the students learn and demonstrate knowledge of basic civics. DUH !
I have also heard that some studenst with higher GPA's were given less time for suspension than those with lower GPA's.
If true (and the other "lower GPA" have no other records of trouble), that is incredibly stupid and should be prosecuted for discrimination.
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"— GW Bush, Jan. 11, 2000
Are these patriot-kids old enough to run for congress? We could desperately use 10 sets of balls in DC.
They are being given a first class education with a field trip, a "behind the scenes" look at how our country really works...Think of the college admissions essays they'll be able to write..."What my country thinks of me"...
Damn shame what's goin' on roun' here...
Marcus Aurelius @ 2:
Their parents can expect a tax audit.
hadenuf @ 4:
... and yet, I bet the parents would've strung him up by his balls and set him on fire in the town square if one of the kids cut off his hand with the power tools.
Always remember:
I was not disrupting the peace, I was disrupting the war.
Dr. Ben Nowakowski, Superintendent
District 201
2423 South Austin, Cicero, IL 60804
bnowakowski@jsmorton.org
(708) 222-5702
Mr. Lucas, Principal
Morton West High School
2400 S. Home Ave.
Berwyn, IL 60402
jlucas@west.jsmorton.org
708-222-5901
Mr. Jeffry Pesek, President
Board of Education, District 201
3145 South 55th Avenue
Cicero, IL 60804
708-802-1863
Students acting like adults and being responsible. How dare they. They should be posting videos on the internet of them beating the shit out of another student or carrying a gun into class.
Isn't this part of the education process? To teach children to be adults?
Dr. Ben Nowakowski
Superintendent
District Office
(708)222-5702
Didn't you just love this?
"Deans, counselors and even the Superintendent tried to change the minds of a few, mainly those students with higher GPA scores to abandon the protest."
What, those with lower GPAs are allow to have a conscience, but the ones bound for the Ivy League should take ethics lessons from the Bush family?
This is one of those times when I have to ask if the school administration is just plain stupid? When the administrators overreact like they apparently did here (I have also learned to be skeptical about how such incidents are portrayed) all they do is hurt the cause they are ostensibly serving: maintaining a safe and orderly school environment. The administrators are making themselves and their school look bad. And if (as I suspect) the administrators' motives were to stifle a political message with which they disagree, they have to know that they are only building sympathy among the student body for the views of the students. Nothing builds sympathy for a position quite like disproportionate punishment.
I am a teacher, and one who thinks the students should be punished for breaking the rules. That is the point of protest like this in school. Give them a Saturday school and thank them for being strong enough in their convictions to be willing to accept consequences. Let's let them grow up a little before they run for congress. But school board....
John, please follow up on this story so we know how it ends.
Welcome to Pakistanimerica!
why the FUCK is there not one story up about the impeachment bill?
Tony @ 21:
One might have to go somewhere else, where the story is quite "raw", to read about it.
Tony @ 21:
Ditto.
hadenuf @ 22:
I just read that. Is the GOP ready to throw Cheney under the bus? O_o
I once worked for a guy who labeled everyone who disagreed with him as 'insubordinate.' I confronted him about something and he ranted for about 20 minutes, when he paused for breath I said, 'Is this anything official, or are you just yelling?' He sputtered and told me it was a 'verbal warning' whatever the hell that meant. I gave my notice the next day and 2 weeks later found the job I still love 14 years later.
So I say insubordination pays - keep it up, kids.
Wow, I went to that school, good to see.
Might I humbly suggest that the way for progressives to stop this kind of nonsense is to take back our local governments from the radical-christians who currently run them and have since the early 80s?
Don't they know that they should ignore the War, and it will go away?
NOT!
Time to break out the black armbands...
Oh brother , children speaking out. This means Rush "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back" Limpnutz is going to attack !
Please flood the superindentent's email (bnowakowski@jsmorton.org)with your comments. This is what I sent Sunday night.
Dear Mr. Nowakowski:
I am disgraced that you are of Polish decent. You have decided to persecute and prosecute students who held a peace rally at the Morton School. (Are you sure you weren't adopted?) You should be ashamed of yourself. Both Casimir Pulaski and Tadeusz Kościuszko are rolling over in their graves. Pulaski lost his life in the American Revolutionary War. These were two Polish patriots who came all the way from their homeland Poland to help American patriots fight for their democracy. Now you want to persecute young patriots trying to put an end to an illegal war by expressing their democracy - A right I thought we won and fought to gain during the Revolution. (See the 1st amendment!)
Your actions are reminiscient of the Nazi regime that killed so many brave Polish citizens in WWII. These brave partriots met the German army tanks on horseback to defend their country from Hilter's totalatarism dying in the process. You sir, make a mockery of all the good Polish people have always fought to save - freedom. You are shameful, sir. A name more befitting of your actions would be Benedict Arnold!
Howdy all,
The local Chicago (i know, i know...I'm displaced) ABC7 News is reporting that the student protestors with higher GPA's were given a lesser punishment than those who are poorer students. They are also reporting that the protesting students made a deal with the principal to move to the side of the school building in order to continue with the protest without disturbing the rest of the school and if they did this, they would not be punished (except for the mandatory Saturday detention for missing class without an excuse). Truly, with every new revelation in this case, the 'new' American way is being put on display. No dissent (unless you're rich and/or successful) and broken deals galore. Depressing!
Mary at #30
Very well said. It is instructive to recall the words of Vaclav Havel:
"You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society."
And George Orwell:
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
Garbage. Unless these kids were making threats of violence, no more action should have been taken than to give them Saturday school for disruption.
I sighned it yesterday. And kudos for mentioning anything to do with a anti war demonstration.
Peace.
I went to that high school until 1997, and it wasn't like this then - I am very saddened that things have changed so much there. There was a point where this kind of demonstration would not have gotten this response - at worst, their parents would have been called regarding the disrupting of classes, but no expulsions would have occurred or been threatened, and certainly no charges filed with police. When did this change? Indeed, I had a history/government instructor there who would have lauded the students for standing up for their beliefs and rights - though he would most certainly would have disagreed completely with those views.
I remember people being expelled from High School for getting caught smoking, skipping class, and terrible high crimes like that.
Shayla @ 35:
It changed in December 2000.
Marcus Aurelius @ 2:
...and they'll be on "Double-Secret Probation".
In terms of the students long term political educations, it may be wiser if the Blue Meanies do grind them beneath the wheels of oppression today. Their college applications would necessarily be delayed, of course, but they would also be in a position to articulate their part in a righteous, free speech struggle when submitting their letters of intent to the various schools of their choosing.
OMG, why are people complaining that they got expelled?
It's only like, totally obvious why:
1. Public Schools are there to teach kids knowledge
2. Anti-war rallies are a personal agenda that have nothing wahtsoever to do with education
3. Anti-war rallies are thus interruptive to other students who may or may not be against the war
4. Disruptions should not be tolerated in schools no matter what the personal beliefs
5. If they allow anti-war rallies, however correct in their philosophy, they must allow ALL forms of protest for any reason for any cause for anyone that feels they are affected by it
6. To allow any and all forms of protest is to handcuff the school and its ability to teach students because there could be protests at any time anywhere and started by anyone
7. They thus cannot allow protesting, because the school is a place for learning, not politics
8. If they want to protest, they can protest outseide the school after school hours, out of they way of other students who are not protesting who do not want to get caught up in this political agenda
I can't believe Cooks and Liars is supportive of any political protesting ON SCHOOL GROUNDS. Geez, I know that they don't like the Bush administration, but take your politics and shove them up your ass.
They're lucky the National Guard wasn't called in.
Oh, right ...
How many kids are walking, talking and laughing in American schools today who will one day have their heads blown off or their guts blown out in Iraq?
Protest? I say rebel.
vayesfan @ 23:
I was wondering this myself. I'd hate to think C&L censors their news like the MSM.
That school lets Military recruiters roam freely around any time they want, especially in the cafeteria during lunch hours, and sign up kids on the spot without parental or school counseling, using peer pressure tactics on groups of teen aged boys.
The City of Berwyn was always a Polish / Czech stronghold of blue collar beer drinkers (Vlasta the accordion playing "Polka Queen" lives there, you may have seen her on Leno or Letterman) but now with the closing of the industrial plants in nearby Cicero the place is getting down at the heels, and is suffering from an increase of Gang Crimes. The only way out is to get a good job somewhere else, go to college, or join the Military.
The school knows that and encourages the Recruiters to pull as many tricks and stunts as they can get away with. This is the same school that would force kids into the Army if it was rumored that they had sex with their girlfriends during Nam. The choice was Nam and a diploma, or expelled and you go to Nam as a drop-out. They are "Old School" (pardon the pun).
Now that the population is increasingly becoming Hispanic, it's a recruiters dream, and the Eastern European bigots (think Archie Bunker X 10) who have always lived there are happy to see "them" go. Sorry, sad but true. It's just your basic racial bigotry once again.
Wag @ 40:
Then the military recruiters shouldn't be allowed there either. Take them and shove it up your ass.
I'm sick of these cons turning our schools into LGF kids camps
Wag @ 40:
Looks like you were about 60 years too late for the Third Reich, you authoritarian coward. Take your fascism and shove it up your ass.
Let's see if I have this straight. A group of people break some rules to take a stand against a perceived wrong. It seems to me that a bunch of east coast guys did that very same thing over 200 years ago. Was it anti-American then? Will it be today?
Mistruster @ 48:
What was revolutionary in 1776 is revolt to the control freak authoritarians today. Say hello to the modern day Royalist elites trying to silence the freedom loving patriots. The royalists are about as un-American as it gets.
It's good to see in this democracy that at least some of America's students "is" learning!
A school is an integral part of every community. Most importantly it is a place of learning.
For anyone to argue that our young people should not learn about excercising their constitutional right to assembly... that young people should not learn about their constitiutional right to free speach...
You are then arguing against the very foundations of democracy and subverting the American form of government.
To deny these students their rights as Americans to gather and to speak out is an insult to the men and women in uniform fighting to guarantee them, as well as you and me, those very rights.
What a profoundly ignorant, short-sighted and erroneous lesson the school's leadership is teaching all of their students. If I was a parent of a student there, I would be screaming for their heads. They are clearly unfit to have any influence over the minds of the young.
It occurs to me that if I was one of the students who received expulsion papers, I'd take them....the people who run the school have nothing of value to teach. They clearly aren't about education, just indoctrination. They have nothing of value to offer except a meaningless peice of paper to show that you were properly warehoused and conditioned until such time as the job market or the military could absorb you.
The school superintendant strikes me as being a fearful little submissive authoritarian. The absolute worst of all possible choices for an educator.
Cheneybush recruiters would not DREAM of showing their fascist butts in the northern and western Chicago suburban highschools. If this kind of thing happened at Barrington High or New Trier Towship the affluent/informed parents would have the superintendent's head on a silver platter. But Morton is hispanic and white working class. These kids are the ones dying in Iraq, trust me. Their parents are easily intimidated. BTW, Linda Ellis (Berwyn fascisto), go f-yourself. In the ass.
UPDATE:
Anti-war students protest suspensions
November 7, 2007
BY KATE N. GROSSMAN Education Reporter kgrossman@suntimes.com
Holding signs that read "Let us go to school," and "No war for America," 10 Morton West High School students suspended over an anti-war protest returned to campus Tuesday to demand they be allowed back in school.
The kids were among 25 who were suspended, with some now facing expulsions, after staging a protest against the Iraq war in the cafeteria last Thursday. About 20 parents and anti-war activists stood with them in front of the Berwyn school Tuesday.
"All we were trying to do was promote peace and recognize that people are dying every day," said sophomore Adam Szwarek. They also were protesting regular school visits by military recruiters. "[School officials] said it was insubordination."
In a letter delivered Tuesday to District 201 Supt. Ben Nowakowski, parents of the student protesters demanded their kids be returned to class.
The kids insisted the day-long sit-in was peaceful but Nowakowski said the students seriously disrupted the school day. He did not return calls Tuesday but told the Sun-Times Monday that the student protesters were "boisterous and wouldn't listen to police and the administration."
During the protest, the students were invited to move outside and were told they wouldn't be disciplined if they complied, he said. Some students returned to class but others locked arms and refused to move, he said.
The students admit locking arms and being loud but say they then moved to the alternative site when Nowakowski told them they would only be disciplined for cutting class. They accuse Nowakowski of going back on his word and overreacting.
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Needless to say, the residents are getting a little PO'd at this Superintendent.
The Polish / Czech residents remember Eastern Europe all too well, and the Hispanic parents are thinking 'racial profiling'.
Attacks on students rights (not only to protest but to an education) are growing because a class society based on the profit system that runs a war, which has little support and increases social inequality by cutting making cuts in education, healthcare, jobs, wages and housing, cannot risk democratic rights. That is why the millionaire Democrats support the millionaire Republicans in maintaining the wars and the attacks on our standard of living. Once people are protesting, they might decide to organize a new political party based on internationally uniting the working class against the ruling elite of capitalists, that is for socialism. Read more about the International Students for Social Equality on the World Socialist Web Site at http://www.wsws.org.
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