It's been a while but i feel this is xanga-worthy. I saw an article in Sidelines today that caught my attention, for various reasons. Ok so the main reason was that it was by a girl in wood about an incident in wood.
http://www.mtsusidelines.com/news/819122.html
that's the article. and here's my response:
in response to "Misunderstanding rights erodes right to use them".
Right off the bat, the title implies something that cannot be true. If i misunderstood my right to a speedy trial, would that right erode? What about unlawful search and seizure? Or the right not to be deprived of rights without due process of law?
"Citizens today have gotten away from the true meaning. In high school, students are punished for profanity in the classroom. To the curser's disdain, this is not suppressing the right to speech; it is in fact supporting others rights. I think one key element we all seem to forget is that our rights only exist when we don't infringe upon others' rights. Profanity prevents others' from exercising their right to an uninterrupted education without cursing. "
Some would argue that this is an example of a place where freedom of speech rights are being infringed upon by school members. I would not for a couple of reasons. The public school system in the United States acts in loco parentis. This basically means that while the child is in the custody of the school, the school take on the roles of the parent. The school then can act, if needed, to keep order within the school through disiplinary actions. The Supreme Court upheld this on July 7,1986 in the case Bethel School v Fraser (478 US 675). In the ruling the court said,
"It does not follow ... that simply because the use of an offensive form of expression may not be prohibited to adults making what the speaker considers a political point, the same latitude must be permitted to children in a public school... The determination of what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate properly rests with the school board."
This ruling, however, applies to public lower education schools, not universities. Private schools and universities come up with their own codes of ethics, among which would protect a professor's right to uphold order in his or her classroom. So that means standing up in the middle of a lecture hall, here at MTSU, full of 300 students and spouting off various profanities and disrupting the professor is out. Sorry.
But nothing like this happened in the "condom" case. No, instead the bulletin board was taken down because it did not live up to the moral values of the person in charge. She attempted to act in loco parentis in this situation, this is clear by the sign posted after the board was down berating the students involved as if they had done something wrong. The problem is she has not been given the right to act in that manner. Sure, she can remove the board IF someone has complained, but should she remove it because she believed it to be promoting sex before marriage, which is a sin in the minds of certain religious groups? No. And she definatly should not have put up such a scathing reply or punished those people whom she felt was involved. The truth is, that bulletin board belongs to the floor, granted, she is charged with managing the floor, but according to your Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, students can post things on the board. It is towards the back in a paragraph entitled "Signs." That paragraph alone shows that the students were within their rights to post items on the board and that her accusations of "graffiti" were baseless.
As your old saying goes, there are some things worth fighting for. Apparently you have chosen this as something to fight for. Otherwise, why would you have written this article for the paper?
And on a closing note, in the 7th grade I was taught World Geography. US History was reserved for 8th graders at my middle school. I am sure that your readers appreciate this patronizing tone as much as I did.
~Kevin Holst
I'm currently awaiting a reply, a very eloquent reply i'm sure. For my friends from high school, this author is just about the female equivilent of Tom Stevenson. Yeah, you didn't think i'd go there did ya? did ya? well i did! | 
Hope I get some great recommendations. 