I am very familiar with Prague, sad to say. I am not surprised at all at how the supposed adults are acting there. Something I have always found interesting is the fairly popular church there (my presumption, but have seen the parking overflowing there up and down the road/highway). The ‘Christianity’ (of various stripes) is notably strong around there, bluntly speaking. I point out that link just to show it exists, not as any judgement of it/them, fwiw. That’s Pit-territory, tbh.
I hope ACLU or other reputable firm/agency takes Prague to task on this. A hell of a lot of ignorance in them parts, huh?
What is the ACLU going to do about it? She hasn’t really been harmed and she probably did violate the rules to which she agreed.
I think that they can legally restrict free speech at their own event. It’s not like they are punishing her for things that she said on her own free time. This is more of a boneheaded PR move by the school than anything else.
Wait, where is the win for the school here? Even if they get what they want, the best they can claim is that they bullied a teenage girl into giving them a bullshit apology. If things keep going they way they are they have made themselves look like complete morons and humiliated the school district over nothing. What are they hoping they will achieve?
The ACLU won a previous case regarding a students right to talk about their religion during a valdictorian speech, on the grounds that even though the school itself was secular, the speech was supposed to be a venue where the students themselves could express their personal views, and so the first amendment applied.
Not swearing is more of a decorum thing, though, so I’m not sure it would be protected by the same grounds.
(and as a practical matter, a single instance of the word “hell”, which the student claims was a slip of the tongue, is kind of small potatoes).
I imagine they want to keep future valdictorians from breaking the rules. She’s already graduated, so there’s not really much they can do punishment-wise other then try to get her to apologize (I guess they could hold her transcripts if her final semester grades haven’t been sent to her college yet, but that would be rather draconian.)
IIRC from my own semi-rebellious youth, the forced apology letter was a fairly common HS punishment. The point isn’t really that you apologize, its that you have to spend the time to churn out a BS letter rather then go do something fun or useful.
I have heard several instances of “fuck” uttered around the engineering office this morning, but I can guaran-damn-tee not one “fuck” gets uttered during a presentation to a potential customer. Doubt any “hell’s” either. Now after a couple cocktails with dinner and things have again become less formal… who knows?
As a graduate of an Oklahoma high school, this does not surprise me. We were told that any graduation ceremony shenanigans would result in no physical diploma provided. Since this was back when nice print jobs were NOT just a Kinkos away - it was almost a real threat to the 2/3rds who would never get any additional education.
We also had to show our cap to get our diploma - since somehow throwing your cap in the air was considered bad manners.
Granted, but that’s true just about whenever you’re talking to someone you’ve just met and don’t know well. I don’t swear to the person asking me for directions, either. Should we end up becoming friends, however, the filter is turned off.
Southwestern Oklahoma State University? I would have expected a valedictorian to get offers from bigger schools. I graduated from a state university and got a good education. But, I didn’t have her GPA in high school either.
I’d suck it up and write a short apology. Let the 2 bit principal feel important. She worked her ass off for that diploma. Why lose it now over one misunderstanding?
If Jesus is sucking her cock, then Jesus has given her a cock to suck, and he apparently likes her, so I think she wouldn’t have much to worry about at all.
Good point. I have never needed my physical high school diploma for anything, ever. I’ve needed my physical college diploma exactly once–which is good, because it looks fake as hell and is signed by a guy now under scrutiny for abetting a pedophile.
If it were me, knowing what I know now, I’d be sorely tempted to say “up yours, I’m outta here.”
Then again, this is coming from a guy who was invited to Homecoming to crown the king–and didn’t. Ms. Nootbaar may have deeper connections within the community than I did. It’s a certainty her affinity for the school couldn’t be any weaker than mine was.
I went to a jerkwater high school probably not unlike Ms. Nootbaar’s. Our valedictorian went to a two-year college and is now a vet tech about a half-mile from said lycee.
I agree. However it wasn’t a casual conversation amongst peers and associates. It was a commencement address which one presumes had parents and other relatives in attendance. Certainly people she has never met before.
Again, I think the punishment is excessive and I think the administration is really reaching to get so worked up over the use of hell. It smacks of the administration taking the slippery slope of “zero tolerance” rules too far. Sometimes discretion is a good thing, but it seems to be out of fashion in our schools of late.
