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Student Arrested for Writing Essay
mcgrew writes "The Chicago Tribune reports that an eighteen year old straight-A High School student was arrested for writing an essay that 'disturbed' his teacher. Even though no threats were made to a specific person, 18 year-old Allen Lee's English teacher convened a panel to discuss the work. As a result of that discussion, the police were called in. 'The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now. Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.'"
I've been following this case for a couple of days now, but can't seem to find anyone who has posted the essay anywhere. So I appeal to the /.ers -- anyone know of a copy?
Without seeing the essay in question, we can't know whether there were substantiable threats being made, or whether this clearly is a free speech issue. From all accounts, it appear to be the latter, but I would like to have all doubts removed.
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On the off chance the kid is a nut job I guess you need to check him out
Allen Lee - is that like Stan Lee or Bruce Lee? Just wondering if we have a teacher running in fear of young asian men.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Wasn't it the teacher who incited the disorder? The student turn in homework expecting it to remain visible to the teacher only. However, she shared it with others which sparked a heated debate. The action that lead to the disorder was not the writing of the paper but the sharing of the paper. I propose that the TEACHER be arrested for the charges.
Layne
...Let the stereotyping begin.
Seriously though, thanks for the article.
It's fine for teachers to be vigilant and all following the VT massacre, but the principal and his/her underlings could have at least spoken to the kid about the essay (if you can call it that) to get the straight story.
And herein lies one of those traps that these "educators" can set up for themselves: a free-form assignment, unfettered by structure, unrestricted in content, heck, turn it in on toilet paper if you want, combine that with the ethnicity of the writer, and it gets used as evidence of a threat and an arrest.
The arrest is a clear case of going overboard. If this does not get corrected, well I guess we've found a new way of wrecking a young man's future.
Full disclosure: I are an Asian male... not young tho.
Science never settles, never rests.
In the mid-80's, I wrote a short story about a group of terrorist who seized a building and ended up killing many people in their quest.
Not only did I not get into trouble, I was rewarded with an excerpt reading in class and a free trip to a gifted writers' workshop where I won awards and accolades.
If I did that today, I'd be sent away pretty quickly, I'd imagine.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
So if a student writes an essay about there being no God, and the teacher is heavy into his/her religion and is disturbed by the essay, then according to the law, the teacher can have the student arrested for disorderly conduct?
I work for a very large federal agency and I occasionally teach sexual harassment refresher courses for my employer. I volunteer for this duty because I am one of the few people I know who will openly admit that I've been placed formally on warning for sexual harassment. I use my experience to illustrate the change in standards.
25 years ago, when my agency first started paying attention to the topic, the standard was "reasonableness." If a sexual advance or reference would not be found to be a problem by a reasonable person, then it wasn't punished. If *any* activity was found to be a problem by *any* person and that person made such known, then no reasonable person would repeat the activity. See what I'm getting at?
Do something outrageous; get punished.
Do something questionable and no one complains; nothing happens.
Do something questionable and someone lets you know they have a problem with it; now you know that it is unreasonable to repeat that action because someone finds it objectionable.
The bottom line was that everyone got one mistake. If you did something stupid, you could be told so and as long as you didn't do it again, you were OK. That standard worked fine.
I was placed formally on warning for sexual harassment when I stepped into an elevator with two women, one a secretary and one a high-powered exec. I said hello and the exec said "How are you today?" I answered "Lessee, I'm about to get off work on a beautiful Friday afternoon and in the meantime I'm locked in a small room with two beautiful women. How could I be any better?"
The exec put me on warning. The secretary was shocked that anyone could take offense. I got away with it because under a standard of reasonableness, I could not be expected to anticipate the reaction of the exec and could therefore not be held accountable. However, I now understood her rather low standard for getting offended and it would be unreasonable for me to violate it in the future; thus, if I were to make another such witty remark to that exec, I would be suspended or fired. I stopped speaking to her and everything worked out fine. The "reasonableness" criteria was a good one and quite workable.
Nowadays, the standard has changed. I stress to my classes that my very first comment in that elevator would have resulted in severe disciplinary action under our new standard where sexual harassment is now defined, essentially, as anything the victim decides to characterize as sexual harassment. My classes find the example sobering, as well they should.
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Jack Kerouac
I was a senior in high school during the 1999 Columbine shootings.
Several months before columbine, there was a shooting at some other school and the kid only injured a couple people (I think he killed like 3 and injured like 6) and I called the kid a pussy and if I had done that, I could kill at least 20, assuming I have enough ammo. Saying that prompted some friends of mine to elaborate on my strategy, which I did, and about a month later, the Columbine shooting happened and the next day (or maybe a couple days later) I was greeted in my 1st period class by a pair of policemen who escorted me to the station to talk to a detective.
As I waited while the detective went through my backpack and removed my notebook, he commented on the fact that I was wearing a trenchcoat and he asked me what kind of music I liked and what videogames I played. At the time, I was an avid Quake player and was hooked on KMFDM (and at this meeting, I was wearing a Maralyn Manson shirt). He flipped through my notebook, and saw dozens of drawings of spattered fluids, severed hands and heads, and sketches of bullet casings. It was just what I was into drawing at the time. I go through phases and had he looked at notebooks the month before, he would have seen lots of rope and barbed wire and stitches and electronics sketches.
this whole thing prompted a full investigation into me, I had to see a therapist for a couple days before they let me back in school, every little scrap of paper that they found that was the least bit violent, they questioned me about... I was frequently pulled out of classes (most often, my calculus class; which I wound up failing due to the frequent interruptions) and every little thing I wrote was studied. It really fucked me up and, although I'm not prone to violence at all, it was really pissing me off and I had to hold back to keep from throwing something at my principal.
it was completely stupid that they did that and it really was for absolutely nothing. I understand that if i was caught discussing that stuff and then I DID shoot up the school, if they did nothing about it, there would be serious problems, but at the same time, it was total bullshit. There's no reason to do that to someone just because they wrote a violent story. Look at all the published authors out there. Look at books like Fight Club and American Psycho (now, major motion pictures!). If someone writes that kind of thing for class, they risk expulsion or at the very least, some serious investigation. If someone writes that whilst trying to sell a book, they stand to make some nice money for themselves.
This fear of terrorism and violence and shootings in today's society is really stifling creativity. Literature will be hurt (due to young people being forcibly held back from writing what they want). Violence in movies is moving to a very stylized look, which although not all bad, I really like gore movies with realistic violence (ichi the killer, battle royal, etc). Even videogames are becoming targets and game studios are threatened with lawsuits just because some whackjob killed someone and happened to own a copy of their game. A man obsessed with John Lennon goes out and kills John Lennon. Who's to blame? The guy's psychosis or John Lennon's music? Why not the music? People blame videogames just as readily. A man obsessed with nascar is dragracing and kills 5 pedestrians in the process... why doesn't anyone sue Nascar?
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
> The new evil ill in our society will be plays and essays
Yeah, I read this one that had witchcraft, rape, incest, slavery, prostitution, murder, cannibalism, ethnic cleansing, baby killing, and strange religious cults.
It was called the Bible.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
They teach some pretty disturbing things already, ever read Poe? The Telltale Heart is one of the tamer things he wrote, though it's one of the most well known.
My personal favorite is The Cask of Amontillado. How f**king disturbing is that? From what I remember (I've only read it once) a guy leads his drunk so-called friend down into the deepest part of the crypts during Carnival, chains him to the wall and proceeds to build a wall around him while the guy has recovered from his drunken stupor and is screaming his head off... Yeah, I read that in school.
Is that ok because it's set in Italy? Hell, there's really not a whole lot in there that places it at any particular time, it could be present day with a few small changes.
Now, I actually can see what they were worried about if it had to do with going someplace and shooting people. But they shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, they should find out the intent of the paper, and possibly get the kid some counseling. Really, the problem here is knee jerk reactions and lack of free health care.
Imagine what could be if people who have issues (fantasizing about killing people, raping little girls and boys, etc) had easy access to free counseling. Even the cheap ones cost $50 - $75 per session, and people who end up doing these things are usually ones who can't afford much, don't have insurance, and really need the good doctors. Yeah, are some ways to get financial assistance from the government but it's extremely difficult and time consuming. Apparently the powers that be don't care about helping these people until they've gone and done something wrong. Then people have already been injured or killed. The people who did it have had a taste of it and are going to need much more serious counseling and they're in an environment which doesn't facilitate recovery. Now, not only are we paying for their counseling, we're paying for their room and board, and they're not even contributing to society (no job). Oh, and I almost forgot: there's always the death penalty instead of counseling, perhaps TPTB like killing people instead of trying to fix the problem (that's what I used to do in Sim City when I couldn't pay for fire departments, just bulldoze all the surrounding stuff and the fire won't spread).
Yeah, our country's system sucks.