LETTER TO THE EDITOR
HARTFORD COURANT
Swearing In School
Is Not A Crime
February 7, 2010
Once again, school officials are foolishly trying to use the police to enforce good manners [Page 1, Feb. 5, "This Talk Is Definitely Not Cheap"].
Windsor High School's principal [Russell Sills]* will request that police ticket and prosecute students who are caught using profanity in school. This is in addition to five-day suspensions. How ridiculous.
Apparently this principal doesn't understand that constitutional free speech protects bad manners and language in criminal prosecutions, unless the intent of the speaker is to annoy and harass, or unless the language constitutes "fighting words" — that is, words likely to provoke a violent reaction.
Doesn't he know that students can plead not guilty, and then school officials and police will be forced to go to Enfield Superior Court as witnesses at these students' trials? What a waste of taxpayer money and courthouse resources.
Jon L. Schoenhorn, Hartford
•The writer is a lawyer who specializes in criminal and civil rights cases. He is representing former high school student Avery Doninger in a free-speech case against Lewis Mills High School.
* Wonder What
The School Board Legal Counsel
Is Doing Besides Collecting Retainer ...
4 comments:
Comments on FB
What a shithead.
Uh oh. Now I'm in trouble.
what the... I'm telling you - the dip-shits are growing in numbers.
&
more
As if the CT justice system isn't already overburdened. Perhaps dipshit should be forced to stand in line for hours to get inside the Hartford or New Haven courts. What an idiot!
another view via FB
As a former h.s. teacher, I was exposed daily to the abominable language of young people which often included "fighting words." Stand in the hallway of Windsor High School (insert most any high school) when classes are passing, and you might want to issue a few tickets yourself. I understand free speech and all, but live with it for 8 hours a day... See More while you're trying to teach a curriculum, get your students ready for standardized tests, and do the 101 other tasks demanded of a teacher each week, and then you might have a case. Do you sense "fed up"? That's why I retired and now teach adults! lol
I am so so disappointed in ALL OF YOU! Can't you see that the sensibilities of these teachers and, I dare say, most of the students is on the defensive against such coarse language. It is absolutely indefensible that such words as shit, fuck, douche bag (I really don't know what that means?) and even shut up are used by youngsters at our preparatory schools.
I have spent a good portion of my life speaking out against bad manners and am aghast that anyone would step up to defend such rif raf from prosecution at the highest court in the land. I say, bring em on; get an Emergency Language Team ("ELT")ramped up in every town police department. Give them the green light to go in swinging and ticket, cuff and jail all these little fuckers who are "stepping off" on these poor defenseless teachers! (opps- I forgot:is "fucker" OK or is it a derivative of that horrible word "fuck"?
Anyway, the cost be damned, we need more police and more arrests in our schools before the "inmates are running the asylum" (Thank you Attorney Gerarde for such a salient analysis). Get the ELT's started in all schools in Conneciticut, raise taxes to create special Bad Language Courts and staff them with the 12 judges Gov. Rell wants to appoint (I hear they are politically correct folks) and put out this rebellion immediately.'
Now shut the fuck up and get er done!
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