Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/16/fed-instructs-teachers-to-facebook-cree...
PRINT PAGE
1 of 2
3/16/2011 2:12 PM
Fed instructs teachers to Facebook creep students Print The Daily Call...
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/16/fed-instructs-teachers-to-facebook-cree...
roughly $300 million per year to states to counter physical violence and drug-abuse in schools. The primary purpose behind the administrations initiative is to create a social and political climate where it is impossible to express conservative moral beliefs about sexuality, even when research data shows those beliefs help many people live prosperous and happy lives, said Laurie Higgins, the school-advocacy chief of three-person Illinois Family Institute, in Carol Stream, Ill. Everyday experience and careful research show that children are most likely to prosper when theyre raised by their parents, not by school officials and D.C.-based special-interests, she said. Children do not have any right to bully other kids, gay or straight, to hurt them, taunt or tease them, but they do have a right to speak their minds, and champion their beliefs, said Higgins. Kids learn to treat each other with respect, especially when they and their peers have the ability to hold each other responsible for good, bad or trivial actions, she said. One of the better things about Facebook, said Higgins, is that it promotes responsible behavior by requiring teens to identify themselves with their real names and pictures. But the kids ability to mature into adults will be stymied if the federal government, special-interests and school officials intervene in kids conversations about girls and boys, sports and fashion, studies and music, whenever they offer judgements or facts that are disliked by influential political advocates, such as Jennings GLSEN, Higgins said. Kids will be inhibited if they fear their moral reasoning will be seen by others as criminal, she said. GLSENs advocates strongly support the federal initiative. The Departments October guidelines are thorough, comprehensive and list examples in current law to support each provision. When it comes to bias-based bullying in particular, we have to be willing to name the problem if we want to protect all of our students, said a Dec. 21 GLSEN statement. Almost 90 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students experienced harassment in the past year because of their sexual orientation, according to a 2009 GLSEN survey of more than 7,000 students, said the statement. Advocates for gays and lesbians say teens who identify as gay or lesbian are four times as likely as normal kids to kill themselves, and they cite multiple examples of teen-suicides following anti-gay statements or physical violence. The anti-harassment legislation is frequently supported by the ACLU and its state affiliates, partly because ACLU officials also support the goal of government-supported diversity. In contrast, the libertarian Foundation for Individual Rights In Education, or FIRE, opposes anti-harassment bills as threats to free-speech. On Feb. 15, its website presented arguments against a pending bullying-related bill in Congress, dubbed the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act. The draft act is redundant, it replaces the clear definition of harassment with a vague, speech-restrictive definition that conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, and it treats adult college students like children who need special laws, said FIREs statement. This month, Higgins side won an expensive free-speech victory when a federal appeals court in Chicago upheld a token award of $25 dollars each to two students who were punished by school officials in Naperville, Ill., for wearing unapproved t-shirts following a school event that was intended to promote acceptance of homosexuality. The Day of Silence event at the school was organized by GLSEN. The two students shirts carried the message Be Happy, Not Gay, and were worn on a day declared to be a Day of Truth, which was organized by a national conservative group that opposes GLSENs goals. [A] school that permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality, said the appeal courts decision, authored by Judge Richard Posner. The school argued (and still argues) that banning Be Happy, Not Gay was just a matter of protecting the rights of the students against whom derogatory comments are directed. But people in our society do not have a legal right to prevent criticism of their beliefs or even their way of life, said the ruling.
Article printed from The Daily Caller Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: http://dailycaller.com URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/16/fed-instructs-teachers-to-facebook-creep-students/
Copyright 2009 Daily Caller. All rights reserved.
2 of 2
3/16/2011 2:12 PM