Student Suspended For Taking Popular Photograph

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Sam Wilkinson

According to a faithful reader, I'm Ordinary Times's "least thoughtful writer." So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

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19 Responses

  1. Avatar James K says:

    Hmm, the US is really keen on playing the USSR in Chernobyl, isn’t it?Report

  2. Avatar Philip H says:

    Georgia, like most southern states, is overloaded with white people who have decided that masks and lockdowns are the hills of freedom they want to die on. The superintendent likely 1) believes the horsesh!t that its a personal choice and not a societal obligation; 2)has been told by his lawyers (and maybe even some parents) that the “violation” of rules on photos will cost his district money; and 3)is more scared of not appearing “in control” then he is of the pandemic. The dress code crosswalk is probably not on his radar, and I’m guessing the district has not yet been sued by a black student or 10 whose lives were upended by that same dress code – thus its probably laxly enforced.

    Its a sad stupid small hill to die on. But lots of Districts in the south will die on it, as will their teachers and students.Report

    • Avatar DavidTC in reply to Philip H says:

      and I’m guessing the district has not yet been sued by a black student or 10 whose lives were upended by that same dress code

      Remember, we’re not racist, but also no combs, rakes, curlers, or picks in the hair.

      It’s weird how hairpins and scrunchies are allowed to be worn in hair. Hairbands aren’t listed either, so who knows if that’s what they mean by ‘headbands’. It’s almost as if they have hyper-focused on black hairstyles. (And curlers for some reason. Not sure anyone’s really walking around with curlers?)

      In case people don’t know, dresscodes are often incredibly racist, not just in the wording, but more in the enforcement.

      And just as sexist. They’ve managed to at least remove all gender _language_ from theirs, unlike what my high school had, but…it’s just as gendered in the enforcement.

      Hence all the use of ‘appropriate’ in there, which allow them to police teenager bodies however they want.

      Anyway, schools assert really broad powers, including restricting first amendment rights. The fact they are not enforcing masks is not because any power problem, but because school administrators are often basically fascists that have been given their powers by external forces, namely the school board, so desperately suck up to them. And I bet the school board has morons on it…they usually do.Report

  3. Avatar Jaybird says:

    Well, you have to understand, the founding fathers could not have foreseen cellphones that could take pictures when they wrote the First Amendment.Report

    • Avatar CJColucci in reply to Jaybird says:

      Schools can tell kids not to bring their phones to school at all, or to leave them in their lockers, or at the principal’s office, without violating the First Amendment. Such a policy, consistently enforced, would keep students from taking pictures entirely, but wouldn’t violate the First Amendment. Disciplining students inconsistently, based on whether the pictures make the school look bad, is another matter.Report

  4. Avatar InMD says:

    Ah punished for doing nothing more than documenting reality. Sounds about right.Report

  5. Avatar Oscar Gordon says:

    Seattle schools just released their plan for the coming school year, and it was basically “A normal school day, except at home, on a Zoom call”.

    The school board told them that is not a plan and to try again.

    Not to harp on Seattle, but our school district did the same thing, and that is basically what all the parents said.Report

    • Avatar Saul Degraw in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      The big issue here is that something needs to give and no one wants to give. In this case, employers need to take it on the chin probably and expect a bit less productivity from parents for a year or two. This will not happen though.Report

      • Avatar Oscar Gordon in reply to Saul Degraw says:

        If that was it, it wouldn’t be an issue.

        It’s the fact that even in the affluent district I live in, there are a lot of single parent homes, or dual income families where the childcare school provides is relied upon, and one or both parents can not work from home. Which means when school starts, if the kids are at home, somebody is out of work.Report

        • Avatar Pjhilip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

          This. Plus many many areas have little to no internet penetration/service, much less available technology platforms for children to learn on. Here in Mississippi the state schools superintendent (highest paid in the nation FWIW) just yesterday announced that schools in the state would be using CARES Act funds to buy more tablets and Chromebooks for schools and families who don’t have them. But that will take months. and without broadband available to the students, the chromebooks won’t do much good.Report

          • Avatar DavidTC in reply to Pjhilip H says:

            If were are going to act like education at home via high-speed internet is something the government can do to fulfill its obligation to educate people, we have now implicitly included high-speed internet as some sort of right.

            Sorta like other civilized countries have explicitly had for years.

            A reminder: ISPs can currently refuse to service people for basically any reason, and are almost always monopolies, or at least duopolies. They’re even trying to argue out of being common _carriers_, which at least requires them to treat all communications the same.

            See, this is why one of the best thing I think a billionaire could do is start blatantly absurdly abusing corporate power like this. Like, buy an ISP, and then block students from accessing their school. ‘Hey, it’s legal for us to do that!’ And then , if they fix that, start canceling the service of people who have kids. ‘Hey, we can still legally do this!’Report

  6. I’ve made the same point about dress codes, but on reflection I think a better analogy would be wearing eye protection when using the lathe in wood shop. IIRC, that wasn’t a matter of personal choice.Report

  7. Avatar George Turner says:

    Well, aside from Covid, one of the best reasons to keep schools suspended is to slow the spread of Marxism.Report