Schools have been known as places that allow your mind to grow. They challenge you and help you develop your mind, and you as a person. They are supposed to allow you to express yourself (within reason) without getting in trouble for it. Supporting a political candidate or a movement is a common thing, especially in this time and age. We’re humans, we want our voices heard, we like to think for ourselves and have our own ideas, not just blindly follow someone else’s, or have our own beliefs stifled. However, lately many schools have been attempting to suffocate these ideas, with threats of suspension, and even expulsion. These schools have made rules upon rules in order to keep kids and staff from sharing their own political beliefs, such as not allowing teachers to share their political views or banning political accessories.
In fact, a substitute teacher at Clovis West High School was recently blacklisted for subbing a class while wearing a Black Lives Matter pin. David Roberts, a substitute teacher from Fresno, recently went under fire from the school for wearing the pin while subbing. He was said to have been asked to take off the pin and complied with school officials. However, he later received a notice saying that he was no longer allowed to work on the campus on account of his attire and his drift from the lesson plan. After his blacklisting, he penned a letter to the editor of the Fresno Bee, where he said that his pin was not meant to be seen as a political statement, but rather as “a moral statement. It’s about morality.” He continues to say that students at Clovis West understood the concept and that many “came up to [him] to thank him for wearing the pin and caring about their welfare.”
People are beginning to risk their livelihood and education in order to express their opinions. Many schools have rules to ban their expressions, but isn’t that an infringement on our rights? Regardless of where we are, we are given the right to freedom of speech, and forcing us to conform to a neutral stance in every political debate is ripping this right away from us. Not exposing these issues, especially to high school kids, is shielding them from the world they are going to be thrown into in a few years. Politics is dripping in issues, foreign and national, and allowing them to hear these problems and reflect upon them from this age will give them the time to thoroughly develop their own ideas and the time to change their belief if they wish to do so.
The USA is a nation built on the idea of freedom. Taking away our most basic right is unfair, and shouldn’t have even been considered. Expecting us to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, but staying quiet about our own judgments within the same environment is as hypocritical as an institution can get. And, now schools are rooted in political neutrality, keeping the kids and teachers quiet and compliant, with little room to argue for what they stand for.
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