November 24, 200421 yr This is unacceptable. The courts need to step in. :thumbdown Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School Wed Nov 24, 2004 04:12 PM ET By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God -- including the Declaration of Independence. Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian. "It's a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful," said Williams' attorney, Terry Thompson. "Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country," he said. "There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence." Vidmar could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose and claims violations of Williams rights to free speech under the First Amendment. Phyllis Vogel, assistant superintendent for Cupertino Unified School District, said the lawsuit had been forwarded to a staff attorney. She declined to comment further. Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity. Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists" and William Penn's "The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania." "He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that's what the founders wrote," said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. "The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination." In June, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a California atheist who wanted the words "under God" struck from the Pledge of Allegiance as recited by school children. The appeals court in California had found that the phrase amounted to a violation of church and state separation.
November 24, 200421 yr This has to be the dumbest thing ever. The presidential race was decided on the "moral" issue yet all religious content is being pulled from schools? :blink:
November 24, 200421 yr idiotic. there goes another one against freedom of speech..didnt we fight a couple of wars on this issue?
November 25, 200421 yr Our country is just dumb...they are always wanting to please the WRONG people..... this is just about as dumb as my highschool doing away with class rankings and valedictorians. I have worked hard for 4 years through all kinds of AP and advanced courses and studied hard while juggling my sports and other activities......just to find out 2 weeks ago...that my 4.0 will mean absolutely nothing when it comes time for graduation. They are trying to tell us that having class ranks and valedictorians is wrong because it makes the dumb kids feel bad. So now what is the reward for the kids who do good. I guess personal satisfaction will just have to be enough.
November 25, 200421 yr are you kidding me? no valedictorian??? 621221[/snapback] yea i know....heaven forbid we make the dumb kids feel like the kids who actually try are more worthy of recognition :mad :
November 25, 200421 yr Damn, that sucks. My High School didn't have class rank but we had a Valedictorian and Salutatorian.
November 25, 200421 yr are you kidding me? no valedictorian??? 621221[/snapback] yea i know....heaven forbid we make the dumb kids feel like the kids who actually try are more worthy of recognition :mad : 621223[/snapback] wow and you had a 4.0? i'd be upset too... I just saw The Incredibles the other day. Mildly cute movie, but was all about the fact that trying to make everyone feel special is just another way of saying no one is.
November 25, 200421 yr are you kidding me?? no valedictorian??? 621221[/snapback] yea i know....heaven forbid we make the dumb kids feel like the kids who actually try are more worthy of recognition :mad : 621223[/snapback] wow and you had a 4.0? i'd be upset too... 621248[/snapback] yea...of course......they decide to pull this crap my senior year!! i wouldnt have been so mad if i woudlve know for a couple years or whatever...but they JUST tell us like 2 weeks ago!! :thumbdown
November 25, 200421 yr Our country is just dumb...they are always wanting to please the WRONG people..... this is just about as dumb as my highschool doing away with class rankings and valedictorians.? I have worked hard for 4 years through all kinds of AP and advanced courses and studied hard while juggling my sports and other activities......just to find out 2 weeks ago...that my 4.0 will mean absolutely nothing when it comes time for graduation.? They are trying to tell us that having class ranks and valedictorians is wrong because it makes the dumb kids feel bad.? So now what is the reward for the kids who do good.? I guess personal satisfaction will just have to be enough. 621205[/snapback] My high school didnt have one either, nor did they weight GPA, nor did they have class rank. Youll get over this travesty when you get into a good college, if thats what you want. As for this itself, I bet you this has much much much much more to it than the declaration of independence. I bet this teach is using that is an example wherein it might not have been applicable just so he can undue the ban. Perhaps he had more religious documents around...
November 25, 200421 yr As for this itself, I bet you this has much much much much more to it than the declaration of independence. I bet this teach is using that is an example wherein it might not have been applicable just so he can undue the ban. Perhaps he had more religious documents around... 621262[/snapback] Regardless of whether he had other things around, banning the Declaration of Independence for any reason, even one of such a reach, is outright blasphemy.
November 25, 200421 yr George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists" and William Penn's "The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania." That sure sounds like bible thumping Falwellian propaganda to me. Of course, you're the one who hates it when people whine about there being a crisis in policitcal correctness...so this kind of incident, by definition, must not be crisis level. I'd bet a buck at least 80% of the American public would think banning the declaration from a history class constitutes crisis level PC though... 621325[/snapback] Isolated incedents make a national crisis? Its that kind of booby thinking that makes politicians overreact to events. Does a plane crash mean there is a crisis of airplane crashes in our country? Why dont you show me a consistent pattern of this sort of extreme political correctness. Please present the data. Anybody can post an article and claim the sky is falling.
November 25, 200421 yr Isolated incedents make a national crisis? Ahhh, there you go again - injecting a new word "national" into a notion to completely change its meaning. Why can't a crisis be measured by localized intensity rather than bredth of coverage? For the moment, I'm willing to attribute this lack of command of the language to ordinary ineptness, but the moment is fast approaching where one must begin to suspect foul intent. 621468[/snapback] Youre an idiot. When I was referring to the whining about a crisis in political correctness that people like you talk about, I was referring to people like you calling out to a national crisis. By bringing up what I said("Of course, you're the one who hates it when people whine about there being a crisis in policitcal correctness"), clearly you are trying to refute my past assertion with this example, as if to show this proves there is a national crisis worth whining about. Hence you brought into this thread the notion of a national crisis of political correctness by refering to something I said in another thread. But lets play your stupid little game. Assuming that in your view, I was referring to a local crisis of political correctness. Wouldnt such a crisis imply that things are getting out of hand in this local region too? Wouldnt it have to be the case that political correctness is running rampant in this region? Why dont you give me more clear cut examples of such extreme political correctness such as this one to show how this has become a crisis in the local region. Unless that is, you are willing to admit that one incedent can create a crisis in a local region, at which point you are also admitting you are one of those numbskulls that runs around screaming like chicken little for every isolated incedent. All in all this is ridiculous. Whats obvious is that when you and I talk about how people either whine about political correctness or deny its getting out of hand, we are referring to a national crisis. Its utterly idiotic for two people on the other side of the country to care about how politically correct a local area in California has gotten. But if this is how you have to cop out and dance around your own silly arguments, so be it.
November 25, 200421 yr F_M are you saying that Political Correctness hasnt gotten out of hand in this country?
November 26, 200421 yr The problem is when an issue like this gets media coverage one has to wonder itf its just an isolated incident or will this be used as other anti-freedom of speech and freedom of religion people around the nation. First its the under god from the pledge. which whether or not you agree with those words, no one really cared when it was added in during the red scare times or whenever exactly it was. What if every half baked teacher or principal now goes out trying to ban such documents as the declaration and some activist judge agrees!!! Then there is a national crisis, and we must protect the first amendment in all cases, the argument 'the religios nuts do it too' doesnt justify this, if anything it gives you more reason to worry about our first amendment. I'm guessing this is a public school so the governing committee for that region's schools needs to step in and fire this principal and get a new one end of story. As for the removal of valedictorians and class rank, thats utter idiocy. Keep tkaing away the incentive for kids to work harder and we'll go down the crapper. Imbecils in this country need to realzie that in work and school people who work harder and achieve more need to be rewarded. Not rewarding them puts people in the mindset that why work when they get no more recognition or pay as people who are lazy or who dont study hard. I see this everyday here at my federal govt job. Every month an assembly is held where the troublemakers and laziest people are given certificates of recognition for some made up claim. This is done to appease them, so that they wont complain to their unions and such. While the hard workers who follow orders dont get squat b/c supervisors know they wont be filing complaints and so forth b/c they see the hard workers as being happy here so they dont need the extra push. but all that this does is make a hard worker work less, b/c theres no friggin incentive to work harder
November 27, 200421 yr Isolated incedents make a national crisis? Ahhh, there you go again - injecting a new word "national" into a notion to completely change its meaning. Why can't a crisis be measured by localized intensity rather than bredth of coverage? For the moment, I'm willing to attribute this lack of command of the language to ordinary ineptness, but the moment is fast approaching where one must begin to suspect foul intent. 621468[/snapback] Youre an idiot. Normally personal attack responses of this sort mean the person making such declarations hasn't a leg to stand on. Yo Rune - I should think this qualifies for a wet noodle lashing, no? 621609[/snapback] My response is primarily to you saying this, so lets not cry to the teacher when youre just as guilty. For the moment, I'm willing to attribute this lack of command of the language to ordinary ineptness Is that not a personal attack? Are you then admitting you dont have a leg to stand on? Does that not qualify for... :plain ...a wet noodle lashing? My apologies phoenix. I just dont take kindly to someone claiming Im ordinarily inept rather than responding to what my argument is.
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