Student suspended Over 'Anti-Gun Control' Class Project

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The 'crazy' just keeps coming, and I'm convinced we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. :uhoh:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/10/0...dent-over-anti-gun-control-class-project.html

"A New Jersey high school student was suspended and ordered to undergo a psychological exam over a class project that advocated against gun control, according to a report. Frank Harvey, 17, refused to see the psychiatrist and dropped out of Manville High School Tuesday, the Newark Star-Ledger reported Thursday. Harvey said his teacher now denies assigning him the video project. “She said my project would be perfectly fine,” Harvey told the paper. “I presented the video to the class and took a few questions from my classmates. My presentation went over well. The whole idea of the assignment was to expose students to an idea they hadn't considered before.”........"
 
Things are getting pretty bad. Clearly people are being punished for their opinions. I have heard this sort of thing happening to people at their job when their boss looks up a Facebook page on the employee.

The psychological exam is over the top. That sounds Soviet.
 
If it is as presented, my opinion is he should get a scholarship, not a pscyh evaluation, AKA re-indoctrination.

Be careful. Another thread on this was closed.
 
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This whole thing seems strange. The project was completed last April. The thumb drive with the video was found in the library on Monday. Why were the police called? Why was he suspended? What policy was broken? Why would child protective services contacted?

There may be more to this story. Either the family or the school district or BOTH are not being totally honest. I would not be surprised I'd the school modified evidence now that this is in the news.
 
I retired after teaching 30 years. Even for NJ this whole story smells bad. When things like this happen by law the school system cannot comment at all because it involves a student. The student and parent can say anything, truthful or not to the media, and the school simply cannot respond with their version.

There is a lot more to this that we will never know, but I'm betting the kid deserved the suspension and possibly more.
 
The whole thing sounds suspect to me. The school can't comment because of FERPA but I would be willing to wager there's more to the story.
 
Yes, we are not getting the whole story. We are getting what is claimed by the student only and is virtually always the case when folks to to the press, they are going to claim innocence and to have been wronged. While he may have given a controversial presentation, I have to wonder if that is truly the reason claimed for the suspension. Manville is not a zero tolerance school.

Watched the video. Aside from needing to be a speed reader to view it, use of a low level cuss word (which is against school rules), and classification of people as insane for not sharing his perspective, it was a pretty shallow presentation. I wonder what class it was for?

http://www.manvilleschools.org/cms/...ity/Domain/201/student handbook 2016-2017.pdf
http://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendm...t-student-ordered-undergo-psychological-exam/
 
One wonders if there was more on the thumb drive than what the student claims. I'll wait until I hear the whole story before making judgement.
 
If things are as claimed, follow up the withdrawal from public school with a lawsuit and a campaign to destroy the reputations and livelihoods of the perpetrators.

To paraphrase a line from "Firefly", "If somebody tries to intimidate you, you try to intimidate them right back."

If somebody goes after your kid, you should go after them, with no mercy. Law of the vendetta. No survivors on the other side. Make them wet themselves when they even THINK of doing something similar.
 
Well, you aren't going to kill a school district. I doubt they are very fearful of a lawsuit. I am guessing they have a lot more information other than the class project about which to base getting the police and CPS involved. buck brought up the thumb drive issue. It states in the article that the troubles started not after the presentation was given, but after the thumb drive was found. So it would appear that the presentation angle may be just a red herring to the real issue.
 
In one article the kid even says that other students completed the same anti-gun control assignment, and that he is being treated differently.

There is more to this.
 
In our school district, staff or students can be suspended for using a personal thumb drive on a school computer due to security and virus issues. They sign a technology agreement stating they understand this.
 
In one article the kid even says that other students completed the same anti-gun control assignment, and that he is being treated differently.
Click to expand...

If that is the case, then this isn't an anti-gun control issue or an issue of trying to squelch a student for having such views.

Here is the statement...

"The Manville police cleared my son," said Vervan. "They looked at his presentation and found nothing wrong. Other students did a similar presentation and nothing happened to them. My son got in trouble because he left his thumb drive."
Click to expand...

http://www.nj.com/somerset/index.ssf/2016/09/child_services_visits_home_of_student_suspended_fo.html
 
I guess the student's First Amendment rights don't apply?
Click to expand...

The kid claims he gave his talk. It went well. He answered questions. He got an A. Sounds like he had plenty of applied 1A rights. Remember, he didn't get into trouble until somebody found his thumbdrive, not following his presentation.
 
And I guess you don't understand the limitations to the 1st Amendment.


Free speech doesn't allow a student to use that speech in school any way they want.
 
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RX-79G said:
Free speech doesn't allow a student to use that speech in school any way they want.
Click to expand...

Free Speech doesn't allow anyone to use that speech anyway they wish.

But for a public school to limit that speech they must have valid reasons.

See.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District

The court's 7–2 decision held that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. The court observed, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."[4] Justice Abe Fortas wrote the majority opinion, holding that the speech regulation at issue in Tinker was "based upon an urgent wish to avoid the controversy which might result from the expression, even by the silent symbol of armbands, of opposition to this Nation's part in the conflagration in Vietnam." The Court held that for school officials to justify censoring speech, they "must be able to show that [their] action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint," allowing schools to forbid conduct that would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."[5] The Court found that the actions of the Tinkers in wearing armbands did not cause disruption and held that their activity represented constitutionally protected symbolic speech.
 
There is no evidence that this incident has anything to do with free speech, at all. The student claimed other students did the same project.

There is something else going on than politics.
 
RX-79G said:
There is no evidence that this incident has anything to do with free speech, at all. The student claimed other students did the same project.

There is something else going on than politics.
Click to expand...

Then why this comment by you?

And I guess you don't understand the limitations to the 1st Amendment.


Free speech doesn't allow a student to use that speech in school any way they want.
Yesterday 03:26 PM
Click to expand...
 
Because there are two separate issues being discussed:

Whether the student's story is true or not.

And if it was true, whether a student has the right to say anything they want in school.
 
RX-79G said:
And I guess you don't understand the limitations to the 1st Amendment.


Free speech doesn't allow a student to use that speech in school any way they want.
Click to expand...
I understand that they aren't what you seem to think they are.

You made a snide remark which demonstrated a fundamental ignorance of 1st Amendment jurisprudence.
 
Deanimator said:
I understand that they aren't what you seem to think they are.

You made a snide remark which demonstrated a fundamental ignorance of 1st Amendment jurisprudence.
Click to expand...
Whatever, guy. None of these statements would be protected speech in a school, public or not:

Jews smell funny.
Sally is ugly.
I wish you would all die.


And that's what I'm getting at. We don't know what is going on with this young man, but there is no reason to believe that the existence of his project is the problem. So if it is related to speech, it is unlikely to be the political position but how it was made. Or something completely different on the thumb drive.
 
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