The ACLU quickly got involved, rightly pointing out that the comments were posted outside of school and were covered by the First Amendment.
The ACLU had asked school officials to cancel a one-day, in-school suspension Tuesday for one of the girls. ACLU staff attorney Elizabeth Bonham says that the district did so.The district wouldn’t comment on student discipline. The other teen already had served her suspension last week.
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(Original story 11/14/16): In an illuminating move last week, Shaker Heights High School top brass decided to suspend two students who had a hand in exposing another student’s racist comments in the wake of the presidential election.
Fox 8 has the play-by-play, which involves Snapchat and Twitter screenshots, but here’s the gist: One student posted online that she did not support black rights, “because they don’t work for it and as a culture scary, violent, rude and needy. They expect to be catered to.”
The two students who publicly shared those comments — Elena Weingard and Myahh Husamadeen — were suspended by the school district for “disruptive behavior.” The student who originally posted those comments has not been disciplined.
According to a text from a Shaker Heights teacher sent to Scene, “Parents were screaming at each other. The white girl is fearing for her life” (referring to the student who first posted the prejudiced messages). The teacher added that students have been heard harassing others at school, citing at least one student “being called a fag and a n lover.”
On Friday, students participated in a walkout — “partly in reaction to the presidential election, but also in protest of disciplinary action against two students,” according to The Shakerite. Students walked through the halls, chanting “Fuck Donald Trump” and “We need justice.”
Ahead of the planned protest, the district posted this message: “We have been made aware that some students may be planning a walkout at noon to express dissatisfaction with a student issue. However, we want you to know the student issue has been resolved with all parties. The law doesn’t allow us to discuss student issues with the public.”
The Shakerite shared students’ reactions following the week’s events: “I was shocked and disturbed by the texts but even more by the school’s reaction,” said junior Molly Amolsch. “The student body, myself included, wanted justice, but the school seemed to want to shut down the outspoken students. It was wrong that they were disciplined and [the student who made the comments] wasn’t. Elena and Myyah have the support of their peers, even if the school doesn’t want to support their own teachings.”
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2016.
The school officials who made this bizarre edict should be in the unemployment line — by noon today.
It’s not a bizarre edict. We don’t as a rule prosecute or punish people for their thoughts, as repulsive as the thoughts may be. My heart is with the students of color at SHHS, but my brain understands that putting the racist student’s life at risk wasn’t right for anybody.
we often punish students for saying hateful stuff to others. sure, you can’t be prosecuted for calling someone a c-nt, but you can sure as hell be suspended.
also…whether or not we punish someone for the thoughts, how is it OK to punish someone JUST FOR REPEATING WHAT WAS SAID???
She put her own life at risk when she originally posted it on the internet for her peers to see and share.
Besides her believing her own racist BS, how was her life in danger?
The young girl who posted that racist message jeopardized her life, no one else did that. The school district should be ashamed, they are sending a message for punishing the two young ladies that exposed a racist peer and not punishing the peer that wrote the message. What is even more sad is that someone so young has this point of view in the first place about African-Americans, it all starts at home though, the real persons at blame here are the parents.
The young girl who posted the information is the daughter of a school employee who is a know racist and bigot. She is a school Secretary at Mercer elementary school. She should not be working with students of color or be employed in our district. It is a shame that this behavior is so overlooked in the shaker community. The silence of the district and the parents who support this type of person are sickening and cowards.
Those students walking in the hallways chanting F Trump is the America we are so proud of. I mean, those kids have such a huge vocabulary. I’m sure the churches, parents and all of the Osama fans are 100% behind them. Let’s be creative, or act like our education level is higher than a cavemen. Let’s be the America people look at and say, yep you knew that was coming. Not the America people look at and say,” that is very thoughtful, well established criticism”.