WashPost Paints Disruptive Leftist High School Students As Victims, Principal As Bad Guy in Walkout Suspensions
Imagine you're a public high school principal and you've learned of a student walkout that's been in the works for months. This is an unacceptable disruption to the learning environment of which you are hired by the county and paid by the taxpayers to preserve. Also imagine the ringleaders of the walkout organized the protest via Twitter, and so you are able to find the organizers and give them a 5-day suspension. But that's when it hits the fan because the Occupy movement and other left-wing agitators start to make a stink about it online, ensuring, of course, local media coverage that's bound to paint you in a negative light.
That's exactly the pickle Edgar Batenga is in. The principal of Hyattsville, Maryland's Northwestern High School was painted by Washington Post writer Ovetta Wiggins today as a free speech-stifling, overly strict disciplinarian. Naturally, Wiggins began her 28-paragraph story by painting the chief student organizer as a victim (emphasis mine):
One week, Shane James, an honor roll student at Northwestern High School in Prince George’s County, was lauded for his political activism.
The next, he was removed from classes for attempting to effect change.
Northwestern Principal Edgar Batenga suspended James, 16, and three other students on March 1 for organizing a walkout to increase teacher pay, improve the quality of education and demand an apology to Filipino teachers who will lose their jobs because their visas will expire.
“We were trying to be politically active and show our concern for education,” said Boris Mitiuriev, 18, a senior who planned to participate in the walkout. “It’s just outrageous.”
The suspensions have created a firestorm. Many, including community leaders and Occupy protesters, argue that the students’ rights to free speech and to assemble appear to have been violated. They are demanding that the suspensions be removed from the students’ permanent records.
“I am really upset,” said Danielle Duvall, James’s mother. “My son didn’t do anything that was illegal or wrong. He’s not a troublemaker. He’s one of the good guys.”
Wiggins did go on to explain the principal's rationale, and noted that "more than 400 members of the 2,274-member student body prepared to participate." That's some 17 percent of the students that planned to walk out of class, a disruption to classroom order that is unacceptable.
"My intention was never to suppress anyone's viewpoint," Wiggins quoted Batenga.
With that out of the way, Wiggins went back to work painting the suspended students as having been penalized for their politics.
"I read history, and I know activists are not the most loved people... I knew they would try to intimidate me," Wiggins quoted an anonymous suspended student. "They said they were concerned about riots and people's health and safety... This wasn't Occupy London. It's not Egypt, where people are throwing rocks at the military," Mitiuriev groused to Wiggins.
Yet nowhere in her article did Wiggins cite reaction from a parents of students at the school, particularly parents of students who didn't attempt to walk out on March 1, the "National Student Day of Action."
Presumably there are quite a few parents who are supportive of the principal and/or who believe students walkouts are inappropriate disruptions of crucial classroom time.
But citing those contrary viewpoints would have soured the favorable narrative Wiggins had going.
"The goal of the walkout was to politicize the community and to start a dialogue... I think it was a success," Wiggins quoted James in the article's closing paragraph.
- Ken Shepherd's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
Right to Free Speach?
Submitted by Skunk Ape on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:11pm.
Wait a second, if student's have a right to free speach at school, then I'm sure Wiggins' next target will be the liberal speech codes at colleges right? In 3, 2, ...nevermind.
I am unclear thanks to the shoddy reporting...
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:19pm.
Did the walk-out occur and the students were suspended after, or were the students suspended for trying to organize a walk-out that never actually took place?
The reporter makes it sound as if it actually happened in one spot and then as if it were a future event in another spot. Completely unclear and confusing. Maybe that was the intention?
If the student were suspended after the event actually happened, then they should have expected it and not be surprised. If they were suspended simply for trying to organize it, and it did not yet occur, then I think that they have cause for complaint.
However, that being said, personal responsibility teaches us that if you break rules to protest a percieved injustice, you should be prepared to pay the price for breaking the rules. Only the left thinks that someone should get a pass from consequenses when they agree with their view-point. As all the civil rights leaders and activists can attest, they didn't expect not to be arrested. They engaged in civil disobedience specifically to draw the consequenses and thereby the publicity that comes with it.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
And I'm sure
Submitted by Cappmann1962 on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:25pm.
Wiggins and all the lefty media and organizations would fully support a student walkout protesting gay marriage, Christian bashing, the administration's lack of performance on the economy, or any of a myriad of other "progressive" issues perceived by conservatives as an injustice...
As I understand it, the
Submitted by Ken Shepherd on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:28pm.
As I understand it, the walkout didn't succeed in breaching the school building itself. Administrators kept the students inside the building, but there were students who milled about in the hallways.
The violation-of-free-speech charge is specious because there are suitable time, place and manner restrictions. Those kids are free to protest before and after school hours on school property, but of course, what fun is that?!
I own a home and pay taxes in Prince George's County, where this high school is, so as a taxpayer, I applaud the principal's seriousness about punishing this.
Yeah, right.
Submitted by Cappmann1962 on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:19pm.
Disrupting the school, breaking the law (truancy), protesting for teacher's pay (I'm SURE that was the student's idea), and advocating a disregard for laws concerning work visas. Yeah, they're the "good guys"...
Five days seems kinda stiff.
Submitted by balboa on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 12:28pm.
Five days seems kinda stiff. You obviously would like to stop the walk out, but this seems extreme.
One week sounds about right to me.
Submitted by needle on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 5:30pm.
I would say that the suspensions should definitely be long enough to ensure that the issue had completely blown over before letting these troublemakers come back, and in this case it would be wise to error on the side of being too long rather than too short. One week sounds about right to me.
BTW, I did not see anywhere in this story what efforts, if any, the instigators made to get their grievances addressed before resorting to a mass walk out.
And BTW also, what business is it of the students what their teachers are paid? Were teachers deep in the background on this one (as has sometimes happened before)?
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
Bal, Everything except
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 2:09pm.
Bal,
Everything except sharia law seems extreme to you.
Yeah, extreme
Submitted by ant on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 2:22pm.
It's almost like if a manchurian moonbat President shut down two guitar factories in America over some bogus 'finished wood' EPA mandate pertaining to India and has yet to 'officially' charge them. Or an American seafood importer who is sentenced to 6 years in prison because his lobster isn't received in the standard packaging allocated by 'Honduran' law. Like that extreme? Like reducing domestic oil production by 30% while pleading with the Saudis to "drill, baby, drill", and after squashing the Keystone pipeline which would have provide jobs and 700,000 barrels a day? Like 'laser-focused on jobs' despite doing everything he can to f*ck the private sector extreme? Like that?
No, but kudos on the effort.
Submitted by balboa on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 3:05pm.
No, but kudos on the effort.
I wonder what Wiggins would have written
Submitted by D. S. Hube on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 1:15pm.
... had this been a student protest against, say, illegal immigration.I did not realize a school
Submitted by ant on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 2:05pm.
I did not realize a school administration had the power to extend the work-Visas of Filipino teachers...learn something new everyday. If students can protest whenever and in whatever fashion they wish...what are Occupoop's views on, say..., bringing a Bible to lunch or children having their home-packed lunches searched under the Mooch's Food-Nazi program? Or maybe even a student being disciplined and having his school-paper article pulled because he was against 'gay-marriage'? No freedom of speech there? Certainly, less disruptive than a massive 'walk-out'...Hypocrisy is liberalism's middle name.
Ant
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 6:54pm.
I'm confused about why an apology is needed to those teachers. They aren't being tossed out early, simply being required to hold to the agreement made with the government when they arrived.
Just think of the jobs that will be created when those teachers leave! With any luck someone of U.S citizenship can get a job!
Responsiblilities
Submitted by djaymick on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 2:07pm.
The schools have several responsibilities that need to be addressed. First, they are guardians of the students during their school hours. They have to responsibility to ensure a safe and educational atmosphere. I know of several schools in PA that have cameras located at their entry/exit doors that see who is coming and going at all times. This is not only to ensure that strangers don't come into the building, but also students that try to skip out of their classrooms.
Second, the certain First Amendment Rights don't apply to schools. Should we allow students to exercise their First Amendment Rights that are detrimental to the learning of other students? You can't yell fire in a movie theater or say bomb in an airport, just like you can't start talking in class without punishment.
Lastly, a 16-year old led this protest. He hasn't earned any rights yet. He is still considered a minor, who can't drink or vote and can't be charged as an adult under current laws (unless it's murder). Also, he has no "skin in the game" to demand change on the taxpayers. Once he starts paying into the system and becomes an adult will his voice be recognized.
FIrst of all
Submitted by chiefpayne on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 2:34pm.
I thought the principle was EXTREMELY GENEROUS with the students...I would've EXPELLED the lot of them.
Second of all, if a student has a right to freedom of speech, then they should be able to say they are anti-homosexual, that they are pro-life, et al.
Finally, if a student has a right to freedom of speech, do they ALSO have the right to illegal search and seizure, freedom of religion...well, you get the point...in the school too?
Bell's Theory
Submitted by CJohnson on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 6:25pm.
Insubordination was the cure Bell preached and schools are the primary peddlers. The only cure is when courageous parents 'walk in, grab kid and leave' and enlist a boarding school, private tutors, online ed or private school. Parents are subordinate if the school does not immediately alert them when suspicion of serious misconduct exists. Had the students been anti-AFSCME they could have been arrested.
Northwestern
Submitted by oldfart on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 6:34pm.
I think the only mistake the school leadership may have made was not to wait until they actually walked off school property then they could have actually been charged with truancy.
An environment has been created when they, the students, can do anything they want any time they want and there are no consequesces.
Anyone heard the position of the Prince George's County school administration?
I don't think this had anything to do with 'free speach' it was 'gettin over on the man'!
Break the rules. . .
Submitted by rickbren on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 6:44pm.
. . .suffer the consequences. These kids SHOULD have known what they were doing. "My son is not a trouble maker." Sorry, mom, when he broke the rules, he became a trouble maker.
Get your kids and your
Submitted by JohnK on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 7:40pm.
Get your kids and your grandkids OUT of government-run schools!
Bit of an overreach
Submitted by mandrake on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 7:52pm.
What would we do with them? (kids) I mean schools also function as convient day care centers. Moms and dads have to work ya know. Not everyone can afford the luxury of home schooling.
You just say that because
Submitted by balboa on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 7:54pm.
You just say that because you're already under THEIR control.
You don't have to be able to
Submitted by ant on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 8:57pm.
You don't have to be able to 'afford' the luxury of home-schooling. If Obama, Pelosi, and their useful idiot, Fluke have taught us anything, it's that someone else should have to pay for whatever you determine is your 'right'. Just call home-schooling a 'right', certainly, there are enough people working to pay for everything for everybody, right?
OVETTA?
Submitted by drsamherman on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 11:11pm.
Sounds like a drug brand name.