(4) Fri 16 Jun 95 0:04 By: Robin Murray-o'hair To: All Re: +quot;Free Speech+quot; or Forc

(4)     Fri 16 Jun 95  0:04
By: Robin Murray-o'hair
To: All
Re: "Free Speech" or Forced I
St:
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@EID:b135 1ed00080
@MSGID: 1:382/1006.0 883005A8
@TID: WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11  94-0279
"FREE SPEECH" or FORCED INDOCTRINATION?

A Salt Lake City Flap Has Less to Do With "Freedom of Expression" Than It
Does With Intolerance and Indoctrination.

OPINION by Conrad F. Goeringer

     Nearly a quarter-century -- and a few gray hairs -- ago, I was part
of a student movement that helped to open colleges campuses throughout
the country to controversial, even downright inflammatory public
speakers.  The memories of one battle are particularly vivid.  It
involved Angela Davis, a media-ordained "representative" of the Black
Power Movement, linked to George Jackson and other members of the
controversial Black Panther Party.  "Sister Angela" was a symbol of many
things which the U.S. Government -- and lots of university
administrations -- didn't like.  She was Black, a woman, an admitted
member of the Communist Party, and she became the center of "free speech"
fights across the country.

     It took letters, petitions, demonstrations, and even threats of
worst things to come in order to cajole the university administration to
let "Sister Angela" speak.  Many of us argued that universities
especially had no right or just cause to muzzle controversial, even
extreme viewpoints and  representatives.  We wanted a free
speech-slug-fest, a demolition-derby of competitive ideas.  Bring on the
commies, the Nazis, the socialists and anarchists -- let the Imperial
Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan debate Huey P. Newton. Students could decide
for themselves which opinions they'd accept; we didn't need an office
full of professional administrators in suits controlling the flow of
information or denying ANYONE the right to speak out.

     As it turned out, I was pretty disappointed in what Sister Angela
had to say.  She was doctrinaire, unoriginal, and too authoritarian for
my political bent.  I agreed with about half of what she had to say --
about as good a percentage as I've found for nearly any speaker to whom
I've bothered listening.

     So when students at West High in Salt Lake City decided  to
exercise their "freedom of speech" during a graduation ceremony last
week, I paid  attention.  A graduating senior named Will Badger moved to
the podium to lead some students and audience members in singing the
religious song "Friends."  Apparently, a number of students joined in,
and copies of the lyrics apparently had been passed throughout the
audience.  School administrators now  are talking tough, threatening
"appropriate disciplinary action" against those kids who "disrupted" the
commencement exercises.  It brings back memories.

     A generation ago, university and high-school events like graduation
were being disrupted throughout the country to protest a variety of
issues, including war, racism, and the fight for free speech. It had
started in Berkeley, California, when a student named Mario Savio
organized students to protest university rules prohibiting distribution
of literature and other materials on the campus mall.  Thanks to Mario
and a lot of other students, the Free Speech Movement (some called it the
"Filthy Speech Movement") was born.

     All they wanted to do was exercise their First Amendment rights.

     But is free speech the real issue in Salt Lake City?

     A number of groups such as the Christian Coalition have promoted
the idea that government is "hostile" to the expression of religious
ideas and that prayer in schools is, somehow, a manifestation of free
expression.

     The school day, however, is distinctly different  from an auditorium
to which one goes in order to hear a political debate, or a magazine to
which one subscribes, or even a movie or television show one chooses to
watch.  Schools involve a "captive audience" where, presumably,
attendance at the business of the school -- education -- is mandatory in
order to meet graduation requirements. Students, as individuals or
groups, have every right to express a range of political, social and
religious ideas in a voluntary, non-coercive setting.  But a classroom or
an official function of a school is a different situation. Children are
there for a course of instruction which, according to the Constitution,
shall not include religion.  Students should not be "held hostage" while
other people -- ministers, teachers, parents, priests, and even other
students -- take advantage of that situation to proselytize on  behalf of
a religious faith.

     That's precisely what William Badger -- and the students and parents
who joined him -- did when they sang a religious jingle during a school
graduation ceremony.

                  The Need for Sect Respect

     Ideally, religious belief -- or the lack of it -- is a private
matter where government plays no active role.  Public schools, government
meetings, parades, official holidays and other state activities should
reflect that official ambivalence or neutrality.  Classes and graduation
ceremonies should not become pulpits.

     It has been said that good friends should never discuss politics or
religion.  While people can "agree to disagree" on the former, the latter
seems to elicit animosity, fear and divisiveness when promoted in a
public setting.

     Will Badger, for instance, says that we "should honor the traditions
of both Judaism and Christianity."  What about Islam?  or Shintoism? or
Hindu superstition? Would Will have us "honor" Scientology, or the unique
Christian fundamentalism of snake-handler churches?  How about Christian
Scientists where children die because medical intervention is considered
"profane"?What about the intellectual "tradition" of those who have no
religious faith?

     I suspect that it's primarily Christianity that Will and others at
West High seek to honor, especially a Mormon version.  I don't think that
Will Badger, or most of the others who joined in the singing, would have
displayed such enthusiasm for singing a Catholic hymn -- or a Buddhist
chant. I suspect, too, that had the West High graduation been opened with
prayer and included religious commentary, "equal time" for free
expression would not have been given to those who disagreed with such a
practice.

     And I think that West High, despite its high scores on SAT tests
which have earned it public acclaim,  has failed an important goal --
giving students like Will a sense of tolerance and an understanding of
freedom, civil liberties, and constitutional rights. Otherwise, Will
might have realized that there were students last Wednesday night at West
High's graduation who weren't there to hear him -- or anyone else --
conduct religious services.  Nor did those students come to the
graduation ceremony to be singled out for NOT joining in what clearly was
an unwarranted, unconstitutional and inappropriate display of religious
self-righteousness.

     The point is that Will, and other students, parents, and bystanders,
didn't have the right to take over a graduation ceremony and transform it
into a camp meeting.  That's NOT freedom of speech.  It's religious
bullying. It  was also an insult to a  16-year-old sophomore named Rachel
Bauchman -- and many other students, and their parents -- who thought
that Wednesday night was a graduation ceremony, not a religious service.
Rachel had already gone to court to ensure that religious songs would not
be part of any official program at West High. The prayer-singing didn't
bring students any closer together, and it distracted from the
importance, and maybe even the solemnity, of a graduation night.  It
possibly ruined an important event in the lives of some of those students
-- especially those who respected the privacy and convictions of their
fellows.

     Rachel Bauchman has two more years to go at West High; she wants to
go on to Harvard for a law degree.  That fact tells me that she'll have
worse knocks than what happened last Wednesday.  Ironically, it was a
song titled "Friends" which has split a community, turned student against
student, parent against parent.  And maybe out of it all, Rachel
Bauchman, Will Badger, and everyone else will learn an important lesson
about the real meaning of freedom, and the very real need for tolerance
and respect.

                           --30--


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