Skip to main content

TRI In The News

Why Allow the Kids to Speak, at All?

From Reviewjournal.com
Original article available here.


In the spring of 2006, officials at Foothill High School, in suburban Henderson, required valedictorian Brittany McComb to submit her graduation speech to them for advance censorship, as has become standard policy.

Ms. McComb handed them a speech containing nine references to "God," two to "the Lord," one "Christ" and a half-dozen upper case pronouns. The officials edited out six words, two biblical references, and a comment about God giving his son to suffer an excruciating death.

They didn't just say "OK," or "No, write another one." They counted and crossed out words and references.

Then, when Ms. McComb proceeded to deliver the unedited version at graduation ceremonies, authorities killed the power to her microphone.

The district's rationale was that the speech amounted to proselytizing during a taxpayer-sponsored event and that the school district might thus be accused of using tax funds to promote a specific religion.

Ms. McComb filed a lawsuit against Clark County School District staff and administrators for censoring her speech. But that lawsuit essentially ended in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, as a three-judge panel issued a memorandum reversing a federal judge's 2007 decision not to grant a district motion to dismiss the case.

The panel remanded the case to federal court for dismissal, ruling school officials did not violate Ms. McComb's right to free speech by stopping a "proselytizing graduation speech."

Ms. McComb's microphone was unplugged when she said, "God's love is so great that he gave his only son up to an excruciating death on a cross so his blood would cover all our shortcomings and our relationship with him could be restored."

The video clip of her censored speech has gotten more than 25,000 views on YouTube. Ms. McComb told a Fox News cable show, "I wasn't looking for personal exaltation. I chose to muster up the courage to let myself become vulnerable and subject to being labeled 'uncool' in order to share a very personal, and powerful part of my life from my high school experience. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't believe it is indeed what made me 'successful.' "

School officials appear to have overreacted. No one seems to believe the U.S. Senate is "proselytizing" any specific religion when it allows a churchman to offer a benediction prior to its sessions. It's "hard for me to believe that anyone at graduation could think I or any other speaker was speaking on behalf of the school system," says Ms. McComb.

Why go through the ritual of allowing these young people to actually deliver a speech, if it's going to be subject to detailed prior censorship and re-writing?

That said, the decision of the 9th Circuit panel was predictable, and probably followed the wiser course available. The tax-funded schools are not and cannot be sanctuaries of unrestricted free speech. (If anything, there should be a lot less talking, and a lot more sitting up straight and listening.)

If the courts were to rule that officials have no control whatever over what's said at school functions, the practice of allowing students to speak would almost certainly be near extinction. For how long would it be before some wise guy decided to push the limits, seeing how much gross, scataological and insulting verbiage he could cram into his allotted time?

When Ms. McComb finishes her current semester at Oxford, she will return to Biola University, a private Christian college in La Mirada, Calif., from which she plans to graduate next spring.

In the end, we are considerably prouder of her than we are of an anonymous crowd of school functionaries, anxious to pull out their red pens and nip and tuck an honest and earnest testimony, allowing a few "Gods," but crossing out "Jesus," in order to make it "fit" as they consider appropriate.

Brittany McComb was their valedictorian. She followed their rules for years; she worked hard; she was the best they could produce. Yet they didn't trust her to spend a few minutes speaking her own mind -- explaining how she believes she did it?

Donate

Copyright 2024 © The Rutherford Institute • Post Office Box 7482 • Charlottesville, VA 22906-7482 (434) 978-3888
The Rutherford Institute is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are fully deductible as a charitable contribution.