FEATURES

America, Land of Guaranteed Free Speech, Unless it's Critical

Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school teacher
was fired because one of his students wrote a poem

Bill of Rights - Amendment I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

US Constitutional experts explain that that most profound of all the Constitution's guarantees protects every form of speech from the terribly popular, "God bless America" to the most unpopular anti-American comments of the American Nazi Party, The Ku Klux Klan and other extremist parties. But they mostly agree that its most valuable and prized importance is that it protects the latter, the unpopular speech. And that's simply because no one really needs to protect speech (or anything else) which is popular.

So what is it that the administration of New Mexico's largest public high school fails to understand about that issue? It fails, apparently, to understand the concept entirely.

Bill Nevins, 56, says he was hired by the Rio Rancho High School (RRHS) in 2001 and asked to revive the school's defunct literary club and to found the poetry-slam team (a group of teenage poets who had asked Nevins to be faculty adviser to their club).. Most of the students in the clubs were of minority ethnicity.
Nevins

Bill Nevins

RRHS is the largest public high school in New Mexico, built with funding from the Intel Corporation in the late 1990s.

Positive Performance Appraisals for Nevins

The teens, were taught to read their poetry aloud and before audiences. The team was also given access to the school's closed-circuit television once a week.

Nevins reportedly received positive performance appraisals for his efforts, and his teaching contract was renewed. The district financed Nevins' studies to become dually certified so that he could teach both language arts and social sciences in the fall of 2004.

So, what happened to cause an apparently exemplary teacher into someone who had to have his contract terminated so abruptly just when the slam team began to get city-wide prominence?

Nevins says the problem began when the slam team's student poets began practising their
craft at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore's monthly open-mike sessions, which the school now contends constituted unauthorized school trips. His sacking came shortly after student, Courtney Butler read her poem Revolution X on the high school's closed-circuit television system.

Not directly antiwar, the poem challenges Bush administration budget priorities: "We can afford war with Iraq but we can't afford to pay teachers," Butler wrote.

"Disrespectful Speech" says the School's "Military Liaison"

After hearing of the poem the school's military liaison (a military liaison at a public school? My god how times have changed), Dr. Larry Morrell, wrote an e-mail, which was copied to all faculty, calling the poem a "disrespectful speech".

According to GreenLeft Weekly (for which Nevins writes), "the staff member who complained about the reading of Revolution X has been identified by the administration as Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Morrell, identified on the RRHS web site as the school's military liaison officer, a school guidance counsellor and member of the administration's appointed staff development committee. Morrell is notorious for his bellicose pro-war, pro-Bush pronouncements over the school's communications system. He is also known for his vigorous recruitment of students into the US military.

"It is suspected that Morrell's demand that action be taken regarding the reading of the poem led to Nevins' suspension and termination, the banning of public poetry reading at the school and the destruction of the RRHS Poetry Team/Write Club."

Morrell and the school's principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to give substance to its
"No child left behind" education policy.

School officials reportedly started an investigation to determine whether Butler's poem contained "obscenities and incitement to violence". Which indicates they knew banning it or sacking Mr Nevins because of the poem's political content would cause a bit of a storm, not to mention a legal challenge, whereas a poem with "obscenities [or] incitement to violence" might be legal grounds for the sanctions. No "obscenities [or] incitement to violence" were found in the poem.

The school banned the reading of poetry on its closed-circuit television system and required students intending to perform at community events to submit poems for screening (otherwise known as censorship). When Nevins strenuously objected to this course of action, the school dismantled the slam team, suspended Nevins and ultimately chose not to renew his contract.

Courtney's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job.

Reportedly, after firing Nevins they terminated the teaching and reading of poetry in the school. According to William Hill, a friend of Nevins', in an op-ed piece in the Daytona Beach, Florida News-Journal, where he's a reporter, "the principal and the military liaison read a poem of their own as they raised the flag outside the school. When the principal had the flag at full staff, he applauded the action he'd taken in concert with the military liaison.

"Then to all students and faculty who did not share his political opinions, the principal shouted: 'Shut your faces'. What a wonderful lesson he gave those 3,000 students at the largest public high school in New Mexico."

But the story goes further. According to Hill, "Posters done by art students were ordered torn down, even though none was termed obscene. Some were satirical, implicating a national policy that had led us into war. Art teachers who refused to rip down the posters on display in their classrooms were not given contracts to return to the school in this current school year."

Butler Speaks Out

Butler wrote in a letter to a local newspaper on May 7, “During the fall semester at RRHS I wrote a poem entitled Revolution X. I, along with other students, delivered poetry in the Performing Arts Center at the high school. We received praise from staff and students in the packed auditorium. Early in the spring term, I read my poem again on the school announcements. This poem is a social commentary. It comments on how our society claims to value education, but in actuality spends energy, time and resources on other things, such as war.

“A staff member, who has a military background and military mindset, complained about the poem, saying it was an anti-war speech... Due to the complaint, the administration asked for a copy of the poem... I delivered it to the RRHS administrators when I got back from spring break because they wished to read it. They read it, looking for two things: profanity and incitement to violence. They found neither.”

For the Defence

Thus far, the Federal law suit, filed by National Lawyer's Guild member Eric Sirotkin,
is being taken up by the teachers union, which has been joined in a legal action against the school by the National Writers Union and by PEN New Mexico (a branch of the association of prominent literary writers and editors). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has become the legal arm of the lawsuit pending in federal court.

I can but echo Hill's question, "Are book burnings next?"

Please Note - The above is my personal opinion and in every way reflects the views of Books at Star Dot Star. You are of course free to disagree. If you believe it correct to censor speech for any reason, then please take your business elsewhere. If you'd like to comment on this issue, for publication, please write to me and mention that your comments are for publication.

Thank you very much.