I seems that a bunch of Omaha High School students got themselves in a mess of trouble for puttin' up posters to get some white guy awarded the Distinguished African American Student Award. The boy pictured on the poster, Trevor Richards, and two of his friends hung like 150 of these posters around the school and another student circulated a petition criticizin' the practice of recognizing only black student achievement with the award. As Trevor and his family emigrated to Omaha from Johannesburg, South Africa, Trevor felt justified in believin' he should also be considered an African-American. full story.
Now to be truthful, I suspect there really was a bit of cruel mischief at work in this scheme. Eugene Volokh believes there are some serious violations of the First Amendment at work in this scenario. I tend to agree. As crass and callous as I believe these acts were, I also believe these student's rights to free speech were violated. Many political statements are alarmin' to some segment of our society, but political statements are almost always protected speech under our Constitutional provisions.
Posted by notGeorge at January 21, 2004 08:27 PM | TrackBack