Suspended for Free Speech

Another case of the increasing illegality of childhood. Young people have the capability of voicing an opinion, they are just not allowed to express that capability in ways the school can't proof read. So now kids have to get suspended from school in order to vitalize and actualize their humanity. Isn't that the opposite of what a school is supposed to do for a child?

An 11-year-old in Aurora says his first amendment rights are being trampled after he was suspended for wearing a homemade shirt that reads "Obama is a terrorist's best friend."

The fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School wore it on a day when students were asked to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism. According the the boy's father, the school district told the student, Daxx Dalton, that he had the choice of changing his shirt, turning his shirt inside out or being suspended.

Daxx chose suspension.

"They're taking away my right of freedom of speech," he says. "If I have the right to wear this shirt I'm going to use it. And if the only way to use it is get suspended, then I'm going to get suspended."

And with those words this kid proves he knows more about what it means to be an American than any of those beurocrats could ever dream. It's only unfortunate that the price students are forced to pay is to give up on the very thing that supposedly was meant to "expand" their minds. School rules are important, but so are the students. Hats off to this kid.

Aurora Public Schools would not talk about the case but said the district "Respects a student's right to free speech, such as the right to wear specific clothing," but administrators say they review any situation that interrupts the learning environment. Paperwork submitted by the school district says Daxx Dalton was not suspended for wearing the shirt, but for willful disobedience and defiance.

So that's what they're calling a young person's freedom of speech these days. Defiance. Next they'll be calling him hyperactive and then he'll have to be "cured."

The boy's father says he intends to pursue a lawsuit against the district.

Well done, create a big stir, whip up a frenzy. Perhaps it'll teach this school and all others around the country which is really more controversial, which is really more of a "disturbance"...a school who allows so-called "disruptive" opinions to coexist...or a school who denies them and gets full of kids who refuse to go without them?