George:

I have been told by my son and daughter at CHS that the administration has said that there can be no anti-war posters put up in areas in which posters have traditionally been put up. I have not had time to check this all out, but if so, this could very well raise free speech issues.

In hearing about Sue Herndon's child's threat to be suspended for 10 days for skipping school for political reasons, my first question would be, "What is the punishment for skipping school for no reason whatsoever?" If the answer is anything OTHER than 10 days' suspension, then the Buford administration may have a problem.

Ultimately, though, there is another answer -- the parent can excuse the absence. If the "walk-out" were in fact a "teach-in" (boy, don't those words just take you back...), parents could authorize their kids to attend this other activity. Suppose that, at a local church, or some other facility, a day's program were organized that would deal with issues of history, government, law, social studies, music, etc. -- with presentations on the history of Iraq and Southwest Asia, the rights of students to the exercise of free speech, what international law says about wars of pre-emption, the culture of Islam and of Iraq, etc. Who could deny that this would be an educational opportunity that kids would be going to, not just walking out of school? I remember attending such a teach-in in 1968, and I learned an awful lot about Vietnam that I could never have learned from the Charlottesville Daily Progress.

Lloyd Snook (electronic mail, March 20, 2003)