Free Speech at the Graduation

Bad things are happening in the Clark County, school district. Hard-nosed rebellious people are refusing
to toe the line.

Superintendent Carlos Garcia is a very worried man. He banned student-led prayer but 3 out of the 5 board members voted to allow invocations and benedictions at graduations.

What these irresponsible board members won't see is that their refusal to implement the ban jeopardized $70 million in federal funding, including the free lunch subsidy program.

What is it that makes people so keen on prayer that they would take such a silly risk?

The story took a turn for the worst last week. School officials had to cut short a high school valedictorian's commencement speech. Brittany McComb, graduating with a 4.7 GPA. included praise to God for her success at Foothill High School in Henderson, Nevada.

Do you see what's happening here? Reckless faith in the older generation is now infecting the youngsters. It's more serious than you might imagine.

After the officials turned off her microphone in mid speech and asked her to vacate the podium, the ill-mannered crowd jeered and called for her to be allowed to continue.

Those brave school officials had to act against the will of most of the people there.

This was deliberate mischief on the part of this young lady. The school had gone to great trouble to censor her speech. They had demanded to see ahead of time what she intended to say.

Quite right. After all, the next thing you know young people will speak out on social, political or economic issues thereby deeply wounding presidents, senators or captains of industry. May I remind you that many school projects are sponsored by local business leaders.

"There should be no controversy here," ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein said. "It's important for people to understand that a student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in essence, it was a school-sponsored speech."

Be sure to remember that next time you're at a graduation. Whatever is said is to be automatically deemed the views and policy of the school.

Why are you struggling to follow all this? You should understand that the silencing of McComb was an effort to uphold these time honored words:

"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.."

That first amendment came about because early Americans demanded a guarantee of their basic freedoms. Without it, says the 1st amendment center, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change.

No matter how brilliant, you cannot have a student honoring God in a speech at school because already we have a president and many in congress doing that during their talks.

If you can't bring yourself to support the A.C.L.U.'s crusade to foster liberty to say those things that are within their catalogue of approved speech you'll just have to be one of those outsiders who uses the privilege of freedom of speech to speak against their agenda.

There is however one way you can help them. Just say nothing. Your silence will be almost as good as your vocal support.

Ah, you are seeing through my tongue-in-cheek praise of the "defenders of civil liberty."

I write in the hope of seeing the Jewish proverb actualized: "He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise."

I don't know what church Brittany attends, but I have no fear that her bravery will cause congress to "establish" her church as our national religion.

Fear of expressed ideas is a sign of the foolishness of believing that all ideas should be equally honored.

Equally heard yes; equally valid no!

Let the people decide - they still know how.