In 2017, students across the country organized a walkout in protest of school shootings and many students in the district planned on participating. Some schools in the district actively made this difficult for students to organize and protest. Other middle schools and high schools were met with backlash and attempted censorship surrounding the walkout: certain words such as “gun” weren’t allowed to be said and at one middle school, a student journalist who was photographing the event had their camera (which was school property) confiscated.
Additionally, Shawnee Mission East, a high school in the district, is known for having a long-time underground newspaper called The Eastonian that anonymously publishes satire pieces for the students to enjoy. They tend to be distributed on important days (rival football games or spirit days). However, in recent years, the newspaper shifted to publishing slanderous content that upset the community. In 2016, the administration publicly rebuked the content of the paper and actively tried to shut it down.
Following these events, the Shawnee Mission School District and Kansas School Board began the process of rewriting laws and policies that students are to abide by during their time in the district. These policies are in place to protect the First Amendment rights of students, especially ones who contribute to their school newspapers or other forms of journalism.
Shortly after new guidelines were put into place, the ACLU stepped in. They deemed the updated guidelines were unconstitutional and worked with the board to revise them. On August 12, the board narrowly approved a revised version with the ACLU that protects student rights.
This topic hits close to home. Several family members attended school in this district and ensuring the rights of students is something I feel passionately about. Having gone to private school my entire life, I signed away my first amendment rights upon enrollment in my grade school and high school. After being in these environments, I believe the censorship of student voices produces quiet, complacent adults. So many people I know who went to my high school (not in the Shawnee Mission School District) accept the status quo and are hesitant to speak out or be different because they’re not used to seeing dissent in their communities. Protecting the rights of students and their voices are important and to diminish the voices of public school students, who don’t actively consent, is unconstitutional.
Obviously the ACLU stepped in and rectified the situation, however, knowing that without them acting as a watchdog, who knows how much more censorship would have come into play. It’s one thing to consent to going to a private school and signing your rights away, but it’s a whole other thing to attend the school you’re legally required to go to and have your rights taken away unknowingly.
One of the things I value most about SLU is the opportunity and encouragement of dissent. Challenging yourself, your peers, and your institution has been a cornerstone of my educational experience at SLU and I believe without these rights and encouragement, I would have remained complacent and afraid to speak up when something seems out of place. The community I come from is one where your reputation precedes you in many ways, and silencing the voices of dissent only creates a larger echochamber where students grow up thinking that being different is bad and should be curbed.
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