Lately, there have been some stories floating around the internet -- because the MSM will never report on them -- about the rising tide of political correctness in our nation's elementary and secondary schools. I'd be hard-pressed to invent these stories because they're so absurd. Yet these stories happen with unnerving regularity...and still the MSM ignores them.
Let's start with Jesus. In January, a California grade schooler was told not to mention Jesus's name because it might offend other students. There are just a couple of problems -- constitutional ones at that -- with this. First, the First Amendment doesn't allow infringement on free speech, with certain time, place and manner restrictions, none of which would apply in this case. Although the teacher isn't the government, per se, because she works for a public school, she's the school's agent, and that makes this a case of government suppression of free speech. That the child is a grade schooler doesn't render the constitutional guarantee null and void. If anything, it should magnify it.
The second infringement with this is that the girl was obviously invoking the First Amendment in expressing her religious views. That mention of Jesus might offend a fellow student is irrelevant. If anything, the teacher should instruct other students to be tolerant of differing viewpoints and religions. Again, rather than us to teach tolerance, suppression of religious freedom is the answer. An obvious question is what would happen if a Muslim child invoked Allah in a paper or speech. Would the teacher ask the student to refrain from mentioning Allah, and if he or she did, would the MSM cover the story?
Next, a grade schooler in North Carolina cited Jesus Christ as his hero. The teacher -- never having gone to law school, obviously -- wrote: Do you need to mention Jesus? Again, the double standard with Islam rears its ugly head. Perhaps it's atheism. But as in the first case, there are clear First Amendment issues that transcend someone's discomfort with no time, place or manner issues. Constitutional rights are not just for adults.
Then, in Michigan, the Department of Justice has ordered a school to tear down seating that was put up at the high school's baseball field. Why? Because the seating -- paid for with money earned from private funds earned at bake sales and other private fundraisers and installed with labor provided by volunteers -- was superior to the existing bleachers at the softball field and therefore resulted in an inequitable facility. Equal protection mandated, according to DoJ, that it be torn down.
Lunacy, thy name is political correctness.
It makes little sense to tear down something that was bought and installed by private means. If anything, the backers of the softball team should imitate the baseball set, raise the necessary funds, volunteer their time and services and build comparable seating. That the seating built by the baseball field must be torn down because of some twisted reading of Title IX makes no sense whatsoever. That someone got her panties in a bunch because another person outworked her and built something because of the sweat of her brow does not mean that equal protection has not been afforded.
Political correctness has run amok. There needs to be a correction that replaces it with common sense. Not every resulting inequality is the result of unfairness. I wish I were 6'6", but I'm not. I wish I had the body of a movie star, but I don't. I wish I had the wealth of anyone but me, but I don't. But there is no violation of my constitutional rights in either situation.
Alexander Hamilton said it best more than two hundred years ago:
Ah, this is the constitution. Now, mark my words. So long as we area young and virtuous people, this instrument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind us no longer.
Apparently, we are now old and corrupt.
(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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