National Youth Rights Association

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) – A Baptist church in Florida is barring children from attendance where a registered sex offender has been preaching since the end of January.

Jacksonville television station WJXT quoted a woman Feb. 19 who said she was turned away on a recent Sunday when she tried to bring a 2-year-old boy she babysits to services at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church.

“They said for the next two weeks, no children are allowed,” said Wanda Evans. “This is the second Sunday, no children, so next week’s Sunday, kids will be able to be allowed.”

The congregation on Jacksonville’s north side has had to make adjustments since opening its pulpit to Darrell Gilyard, who recently served three years in prison for sex crimes with two girls committed while he was senior pastor at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville.

As a registered sex offender, Gilyard, 49, is not allowed to be around minors. His attorney withdrew a motion Feb. 11 seeking a change in Gilyard’s probation status to allow minors in the sanctuary when he preaches after a judge called it “premature” pending input from a licensed therapist.

Gilyard vowed in a text message to the Florida Times-Union to somehow prove “that life isn’t over when one has committed a crime for which he receives this heinous label.”

“You don’t have to languish on the fringes of society,” Gilyard said.

Gilyard’s return to the pulpit prompted sidewalk protests by a group calling itself the New Black Panther Party. “A minister who has done such evil should not be restored to the pulpit until his repentance is as notorious as his sin,” George Harvey, pastor of nearby Mt. Charity Baptist Church, told WJXT.

Gilyard, once seen as a rising star in preaching circles, including the Southern Baptist Convention, has a ministry long marred by scandal. Prominent Southern Baptists including Paige Patterson, Jerry Vines and Jerry Falwell were all strong supporters until a falling out in 1991 when Gilyard resigned from a church after admitting to several extramarital affairs. That was after allegations of sexual misconduct at three previous churches.

Gilyard went on to serve 15 years as pastor of Jacksonville’s Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, a prominent African-American congregation that under his leadership grew to 7,000 members. He resigned in 2008 after he was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct for sending inappropriate text messages to two underage girls.

Gilyard’s current preaching assignment is more modest. About 150 attended his first service Jan. 29, up from a normal attendance of five to 10.

Tiffany Croft, a Jacksonville woman who says she resisted unwanted sexual advances by Gilyard 20 years ago and in 2008 started a blog urging others with similar stories to come forward, called his return to the pulpit barely two months after his release from prison a mockery. She marveled at why people who regard child sexual abuse by a teacher or priest as an abomination are so quick to forgive a pastor because they like to hear him preach.

“Darrell Gilyard talks a good game,” Croft wrote in her blog Feb. 11. “He preaches amazing sermons of words and uses holy scriptures.” Responding to those who argue it would be a waste of those talents to not allow him to preach, Croft offered, “There are a whole line up of victims behind every one of his sermons.”

February 21, 2012
Word and Way

http://www.wordandway.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2447&Itemid=53

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WASILLA — Jim Dault and Shala Dobson are proud to display their artwork at Wasilla High School. After all, the Meadow Lakes artists are Valley residents and have a familial connection with the school.

That’s why Jan. 29 was an exciting day, Dault said. That’s the day they installed their sculpture “Warrior Within” in front of the Mat-Su Borough School District’s largest high school. Three days later, however, the $100,000 work of art, contracted through the state’s Percent For Art Program, was covered by tarps and has remained under wraps since.

The reason? Some students think the stone and concrete sculpture that features a pair of shields surrounded by feathers resembles female genitalia. The oblong shields, one made of aluminum and another of bronze, are emblazoned with warrior symbolism, the artists say in a description of their project.

“Emerging from the powerful stone form are two warrior shields encircled by glowing feathers,” the description says, adding the art is a monument to the warrior spirit. “The bronze shield has a hand impression showing ‘good deeds.’ The aluminum shield has a flame symbol representing the ‘spark of inspiration.’ The stone form represents the strong material from which a warrior is made.”

That’s the message the artwork conveys, Dault said, and he and Dobson are now working with the school to help educate students and parents about the art and its ties to Wasilla High and its Warrior mascot.

Before installation, the work was fully vetted by a Percent For Art Program committee and approved by the school district before work began, he said. The Alaska Legislature passed the Percent for Art in Public Places statute in 1975, which created the Percent For Art Program, that requires the expenditure of 1 percent of the capital construction costs of public buildings for the acquisition and permanent installation of artwork.

“People need to slow down,” Dault said about the brouhaha. “It’s a sculpture. It needs to be experienced up close, personally, because it is in three dimensions.”

For Wasilla High School Principal Amy Spargo, she said she doesn’t view her decision to cover the sculpture as censorship. After receiving complaints from students and parents, she decided to revisit the issue of whether the art is best suited for display at a high school. Also, she said she is worried that vandals might damage the artwork.

“The hubbub started since the piece got delivered,” she said. “There was quite an outcry from parents who were hearing what kids were saying (about the sculpture). My concern was the piece would be damaged. Clearly, we needed to do some education. There was such a disconnect from the piece and the (school), I just wanted to re-engage the public process.”

That disconnect, she said, is partly because two of the main players on the committee are no longer at the school. Spargo said she plans to convene another committee that includes students, parents, staff and school administration to examine the art project. Also, the artists will give a presentation at the high school Feb. 24 to educate students about the symbolism in their art.

“I have a problem with the lack of public process,” she said. “It’s a high school, and the one-liners (poking fun at the situation) abound. We have to back up a little and be more purposeful about our conversation.”

Jocelyn Young, state curator for public art in Anchorage, stands by the public approval process used for all Percent for Art installations. Although Young’s focus is on the Anchorage area, she said she frequently helps the local school district with its Percent For Art projects. She said the committee that approved “Warrior Within” relied on feedback from students, parents and the school board.

“It was vetted and went through a process,” Young said, adding that making another committee to examine the issue won’t produce the same results the state art program intends. “A new committee will be a Wasilla High School committee and no longer a Percent For Art committee. They have chosen a route that is going to be much more difficult in terms of trying to get lots and lots of input.”

Spargo said no decisions have been made about the future of the artwork. It could be left where it is, could be moved to another location on the school’s campus or be removed entirely.

Whatever the decision, Young said she’s concerned about the precedent Wasilla High School’s actions could set.

“We’re talking about art. Everyone’s going to have an opinion,” she said. “Some people are going to like it and some people aren’t going to like it. In the end, who do you listen to, the loudest person? This is about not just this year and next year, this is about the life of the building.”

“Warrior Within” is Dobson and Dault’s 10th work of art produced through the Percent For Art Program, and they’ve never had a problem with one of their pieces before, Dault said.

And while Spargo says she doesn’t view covering up the sculpture and making another committee to examine the artwork as censorship, the Palmer Arts Council disagrees, said Howard Bess, a Valley community activist and PAC board member.

The council’s board of directors convened an emergency meeting to discuss the Wasilla High art issue Wednesday, Bess said, and the PAC wants to meet with Spargo before taking any formal action. The council’s message to the principal will be clear, he said.

“We do not believe that there are any circumstances that justify the covering of a piece of public art,” he says in an email sent following Wednesday’s meeting. “It is unfortunate that this particular piece of public art was covered, no matter what the motives might have been.”

Prior to that meeting, Bess said he’s also concerned about Spargo’s leadership and handling of the controversy.

“If I were in that position of hearing threats that people would deface art, I would never be intimidated by a threat,” he said. “If it was a student and I knew who the student was, that student would be immediately suspended. I would never bow to any kind of threat from a student. Society cannot tolerate threats, you can’t.”

Spargo said she welcomes all opinions to the debate, but those who cry censorship “never had to run a school before. This is my judgment on how to move forward. The artists have been delightful people, they’re wonderful professionals, they delivered what the contract says. … But the (negative) response was large, and it was pretty consistent that there wasn’t a lot of appreciation; however, I don’t think there was any prep work on my part to prepare the student body for it. It’s a great concept about thinking about what it really means to be a warrior.”

As artists, Dobson and Dault say they have a fondness for the Percent For Art program, Dault said. Dobson also has been a teacher for 24 years.

“We poured our heart and soul into that piece, worked on it for nine months,” he said. “We are proud, and I think there needs to be some time spent with it, as with any piece of art.”

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
http://www.frontiersman.com/schools/under-wraps-wasilla-high-school-sculpture-covered-after-concerns-voiced/article_855dcbd2-5924-11e1-a773-0019bb2963f4.html

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2012-02-15
Windy City Times
http://www.windycitymediagroup…..36212.html

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal district court ruled today that the Camdenton R-III School District must stop censoring web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities through discriminatory filtering software. The ruling orders the district to not block content based on the viewpoints expressed by the website.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit against the district in August 2011 after repeated warnings that its custom-built filtering software discriminates against LGBT content. The filter has a category that blocks LGBT-supportive information, including hundreds of websites that are not sexually explicit in any way. The filter does, however, allow students to view anti-LGBT sites that condemn homosexuality or opposed legal protections for LGBT people.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Camdenton High School student and LGBT organizations whose websites are blocked by the filter: PFLAG National (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Campus Pride and DignityUSA, a Catholic LGBT organization. The plaintiffs were also represented by Thompson Coburn LLP.

“The court correctly recognized the constitutional rights of all students to viewpoint-neutral access to information,” said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project. “It is absolutely possible to protect children from sexually explicit content while also protecting their First Amendment rights. Like thousands of other school districts across the country, Camdenton R-III will now begin using a filtering system that blocks pornography without discriminating against LGBT-related content.”

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri said that the district's filtering system “systematically allows access to websites expressing a negative viewpoint toward LGBT individuals by categorizing them as 'religion,' but filters out positive viewpoints toward LGBT issues by categorizing them as 'sexuality.'” Although the district argued that it would unblock individual websites upon request the court held that “students may be deterred from accessing websites expressing a positive view toward LGBT individuals either by the inconvenience of having to wait twenty-four hours for access or by the stigma of knowing that viewpoint has been singled out as less worthy by the school district and the community.”

The court also concluded that other filtering systems are available that “are much more effective” at filtering out pornography “and do so without burdening websites that express a positive viewpoint toward LGBT individuals.”

“The filtering system that had been installed at Camdenton R-III was arbitrary, ineffective and discriminatory,” said Anthony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. “Today's ruling affirms that students will be free to search for resources for their gay-straight alliance, seek support against bullying and research history as it pertains to LGBT people, just as they would for any other subject.”

More about this case can be found at:http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-right…..l-district

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14th February 2012
Student Press Law Center

http://www.splc.org/wordpress/?p=3199

Unless an outbreak of common sense sweeps through the Statehouse, Indiana is about to become the most frightening place in America to be a kid.

House Bill 1169, pushed by the special-interest lobbyists for school administrators, would unleash school principals to control essentially anything their students do – anytime, anywhere – that they disapprove of.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, would let public schools suspend or expel students who do or say anything that may “reasonably be considered to be an interference with school purposes or an educational function,” even on a Saturday at the shopping mall.

A hearing on the bill is set for Wednesday in front of the Senate Education Committee. It has already passed the House.

While the bill is being sold to the public as a response to cyberbullying, the word “bullying” appears nowhere in it, and the authority it would grant to schools is in no way limited to policing student-on-student attacks.

If the bill becomes law, schools will be able to completely shut down the discussion of any topic they find disagreeable, since it is almost always possible to argue that stirring up public dissent “interferes” with school purposes. Whistleblowers and journalists will be the first to suffer.

Students have already lost the ability to discuss controversial issues on school grounds during school time – thanks to principals like Illinois’s Bob Miller. Last school year, Miller used his authority as principal of St. Charles East High School to stop student journalists from writing about public reaction to the removal of a popular coach, and about the prevalence of hazing among athletic teams.

It is this kind of “public-relations-run-wild” behavior that House Bill 1169 would unleash on students 24/7. Students will face suspension or expulsion just because the principal decides that a student’s comments in a letter-to-the-editor of the local newspaper, or in an interview with a television station, might “interfere” with his ability to promote a positive image.

Because students can no longer blow the whistle on school wrongdoing and mismanagement during the school day, it’s essential that they can safely to do so when they leave the campus without fear of retaliation.

Schools can already punish illegal off-campus conduct, such as being caught dealing drugs. If the behavior is not illegal but is merely unhealthy or antisocial, there are remedies short of suspension – chief among them, calling in the parents. (Remember them?)

The disciplinary system in most public schools is already badly broken. Study after study has documented that suspensions are handed out in a racially discriminatory manner, for minor (and at times imaginary) violations that used to be dealt with by a stern lecture. Dumping thousands more cases into that system is the equivalent of pouring ten gallons of water into a leaky five-gallon jug.

If HB 1169 becomes law, it will not be long before we see principals suspending the girl whose weekend wardrobe “interferes” with the school’s ability to promote a professional appearance, or whose fondness for rap music “interferes” with the teaching of proper grammar.

Worse, the principal seeking to conceal his school’s hazing problem will be empowered to tell student journalists, “Not only am I pulling that story from the newspaper, but if I catch you complaining to the school board or the press, I’ll consider that ‘interference with school purposes’ and have you expelled.”

Anyone who doubts that principals would behave so nonsensically need remember only two words: “Zero tolerance.” We have already seen the disastrous consequences when school administrators are turned loose to punish anything that remotely resembles a weapon or a drug. A principal who cannot tell the difference between a cake-cutter and a chainsaw cannot be trusted to distinguish between bullying and journalism.

Fortunately, HB 1169 is certain to collapse if constitutionally challenged. In the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent ruling on student speech rights, Morse v. Frederick, Justice Samuel Alito – who cast the decisive vote – wrote an opinion that strongly cautioned against giving schools authority over anything that “interferes with a school’s educational mission,” almost the exact words chosen by Rep. Koch.

“The ‘educational mission’ of the public schools is defined by the elected and appointed public officials with authority over the schools and by the school administrators and faculty. As a result, some public schools have defined their educational missions as including the inculcation of whatever political and social views are held by the members of these groups,” Alito warned.

We would be outraged if any government agency other than a school lobbied for the power to silence criticism and dissent. We should be equally outraged when the lobbying comes from principals and superintendents. Government officials who seek to insulate themselves against questioning are the ones most urgently in need of it.

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February 10, 2012 – MSNBC – http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_…..xperts-say

Parents angry about Facebook use now have their poster child. He’s a dad wielding a .45 pistol, who posted a YouTube video showing him firing bullets through his daughter’s laptop computer as an act of discipline.

The shooter, who identifies himself as Tommy Jordan from North Carolina, has not yet responded to requests for comment, so it’s not possible to verify the authenticity of the stunt, in which he allegedly “executed” the laptop after his daughter posted a profanity-laced note on her Facebook page.

No matter: it’s sparked a firestorm of debate. In less than 24 hours, the laptop-pistol video has garnered more than 1.5 million views, many of them parents cheering the uploader’s depiction of tough love.

“I thought the video was great. I can only imagine the look on his daughter’s face when she saw that on her Facebook page,” wrote one.

“Sometimes to get your point across to a child (especially a teenager) you have to get their attention. These days that’s hard to do. So he found a way to get her attention.”

Still another: “I applaud it. She’ll think twice before she hits the enter button next time. PS. Nice shot.”

Other parents reacted with shock at the public humiliation apparently inflicted on the teenager by her father.

Monica Vila runs an online forum for parents struggling to deal with technology and teen issues called The OnlineMom.com. She falls into the shocked crowd.

“When I saw it for the first time, I got chills,” she said. “And when I saw people cheering him on, I got chills again.”

She’s heard from thousands of frustrated parents through her site, and she’s even heard stories of parents hurling laptop computers out the window when children were disobedient. But she’s never seen such a public attempt to embarrass a child.

The shooter in the video isn’t acting like a parent, she said: he’s acting like a peer, taking out his frustration.

“For the life of me I can’t understand what the lesson here is,” she said. “If you think about it, he basically just threw a similar temper tantrum to the one his daughter threw, except this one with bullets.”

In the video, the man says his daughter had posted a profanity-laced comment on Facebook criticizing him, believing he couldn’t see it. Using his skills as an IT worker, he did, a fact he mentions several times in the 8-minute video.

“Her actions merited some punishment, but he’s basically saying, I’m more badass than you,” said Vila. “Plus, the way the whole thing is choreographed. It’s not about parenting. It’s about him, he’s mad, and he has a gun.”

Parents have plenty of reason to feel angry — even desperate — about kids’ use of social networks. It’s not unusual that they’d try something extreme to get their kids’ attention, she said.

“I do see the frustration parents feel,” she said. “But the applause of other parents saying, ‘Yay,’ comes from their unwillingness to jump in and be parents in the platform that their kids are playing in.”

Betsy Brown Braun, a child development and behavior specialist, is sympathetic to the anger parents feel when faced with rebellious teen-agers. She even conceded that the video has high entertainment value, with the dad puffing on a cigarette while sporting a cowboy hat.

“The reason it’s gotten people cheering it on is because parents are frustrated, she said. “ Teenagers are impossible. He was doing what any parent would like to do. They are living vicariously through him.”

In fact, most parents have probably fantasized about doing something similar. The difference is, they thought better of it, Braun said.

“The sane parents have stopped themselves,” she said. “The difference between a sane, mature person and a child is that the mature parent is able to stop their impulses and do appropriate things that can help a child grow. It may not be what you want to do right now, what feels good, but it’s the thing that’s going to benefit the child three months, six months, years from now.”

When Braun works with parents, she often hears some version of, “You don’t know what it’s like!” But as the mother of triplets, she had to deal with three teenagers at once. Some of her experiences are chronicled in the books she’s written on raising children, including “Just Tell Me What To Say,” and “You’re Not the Boss of Me.”

She said her main concern about the father’s actions in the video is the example they set.

“This models exactly what you don’t want kids to do when they are upset,” she said. “This is about how you handle rage. It’s the

poorest example of shooting from the hip you could imagine.”

But she saw something in the video that many observers might have missed.

“I heard this as a cry for help. This guy is in trouble. The communication is so bad between them that, in this case, they are both acting like angry 5-year-olds,” she said. “Teenagers can really be impossible. … You get to the point where you say, ‘I’ve had it. You are driving me crazy!’ But he needs other tools for dealing with this.”

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February 8, 2012
The Moral Liberal
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/02/08/eleventh-circuit-affirms-ruling-against-former-valdosta-state-president-in-victory-for-student-rights/

ATLANTA, February 8, 2012—In a victory for student rights, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a unanimous decision late yesterday in the case of Barnes v. Zaccari, holding that former Valdosta State University (VSU) President Ronald M. Zaccari may be found personally liable for violating the due process rights of former VSU student T. Hayden Barnes. Barnes first came to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help in October 2007.

“This landmark ruling from the Eleventh Circuit leaves no doubt that university administrators who choose to ignore the due process rights of their students do so at their peril,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “For too long, college administrators have blatantly ignored their students’ constitutional rights when they deemed it convenient. With this decision, it appears that courts are finally ready to make them personally pay for that abuse of power.”

Barnes’ ordeal began in the spring of 2007, when he peacefully protested Zaccari’s plan to spend $30 million of student fee money to construct two parking garages on campus. By posting flyers and sending emails to Zaccari, student and faculty governing bodies, and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, Barnes expressed his concerns and proposed what he saw as environmentally friendly alternatives. Barnes also penned a letter to the editor of the VSU student newspaper about the proposed parking garage plans and wrote to Zaccari to ask for an exemption from the mandatory student fee designated for funding the construction.

In response to Barnes’ activism, Zaccari personally ordered that he be “administratively withdrawn” from VSU, ignoring the concerns raised by members of his administration. Zaccari claimed that Barnes presented a “clear and present danger” to both Zaccari and the VSU campus on the basis of a cut-and-paste collage Barnes had posted on his Facebook page that included pictures of Zaccari, a parking deck, and the caption “S.A.V.E.—Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage.” Barnes was given no notice or opportunity to defend himself, and came to FIRE for help. In January 2008, Barnes filed suit in cooperation with eminent First Amendment attorney and FIRE Legal Network member Robert Corn-Revere of Davis Wright Tremaine in Washington, D.C.

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision affirms a federal district court’s September 2010 ruling that denied qualified immunity to Zaccari at this stage in the proceedings. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia found that because Zaccari expelled Barnes without notice or a hearing, Zaccari violated Barnes’ constitutional right to due process. In its opinion, the district court ruled that because Zaccari ignored “clearly established” law in punishing Barnes, Zaccari could not avail himself of the defense of “qualified immunity,” and could be found personally liable for damages.

“The Eleventh Circuit’s decision is a clear win for student rights,” said Will Creeley, FIRE’s Director of Legal and Public Advocacy. “It’s been nearly five years since Hayden was unconstitutionally kicked out of Valdosta State, but justice is on its way.”

FIRE has aided Barnes since learning of his case in October 2007. FIRE wrote repeatedly to University System of Georgia officials, urging them to undo VSU’s unlawful actions and uphold the Constitution within the university system. Under pressure from FIRE and the federal lawsuit against Zaccari and other VSU administrators, the Board of Regents finally reversed Barnes’ expulsion early in 2008, and Zaccari retired months earlier than planned. Under further pressure from FIRE, former VSU President Patrick J. Schloss dismantled VSU’s unconstitutional free speech zone in September 2008.

FIRE’s amici curiae brief to the Eleventh Circuit was joined by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Cato Institute, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Feminists for Free Expression, the Individual Rights Foundation, the Libertarian Law Council, the National Association of Scholars, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the National Youth Rights Association, Reason Foundation, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, and Students For Liberty. Atlanta-based attorney Cory G. Begner of Begner & Begner, P.C. represented FIRE and all signatory organizations in the brief’s filing.

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February 09, 2012
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/09/virginia-school-district-considers-ban-on-cross-dressing-students/

A Virginia school district is considering banning cross-dressing by students, out of what one board member called concerns for the safety of “several” male students who wear dresses and wigs to school.

The Suffolk Board of Education plans to take up the issue at a meeting Thursday night, amid criticism that such a ban would violate students’ First Amendment rights. The proposal explicitly bans clothing “not in keeping with a student’s gender,” distracts others from the educational process or poses health concerns. Board members will not vote on the proposal, which would take effect next year if approved.

“So there’s plenty of time for discussion,” district spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw told FoxNews.com.

Bradshaw said the proposal stems from concerns raised by Board Vice Chairwoman Thelma Hinton, who cited reports during a recent board meeting about male students who wore feminine clothing last year and had to use faculty restrooms due to safety concerns.

Hinton, who did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday, told MyFox43tv.com the problem was brought to her attention by teachers. She said she knows of several male students who wore makeup, wigs and dresses to class.

“My main concern is [the] safety of those individuals,” Hinton told the station. “Freedom of expression is good, but there is a limitation. Anytime there is a threat upon a child, to me, that’s where you draw the line of freedom of expression.”

Bradshaw said district officials, to her knowledge, had not received any complaints regarding the potential change. But some students in the district and local civil liberties organizations believe the matter is a “clear First Amendment issue” that ultimately will not be instituted.

John Whitehead, an attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties group, said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that students can express themselves with clothing as long as it doesn’t cause a “substantial” disruption in school. He cited previous cases in which white students were barred from wearing Confederate flag T-shirts in predominantly African-American schools as an example of a substantial disruption.

“But a kid wearing a dress or something, or a girl wearing a tuxedo, most kids today don’t care,” Whitehead told FoxNews.com. “So it wouldn’t cause a substantial disruption. To me, it’s a clear First Amendment issue. It’s ridiculous.”

Whitehead said board members will have to prove that wearing nongender-specific clothing will cause a significant disruption in or out of the classroom, particularly if it leads to some sort of violence. He said discussions he’s had with teachers in the district revealed that the proposal is coming from “one or two teachers” in the district, rather than students themselves.

“The students don’t care, it’s one or two teachers,” he said. “We have to teach them that they have these [First Amendment] rights or else they’ll grow up and think they don’t have them. Today, gender is a subjective thing.”

Whitehead said he thinks the “overly vague” proposal will ultimately be slowed down due in part to “bad press” the district has received since the proposal was drafted.

In addition to clothing “not in keeping with a student’s gender,” the 13-point student dress regulation proposal also seeks to ban sexually suggestive attire, sagging pants, any article of clothing that advertises alcohol or an illegal substance, clothing with slogans or words across the buttocks, sleepwear and head covering unless worn for religious or medical reasons.

Suffolk Public Schools, located in Suffolk, Va., serves more than 14,000 students in 19 schools, including 12 elementary and three high schools.

Sean Artis, a senior at King’s Fork High School, said he believes the proposal is wrong, saying “people express themselves” in different ways. Artis said a former classmate who was opened gay dressed in women’s clothing every day to school — and was never a distraction.

“I’ve talked with the guy and he’s perfectly fine,” Artis told MyFox43tv.com. “There is nothing wrong with him. It’s just the way he feels and if he feels he can express himself that way, he should.”

Messages seeking comment from Superintendent Deran Whitney and other school board members were not immediately returned early Thursday.

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02/8/2012
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/arizona-state-senate-to-c_b_1260291.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

In what has to be the most hilariously unconstitutional piece of legislation that I’ve seen in quite some time, senators in the Arizona state legislature have introduced a bill that would require all educational institutions in the state — including state universities — to suspend or fire professors who say or do things that aren’t allowed on network TV. Yes, you read that right: at the same time the Supreme Court is poised to decide if FCC-imposed limits on “indecent” content in broadcast media are an anachronism from a bygone era, Arizona state legislators want to limit what college professors say and do to only what is fit for a Disney movie (excluding, of course, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. After all, those films are PG-13!).

But don’t take my word for it, here is the full text of the bill (SB 1467) as it currently stands:

15-108. Public classrooms; compliance with federal standards for media broadcasts concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity; violations; definition
A. If a person who provides classroom instruction in a public school engages in speech or conduct that would violate the standards adopted by the federal communications commission concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity if that speech or conduct were broadcast on television or radio:

1. For the first occurrence, the school shall suspend the person, at a minimum, for one week of employment, and the person shall not receive any compensation for the duration of the suspension. This paragraph does not prohibit a school after the first occurrence from suspending the person for a longer duration or terminating the employment of that person.

2. For the second occurrence, the school shall suspend the person, at a minimum, for two weeks of employment, and the person shall not receive any compensation for the duration of the suspension. This paragraph does not prohibit a school after the second occurrence from suspending the person for a longer duration or terminating the employment of that person.

3. For the third occurrence, the school shall terminate the employment of the person. This paragraph does not prohibit a school after the first or second occurrence from terminating the employment of that person.

B. For the purposes of this section, “public school” means a public preschool program, a public elementary school, a public junior high school, a public middle school, a public high school, a public vocational education program, a public community college or a public university in this state.

You catch all that? The bill doesn’t even require that the profanity be uttered in the classroom, it just generally says that if a professor or, for that matter, a K-12 teacher, engages in FCC-regulated conduct or speech at all, he or she can lose their job. Of course, even if this were limited strictly to classroom speech it would still be laughed out of court as unconstitutional on its face.

Irony abounds in this law, especially when you consider that it would require law professors to be suspended for discussing two of the most important Supreme Court cases regarding the First Amendment and free speech on campus. The first is the ever-famous case of Cohen v. California (1971), in which the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen could not be punished for wearing a jacket emblazoned with the slogan “Fuck the Draft.” Indeed, the Court rightly noted in its decision that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” Meanwhile, one of the most important cases involving free speech on campus is Papish v. Board of Curators (1973), in which the Supreme Court protected speech that would never be allowed on network TV, including the headline “Motherfucker Acquitted.” In defending the rights of student journalist Barbara Papish, the Court wrote, “the mere dissemination of ideas — no matter how offensive to good taste — on a state university campus may not be shut off in the name alone of ‘conventions of decency.’”

But the proposed AZ law goes much farther than the unconstitutional censorship in the Papish case. The law not only hobbles the ability to teach about sexuality and other non-Victorian topics, but it also puts teachers in jeopardy for teaching such mainstays as The Canterbury Tales, The Catcher in the Rye, certainly Ulysses, and probably every work by an obscure English writer named William Shakespeare. These days, such a law could certainly make any professor or teacher think twice about teaching Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut. And how on earth could you possibly teach a class about cinema studies without showing movies like The Godfather, The Graduate, Annie Hall, or for that matter, Pulp Fiction?

Legislators and, in many cases, campus bureaucrats need to know that real life and real education often includes “strong language and adult content.”

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mndaily.com
2012 / 02 / 07
http://www.mndaily.com/2012/02/07/let-high-schoolers-vote-age-14

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February 6, 2012.
Canadian Medical Association Journal

http://www.sciencenewsline.com/psychology/2012020618100005.html

An analysis of research on physical punishment of children over the past 20 years indicates that such punishment is potentially harmful to their long-term development, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Over the past 20 years, a growing body of research clearly indicates that children who have experienced physical punishment tend to be more aggressive toward parents, siblings, peers and, later, spouses, and are more likely to develop antisocial behaviour.

“Virtually without exception, these studies found that physical punishment was associated with higher levels of aggression against parents, siblings, peers and spouses,” write Dr. Joan Durrant, Department of Family Social Sciences, University of Manitoba, and Ron Ensom, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

In a trial of an intervention designed to reduce difficult behaviour in children, when parents in more than 500 families were trained to reduce their use of physical punishment, the difficult behaviours in the children also declined.

“Results consistently suggest that physical punishment has a direct causal effect on externalizing behaviour, whether through a reflexive response to pain, modeling or coercive family processes,” write the authors.

Physical punishment is also associated with a variety of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and use of drugs and alcohol. Physical punishment may change areas in the brain linked to performance on IQ tests and increase vulnerability to drug or alcohol dependence, as recent neuroimaging studies suggest. Attitudes toward the use of physical punishment have changed, and many countries have shifted focus to positive discipline of children and have legally abolished physical punishment.

Physicians can play an important role in advising parents on constructive approaches to discipline, based on evidence, to enhance children’s healthy development.

“Physicians have a primary responsibility for translating research and evidence into guidance for parents and children, and they are credible and influential voices for advancing public education and policy concerning population health,” state the authors. They can educate parents on typical childhood behaviours, suggest positive disciplinary approaches, and refer patients to public health and parenting programs and other resources.

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February 1, 2012
MariAn Gail Brown
Connecticut Post
http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/MariAn-Gail-Brown-Curfew-a-well-intentioned-bad-2883095.php

Inside Evolution Tattoos in downtown Bridgeport, there are samples of hundreds of possible designs for a customer, all neatly arranged in plastic protective sleeves to keep them from getting damaged.

Too bad there are no such containers we can put our kids in to keep them safe from harm. We can’t hermetically seal them from all dangers.

That’s exactly what one of Evolution’s tattoo artists, Adrian Albelo, would like to do with his five kids. So the notion of a proposed Bridgeport ordinance to keep kids under age 16 off the street from midnight on weekends and 11 p.m. weeknights sounds like a fine idea to him.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea what with all the killings going on of our kids,” Albelo, 25, says. “You can’t protect them late at night. And that’s usually when things happen — after midnight.”

Actually, the most dangerous times for kids is from 6 to 9 p.m., according to the National Youth Rights Association, which has reviewed crime stats around the country. But midnight is the witching hour. And somehow we want to believe that it’s the late-night hours, when large numbers of clubgoers and bar patrons spill out onto the street at closing time that’s the tricky time of the night.

The Bridgeport City Council’s desire to implement a juvenile curfew is admirable in that it seeks to do something about the threat of violence to our youth. But it’s more feel-good legislation than anything else.

What teens need is supervision by their moms, dads or guardians. That means real parental involvement. Actual conversation over dinner. (And no, sitting in the same room, watching TV while you eat does not equal a conversation). Someone who goes to parent-teacher conferences, checks their homework.

Kids need role models who work. Not an older, unemployed, gun-toting high school dropout who hangs out on the corner and pontificates on what’s cool between drags on his cigarette or joint. We can’t foist this responsibility onto government. That would be abdicating our rights to parent. And who’s to say such a curfew would be applied in an evenhanded manner to all teens out past the witching hour? So far, it’s unclear what happens to an arrested teen under Bridgeport’s proposed ordinance. Does he or she qualify for a trip home in a patrol cruiser? Or does someone at home get a call to pick up their kid at the police department? It’s easy to envision the Bridgeport police lock-up becoming a teen after-hours day care facility.

If kids commit a crime, arrest them. But if their ONLY offense is being out at the midnight hour, what they are really in need of is more parental involvement, not governmental intrusion.

Albelo describes himself as a strict parent who agrees with the idea of curfews “as long as the parents are part of it — imposing their own rules on kids. It shouldn’t have to take a killing like Justin (Thompson’s) to shake them up to get involved,” he says. “I’m OK with this because half the parents out here don’t know what their kids are doing.”

He speaks from some authority. Albelo was out of his house, living with friends by his early teens. Then his girlfriend got pregnant, and he dropped out of high school to support his new family. He worked at a barber shop, learned to cut hair. But he also got into fights, which resulted in some arrests, for which he received suspended sentences.

“You get to a certain age, and you ask yourself: `What kind of life do I want to live? What have I got to show for myself?’” Albelo says. “Once you have kids, your life is no longer about you, it’s about all the things you know you need to do for them — to be there in their life, to work, to make sure they’re healthy and safe.”

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the First Amendment Center

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/student-loses-case-involving-religious-message-in-speech

January 27, 2012

A school district in Craryville, N.Y., did not violate a former middle school student’s First Amendment rights when the principal told her to omit religious sentiments from her speech at a graduation-type event, a federal court has ruled.

The student, known in court papers as A.M., earned the right as co-president of her class to deliver a message at the annual “Moving Up Ceremony” in June 2009 at Taconic Hills Central School District. A.M. asked her English teacher to review her proposed speech.

The last line of the speech read: “As we say our goodbyes and leave middle school behind, I say to you, may the LORD bless you and keep you; make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” The English teacher told A.M. to consult with the principal. Her school counselor gave her similar advice.

Principal Neil Howard allegedly told A.M. that the last line “sounded too religious” and should be omitted. A.M.’s mother requested that Superintendent Mark Sposato review the matter. Sposato agreed with Howard. The superintendent said the religious message delivered by A.M. could violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Under the establishment clause, government bodies, including public schools, are barred from promoting religion.

A.M. delivered her message without the last line at the event. Soon, however, she sued the school district, Howard and Sposato in federal court, contending that they violated her free-speech rights. Specifically, she alleged that they discriminated against her on the basis of her religious viewpoint.

U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe of the Northern District of New York granted the school defendants summary judgment in his Jan. 23, 2012, ruling in A.M. v. Taconic Hills Central School District.

A.M. argued that the standard in the U.S. Supreme Court’s student-speech decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969) should control the analysis of the case. In Tinker, the Court ruled that school officials cannot censor student speech unless they can reasonably forecast that the speech will cause a substantial disruption of school activities or invade the rights of others.

However, the school district contended that the proper analysis should come from the student-press decision Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988). In Hazelwood, the Court ruled that school officials can censor school-sponsored student expression if they have a legitimate educational reason for doing so.

Tinker applies to student-initiated speech, while Hazelwood applies to school-sponsored speech. A.M. argued that Tinker applied because the ceremony was run by the student council. However, Sharpe found that the ceremony was school-sponsored, as the school provided the funds, podium and microphone. Additionally, the school’s letterhead adorned the event programs, announcements and other materials.

Sharpe said the school had a legitimate educational purpose in preventing the religious message from being spoken. He quoted Hazelwood for the proposition that one such legitimate purpose is “to refuse to sponsor student speech that might reasonably be perceived … to associate the school with any position other than neutrality on matters of political controversy.”

Sharpe noted that the school district had received complaints about a Christmas tree from the parents of a Jewish student and complaints from the parents of a Jehovah’s Witness student regarding the school’s Halloween activities.

“Given the past complaints Taconic received from the parents of the Jewish and Jehovah’s Witness students, and their desire to avoid violating the Establishment Clause, its decision to edit the last sentence of A.M.’s speech was reasonable,” he wrote.

A call placed to A.M.’s attorney was not returned.

School-district attorneys Patrick J. Fitzgerald III and Scott P. Quesnel told the First Amendment Center in an e-mail: “The District is pleased that the Federal Court has dismissed this lawsuit, and that it has confirmed that the School District acted appropriately and in accordance with the requirements of the First Amendment with respect to this matter at all times.”

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First Amendment Center

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/in-r-i-a-student%E2%80%99s-lesson-in-religious-freedom

January 27, 2012

At the tender age of 16, Jessica Ahlquist has already endured more verbal abuse than most people experience in a lifetime.

A high school student in Cranston, R.I., Jessica has been taunted and threatened at school, targeted by an online hate campaign, and called “an evil little thing” by a state representative on the radio.

Her crime? She asked school officials to remove a “school prayer” banner from the auditorium of Cranston West High School. Addressed to “Our Heavenly Father,” the prayer banner was presented to the school by the class of 1963 and has been affixed to the wall as a mural ever since.

At the School Committee hearing to consider the issue, public outrage turned the meeting into a religious revival. Angry citizens lined up to proclaim their allegiance to God, quote the Bible, and condemn Jessica to hell.

“If you take the banner down,” one woman testified, “you are spitting in the face of God.” Another banner supporter warned: “You can’t vote to take this down and say that you’re standing with God.”

After the School Committee bowed to public pressure and voted to keep the banner, Jessica’s father (supported by the American Civil Liberties Union) filed suit on her behalf.

On Jan. 11, U.S. District Judge Ronald Lagueux ruled in Jessica’s favor and ordered the banner removed. It was an easy case. For more than 60 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that promotion of religion by public school officials violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

“When focused on the Prayer Mural,” wrote the judge, “the activities and agenda of the Cranston School Committee became excessively entangled with religion, exposing the Committee to a situation where a loud and passionate majority encouraged it to vote to override the constitutional rights of a minority.”

Undeterred, supporters of the prayer banner are holding a “prayer rally” this week to urge the School Committee to keep fighting.

Jessica may be in the minority in Cranston, but she’s in good company as the latest in a long line of Rhode Island dissenters — beginning with the state’s founder, Roger Williams.

Williams, who was himself verbally attacked, was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 for objecting to the entanglement of religion and government that, he believed, corrupted both.

He founded Rhode Island as the first government in history with no established religion and a commitment to protect liberty of conscience for every person. As a deeply religious Christian minister, Williams vowed to put an end to centuries of oppression and coercion by erecting what he called “a wall or hedge of separation” between the “Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the World.”

Rhode Island was to be a “haven for the cause of conscience” where government stayed out of religion and all people (including Quakers, Catholics and others persecuted in surrounding colonies) would be free to choose in matters of faith.

If he were alive today, there’s little doubt that Roger Williams would be solidly in Jessica’s corner. He would view the “school prayer” banner as blasphemous state appropriation of religion. However big or small the issue, Williams believed that any state entanglement with religion violates conscience, divides society, and (most important for him) offends God.

Of course, keeping government neutral toward religion did not mean for Williams then, and does not mean now, keeping religion out of public life. He would applaud that Cranston students are free to pray alone or in groups (as long as they don’t disrupt school). Moreover, under current law, students may bring their scriptures to school, share their faith with classmates and form religious clubs.

You might think it would be easy to stand up for religious freedom in the birthplace of religious freedom — but apparently it isn’t. In Judge Lagueux’s words, Jessica Ahlquist “is clearly an articulate and courageous young woman, who took a brave stand, particularly in light of the hostile response she has received from her community.”

Thanks to Jessica, the spirit of Roger Williams — America’s first great dissenter — is alive and well in Rhode Island.

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First Amendment Law Prof Blog
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/firstamendment/2012/01/nh-law-authorizes-parental-override-of-objectionable-curriculum-material.html
January 26, 2012

HB 542, enacted after an override of the governor’s veto, states:

Require school districts to adopt a policy allowing an exception to specific course material based on a parent’s or legal guardian’s determination that the material is objectionable. Such policy shall include a provision requiring the parent or legal guardian to notify the school principal or designee in writing of the specific material to which they object and a provision requiring an alternative agreed upon by the school district and the parent, at the parent’s expense, sufficient to enable the child to meet state requirements for education in the particular subject area. The name of the parent or legal guardian and any specific reasons disclosed to school officials for the objection to the material shall not be public information and shall be excluded from access under RSA 91-A.

According to the Manchester Union Leader, the law was introduced in reaction to a controversy involving the use of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America” at Bedford High School. The law’s approach is a contrast to what has been deemed constitutionally required in cases such as Parker v. Hurley, 514 F.3d 87 (1st Cir. 2008) and Mozert v. Hawkins County Bd. of Educ. 827 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1987). The New York Times Room for Debate feature offers reactions to the New Hampshire law.

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NKY.com
01/13/12
http://cincinnati.com/blogs/nkypolitics/2012/01/13/bill-lowers-age-to-run-for-city-offices-in-kentucky/

At the age of 23, Elizabeth Fricke is one of the youngest elected officials in the state.

Fricke has started serving her third year on the city council of Kenton Vale, a city of about 110 people situated in between Covington and Fort Wright.

Legislation in the Kentucky General Assembly might encourage even younger politicians by dropping the minimum age to run for city offices to 18.

Kentucky law sets the minimum age to run for mayor at 25 and for a city legislative body at 21.

State Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Fort Wright, who in the early 1990s won election to Villa Hills City Council when he was 22, drafted the bill.

“I’m of the opinion if you are old enough to sign up for the armed forces, you ought to be able to run for office,” Koenig said. “I’ve encountered resistence from some legislators. Some argue they need more life experience, to which I say, I trust the voters are smart enough to decide whether someone has enough experience.”

Fricke said she would like to see other young people get involved in their towns. She grew up with a family involved in local politics–her dad’s on city council–and decided to run in 2008. Since then, she’s split her time as a public official and as a graduate student studying public administration. She also serves on regional boards, like the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission’s governing council.

Fricke said other young adults shouldn’t be afraid to run for public office.

“I say go for it,” Fricke said. “It is a positive experience. Even if you don’t have a successful campaign, in a short amount of time, you will gain a lot more more knowledge.”

Few people young people hold public office in Kentucky, according to a 2010 survey by the Kentucky League of Cities. Only 3.5 percent of elected officials in Kentucky cities are under the age of 30 and 8.5 percent below the age of 40, according to the Kentucky League of Cities. Most people elected in 2010 in Kentucky on the city level, 74 percent, are above the age of 50.

KLC opposes lowering the minimum age for the elected offices in cities, said J.D. Chaney, director of governmental affairs for KLC.

“Our board of directors considered it and they voted to oppose the legislation,” Chaney said. “In their discussion, they thought that, especially for the mayor’s position acting effectively as the chief executive officer of a city, that was too young and too inexperienced to successfully manage the city. They feel especially that the mayor’s position acting as a CEO for the city, managing personnel employees and day-to-day operations, needed some experience. They felt it was too young.”

Few states set an age limit for elected offices in cities, said Jeffrey Nadel, vice president of the National Youth Rights Association, an organization that has fought to lower the voting age to 16. The Kentucky House Republican Caucus’ research for Koenig’s bill claims 44 states allow 18-year-olds to run for city office.

“I would definitely say Kentucky is unusual in that regard,” Nadel said. “As sort of an observer looking at this from a common sense perspective, I think it is absurd to bar taxpaying adults capable of serving in the miliatry from holding office. If you don’t think they’re qualified, don’t vote for them.”

Ohio law sets the minimum age for city offices at 18. Indiana doesn’t have a statewide minimum age for city offices.

If politicians want young people involved in the electoral process, young people will need the ability to run for office, said Luke Hall, 19, a freshman at Miami University studying political science. After graduating from Lakota East High School in the spring of 2010, Hall last fall ran for the school board in the Lakota school district.

“You hear a lot during elections about youth advocacy and getting young people involved,” Hall said. “Some of that stems from the fact young people don’t feel they can have a real impact on the way things are done. At least giving them the chance to have a campaign gives them that sense they can actually have an impact.”

Hall didn’t get elected, but found the experience rewarding.

“I know I got a lot of young people involved in my campaign,” Hall said. “Hopefully, I kind of brought them into the political process. Regarding the race in general, I think I brought up some of the issues from a different perspective when it comes to solving problems.”

Kentucky’s age limit has caused few, if any, election issues, some officials said. Campbell County Clerk Jack Snodgrass can only remember two people under the age of 30 running for office in his 20 years as county clerk. Bryan Williams at the age of 25 ran for Newport mayor and lost in 2008. Current Newport City Commissioner John Hayden first won election in 2007 at the age of 26. Snodgrass supports lowering the age to run for city offices.

“I think it is still up to the voters of that municipality,” Snodgrass said. “If they are old enough to fight a war and lose their life, they can run for city office.”

Running for Ludlow City Council at the age of 24 didn’t pose a problem for Joshua Boone in 2010. He won a seat on the council. He thinks young candidates can provide different ideas and supports lowering the age of candidacy to 18.

“I guess my instincts are in favor of any young person getting into politics,” Boone said. “It is good to have fresh blood that hasn’t been hand picked by the political establishment.”

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January 12, 2012 – ABC – http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/he…..NNFANS.com

An Indiana mom has been criticized nationally for making her 14-year-old son wear a sign proclaiming, “I lie, I steal, I sell drug, I don’t follow the law.” But the woman, Dynesha Lax, said she resents the accusations that she is a bad mother.

“I’ve done therapy with my son. I’ve done positive reinforcement. I’ve done negative reinforcement. I’ve done mommy-and-me days. I’ve even called the police on him,” Lax said. “But everything seems to be taken lightly. Nobody is taking seriously that these are serious offenses.”

She said he has been acting up since a young age and that while none of her responses have worked, she refused to give up. “He’s already lying, stealing, trying to sell drugs. We’ve got three-and-a-half years until I don’t have control anymore,” Lax said. “I’m not going to let the streets have my son.”

Lax also has a 16-year-old son with a 3.9 GPA who plays football, basketball and runs track. She said he has never been in trouble or even to the principal’s office.

“Those are hard shoes to fill but we went through so much to let him know he doesn’t have to be the same,” Lax said. “But he has to follow the rules and follow the law.”

When Lax sent her son from the family’s Fort Wayne, Ind., home to spend a few hours wearing the sign outside, someone called the police. When they arrived, she said, they told her that although her tactic was unconventional, it was not illegal.

“It was meant to be a simple punishment. It was done on our own property,” Lax said. “I’m really disappointed that people would think I’m a bad mom for what I’ve done.”

Her son showed no emotion or remorse while standing roadside with the sign strapped on, Lax said, but has told her that he’s going to try harder to change.

“One of the main things that today’s teens are doing is they’re trying to fit in socially,” Lax said. “Maybe he’s doing this to impress other kids because he’s not doing this to impress anyone at home. I figured if I knock him off his high horse, it would give him a reality check.”

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Some New Orleans residents are up in arms criticizing their city council for adopting a law they believe was passed to keep low-income Blacks out of sight of tourists.

On Thursday, the New Orleans City Council approved a strict curfew for people 16 and younger in the French Quarter. The ordinance revises a long-standing 11 P.M. curfew on Friday and Saturday nights to 8 P.M. in the area. In the rest of the city, an 11 P.M. curfew remains.

To many, it may seem like a good idea: Children are restricted from areas with strip clubs, a large nightlife zone and 350 places to buy booze. But on further inspection, to others, the ban doesn’t appear as harmless.

In numerous emotional meetings, a large number of participants, mainly African-Americans, criticized the idea, alleging that the lawmakers simply do not want Black teens to be viewed by tourists.

“There is this desire not to have these Black males in the French Quarter,” Tracie L. Washington, an attorney who heads the Louisiana Justice Institute, a nonprofit civil rights group, told the Los Angeles Times.

In response, Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, whose district includes the French Quarter, and who also wrote the ordinance, said the legislation is meant to protect children from violent acts like the Halloween night shootings that took place last year, where two people were killed and a dozen injured.

Despite the councilwoman’s claims, Washington and others have called for an African-American boycott of the French Quarter to begin on Dr. Martin Luther King Day, January 16.

This isn’t the first time legislation allegedly meant to make the public safer has offended groups, however. When Michael Bloomberg defended New York City’s stop and frisk policies claiming that they are one of the most effective ways to bring down crime, the American Civil Liberties Union found that 88 percent of the 360,000 people stopped and frisked in the first six months of 2011 were innocent and 51 percent were Black.

Additionally, when state legislatures across the country claimed that new, restrictive voting laws would make voting more equal, the NAACP among other groups found that African-Americans and minorities would be disproportionately, and negatively, affected.

Although New Orleans has seen a remarkable rebuilding effort since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the city still must contend with the racial disparities and injustices that have marked its history.

BET
1-10-12

http://www.bet.com/news/national/2012/01/09/the-new-orleans-curfew-keeping-young-blacks-away-from-tourists.html

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National Public Radio
January 6, 2012
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/06/144789189/middle-aged-brains-are-already-past-their-prime?live=1

You may want to read this twice if you’re older than 45. In fact, you may have to.

That’s because your mental abilities are already in decline, according to a study of 7,390 British civil servants just published in BMJ, the British Medical Journal.

For men and women who were between 45 and 49 when first tested, the ability to reason declined 3.6 percent over the next decade, the study found. And the decline was even faster for people in their 50s and 60s, especially men.

Other mental abilities that faded included memory, and so-called verbal fluency, which measures a person’s ability to quickly say words in a particular category. However, people’s vocabulary didn’t change.

Previous studies have found little evidence of cognitive decline until people turn 60. But this study was larger than most earlier efforts and took the unusual step of testing each participant three times over 10 years.

The results suggest that efforts to head off mental problems late in life need to begin in middle age, the study’s authors write at the end of their paper. These efforts should include “aggressive control” of problems such as diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure, which are linked to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, they say.

Perhaps, says epidemiologist Francine Grodstein of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study. The problem is that “we don’t know yet how to prevent the small amounts of decline which begin to happen at younger ages,” she says.

Even so, it may well turn out that the same things that affect memory at older ages also make a difference for younger people, Grodstein says. If so, “living a healthy lifestyle (e.g., a good diet, physical activity, etc.) starting at young ages might protect our brains when we’re older,” she says.

And even if you notice some lapses in memory as you age, there are likely to be other realms of thinking and decision-making where you improve. Barbara Strauch, author of The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind, says people’s feeling of well-being is highest when they hit middle age. And some research indicates that older brains are better at solving problems than younger ones.

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More than 55 percent of Mlive.com readers say the best way to curb underage drinking is to lower the drinking age, according to a poll yesterday.

Readers were asked “What is the best way to curb underage drinking?” and were given several options for solving the problem, including: lowering the drinking age, raising the drinking age, alcohol education, and tagging kegs. Another option was ‘Who cares, underage drinking isn’t a problem.’

The Saginaw News reported Friday that business owners were experiencing problems as a result of a new law that requires keg retailers to tag kegs sold in the state after Nov. 1. The law went into effect in an effort to curb underage drinking by giving liability to the person renting a keg.

One party store owner said he went from selling between four and five kegs weekly to only selling two the entire month of November.

He said the goal was noble– keeping alcohol away from minors, but to avoid the liability, instead of purchasing kegs, people bought cases of beer.

What do you think? What is the best way to curb underage drinking? Vote in our poll and sound off in the comments!

Another store owner said that the new law caused him and his employees additional hassles that weren’t necessarily worth the time and money it cost to obey the law.

Mlive.com user pogo_possum said:

If a 18 year is allowed to enlist in the military, they should be allowed to consume adult beverages.

Another reader, jortiz682, said legalizing marijuana was the best way to solve underage drinking issues.

Best way to curb underage drinking? Legalize marijuana. Seriously. Even in the worst case scenario, less drunks and more potheads is still a net gain for society.

wrturner recommends alcohol education:

The only thing we can do is talk to young people, educate them as best we can, and we’ve already made it against the law. Beyond that, it’s a free country which means you are free to do smart things and also free to do dumb things. These liberty killing laws and regulations we institute in the attempt to “nudge” the citizenry away from making mistakes (like this keg issue) is not the role of government, at least not in our consitutional republic. We don’t want or need nannies, and it is extremely harmful to our liberty to allow government that kind of power.

The Saginaw News
December 8, 2011
http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2011/12/mlivecom_readers_overwhelmingl.html

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December 13, 2011 – Chicago Sun-Times – http://www.suntimes.com/lifest…..ssons.html

A recent study led by the University of Texas at Austin has found the majority of parents still use corporal punishment to discipline their children. According to the research, 89 percent of African-American parents spank, as do 80 percent of Hispanic parents, 79 percent of Caucasian parents, and 73 percent of Asian parents.

These statistics seem surprisingly high considering what we know about the negative effects of spanking. Numerous studies have found that the destructive and far-reaching effects of spanking can follow a child long after the punishment has ended. Kids who are spanked are more likely to suffer from aggression, low self-esteem and low I.Q., and they also are more likely to suffer from substance abuse and domestic violence as adults.

The negative effects don’t end there. A 2008 study found children who were spanked were more likely to suffer from sexual problems later in life, including risky sex, forced sex and masochistic sexual behavior. Some clinicians believe that this is because when a child is spanked by someone who nurtures him and protects him, he begins to associate love with violence and pain with pleasure.

Spanking is dangerous from a sexual abuse standpoint, because it can accidentally teach the child his body is not his own and that adults have the right to touch him even if it makes him uncomfortable or hurts him. If a predator ever does touch him, he won’t necessarily have the tools and the confidence to resist and ask for help.

Despite all the information we now have about the long-term effects of physical punishment, there are many misconceptions about spanking that still make it a popular method of discipline, such as:

Spanking isn’t the same as hitting. Due to the use of popular euphemisms like “spanking” or “swatting,” some people wrongly believe that spanking isn’t the same thing as hitting. Yet that’s exactly what it is. It is a form of physical punishment used to inflict pain and instill fear. It teaches a child that it is OK to hit when you are angry or when you want to gain control of the situation. It teaches a child that the bigger person is in control and that their worth and value is not in their own hands.

Spanking is in the Bible. Pro-spanking factions tend to recite the popular phrase “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” which is often wrongly attributed to the Bible. It’s actually a line from a satirical poem penned hundreds of years ago, and a rod wasn’t something used to punish or spank children in biblical days. It was the staff a shepherd used to guide his flock (not hit them), and while biblical references to parenting are pro-discipline, none of them advocate physical punishment as the necessary or preferred method.

No spanking means no discipline. People often wrongly assume that a lack of spanking in the home equals a lack of respect or discipline. Yet there are several methods of parenting and discipline that do not involve physical punishment, and in fact, these have been shown to be more effective tools over the years. While spanking might stop a child in his tracks for the moment, it doesn’t shape his character or give him the resources he needs to make better decisions in the future.

It is time to usher in an era of parenting built on communication, discipline, mutual respect and even tenderness. Perhaps we finally can have a generation of children who grow up learning that hitting is never OK and violence is never the answer. For alternatives to spanking go to stophitting.com or check out Without Spanking or Spoiling:
A Practical Approach to Toddler and Preschool Guidance by Elizabeth Crary or 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan.

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