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Rightwing Radio Show Postpones Madison Teach-In
Posted December 10, 2002 thepeoplesvoice.org
McCarthyism Watch
"We will be regularly updating the
site with examples of the New McCarthyism that is sweeping the
country." The Progressive
http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc120602.html
I've been doing these McCarthyism Watch
updates for just about a year, and now here's one where I have a cameo. I
and two other peace activists were supposed to address an anti-Iraq War
teach-in at Memorial High School in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 3. About
twenty students and a faculty adviser had planned the teach-in over the
course of a month. They'd made up posters and leaflets and were all set to
go with the teach-in. But the day before it was supposed to happen, a
student involved with the Young Republicans went on a local rightwing radio
program and complained that the teach-in was unbalanced. He and the host,
Chris Kroc, drummed up enough negative calls and e-mails to the school
administration-some referring to the school district as "subversive and
anti-American," according to the Capital Times-that within a matter of
hours, the school superintendent, Art Rainwater, postponed the teach-in.
For cover, Rainwater dusted off an old policy
that reads: "In the study of controversial issues, provision is made in
the Madison Metropolitan School District for the pupil to study under
competent instruction in an atmosphere as free as possible from bias and
prejudice." The policy further states that teacher should "develop
a classroom atmosphere in which pupils feel free to express opinions and to
challenge ideas," and the teacher should "choose suitable
instructional materials presenting data on varying points of view on issues
being discussed." Rainwater said the organizers of the teach-in should
try to find representatives of the other side before the teach-in could be
held. (The principal of the school, Pam Nash, had previously offered the
Young Republicans the opportunity to hold their own teach-in.)
Students have held teach-ins in Madison's
public schools for more than three decades without having the superintendent
of schools micromanage the speakers' roster. And Rainwater's cited policy
appears to apply to classroom instruction, not assemblies, which are
voluntary, as the teach-in was to be. (It was scheduled to be held during
the last two classes of the day.)
"If that rule had been hanging on my
classroom wall, I would not have interpreted it as saying we don't have the
right to have that teach-in," says social studies teacher Pat Calchina,
who was advising the student group. "It was a weak excuse to quiet the
rightwing. And I'm just so enraged, frustrated, and disappointed with
administrators who don't have the backbone to stand up to the them."
Calchina points out that the invoked policy
seems to contradict the "Student Bill of Rights" for the district.
Under a section entitled "Freedom of Political Activity," it says:
"Students shall have the privilege to plan and carry out voluntary
forums, assemblies, seminars, and school programs of a political nature so
long as they do not substantially disrupt or pose a clear and present danger
to school operations."
Bill Keys, president of the school board,
also disagrees with Rainwater's decision. "It was unfortunate to be
bowing to media pressure," he says. The students who were organizing
the teach-in were astonished at the decision. "My first reaction was
shock that he could do something that was so blatantly against our student
rights," says Rachel Blumenfeld, a sophomore with the student group
Peace Action Changing Tomorrow (PACT). "And then of course I was
extremely disappointed. We were working so hard. When you put your passion
and your lifeblood into something and then see it not happen, that's just
really traumatic for me."
Blumenfeld says the rule that Superintendent
Rainwater invoked "was extremely arbitrary. It's never been used
before." The experience of working on the teach-in has been a difficult
one for her. "I've been getting exceedingly negative feedback from day
one," she says. "I've been called a stoner, a stupid stoner
hippie. I've gotten a lot of 'I'm anti-American' stuff, though if anything
I'm more of a patriot for trying to encourage discussion, which is what
democracy is about. But this has brought out an amazing amount of anger in
people. They've defaced my posters, and some were even found in the
urinals."
Blumenfeld says that hostile students, and at
least one teacher, were tearing down the posters that PACT had put up. The
school administration had approved the posters, and the stamp of approval
was visible on them, she adds. The school is allowing the group to hold a
teach-in on December 13 so long as it meets the district's requirement of
balance. "We are going to do a both-sided teach-in," she says.
"And we may have to organize their side for them if they don't get it
together."
For my part, I was almost amused at first to
be embroiled in the very kind of censorship I've been reporting on for
months now. But the more I thought about it, the more miffed I became that I
was not allowed to participate in this teach-in as scheduled. But much more
than my own pique, I care about what lessons this incident is teaching our
high school students. Is it teaching them that their free speech rights are
inviolate, or that they can be taken away at a moment's notice by the whim
of a person in authority? Is it teaching them to stand up to bullies in the
media and in their midst, or to be intimidated into silence? Is it teaching
them to get involved in important political issues facing the country and
the world, or that it's just too much trouble anyway so why bother?
When holding a teach-in out here in liberal
old Madison, Wisconsin, becomes verboten, you know that the chilly winds of
McCarthyism are picking up speed.
-- Matthew Rothschild
© Copyright 2002 All rights reserved by Matthew Rothschild
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