|
|
Home :
Free Speech
:
Student Speech
ACLU of Rhode Island Slams Secret Service Investigation of Student Essay (2/2/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Investigation is “Inappropriate Intrusion” on First
Amendment, ACLU
Says
WEST WARWICK, RI -- In response to news that a seventh grade
student is being investigated by the Secret Service because of an essay he
wrote, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today criticized
school officials and law enforcement for “criminalizing student thought.”
According to an article in today’s Providence Journal, the
student’s one-page essay – written in response to an assignment to describe a
perfect day – involved doing violence to President Bush and various corporate
executives. Police officials, asked by the school to investigate, concluded that
the hyperbolic comments did not amount to criminal conduct, but nonetheless
called in the Secret Service to interview the student and school officials. The
article notes that the Secret Service investigation is ongoing, and the student,
though not suspended, is temporarily barred from school. The student's
name has not been released publicly.
“The information that has
been publicly released about this incident makes abundantly clear that the
student was engaged in a rhetorical, if angry, exercise of speech,” said Steven
Brown, Executive Director of the ACLU of Rhode Island. “Although it may have
been appropriate for the teacher to share the essay with the school social work
staff, the decisions to also involve the police and the Secret Service marked a
significant and inappropriate intrusion on the young student’s First Amendment
rights.
“A Secret Service agent is quoted as suggesting that the
essay was a ‘a cry for help.’ If so, we would suggest that being interrogated by
Secret Service agents when it is perfectly clear no crime was involved is not
the type of help the student needs. The involvement of law enforcement in
response to a student’s rambling essay amounts to the criminalization of student
thought and sends a disturbing educational message to other students – steer
away from any violent themes in writing assignments, or else run the risk of
being interrogated by the police.
“We commend those officials in
the town who have recognized the essay for what it is, but as long as students
must fear the possibility of police investigations for handing in rhetorical
writing assignments, the school district’s educational mission is not being
well-served.”
In a similar incident five years ago, the ACLU
successfully represented a Johnston high school student who was summarily
suspended from school for handing in a composition that school officials claimed
contained “suicidality, homicidality, mood concerns, non-bizarre delusions of
grandeur and narcissistic themes.”
|
|
|
