Armed in Protest

It is the height of war. Emotions are volatile. And not even high school students are exempt from the raging debate consuming the country. On one particular day, several students (two high schoolers and one junior high schooler) came in wearing black armbands - in protest of the war.

The school prohibited such displays - according to a policy adopted a couple of days earlier. It seems that the administrators knew this was coming. When the students were told to remove the armbands, they refused. So they were sent home instead. They would not be allowed to return unless/until they ditched the bands.

It is stipulated that the armband-wearing students caused no disruption to classroom study or to campus activities generally. Indeed, the students never engaged in any overt demonstrations while at school. They turned to the judicial system for relief. The cause now finds itself in the United States Supreme Court.

The school concedes that they had no real fear of disruption. They banned the armbands as an expression of demonstration itself. School is no place for demonstrations, they explained. An interesting observation at this point, is that the school failed to preclude other symbols such as buttons regarding national political campaigns and the Iron Cross, a nazi favorite. It appeared that only armbands were targeted.

The students believe that sporting the inflammatory bands was nothing more than constitutionally-protected freedom of expression. And isn't it important to foster self-expression, verbal intercourse and independence in preparation for life? Another relevant factor in the scheme of things is the question of whether students have the same liberties as the rest of us, who have long left school behind.

On the other hand, what if other students were distracted by the armbands? We are, after all, in the midst of war. Things often change in times like these, and we do what we have to do to adapt. Unity among the populace, even those who are in the tender years of formal education, is crucial in order to achieve our noble goals. Then too, students are expected to conform to a certain code of conduct. Isn't that part of the education?

Does it even matter what the symbols, uh, symbolize? Well, there are certainly enough angles and questions all around. Yet the important opinion is the one rendered by the High Court. Check out this angle:

In this country, public schools should not be dictatorships with complete authority over its pupils. Furthermore, these pupils are protected by constitutional rights, whether they are on a school campus or in a public park. They must not be confined to express only what the government - via its educational institutions - determines they should express.

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