The Content of Our Classrooms

A sixth grade girl in California was denied permission to present to her classmates a presentation on the late Harvey Milk. The trouble was, Milk being openly gay, the principal was concerned that her work would touch on that and as such violate the school's rule that sex education cannot be taught without informing parents first.

It is a good rule to work by. Yet none other than the ACLU is investigating the violation of the girl's rights. They claim that it was not sex education in any way, shape, or form. It was just a power point presentation on a prominent - ugh - Californian.

Yet Milk's only real notoriety is in the fact that he was the first openly gay man elected to a public office. How can you possibly talk about him without talking about his sexuality? Once you're talking about that, you're talking about sex. No reasonable person would not see this connection. It is virtually automatic in the given context.

Schools have the right to put reasonable restrictions on student produced content in place. Concern for the rights and desires of parents must be recognized by school officials. Students do not and should not run the institutions where they study and learn. The girl's supposed right to talk about whoever she wants is not compromised: she can do it on her own time whenever she may wish. School time is not her time per se. So long as her basic human rights are observed, the school has the right to regulate her educational activities.

And no, she has no basic human right to present anything in particular to a captive audience on someone else's platform. She has no more automatic right to free speech in a school which she does not own any more than she would have it on my personal property: I would have the right to expel her from my home if I didn't want her talking about Harvey Milk there in front of my kids. The schools, standing under the legal umbrella of in loco parentis, that is, in the stead of the parents, hold the same responsibility.

It's time that the ACLU - ahem - learned that rights must often be prioritized, and that no one has the inherent right to say anything anywhere anytime. That must be balanced against the rights of others. If the ACLU can't see this, then they have no real idea of what rights and obligations entail.