By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
February 26, 2001
On February 14th the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Pennsylvania ruled that "anti-harassment" policy of the State College Area School District was an unconstitutional infringement of the students' First Amendment right of freedom of speech.
The policy is similar to those that have become popular nation wide in recent years in schools and government. The particular policy struck down in the view of the Court:
"extends beyond harassment that objectively denies a student equal access to a school's education resources. Even on a narrow reading, the Policy unequivocally prohibits any verbal or physical conduct that is based on an enumerated personal characteristic and that 'has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with a student's educational performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.' (emphasis added). Unlike federal anti- harassment law, which imposes liability only when harassment has 'a systemic effect on educational programs and activities,' Davis, 526 U.S. at 633 (emphasis added), the Policy extends to speech that merely has the 'purpose' of harassing another. This formulation, by focusing on the speaker's motive rather than the effect of speech on the learning environment, appears to sweep in those 'simple acts of teasing and name-calling' that the Davis Court explicitly held were insufficient for liability.
Well, it's about time! It should be obvious to anyone with a passing acquaintance with the First Amendment that the recent demands by special interest groups, such as homosexual activists, to prevent, by law, any indication that some people believe their behavior unacceptable is an obvious violation of freedom of speech.
We are rapidly creating a strange culture in America in which some people, designated as "victims," are allowed to say and do anything they want to say or do to advance their cause while others, designated as "oppressors," are silenced altogether.
When I was in school, in the World War II era, we had several responses to harassment. One response was to ignore it, which was my choice. Other responses, of course, were smacking the harasser or harassing them back. Today, in our violent zero-violence schools the normal ways of reacting to harassment are all taboo. Making the schools prisons and denying freedom of speech are the new and supposedly improved responses to teasing.
Even history is being taught today from a perspective of this new policy which is defining the world in terms of victims and oppressors. My grandchildren are learning about World War II from books and teacher opinions that I hardly recognize. I recently was discussing the movement of Japanese-Americans out of California during World War II to interior states with my grandson Joshua who is studying World War II. I told him I remembered that situation quite well, since it occurred only a couple of months after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese bombers. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was issuing a flurry of executive orders designed to address what was feared, at the time, as an impending attack on California by the Japanese. A good portion of those executive orders limited someone's freedom. Labor Unions found they were no longer allowed to go on strike. Car owners found they were no longer able to purchase all the gasoline for their cars they needed or wanted. During air raid drills all lights were extinguished.
Roosevelt's February 19, 1942 Executive Order Japan, declared that
"the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national- defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, and the Act of August 21, 1941." The order authorized and directed the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders "to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion."(From The American Reference Library)
Although the order never mentioned any ethnic group, eventually about 117,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were removed from their homes in California and relocated to Utah and other states.
While it has become popular in recent years to present this situation even in school history books as a highly discriminatory action and a blot on America's history, the matter was brought to the Supreme Court in 1944 by a Japanese-American who lost his case. Justice Black, in the majority decision noted:
"Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders-as inevitably it must-determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot-by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight-now say that, at that time, these actions were unjustified."
At the time the Japanese were given an opportunity to swear their allegiance to the United States of America and reject the Japanese Emperor. About 5,000 refused to pledge allegiance to the United States and were repatriated to Japan after the war. At the time there was public discussion of the relocation of the Japanese. It was a known fact that some of them were supporting the Emperor. The others, the loyal Japanese, it was noted, would be in particular danger in an invasion since they nearly all had relatives in Japan who would be in danger of being tortured or killed if their American relatives did not cooperate with the Japanese invaders.
None of that is being taught the younger generation. All they are hearing is that there was a huge move against the Japanese-Americans because the white folks were, as usual, just a bunch of bigots. One of the innumerable orders and proclamations and pardons issued by former president Bill Clinton was on January 17, 2001,Proclamation 7395, establishing the Minidoka Internment National Monument. The purpose of the monument, which 72.75 acres is to memorialize what Clinton viewed as "powerful reminders that stereotyping, discrimination, hatred and racism have no place in this country."
Hopefully, when the inscriptions are carved on the monument one of them will be the quote from Judge Black, a leading liberal Supreme Court Justice, "There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot-by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight-now say that, at that time, these actions were unjustified."
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
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