WISCONSIN ISSUES ARCHIVE
6 year old Suspended for Bringing Fireworks to School
Michael Kloiber was suspended from Dr. Jones Elementary School
in Racine on Tuesday June 9th for bringing wet firecrackers to
school, he found them on his way to school. He faced expulsion
for up to a year for violating the districts policy against "pyrotechnic
devices." The father, Paul Kloiber brought the incident to the
attention of both the media and the ACLU of WI when the principal
stated the punishment could be an expulsion for up to one year.
His father, the media and the ACLU all agreed that such a punishment
was inappropriate. The ACLU was able to assist through having
ACLU volunteer attorney Susan Gramling represent the family at
the hearing. The hearing was on Thursday June 11th. The result
was positive, in that the time served (3 day suspension) was found
to be a sufficient punishment for the 6 year old. Michael will
be able to start 1st grade as planned.
School Developing Computer Bulletin Board to Track Troubled
Students
A number of incidents of school violence in Wisconsin and
across the nation have compelled educators in Wausau to form a
computer bulletin board to track students who are at risk of committing
violent acts. The ACLU is concerned about what will be recorded
about each student and who will have access to this information.
The concern is heightened by the fact that law enforcement officials
will be entering arrest data before court hearings affirm the
validity of those arrests. The bulletin board will be activated
next fall. The ACLU plans to continue monitoring the situation
for possible rights violations.
Racine Horlick High School Student has Poem Censored
Jennifer Nordstrom, a senior at Racine Horlick High School, had
her poem censored by the administration because it was inappropriate
and contained the word "dick". When they began sales of the literary
magazine, Palantir, the school administrators called both Jennifer
and Palantir advisor Diane Belland in for conferences. During
Jennifer's meeting, the administrators told her that Belland's
job may be at risk if she would not agree to have her poem removed
from the publication. The Palantir had sold 50 copies containing
her poem before they were asked to suspend sales pending the resolution
of the matter. Jennifer agreed to the censorship of her poem out
of concern for the advisor's job. The remaining 250 copies of
the Palantir were sold without Jennifer's poem included. In response
to the school's censorship, Jennifer is seeking other avenues
of publication for her poem.
Check out the poem here.
Student Looks At Wicca Site and Causes Quite a Commotion
Burklin Nielsen is 15 year old honor student at Winter High
School who caused quite a reaction when she decided to search
the web for sites on Wicca. She was told by school officials that
she was only allowed to look up Christian based religions when
she was on the Internet. It did not seem to matter that she was
using the computer lab after school when it is open to the general
public for use. The District Administrator David Scarpino denied
that her search was stopped because she was looking at a non-Christian
religion.
Her
search led the school district to enact an acceptable use policy
for the Internet during the school day. The policy has been questioned
by the Nielsen’s pro-bono attorney Lucy A. Dalglish, who works
at the Minneapolis firm of Dorsey Whitney. She, along with the
ACLU, have questioned the portion of the policy which states that
students "shall NOT access and use controversial materials." The
concern arises because the school has not defined what exactly
controversial means, or what it will stop the students from accessing.
The Nielsen’s, their attorney and the ACLU will be closely monitoring
the school district’s defining of controversial, as District Administrator
has promised to do.
In
addition the School District is currently involved in enacting
a policy for acceptable use for the hours that they are open to
the general public. All parties are also closely monitoring that
situation. Related Article in: The
New York Times.
Hartford Union High School Senior Believes Article Was Censored
Matt Klinker, a senior at Hartford Union High School, contacted
the ACLU this past March because he believes his story about the
HUHS basketball team fell victim to censorship by the school.
His story was cut from the March issue of Orange and Black, the
school newspaper, despite his efforts to edit it when he was first
asked to. He says that district administrator Richard Zimmerman
took issue with the article's description of the allegations made
against the boys' basketball program by a group of player's who
quit in January and called it biased against the varsity boys'
basketball coach Doran Timmer. Although one of the players who
quit the team was Klinker's step-brother, Klinker claims his story
was objective. The article included quotes from a letter written
by Zimmerman to Klinker's mother in regard to the claims of verbal
abuse that the group of players who quit made against coach Timmer.
Klinker said that Zimmerman felt that the letter was personal
and shouldn't have been included.
Drug Sniffing Dogs Patrol the Halls
Argo, the drug sniffing dog will be patrolling the Port Washington
High School halls looking for drugs. The School is looking to
combat drug problems by having the dog do some investigations.
A similar system was originally planned in Wauwatosa in 1997,
until the idea was shelved after the School Board members raised
doubts about the idea. The ACLU thinks Port Washington should
also take a good look at the down side to drug sniffing dogs and
reconsider its stance.
Related Articles in: The
Beloit Daily News, JSOnline.com.
Fredonia Wants to Enact a Daytime Curfew to Keep Kids
in School
The Village of Fredonia hoped to curb truancy by enacting a daytime
curfew. The suggested daytime curfew would have required everyone
of school age to be in school during school hours. The ACLU voiced
its concern, with many reason to back that concern. A few of the
reason were that the proposed curfew presumed young people were
guilty and it discriminated against the young. After the controversy
arose the Village chose not to enact a daytime curfew.
See the ACLU
press release on daytime curfew.
Oconto Falls Teacher Under Fire Over Yearbook Photos
The Oconto Falls School Board backed the teacher who was under
fire after a controversy arose as a result of a photograph which
showed senior Jon Martinson standing before a restroom urinal
while senior Kristy Butler looked on. The two were voted the class
of ‘97’s "most humorous" students and thought the photo would
leave their classmates laughing. A number of citizens in the community
disagreed and wrote to the Oconto County Times -Herald and accused
the yearbook editor Kim Fenske ( an ACLU of WI member) of bad
taste. For a while it seemed that Fenske got more than he bargained
for and that his position may be at stake. In the end the Oconto
Falls and Oconto Falls High School Administration backed the teacher
and advisor in spite of community concerns.
Racine
Youth Use First Amendment Rights To Address Curfew Ordinance
(Racine, WI) A citywide curfew for minors is one of those
issues that may never die. Because youth is not a protected class,
like race and gender, young people are often the recipients of
either real or perceived age discrimination. The question is,
are age and responsibility directly linked?
Aaron Hackl, a 17 year-old junior at St. Catherine’s High School
in Racine, Wisconsin doesn’t think so. Hackl, in conjunction with
the Libertarian Party of Metro Milwaukee and Americans for a Society
Free From Age Restrictions, has recently launched a campaign that
calls for the repeal of the Racine curfew ordinance. For Hackl,
curfews raise issues of constitutional significance- from the
right to peaceably assemble to equal protection.
“We’re just trying to restore our rights as individuals,” says
Hackl, “The entire issue of curfew is a tool of the drug war,
a war that people will do anything to ‘win’ “.
Cases regarding curfews for youth get a lot of play in supreme
courts around the United States, including Wisconsin’s. In 1988,
the ACLU took on City of Milwaukee v. K.F. (426 N.W. 2d 329),
in which two minors were charged with violating the city curfew.
The two pleaded not guilty and filed to dismiss the charges on
the basis that the Milwaukee curfew was “vague” and “overbroad”.
The Court ruled against them and held that there is a compelling
state interest in protecting youth and curtailing juvenile crime
through curfews for minors.
“It’s inspiring to see young people take such an interest in their
rights as American citizens, but the reality is that the odds
are stacked against them.” Said Nichole Yunk, director of the
Youth & Civil Liberties Council, an ACLU of Wisconsin initiative.
Yunk has worked with the Racine youth to write legislature that
strikes a compromise between city officials and campaign organizers.
The present ordinance in Racine prohibits persons under the age
of 18 to be in public areas without supervision by a parent or
guardian between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. The Milwaukee
ordinance that was upheld by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court
in 1988 differed in that it addressed persons under the age of
17 rather than 18 and expired at 5:00 a.m. rather than 6:00 a.m.
“These two differences are key. Wisconsin recognizes 17, not 18,
as the age of adulthood, “ explains Yunk, “and a lot of young
people work jobs in summer that may require them to travel to
their places of employment before 6:00 a.m.”
Currently, Hackl and others are researching through the Racine
Municipal Court to find out when most curfew violations occur
and where, which they will include in a report to the Racine Council
in early October. They are confident that this effort will prove
worthwhile.
“Although our immediate goal is to reduce it [the curfew] to 17
so that legal adults won’t be affected by this discrimination,
we still hold strong to our long term goal of abolishing it,”
says Hackl.
If you are interested in working with or hearing more about the
Racine campaign to address the curfew for minors, contact us at
youth@aclu-wi.org.
-
Staff writer
UWM
Students Charged With Vandalism, Rally To Protect Free Speech
(Milwaukee, WI) There are few things as sacred to college students
as their freedom of speech. History is decorated with the victories
of groups like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
of the 1960s and 70s. Groups like these built their fortresses
of freedom on the right to speak the words of protest. It was
no surprise, then, that when five University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
(UWM) students were silenced, they only screamed louder.
On August 28, 2000, Emily Gardner, a graduate student and advisor
to the Student Association, along with four fellow students, was
arrested for using chalk to promote the campus organization College
Feminists. Some of the messages written were, “STOP RAPE”, “TEACH
GIRLS TO LOVE THEIR BODIES”, and “QUEER POWER”. Some more explicit
messages included the use of a profane term and the personal testimony
of one female student who was raped in the UWM dorms.
Gardner contacted the ACLU of Wisconsin two days after the incident
with a detailed account of her contact with campus police. In
her written account, Gardner raised the issue of identity profiling
by campus police because of the pro-woman and pro-gay content
of the messages. Gardner and the other students claim that one
officer admitted that had they written “FREE PIZZA” instead, they
probably would not have been charged with vandalism.
“Everything we wrote was meant to educate the student body and
promote dialog about social issues on campus and in the larger
society,” said Gardner, “I think it’s unfortunate that the UWM
police don’t have anything better to do with their time and our
money than to harass students.”
The official UWM policy regarding chalking on August 28, 2000,
the day the incident occurred, was explicit in it’s treatment
of chalking as graffiti, which is punishable under the standards
of vandalism. In the same document, a resolution by the Student
Association (SA) allowing chalking as a method of communication
among the student population was noted but not yet made official
by university administration. Due to a misunderstanding by university
officials, the resolution was never ratified by the chancellor’s
office.
On September 12, 2000, College Feminists hosted a rally to address
issues of racial and identity profiling and free speech on the
UWM campus. Speakers included Karen Murphy-Smith, Director of
the Angela Davis chapter of Copwatch; Brian Pfeiffer of the Progressive
Student Network; Tiffany Miller, Director of Multicultural Issues
for SA; Cheryl Angelroth of the Rainbow Alliance; and ACLU of
Wisconsin Representative Nichole Yunk.
Amy Daroszeski, president of College Feminists and one of the
students arrested, emceed the event. Daroszeski encouraged participants
and observers to sign a petition that demanded that (1) a formal
investigation be launched to assess the incident and to prevent
future incidents of police oppression, (2) UWM police formally
apologize to all five parties, and (3) all charges against the
five students be dropped.
While the university agreed to drop all charges including vandalism
and obstructing justice, for the students behind this campaign
the fight continues. The Student Association will be appointing
students to the existing Campus Security Committee to begin work
on the creation of a police oversight committee, and distribution
of a “grievance procedure” form and materials to distribute to
students that will advise them of their rights when dealing with
the police.
To download a copy of the ACLU’s BUST CARD, click
here. For more information about this issue, contact Emily
Gardner @ 414-229-4366 or emilyg@uwm.edu.
- Staff
writer
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