Janesville Schools Threatened Into Censorship

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For President Obama’s speech, Janesville school principals were told that teachers could show the President’s speech on Tuesday only if they got parental permission to opt in and if they set up alternative activities for students whose parents chose to opt out. With that policy, we could imagine few kids in Janesville heard the speech. This was reported in the Janesville Gazette two days after the damage had been done.

JG Excerpt:
Schulte said district officials heard from parents who threatened to do just that. A few other callers threatened to picket, and there were "veiled threats" along the lines of "you'd better not," Schulte said.

Threatened?? to picket. Besides hearing Obama’s speech, that would have served as the ultimate civic lesson to teach the children. The school could have spent the entire day afterwards discussing the merits of community organizing, our constitutional right to assemble, boycotting and picketing. Instead, they taught the children to "go along to get along" when they receive direct or veiled threats from haters and bullies.

Read related from March, 2007: Janesville School District allows politically active business group in classrooms to restore lost confidence due to recent corporate scandals in the business world.