In case you missed it, the Edina High School Young Conservatives Club is suing the school district for violating its members first amendment rights, after members criticized protesters who did not stand for the playing of ‘Taps’ at the school’s Veteran’s Day program.
This is such a juicy story: you’ve got politics, you’ve got race, you’ve got arguably the most elite zip code in the state of Minnesota, you’ve got kids and parents and school officials and lawyers, and best of all – almost none of the facts. Let’s jump in!
Here’s what I think we know:
- Several students failed to stand for the playing of ‘Taps’ at the school’s Veteran’s Day program.
- Members of the Young Conservatives Club (YCC) criticized these students, including suggesting that some “immigrant” students should “go back to their home countries.”
- The school principal disbanded the YCC.
Wow. Naturally, the comments on social media have gone wild. If you’re conservative, this is yet another example of the liberal intelligentsia working to stifle kids’ conservative voices. If you’re liberal, this is another bunch of lily-white rich kids who think they’re entitled to be racist, and mommy and daddy will sue anybody who gets in their way. So which is it? I don’t know – either, neither, both?
I don’t know what went into the decision of the principal. I don’t know the bylaws and policies and charters of the YCC and the Young Liberals Club (hey, can we still have a YLC if we’ve torpedoed the YCC?). I don’t know whether a school’s disbanding of an extra-curricular club amounts to stifling free speech.
But I do think that when we have these conflicts between schools and students and their parents and their lawyers (with the glaring exception of when it pertains to what girls wear to a dance), it usually starts with kids being shitheads. Now, you can argue over who are the shitheads: the kids who chose not to stand, thereby “dishonoring” American veterans; or the members of the YCC who made the remarks that got the group disbanded. Or both. Any way you slice it, we’ve got shitheads at work here.
If I were an Edina parent, instead of lawyering up, I would urge my kids to not be shitheads.