Foolish Wisdom
21 The Great Debate
“…SO, OUR ARGUMENT is based on three principles. First, that there was no reason for imposing these more stringent rules on the student body at St. Joe Valley High School. No teacher, student, or parent had objected to anything other than scattered violations of the existing school dress code and those were quickly resolved. No students were engaging in sexual behavior that was disruptive to classes or other students. And most importantly, no victim of bullying was ever made to suffer the same penalties as the bully. Second, we are no longer children. We are young adults. Most of us during our sophomore year reach the age of consent—sixteen years. We get our drivers’ licenses. We make our own decisions. We will be eighteen by the time we graduate. Yet these rules treat us as children with even tighter restrictions than were imposed when we were in grade school. Finally, it is not the prerogative of the School Board to impose this type of unwarranted restriction. In 1969, nearly twenty years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of students’ freedom of expression as a first amendment right, specifically in the case of what they wore. Justice Abe Fortas wrote the following in the majority decision:
In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are “persons” under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views.
“Not only are these new rules unnecessary and needlessly restrictive, they are a fundamental violation of our first amendment rights and must—I repeat—must be reversed.”
Ms. Hammer’s bell rang two seconds after Cassie finished her opening speech. I wanted to stand up and cheer for her and I could tell other students did, too, as there was a spattering of applause before people were hushed. Cassie sat down and I went to the podium. Now I had to win this thing.
“Mr. Superintendent, Members of the School Board, Judges, Parents, and Friends. There is no concrete reason for the new dress, conduct, and zero tolerance policies of this administration to be reversed. On the contrary, there is every reason for them to have been implemented and to be retained. The Board of Directors of the St. Joe Valley School Corporation is elected by the populace, including our parents, and charged with guiding our education and protecting their children as we grow and mature. In the past year, zero tolerance policies have been adopted across the country in response to growing violence in our schools. No less than a dozen instances nationwide in the past year have left high school students dead or critically wounded. The nearest of those instances was in Missouri, showing that violence is not a problem limited to the big cities of the East and West, but is a hometown problem in grassroots America. But we should not let that be our sole criterion. It was just a year and a half ago that I was personally assaulted and brutally beaten by a gang of students from this school. These were students that had been unchecked since grade school, even though they were known to have been perpetrators of other violent acts. As I lay in the hospital thinking, trying to find any way that I could have escaped from this violent act, I blamed the school—a school that knew these individuals were violent, but because the punishment was no more than a slap on the wrist could not even get rape victims to testify against them. As I stand here tonight, I wonder if things would have been different if the school had had this zero tolerance policy. Would I have accused these bullies openly, knowing that I would suffer the same fate—suspension and even expulsion from school—rather than go through the broken ribs, arm, split and bleeding mouth, and rearranged teeth? I answer you with a resounding ‘Yes!’ Bullying has been and continues to be a problem in our school. I know some of you believe that the new regulations are an act of bullying by our school board. But I tell you, these are not bullies. These are our protectors.
“As to our dress code, this, too, is for the protection of the student body. It is a well-known fact that provocative dress is a primary cause of rape.” There was a rapping of knuckles on the table at the far end of the judges’ table. This form of ‘heckling’ is a reminder from the judges that I will be marked down for making an argument without supporting evidence. I was ready. “I cite as authority for this assertion, the direct words of Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Nathan Dewey, who granted me an interview which I recorded in his office. Dr. Dewey cited evidence that ‘girls who wear short skirts and expose their bellies and cleavage in school, are ten times more likely to be raped than those who dress conservatively.’ Dr. Dewey, in addition to his Masters’ in Education has a PhD in Educational Administration and admits to being an expert on the subject of rape. The dress code, requiring there be no more than one open button at the top of a shirt or blouse, requiring that skin never be exposed between the waistband and the shirt or top, that skirts touch the floor when kneeling, and that trousers not conform to the exact shape of the body, must be applied equally to both sexes under the law. This is not an act of bullying students into prescribed behavior patterns, but is a regulation designed to protect our young women from boys who have no control over their hormonally-driven bodies’ reactions to the sight and shape of a woman’s body. Our school board—our superintendent—are not bullies, but the protectors of our virtue.
“Finally, let me address the subject of conduct, especially in the realm of public displays of affection, commonly referred to as PDAs. The school board deliberated long and hard on this subject.” There were a couple of barely contained snorts and titters from the students. “The members of the Board of St. Joe Valley School Corporation are men of great faith. They are informed by both social convention and spiritual truth. They have genuine concern for the students of St. Joe Valley Junior and Senior High School. Of a student body of fifteen hundred, three young women last year were expelled in order to take care of the duties of single motherhood. Nearly half a percent of the girls in our entire school! These young women were deprived of their education because a simple act of affection went too far. They were refused admission to classes because their influence as unwed mothers might be detrimental to other young women in our school. Had they only been restricted from holding hands on campus, or from kissing their boyfriends, they might have been allowed to graduate with their classes. I took the time to look these young women up. Only two of them received their GDIs, scoring in the top ten percentile nationwide. Both are enrolled in college classes at IUSB Extension. Those are women who would be successful no matter what obstacle is put in their path. But that third young woman lives with her mother and works nights packing groceries. It is that young woman that the PDA regulations were designed to help. Through the restriction of public displays of affection, the board intends that sexual experience be delayed until the student has the opportunity to get out of school and no longer be the problem of the school board.” There was rapping on the table again. “I cite as my source on this subject the Chairman of the Board of St. Joe Valley School Corporation in a recorded conversation last week.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow students. You have called our school board bullies. These are not bullies, but the protectors of our youth. They were elected on a campaign to reduce the cost of education that was running rampant and out of control. They have been faithful in their discharge of campaign promises. When the grounds designated for a new school building were surveyed as one acre short of the requirement for a new school, the chairman of our school board sacrificed some of his own prime farmland at a steep discount to become the site of the new St. Joe Valley High School. They have bent their minds to other areas in which the school district can become more efficient, cutting thirty percent from the school library budget and fifty percent from the proposed new technology budget. And in their wisdom, they have seen that by instituting these conduct and zero tolerance policies, they reduce the liabilities of the school corporation in potential incidents that involve rape or violence on school grounds. These savings are deemed to be far in excess of any planned or proposed civil rights lawsuits or teachers’ strikes over the establishment of a few protective regulations. These men… all men… of the St. Joe Valley School Corporation Board are not bullies, arbitrarily placing restrictions on our freedoms, but are the protectors of our virtue, our bodies, and our minds. These regulations should and must be maintained for our future and for the future of our children.”
Cassie and I had known the basic content of each other’s opening argument. We’d been working on them in my bedroom for the past four weeks. We shared information back and forth. I gave her the material that I was sure she would use in her rebuttal. We didn’t know the exact content and that bit about the Supreme Court ruling was brilliant. I wasn’t sure how I’d rebut that. I figured if I didn’t have contradictory evidence, I could divert it into a different channel. We were both scrambling madly to get our points together. The whole gymnasium was buzzing on the main floor. The student body was maintaining discipline, though, and only occasionally did someone whisper to a neighbor. This had to be incredibly hard for them. It seemed like we’d had no time at all when Ms. Hammer rang the bell to begin the rebuttal. Cassie stood to give her rebuttal. I was still scribbling.
“Mr. Frost has, presumably, given an accurate picture of the school board’s rationale for the new regulations and he is persuasive. But I ask you for a moment to remove the shine of his presence on the stage and listen to his words.” Good going, Cassie. Make my point for me. “If we are to believe his assertions, then we have re-entered the medieval age. Children and especially women… girls… are merely chattel to be bargained away. I am surprised the school board has not issued chastity belts. The argument holds that boys are not responsible in cases of rape but are merely doing what their hormone-driven bodies must do when faced with the shape of a woman’s body. Mother—my beautiful mother—hide yourself, for nowhere is safe. I, too, have the words of a superintendent of schools. This comes from Dr. Dwight Patterson, Superintendent of the Kokomo School Corporation, a district only slightly larger than St. Joe Valley and one of our great rivals in basketball. Like Dr. Dewey, Dr. Patterson holds a Masters’ in Education with PhDs—yes plural—in Educational Psychology and in Sociology. He says, and I quote,
There are no reputable studies that associate dress with rape. Rape is a violent crime of violent people. It is not about sex, but about power. It is most often inflicted by persons seeking to show their worth through domination over a weaker person. No dress code will stop or discourage a rapist. Young men and old men are responsible for their own actions and should be prosecuted accordingly. Therefore, we have simplified the dress code to exclude dress that could be commonly considered distractive from the intent of being in school—that of getting an education.
“Dr. Patterson was not the only authority on this subject and was able to cite no less than seven independent studies supporting his position. The opposition can cite only the word of Dr. Dewey.
“Mr. Frost has frequently referred to the honor of the gentlemen of the school board as protectors of our virtue. I suggest that like my own father—and I’m sorry, Father, I love you—they are unable to separate their belief in a vengeful God from rational thinking about the reality of high school life today. We are not living in the time of the Israelites, or even of Jesus. We live in a global society influenced by a global media. I cite the most recent issue of Elle magazine in which a model known as ‘Heaven’ but who we here at St. Joe Valley know as our former classmate Jessica Barnes, poses on the cover. None of us… None of the young women dressed in our new school uniform of prison stripes, can ever hope to be a symbol of beauty and sensuality like Heaven is. But we all look at her and aspire to emulate both her poise and presence and the loving good nature we all know she possesses.
“Our school board chairperson, did, indeed, sell twenty acres of worthless land to the district for a new school. That land has not produced a crop in five years because it has been under water. The rough estimates for importing enough fill to make the site buildable far exceed the cost of the original site and will increase the school building budget by as much as fifteen percent. This is the same kind of fiscal responsibility that is willing to risk teachers’ strikes and civil suits to put forth their real agenda of making education into subjugation. Overturning the new conduct regulations is only the first step that we as a people must undertake.”
Way to go! Now I was going to drive a stake into the hearts of our student body and make them hate me forever. I prayed that one day, they’d forgive me. I just stood at the podium and looked around a moment. People started moving. I let the clock run a full minute.
“Sadly, fellow students, I must tell you that Miss Clinton has erred. She has proposed that we are adults. That we reach the age of consent at sixteen. We are children. At sixteen, certainly we can get a driver’s license so if we are lucky, we can borrow our parents’ car. But what does ‘the age of consent’ really mean? It means that when she turns sixteen, Cassie can legally have sex with a person the age of our school board members and they cannot be prosecuted for it. It doesn’t mean you are grown up. Oh! But you say, seniors, that you will be eighteen and then really an adult. Why? Because you can vote? Because you can be sent to a foreign war to be killed in battle? Will you also be able to buy a drink? Sign loan papers without a co-signer? Oh, no. That will wait until you are twenty-one and then you are truly an adult. Unless you want to rent a car or take out a mortgage to buy property. You will need to wait until you are an adult of twenty-five years to do that. And if you have political ambitions, let us not forget that you cannot run for President of the United States until you have reached the age of thirty-five. Adulthood is not a magic number that we reach in high school. It is a long slow process and we need to take every minute of childhood that we can and treasure it. Thank the men of the school board for keeping us in childhood a few years longer.
“This is not a matter for courts to decide. It is a matter of school policy applied equally to all students who attend our school. Our school board was elected and given authority. Cassie, when your father voted to put Concerned Taxpayers in office, he signed guardianship of you over to them. Don’t you see that even if your father miraculously lifted some restriction from you and let you kiss a boyfriend or wear a short skirt, that he no longer has that authority? He gave it to the school board. They are your guardians through their agents, our teachers, eight hours or more a day. Your father cannot overrule them.
“It is the will of the people—and this country is a country in which the tyranny of the majority will always rule the minority—it is the will of the people to have these new rules in effect and therefore they must stay in effect until such time as the majority elects a new school board.”
When Cassie looked at me there was a trace of moisture in her eyes and I willed her not to cry. She had to stay strong. It was a foregone conclusion that she would get the ‘C’ in this debate. We’d set it up in such a way that the five members of the Concerned Tax Payers and the superintendent had to vote for me or admit that they should rethink things. Well, I’d happily take the ‘C’ if they went that direction, but there was really no hope for it. I could see in her eyes, though, that Cassie was going to take a big hit in her concluding remarks. We weren’t supposed to present any new evidence or arguments in the summary. Even the two independent judges were going to have to take that into consideration, but just knowing how passionate Cassie was, I knew I couldn’t stop her if I tried.
“Mr. Superintendent, Members of the School Board, Judges, and Friends, we must summarize this debate and await your final judgment. We are passionate about what we believe. Perhaps that has not come across in our arguments. The student body of St. Joe Valley Junior and Senior High School feels oppressed by these regulations that have been forced upon us without our consent. Look around you. Look in the bleachers at fifteen hundred students who stand united against this so-called policy forced upon us. What do those striped shirts mean? We believe we have been reduced to prisoners instead of students. We have been subjected to arbitrary rules that have nothing to do with our education. If rape is an act of the powerful over the helpless, then we collectively have been raped by the people our parents voted into office.
“It is no longer an issue of whether these arbitrary rules should be reversed. They must be reversed. You face a student body united. If you expel us all, there will simply be no St. Joe Valley Junior and Senior High School for you to rule over. This resolution must pass.”
Holy shit. I don’t know if they all caught it or not, but Cassie just threatened out-and-out rebellion. There was not much I could do about that except hope that she would accept me as one of her minions in the coming revolution. I stood for my final remarks. Be a rock, I reminded myself in Whitney’s voice.
“Passion is irrelevant. Debate is about the rational argument for or against a proposition. Mr. Superintendent, Members of the School Board, Judges, Family, and Friends. You really don’t have a choice tonight. You put these men in power. You elected them to represent you in the governance of this school district. You empowered them to hire a superintendent as chief executive over the education of all your children. Their will is your will. You have already voted to accept my arguments.
“You cannot unvote that by standing and saying that these new policies should be reversed. There is only one forum in which you can do that and it comes on November third. Tonight, you have no choice but to vote with me. On Election Day, you can vote your heart, your passion, and your children’s love. Today, you must vote to uphold the decisions that you empowered. There is no simpler choice.”
The entire student body and well over half the parents and adults in the audience stood to support Cassie and pass the resolution. Only four judges stood. Predictably, it was the two outside judges and the two independent school board members. A smattering of adults and all five Concerned Taxpayer board members stood with the superintendent to give the debate to me. As Ms. Hammer was concluding the session with thanks to the judges, the entire student body stood, put their hands behind their heads, and marched out of the gym. Finally, the curtain closed and Cassie rushed across the stage and threw herself into my arms.
“You were so wonderful,” I said. “Elections for class officers are next week. You are a shoo-in for president. Will you run, Cass?”
“Not unless you kiss me right now. And mean it.” I obliged.
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