District 202 school board members said Monday night they will not reconsider a 1984 policy prohibiting teachers from wearing political buttons, despite an outcry from Evanston residents over free-speech rights.
“The policy that exists relative to expectations for teachers in classrooms is not under review,” said Allan Alson, ETHS superintendent.
Evanston residents, many of whom are members of Neighbors for Peace, first challenged the school board about the policy six weeks ago. The leader of the protest, Anya Cordell, demanded the board take action.
Cordell argued that high school is not a value-free institution. She said that during the learning process, political views inevitably would be imparted.
“We don’t give equal weight and preferences to the values of (the Rev.) Martin Luther King (Jr.) and to the Ku Klux Klan,” Cordell said.
ETHS’s current policy reads, “School employees will not use the classroom as a forum to present only one side of a political issue.”
School board member Jane Colleton said during an April 7 interview that the idea is to protect students from teachers who could exert an undue influence since they hold a position of superiority.
In the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the court ruled that students could wear black armbands to class in protest of the Vietnam War. The justices said that form of expression neither disrupts the classroom nor infringes on the rights of others.
But according to a Web site for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, “a (lower) court upheld a dress code that prevented teachers from wearing political buttons in the classroom because school districts have legitimate authority to ‘dissociate themselves from matters of political controversy.'”
Policy challengers Monday said that administrators also violated the Constitution when they punished students who did not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.
“The (Saturday) detention should not have been given,” Alson said, “after a number of steps which were not our proudest moment.”
Illinois legislators passed a law last summer requiring schools to lead students in the pledge every day. Schools previously were not obligated to do so.
Under constitutional law students can choose not to participate.
While Alson said saluting the flag should be a voluntary act, he also said the school asks students who choose not to participate to either stand in silence or leave the room.
Alson said he would review the school’s policy after protesters asked why students could not stay seated during the pledge.
Challengers called on the board to listen to residents’ concerns since they elect the board and pay administrators.
Foreign-language teacher Clare Delgado said she is very concerned with the “selective enforcement of a policy,” during the current military involvement in Iraq.
Delgado said she has gay-pride stickers on her door but has never been challenged for that political statement.
“I feel a shadow has been cast on the intellectual environment at ETHS and I feel it needs to be lifted,” said Delgado, who has taught at the high school for 11 years.
