Parents Want Kids to Be Allowed to Wear Hitler Youth Emblem in School

[brooklynite]

Let me say that I am a strenuous supporter of Freedom of Speech, no matter how repugnant, and I'm inclined to believe that people do things like this to get a rise out of others, rather than make a point of their own. That being said...sigh!

NEWARK, NJ (AP) -- Parents of two Bayonne students who were told they could be suspended for wearing Hitler Youth badges are going to federal court today.

They'll ask a judge to temporarily restrain the district from disciplining their children.

The students were told the buttons are offensive to many and not free speech.

...snip...

Laura DePinto and Michael and Robin LaRocco are part of a previous lawsuit that challenged the right of the school board to require uniforms for elementary students.

[Lurking Dem]

1. link?

[Donnachaidh]

2. link?

please?

[Poll_Blind]

3. Link HERE.

here.

PB

[Donnachaidh]

4. this irritates me --

My kid is forced to call home for a change of clothes when he wears a Monty Python shirt that says *I fart in your general direction*, but these kids scream free speech when they are told to take off Nazi buttons?

[Suspicious]

8. I think people

are misinterpreting the intended meaning of the kids wearing the buttons. I get the impression these kids were wearing them to protest school uniforms, not to support Nazi ideals. That's not to say it wasn't in poor taste, but they're kids, after all.

[Donnachaidh]

11. yeah -- the nazi thing is over the top

agreed.

[rinsd]

5. People need to read the article. This was not about Hitler Youth

It was a button saying no school uniforms with a pic of two kids with identical uniforms and kerchief alah the Hitler Youth as a means of protesting imposed school uniforms.

This was not as some posters seem to think about Hitler Youth being able to wear their shit.

[Poll_Blind]

6. Some clarification is needed...the excerpts are a bit misleading:

From the story:

"I've gotten overwhelming support from MANY people that tell me that they absolutely agree with what the image depicted, an ominously homogenous group of blindly cooperative children," the statement said.

"That image showed no swastikas, no weapons, and Hitler himself wasn't depicted," she wrote. "The picture makes a profound statement about what can happen when we turn children into 'uniform' followers. Our intent was not to offend but to make a bold statement about what we, as an American family believe is an erosion of a simple right, to be individuals, not blind followers. The very basic rights, to wear clothing we choose, and to peacefully protest what we know was the undemocratic stripping of those rights from us as parent and student."

From what I gather, these buttons in no way support Hitler, Nazis, White Power...whatever. They're making a political statement that forcing school uniforms on the children stifiles their own individuality and imply that doing so threatens to turn them into "homogenous" "blindly cooperative" 'brownshirts'.

I don't disagree with the right to make the implication, per se, but I do disagree. I think school uniforms are a great idea. Removes the stigma on poor students who cannot afford "trendy", often expensive, clothes and the burden on the parents to pay for these trendy fashions so their children can "fit in".

PB

[truthisfreedom]

7. read the damned article. it's not about hitler youth.

[Lurking Dem]

9. Their argument is interesting.

I don't agree with it but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

This protest is more about "don't turn my kid into a Nazi automaton" than "my kid has a right to be a Nazi".

[mcscajun]

10. brooklynite - Please edit your subject line (and provide the link)

to match the headline from the linked article, in accordance with the rules for Latest Breaking News. Thank you.

"Hitler Youth Badges May Get Students Suspended"

[mcscajun]

12. Locking.

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