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New Mexico example
Fahrenheit 451* Revisited
By BILL HILL
Daytona Beach News-Journal
05-15-04
Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school
teacher and personal friend, was
fired last year and classes in poetry
and the poetry club at Rio Rancho
High School were permanently
terminated. It had nothing to do with
obscenity, but it had everything to do
with extremist politics.
The "Slam Team" was a group of
teenage poets who asked Nevins to
serve as faculty adviser to their club.
The teens, mostly shy youngsters,
were taught to read their poetry
aloud and before audiences. Rio
Rancho High School gave the Slam
Team access to the school's
closed-circuit television once a week
and the poets thrived.
In March 2003, a teenage girl named
Courtney presented one of her poems
before an audience at Barnes & Noble
bookstore in Albuquerque, then read
the poem live on the school's
closed-circuit television channel.
A school military liaison and the high
school principal accused the girl of
being "un-American" because she
criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush
administration's failure to give
substance to its "No child left behind"
education policy.
The girl's mother, also a teacher, was
ordered by the principal to destroy
the child's poetry. The mother
refused and may lose her job.
Bill Nevins was suspended for not
censoring the poetry of his students.
Remember, there is no obscenity to
be found in any of the poetry. He was
later fired by the principal.
After firing Nevins and terminating
the teaching and reading of poetry in
the school, the principal and the
military liaison read a poem of their
own as they raised the flag outside
the school. When the principal had the
flag at full staff, he applauded the
action he'd taken in concert with the
military liaison.
Then to all students and faculty who
did not share his political opinions,
the principal shouted: "Shut your
faces." What a wonderful lesson he
gave those 3,000 students at the
largest public high school in New
Mexico. In his mind, only certain
opinions are to be allowed.
But more was to come. Posters done
by art students were ordered torn
down, even though none was termed
obscene. Some were satirical,
implicating a national policy that had
led us into war. Art teachers who
refused to rip down the posters on
display in their classrooms were not
given contracts to return to the
school in this current school year.
The message is plain. Critical
thinking, questioning of public policies
and freedom of speech are not to be
allowed to anyone who does not share
the thinking of the school principal.
The teachers union has been joined in
a legal action against the school by
the National Writers Union,
headquartered in New York City.
NWU's at-large representative
Samantha Clark lives and works in
Albuquerque.
The American Civil Liberties Union has
become the legal arm of the lawsuit
pending in federal court.
Meanwhile, Nevins applied for a
teaching post in another school and
was offered the job but he can't go to
work until Rio Rancho's principal
sends the new school Nevins'
credentials. The principal has refused
to do so, and that adds yet another
issue to the lawsuit, which is awaiting
a trial date.
While students are denied poetry
readings, poetry clubs and classes in
poetry, Nevins works elsewhere and
writes his own poetry.
Writers and editors who have spent
years translating essays, films,
poems, scientific articles and books
by Iranian, North Korean and
Sudanese authors have been warned
not to do so by the U.S. Treasury
Department under penalty of fine and
imprisonment. Publishers and film
producers are not allowed to edit
works authored by writers in those
nations. The Bush administration
contends doing so has the effect of
trading with the enemy, despite a
1988 law that exempts published
materials from sanction under trade
rules.
Robert Bovenschulte, president of the
American Chemical Society, is
challenging the rule interpretation by
violating it to edit into English several
scientific papers from Iran.
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