Protests erupt as some Lee's Summit West students seek to form a conservative club
Source: KC Star
A protest erupted at Lees Summit West High School on Tuesday as some students work to establish a local chapter of Turning Point USA, a national right-wing organization that promotes conservative policies on school campuses. A few students have approached administration about starting a chapter in the school, district spokeswoman Katy Bergen said. They met in the library on Tuesday to discuss forming the group, and in response, hundreds of students protested, holding LGBTQ flags and Black Lives Matter signs. Video of the meeting, posted on YouTube by Turning Point USA, shows a couple of students a boy and a girl explaining that they want to start the group to offer a space for students to express and debate their conservative values something they say students might otherwise be afraid to do.
Many students filled the library to protest, while hundreds more protested outside in the courtyard. Protesters said they worry about having the group at school, arguing that the national organization espouses racist and anti-LGBTQ concepts.
Read more: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/education/article261564667.html
pfitz59
(10,198 posts)horrible organization
dchill
(38,321 posts)Initech
(99,914 posts)It's fucking scary. These are the people who, if I had kids, I would not want them grooming them.
AZLD4Candidate
(5,558 posts)Turning Point and that pathetic Charlie Kirk don't have conservative views. They have bigoted, xenophobic, homophobic, nativist, sexist views. That deserves as much protest as possible.
Then again, listen to the whining.
No one has a problem with conservative views. Many have a problem with what modern conservatives espouse AS their views.
Roy Rolling
(6,853 posts)Well said, its an important distinction. Its how values become relative instead of fixedbranding.
So-called conservatives strategy? Be Nazis, but label it conservative.
Why? The party of businessRepublicansare better at branding than being conservative. They dont give a shit about conserving, unless its to mislabel themselves to acquire more power and wealth.
lastlib
(22,981 posts)1) Wealth for the wealthy;
2) Power for the powerful;
3) Comfort for the comfortable;
4) Poverty for the poor;
5) Affliction for the afflicted.
certainot
(9,090 posts)brooklynite
(93,866 posts)oldsoftie
(12,410 posts)The Grand Illuminist
(1,306 posts)So to the students who want a Turning Point chapter, all I can say is this. Zachary Greenberg
DavidDvorkin
(19,406 posts)And I'm always disappointed to see suppression of right-wing speech cheered on DU.
Phoenix61
(16,953 posts)I cant imagine a high-school kid having a clue what Turning Point is.
chowder66
(9,011 posts)Phoenix61
(16,953 posts)access minors. So parents or church would, IMHO, be the top two contenders.
SuperCoder
(300 posts)Translation: "We are a bunch of racists, rapists, and hate everyone that isn't a strong white male, and we don't want to be yelled at for being wrong."
Deminpenn
(15,246 posts)then maybe they should form a debate club where they will have to actually present and defend coherently the conservative side of topics.
EarthFirst
(2,877 posts)Its based solely on conjecture and projection.
Deminpenn
(15,246 posts)debate of ideas. They just want to be preaching to their own choir.
certainot
(9,090 posts)The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness Paperback October 21, 2011
by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr. M.D.
Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions
by Michael Savage
it is now well recognized that conservatism and authoritarianism are part of a broad category of strategies humans use to avoid uncertainty.
now the sex on the wrong brain theory explains it better as a need for certainty, which along with greed, are part of a heritable susceptibility to wrong handed masturbation.
heritable because some of those symptoms had survival value in times of conflict.
liberals are too tolerant of uncertainty!
oldsoftie
(12,410 posts)Or no one else has the right to form THEIRS.
Sorry, but thats how our system works even if we don't like their positions.
atreides1
(16,046 posts)Is that their club seeks to do what the Buffalo shooter started!!!
Our system was never intended to bring about its own destruction!!!
oldsoftie
(12,410 posts)So now a Satanic group has asked that THEIR flag be flown too. Which is their right. If we open schools to allowing student groups, then you have to allow them for people you don't like.
I haven't seen Turning Point advocate for killing innocent people nor are they a white nationalist group; they just have ridiculous ideas on many topics.
dsc
(52,130 posts)that is settled law for decades, and as the advisor of a GSA I thank God every day for that settled law.
chowder66
(9,011 posts)snip....
Finally, Congress included "safe harbor" provisions within the Equal Access Act to protect schools from abuse by extremists and other similar groups. Pursuant to the Equal Access Act, districts retain the authority to "maintain order and discipline on school premises, [and] to protect the well being of students and faculty."
Districts, therefore, can restrict speech in order to maintain order and discipline and to protect students and faculty, by prohibiting speech that "materially and substantially interfere[s] with the orderly conduct of educational activities within the school," and any speech which offends the standards set in Tinker and Fraser.
Those limits were tested in Harper v. Poway (2006), in which students wore T-shirts to school with anti-homosexual slogans. (The students were protesting against a "Day of Silence" organized by a gay-straight alliance.) Following the standard set in Tinker, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that it was proper for the district to prohibit the students from wearing those T-shirts because "students who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses."
While banning a club is a more serious action than banning a T-shirt, the same legal standards under Tinker and Fraser would apply.
https://www.nyssba.org/news/2017/08/10/on-board-online-august-14-2017/schools-cannot-engage-in-viewpoint-discrimination-when-students-wish-to-form-political-religious-clubs/
mahatmakanejeeves
(56,897 posts){snip}
Supreme Court vacated judgment and said to dismiss case
In March 2007, the Supreme Court, in an unsigned order, granted certiorari in Harper and vacated the judgment with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. The mootness question arose because Harper since had graduated from high school. The Court noted that this action would permit relitigation of the underlying issues if necessary.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,063 posts)edited to ask this after reading the replies: Would it be ok for the school to approve a Nazi Club? A pile of shit by any other name is still a pile of shit.
intheflow
(28,407 posts)Whats the big deal? Its a Christian organization!
Exactly why I cringe when people say children are the future. Biologically & socially true, I usually hear it in response to actions like the protesters in this incident, while completely ignoring the young people trying to raise awareness about conservative views are also in our future. 😞
Icanthinkformyself
(212 posts)is, at it's core, hate, racism and bigotry, religious and otherwise, as public policy. Why weren't the conservative students asked what conservative values they are talking about? It's a zero sum ideology. Pundits like to say it's not our grandfathers GOP. Ah, yes, it is. It's just a louder, more open version of the same bigotry and racism Republicans have espoused since the parties changed sides in the 1930s. It's too bad the fascists who left the Democratic Party in response to FDR and the 'Great Society' became the Republican Party. Many Republicans, before and during WWII supported Hitler. They should have been hung as traitors, not elected.
mahatmakanejeeves
(56,897 posts)That's the point of the club.
Lonestarblue
(9,880 posts)We know what Republicans stand for today, but the media constantly describes them as conservatives instead of radical extremists. It is not conservative to want to remake the country and the culture into a whites-only, Christian Nationalist theocratic system where only certain people have rights, and even those rights allowed are restricted to traditional family structure, no mixing of races, nothing but heterosexual relationships, no reproductive choices and women not allowed to function without permission of men.
Republican radicals stand for no corporate regulations, small government with the elimination of many federal agencies such as the Department of Education, low taxes on rich people and business (thats still true), dedication to the trickle-down economic theory that has resulted in a transfer of most of the wealth of the country to the 1%, elimination of Social Security and Medicare and all safety net programs, and the continued rule of the country by the white elite. Why those positions are attractive to anyone but the white elites is a mystery to me.
Obamas election shook this group to its core because they were enraged that a black man could occupy the office reserved solely for white men. The prejudice and hatred came out of the closet and Trump used his four years to whip it up to a frenzy. Fox became much worse during his tenure and now does little more than incite hatred. What crazy times we live in.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)Are liberal-thinking kids allowed to join to keep debate open?
If I were a parent there, I would want to make sure this didn't turn into just brown shirt rallies or a campaign to control curriculum.
Like in churches, it's far safer to not allow political or religious private clubs to prevent divisions among the populace. If they want political debate in schools, do it in the classroom where it can be kept balanced and fair for learning.
After all, tax-exempt churches are for religious worship and tax-supported schools are for learning.
KY
keithbvadu2
(36,368 posts)In Nov., ANOTHER Trump official was indicted in D.C. on child pornography charges,
The LinkedIn profile bearing Hagemans name shows that prior to joining the Commerce Department the user was a Phoenix-based events administrator for Turning Point USA, a group for young conservatives whose events have frequently drawn top Trump administration officials including the former president himself.
dlk
(11,435 posts)A friend of mine taught school there some years ago. Its long been a white flight bastion of racism.
LT Barclay
(2,585 posts)toward right wing views now.
This mess seems like the Tea Party fiasco. An AstroTurf program funded by wealthy right wingers to find a way to push their lies on younger more impressionable people.
dlk
(11,435 posts)Its a rough situation. I hope you and your family can find others who are like-minded to support each other.
LT Barclay
(2,585 posts)My son was sent to a "School of Economics" on a field trip and they had to listen to me talk about income inequality, outsourcing, pollution, etc. for a whole month. Then I sent him with a bunch of cartoons pulled from here and allhatnocattle.net about the same things and gave him $5 to give them to the instructor and tell her "my dad gave me these and I don't understand them, can you help me?"
I also buy them t-shirts from groups like Sea Shepherd.
dlk
(11,435 posts)We can't let the bullies indoctrinate our children. Every day is a new beginning and a new battle, it seems. If we don't fight to save our world, they will blithely destroy it (while singing hymns).
maxsolomon
(32,992 posts)and just scoff and eyeroll throughout meetings.