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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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Military Hand In Attack On Free Speech |
Current rating: 0 |
by Buster Southerly
(No verified email address) |
22 May 2003
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"A staff member, who has a military background and military mindset, complained about the poem, saying it was an anti-war speech... Due to the complaint, the administration asked for a copy of the poem... I delivered it to the RRHS administrators when I got back from spring break because they wished to read it. They read it, looking for two things: profanity and incitement to violence. They found neither." |
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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — On May 1, poet, teacher, youth poetry coach and Green Left Weekly writer Bill Nevins received a terse notice from the Rio Rancho School District informing him that he has been fired from his Rio Rancho High School (RRHS) teaching position, effective from August. Reasons for his termination were not stated. Nevins has requested an explanation.
Nevins was suspended on March 17 from his job as a humanities teacher and coach of the RRHS Poetry Team/Write Club. RRHS is the largest public high school in New Mexico, built with funding from the Intel Corporation in the late 1990s. Nevins' suspension came soon after a student poetry club member read "Revolution X," an anti-government, anti-war social-commentary poem, over the school's closed-circuit TV system.
Following Nevins' suspension, student poets were questioned by the RRHS administration and their poems were "investigated" for "profanity and incitement to violence," according to the student author of "Revolution X" and other student writers. The Poetry Team/Write Club has been disbanded. A scheduled school program featuring social commentary by professional and student poets and musicians was cancelled by the RRHS administration.
The firing of Nevins is a blow to the outspoken student poetry movement, which was inspired in large part by the Poetry 180 national program launched by US Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Poetry 180, for which Collins has produced both a web site (<http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180>) and a book, encourages high school students to "turn back to poetry" by reading at least one poem each day over their school public address systems.
Nevins has renewed his request to the American Civil Liberties Union for support, despite a May 5 letter to Nevins from ACLU New Mexico director Peter Simonson stating that, so far, the ACLU "investigation of your case did not uncover direct evidence of retaliation." Many observers would say that the evidence of retaliation is more than obvious.
In a letter published on May 7 in a local New Mexico newspaper, RRHS student Courtney Butler, author of "Revolution X," stated: "During the fall semester at RRHS I wrote a poem entitled 'Revolution X.' I, along with other students, delivered poetry in the Performing Arts Center at the high school. We received praise from staff and students in the packed auditorium. Early in the spring term, I read my poem again on the school announcements. This poem is a social commentary. It comments on how our society claims to value education, but in actuality spends energy, time and resources on other things, such as war.
"A staff member, who has a military background and military mindset, complained about the poem, saying it was an anti-war speech... Due to the complaint, the administration asked for a copy of the poem... I delivered it to the RRHS administrators when I got back from spring break because they wished to read it. They read it, looking for two things: profanity and incitement to violence. They found neither."
The staff member who complained about the reading of "Revolution X" has been identified by the administration as Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Morrell, identified on the RRHS web site (<http://www.rrps.k12.nm.us/rrhs/Counselors/page8.html>) as the school's military liaison officer, a school guidance counsellor and member of the administration's appointed staff development committee. Morrell is notorious for his bellicose pro-war, pro-Bush pronouncements over the school's communications system. He is also known for his vigorous recruitment of students into the US military.
It is suspected that Morrell's demand that action be taken regarding the reading of the poem led to Nevins' suspension and termination, the banning of public poetry reading at the school and the destruction of the RRHS Poetry Team/Write Club.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has declined comment on the RRHS poetry case. Richardson, a Democrat, is being widely identified in the US media as a likely US presidential candidate in the near future.
From Green Left Weekly, May 21, 2003.
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