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Has Student Voice Been Eliminated? a Consideration of Student Activism Post-Parkland

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Has Student Voice Been Eliminated? a Consideration of Student Activism Post-Parkland HAS STUDENT VOICE BEEN ELIMINATED? A CONSIDERATION OF STUDENT ACTIVISM POST-PARKLAND Paul J. Geis Kent State University David Blacker points to a problematic decline in personal freedoms, including student speech rights: “[A]s the ‘educational mission’ of schools moves ineluctably even further toWard Warehousing and surveillance—pre- jail—then remaining intra-institutional speech rights Will easily be quashed.”1 Critical of the elastic conception of educational mission as put forth in Morse v. Frederick, he Warns that matters of school safety Will take precedence over student speech rights, especially in the Wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, and earlier and future school shootings. In the Wake of yet another mass school shooting, I examine Whether Blacker Was correct to sound the alarm about an elimination of student voice. Much public attention focused on debates around gun control and Second Amendment rights after the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida this past February but that is not my focus here. Samantha Deane addresses broader questions of gun violence and schools in her recent growing body of Work, as do others.2 Similar to Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Dan Mamlok’s recent article on political emotion in civic education, I use the post-Parkland context to bring concepts from philosophy of education to bear on real contemporary events in schools.3 I am interested in what we learned about schools and democratic education in the subsequent days, Weeks, and months. Heeding Blacker’s Warning, I Worry that broad and vague safety concerns among school administrators may have constrained student speech. I turn to Sarah Stitzlein and Bryan Warnick to analyze student 1 David J. Blacker, The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2013), 187. 2 See Samantha Deane, “Trigger Warnings: HoW Guns are Re(Shaping) Education,” American Journal of Education Forum, September 25, 2017, http://WWW.ajeforum.com/trigger-warnings-how-guns-are-reshaping-education-by- samantha-deane; Samantha Deane and Katie Bateman, “Becoming Sensitive to School Gun Violence,” American Journal of Education Forum, May, 2018, http://WWW.ajeforum.com/becoming-sensitive-to-school-gun-violence-by-samantha- deane-and-kathryn-m-bateman; and Amy Shuffleton and Samantha Deane, “Study War No More: Trigger Warnings and Guns in the Classroom,” in International Handbook of Philosophy of Education, ed. Paul Smeyers (Cham: Springer, 2018). See also Kellner, Guys and Guns Amok (Boulder: Paradigm, 2008), and multiple authors of a dedicated issue of Educational Theory (65, no. 4) in 2015. 3 See Kathleen Knight AboWitz and Dan Mamlok, “The Case of #NeverAgainMSD: When Proceduralist Civics Becomes Public Work by Way of Political Emotion,” Theory & Research in Social Education 47, no. 2 (2019): 155–175. © 2019 Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2019/Volume 50 83 and school responses. Drawing on their ideas on democratic habits and student free speech respectively, I explore Whether the actions of students and school administrators substantiated Blacker’s pessimistic concerns for the elimination of student voice, or Whether signs of hope for democracy emerged post- Parkland. Elastic School Mission and Elimination of Student Voice Blacker cautions that the increased elasticity of school mission in progressive decisions of Fraser, Kuhlmeier, and Morse, moves us toWard elimination of student voice.4 Virtually any activity can become a core activity to the school’s mission, enabling schools to restrict student speech across a broad spectrum of activities, Whether it be because of disruption or because of message. This transforms nearly all instances of student speech into school- related speech. FolloWing the shooting in Florida, a phenomenon emerged that positioned Blacker’s cautionary theorizing as a potential reality. Unlike past mass shootings, the neWs in Parkland quickly shifted from those Who had been killed to those Who had survived, to students Who had a voice, knew their rights, Were speaking out, and Who kneW their civics and history. For many observers, this informed and Well-articulated activism, particularly on the part of certain high-profile Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDHS) students such as Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, Was a demonstration of the ability of our schools (or at least one school) to prepare young people as engaged, democratic citizens. As teachers and school administrators around the country began to Work With students, Blacker’s cautionary Warning risked becoming a reality. While they may have faced punishment for leaving school grounds, Walkout students Would enjoy the same freedom of any citizen While marching on public streets. School administrators had no authority to discipline students for speech during the Walkouts, or during events such as televised town halls, the March for Our Lives in Washington, or demonstrations at state houses. HoWever, once students agreed to collaborate With teachers and administrators on events to take place on school grounds, they Were subjected to potential constraints in their speech. Educators may have intended to spare students the consequence of suspension for Walking out, but they needed to equally attend to the potential suppression or elimination of student voices as a result of their engagement with the students’ activism. Well-intentioned, teachers and administrators ran the risk of co-opting independent events of student activism and bringing them under the control of the schools. Reflecting Blacker’s concerns about the elasticity of the mission of schools, this gave school administrators broad latitude in limiting, or even eliminating, student speech at these events. With these concerns in mind, it is critical that We examine What students did in the wake of the shooting, and the role that schools seemingly played prior to the event in preparing students to assume their roles as activist citizens. 4 Blacker, The Falling Rate, 166–173. 84 Geis – Has Student Voice Been Eliminated? Deliberative Democracy and Student Free Speech Some proponents of deliberative democracy privilege the coming together for face-to-face deliberation, and ultimately compromise. While they do not dismiss activism, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson approach it With some caution. Activism, they contend, may be valuable When it moves us toWard the goals of coming together for deliberation and compromise, but is potentially disruptive to these goals and often further polarizes us.5 Iris Marion Young highlights the tension betWeen the deliberative democrat and the activist, recognizing that many of us move betWeen the tWo stances.6 Young and her respondents recognize the desirability and necessity of both deliberation and activism.7 Sarah Stitzlein’s Work allows for such a broader conception of deliberative democracy in Which protest—an act of dissent—is valued equally With, and not simply as a path toward, the formal aspects of coming together for compromise. For this reason, I turn to Stitzlein for my analysis of democratic habits. Attention to student voice post-Parkland reflects a broader discussion of free speech in educational spaces. Sigal Ben-Porath addresses a problematic context in Which students are increasingly polarized in their views and are calling for limitations to free speech on college campuses.8 In advocating for inclusive freedom around student free speech, Ben-Porath notes that legal frameWorks are not sufficient given the specific contexts of the university. Similarly, Bryan Warnick points to the lack of legal clarity on the specific contexts that shape student free speech in schools. Warnick points us toward an educational criterion in hoW We limit student speech and Ben-Porath urges the use of pedagogic tools toward an inclusive environment, rather than administrative and legal monitoring of student speech.9 While the contexts of student free speech in schools and on college campuses are connected, it is important to recognize that there are both legal and ethical contexts that distinguish them. Therefore, I turn to Warnick in particular here because of the unique context of children in public schools.10 5 Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Harvard, 1996); Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, The Spirit of Compromise (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). 6 Iris Marion Young, “Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy,” Philosophy of Education Yearbook (2001): 41–55. 7 Young, 41–55; Natasha Levinson, “Deliberative Democracy and Justice,” Philosophy of Education Yearbook (2001): 56–59; Emily Robertson, “Why Can’t We Have It All?” Philosophy of Education Yearbook (2001): 60–63. 8 Sigal Ben-Porath, Free Speech on Campus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). 9 Ben-Porath, 102. 10 Bryan R. Warnick, Understanding Student Rights in Schools: Speech, Religion, and Privacy in Educational Settings (NeW York: Teachers College Press, 2013), 2. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION – 2019/Volume 50 85 Stitzlein’s and Warnick’s Writings provide us With frameWorks to examine Whether student voice Was indeed eliminated in the Wake of a school shooting. In the analysis that follows, I engage With Stitzlein’s habits of democracy to understand student speech and activism in the aftermath of Parkland.11 I then turn to Warnick’s Writing on student speech rights in school to examine the ways in which educators responded to this activism. Habits of Democracy
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