Home » About » Newsletters » May 1997
Kids Are People, Too
By Robyn E. Blumner, Executive Director
May 1997
When I was in school the Vietnam War was still going on. My friends in fourth grade wore P.O.W/M.I.A bracelets, and the day's body count was grimly recited on the evening news. At that time, turning 18 didn't just mean you could legally buy beer, it meant you could be called by your country to travel halfway around the world to kill people or get killed. Then, there was nothing childish about being young.
Even though many of today's policy makers were of the Vietnam generation, the adult world is conveniently forgetting their recent history. Adults in authority, whether they be school administrators or state legislators, have decided that teenagers are not a ministep from adulthood but either "superpredators" or utterly naive, and they are erecting a raft of regulations which complement this view.
Juvenile curfews, driving curfews, censored student publications, raised drinking age, school uniforms, strict dress codes, drug testing and arbitrary searches mark the salad days of today's youth. Under court rulings giving school principals authority to censor student publications, students are being told their opinions are either meaningless or dangerous. Under juvenile curfews, which force young people inside at night, they are being made prisoners of their homes or jobs (inevitably there is an exception to these curfews for kids coming home from work). Their lockers can be arbitrarily rifled through, and there is a bill currently before the Florida legislature which would require schools to randomly drug test middle and high school students. What is left of students' rights today could fit on a matchbook cover.
There is no recognition that male 17yearolds are mere months away from registration for selective service. We have lost sight of the serious responsibilities we demand of these young people. Since the abolition of the draft in 1973, the nation has forgotten that young men and to a lesser extent, young women, could be called up at any time to give their freedom and possibly their lives for this country.
Boys dying was the reason the 26th amendment to the constitution was passed in 1971, giving 18yearolds the right to vote. How dare we ask young people to sacrifice their lives for this nation but deny them the right to have a say in it, was the argument which persuaded at least 38 states to vote for ratification. If a plebescite were called today on expanding the rights of 18yearolds, it would probably go down in flames.
The new mantra for the political right is that with rights come responsibilities. But shouldn't that also work in reverse? Shouldn't our nation's teens get some rights with the multiple obligations they shoulder? When conservative politicians demand more responsibility from the citizenry, what they mean is that Americans should obey the law, respect their neighbors, engage in gainful employment, honor their family and pay their taxes. There are millions of teens in this country who do all of that and go to school at the same time. In fact, last year 34.5 percent of 16 and 17yearoldsmore than two and a half millionwere employed. Yet in spite of the upstandingcitizen behavior by so many, teens are increasingly subject to policestatelike restrictions.
Why should 16yearold Robert Jackson who maintains a "B" average at Turner Technical Arts High School in Miami, works four days a week at a clothing store, is presidentelect of the student body and actively volunteers at his church, be told it's illegal to be anywhere but home after 11 p.m. unless of course he's working?
Why should all students at Moore Haven High School in Glades County be forced to open their cars up to police searches, because school authorities thought one of the students might have a weapon in his car?
And why should students across Florida be subject to arbitrary dress codes which limit their rights to peaceably express themselves in school?
Earlier this month, Peter Riera, a 10thgrader at Boca Raton High School wore a necklace with the Cuban flag on it to school. He was told to remove it or leave. School officials said that the color of his flag beads (red, white and blue!) are gangrelated and he couldn't come to school with the necklace. There are virtually no gang problems in that school and Peter has never been associated with any illegal gang. He wore the jewelry as a symbol of pride in his heritage and refused to take it off after a school librarian derisively remarked, "Did you float over here on a raft?" Nonetheless, because of the steady erosion of student free speech rights since the Vietnamera, Peter may be forced to relinquish his necklace to the prejudices of his teachers.
In fact the last time student free speech was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court was in 1969, when a group of high school students in Des Moines were suspended for wearing black armbands to school in protest of American involvement in Vietnam. The Court set aside those suspensions, protecting the act of political protest even within the walls of a school. But since then, courts have become increasingly deferential to school authorities, allowing even irrational restrictions on student speech to stand.
Within every group and subsection of our society there are going to be lawbreakers. The mark of a free society is to punish those who flout the law without also sanctioning the law abiding. This basic principle of due process is absent in our dealings with young people.
If some kids are out at night vandalizing, then all are punished with a nighttime curfew. If a relative handful of teens join gangs, then all stylish clothing gets banned. If a few students use drugs, then everyone is subject to intrusive drug tests and searches.
It's policing by fiat. Simply tighten up on the leash and make everyone pay for the crimes of a few. As a small segment of the nation's teens become more destructive and violent, we respond by making them stand as adults in the eyes of the law and, at the same time, treat their law abiding peers as government charges. We can't have it both ways.
Teaching teens that the way to keep order is through martial law will only inure them to future acts of unbridled authority. The sorry civics lesson this imparts is that the inherent rights of man embodied in our constitution are only available when the government says so.
Just because this generation is not dying in some foreign country, does not negate its value or maturity. It shouldn't take the spilling of blood to earn respect and dignity. Teens show us every day through their serious scholarship and community involvement that they are worthy of our trust. The only way today's young people are going to develop into the thinking, responsible adults of tomorrow, is by giving them the freedom to do so.
