¡ No Español!

12/16/05

Sometimes in my wanderings around the day’s news I come across something so preternaturally idiotic it gives me pause. It doesn’t happen that often, as I’ve become used to being outraged, seeing as I’m a liberal living under what seems to me to be an oppressive, demagogic administration led by dangerously out-of-touch men who shouldn’t be put in charge of a hot dog cart. Today I was rewarded with a gem that comes out of the state of Kansas, long known to be a stronghold for progressive views such as teaching the completely farciful idea of “Intelligent Design” along with evolution in school. Intelligent Design is the idea that the Universe was created by something, maybe a large serpent of some kind, somewhere, at sometime and requires exactly zero proof or testable hypothesis to attain the status of “theory,” apparently.

Today I find that this state stuck in the time before electricity has struck another powerful blow for the continued destruction of any form of education whatsoever. The story, here quoted from the AgapePress, goes like this:


The head of a group that advocates making English the official language of the United States says a Kansas high school was justified in suspending a 16-year-old student for speaking Spanish with another student in the hallway.

Stick with me, it gets better!


A teacher who overheard the two students' exchange in Spanish sent Rubio to the office, where school principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and prepare to leave the campus. She says this was not the first time Rubio and other students had been told not to speak Spanish at school.

Yeah! That’ll show ‘em! “We don’t cotton to your gibber-jabber Moon-language here, son!” I swear to the motherfucking gods I’m not making this up. It would almost be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that these people are allowed not only to interact with the rest of society, but actually given access to and charged with the education of children. The boy’s father who had recently became a U.S. citizen and therefore knows more about Constitutional law than any random sampling of “natives” asked the school to show him what written policy his son had violated, knowing from his citizenship test that “in America they can’t punish you unless you violate a written policy,” as he was quoted in the Washington Post. He’s thinking about suing the bejesus out of these bastards, in other words. Jim Boulet, all around know-nothing douche-bag and executive director of a group named--get this--English First, a society who wishes to make English the official language of this country, had this to say:


"Let's face facts here; if the kid had been saying in Spanish, 'The bomb is around the corner,' the school would be held liable for not knowing that,"


Nothing I could possibly say here could make that above statement any more other-worldly retarded. He continues:

"What they're saying is that [the school] violated his civil rights. You have no right to speak another language in this country. Actually, in a school or workplace setting, you have very few rights, so to speak. Your employer has rights. The school principal has rights. What we're seeing here is an attempt to cash in."

If intelligent arguments were gunpowder, Mr. Boulet wouldn’t have enough bang to create a Snap-Pop. Don’t believe me? Read on:

A legal expert with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy points out, however, that the law may well be on Rubio's side. Steve Crampton, the AFA Law Center's chief counsel, says a person would be "flat wrong" to assert that individuals, including minors like Rubio, have no right to speak another language under the Constitution of the United States. In fact, the attorney suggests that anyone laboring under such a misconception "could benefit significantly from a refresher course in constitutional law."

"The First Amendment is not language-specific," Crampton observes. "It protects second-language citizens as fully as it does English-speaking citizens. And as the Supreme Court has often stated, students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school house gate."

Chuck Chionuma, the Kansas City attorney who is representing the Rubios, believes it is obvious that Zach Rubio's civil rights have been violated. The family's legal counsel says they are considering what form of legal redress will correct the situation.


Honestly, people; we’re trying to have a society here! I should think the school board would have more pressing concerns than trying to discourage the skill of speaking two different languages like, say, setting fire to interracial couples, but maybe I’m wrong. I seem to remember a time when learning at least enough to curse in a second tongue was required for graduation, but maybe in Kansas you just have to get through twelve years without being shot by the principal because “Ya’ kind’a looked like a varmint from over here…” So congratulations, Kansas, you have officially become the toilet of education. With any luck somebody will flush that fucking turd.