Teacher Points out Double Standard of School Walk-Out, is Disciplined

On March 14th and 15th,  2018, before the mass organized school "walkout" to push for more restrictions on gun ownership, a teacher led a discussion about political protests. Julianne Benzel, a teacher at Rocklin High School in California opened a debate about how protests were political, and that schools should be even-handed in their politics. The teacher reported the students understood the school should not pick losers and winners of controversial issues. From cbslocal.com:

Benzel says she never discouraged her students from participating in the national school walk out, but she did question whether it’s appropriate for a school to support a protest against gun violence if they’re not willing to support all protests.

“And so I just kind of used the example which I know it’s really controversial, but I know it was the best example I thought of at the time—a group of students nationwide, or even locally, decided ‘I want to walk out of school for 17 minutes’ and go in the quad area and protest abortion, would that be allowed by our administration?” she said.

She says the administration didn’t talk to her about her lecture, last week.

But while thousands of students walked out of class, Mrs. Benzel received a letter from her human resources department, informing her she’s being placed on paid administrative leave.

“I didn’t get any backlash from my students. All my students totally understood that there could not be a double standard,” she said.

Including Nick Wade, who didn’t walk out.

This is an ongoing pattern seen in these politically organized events designed to push for more restrictions on Second Amendment rights. One of the things the anti-Second Amendment groups are pushing for is a ban on semi-automatic rifles. Rifles such as the AR15 are analogous to the flintlock musket when the Second Amendment was ratified. There is a good case such rifles are precisely those most protected by the Second Amendment. Such rifles are arms that would be useful to form militias.

Note that the Rocklin school district uses a euphemism to refer to the overtly political action. They call it "civic engagement activities".



Mrs. Benzel cleverly pointed out the school would almost certainly not participate in organized "walkout" protesting the widespread availability of abortions.  A march for life occurs annually, in large numbers, but news of it is generally spiked by the national media. 

Over a decade ago, I was listening to a talk radio show out of Los Angeles. A high school principal was a guest on the show. He said something that will always stick in my memory. He said, "At my school we have perfect diversity. We all look different, but we all think alike."  It was a clear statement of what "diversity" means to Progressives.   All are welcome, as long as they do not have any opinions that diverge from the politically correct ones.

The problem with tax funded organizations, such as schools, taking sides in political debates, is that it forms a feedback loop. The political groups that use tax funded resources become stronger, and feed more taxes to those organizations that support them. They feed more support to the politicians that support them. It only ends when the funding becomes so large as to cause a backlash.  A backlash in California seems unlikely.

Tax funded organizations on one side of a political question are like a thumb on the scales of justice.


©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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