For years the classroom has been the setting for the free expression of ideas, but two weeks ago certain ideas led to two students being taken out of class and grilled by the United States Secret Service.
It happened at Oakland High. The discussion was about the war in Iraq. That’s when two students made comments about the President of the United States. While the exact wording is up for debate, the teacher didn’t consider it mere criticism, but a direct threat and she called the Secret Service.
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“When one of the students asked, ‘do we have to talk now? Can we be silent? Can we get legal council?’ they were told, ‘we own you, you don’t have any legal rights,'” Felson says.
“We don’t want federal agents or police coming in our schools and interrogating our children at the whim of someone who has a hunch something might be wrong,” Lopez says.
BY TOM TOMORROW