Mom sues over yearbook photo

[ajoytoy]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The mother of a high school senior who posed in chain mail and held a medieval sword for his yearbook picture sued after the school rejected the photo because of its "zero-tolerance" policy against weapons.
Patrick Agin, 17, belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international organization that researches and recreates medieval history. He submitted the photo in September for the Portsmouth High School yearbook.
But the school's principal refused to allow the portrait as Agin's official yearbook photo because he said it violated a policy against weapons and violence in schools, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The lawsuit seeks an order that would prevent the yearbook from being published without Agin's senior portrait.

Agin's mother, Heidi Farrington, said she and her son believe the decision defies common sense.

"He doesn't see it as promoting violence," Farrington said Tuesday. "He sees it just as a theatrical expression of the reenactment community that he's involved in right now."

According to the lawsuit, principal Robert Littlefield told Farrington she could pay to put the photo in the advertising section of the book, but he would not allow it as Agin's senior portrait.

"That in and of itself demonstrates to us that there's absolutely no legitimate rationale for banning Patrick's photo," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16175420/


:mj07:

 

[yyz]

I think the Raider Nation might have room for him.......(or the two guys down the street from me.)

 

[freelancc]

I think the Raider Nation might have room for him......

looks too much like a wimp for raider nation

 

[2muchchalk]

the whole world should sue that mother for raising a child that put such a suit on

he is in the modern dungeons and dragons club

"Patrick Agin, 17, belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international organization that researches and recreates medieval history.":scared


what happened to playing sports, then getting drunk and laid in high school:shrug:

 

[SixFive]

don't people have more to do in their lives than bs like this?? What focking idiots they and their lawyer are.:142smilie

 

[yyz]

Is this guy's "quest" really any different than the queers who posed with their letter jacket, or dressed in their jersey for their senior pictures? I don't think so, when it comes right down to it.



I guess I don't see much difference in that dope and this dope:

We just relate to sports better than D&D games, so it's easy for us to give this fukbag a pass I guess? But he's doing the same retarded shit, isn't he????? Fantasy role playing??? :shrug:

 

[SixFive]

Is this guy's "quest" really any different than the queers who posed with their letter jacket, or dressed in their jersey for their senior pictures? I don't think so, when it comes right down to it.



I guess I don't see much difference in that dope and this dope:

We just relate to sports better than D&D games, so it's easy for us to give this fukbag a pass I guess? But he's doing the same retarded shit, isn't he????? Fantasy role playing??? :shrug:

agree, that's retarded as well!!

 

[fatdaddycool]

Remember the days when creativity, imagination, individualism, and independence were desirable traits?

I think its great now that schools are trying to suppress those attributes and then we as a society ask the question of why he isn't involved in sports? Yes sir we have it all figured out. Sports provides an alternative to crime and doping and such. Just ask those upstanding citizens on the Bengals who chose sports as an alternative. Yes sir you can bet that Bob Probert never played Dungeons and Dragons, cuz then he would have only been a twit. Thank God, that Rae Carruth didn't join the chess team because he could still be walking among us perfect people, maybe dating Vinnie's daughter...................hell at least he wouldn't be gaying it up with Beantown like the rest of the school presidents. Yep, I love it when basketball players grab at my daughter like she is the last copter out of Vietnam..............woohoo.

 

[saint]

The lawsuit seeks an order that would prevent the yearbook from being published without Agin's senior portrait.

Nothing says getting back than denying an entire school's worth of senior their yearbook because you are a piece of shit. This mother shot rot in hell for wasting taxpayer money for such a frivolous lawsuit.

That kid is headed straight to the top.............

Too bad the top for him is Medieval Times

 

[Box and one]

Yearbooks...I'm not the yearbook advisor at my school buts its my yearbook.Every year we have a yearbook crisis.We have parents that will fight for the kids and they lose.Any school can have there own rules about whats in a yearbook.The ACLU or who ever.. will not win this unless the school has done it before.A few yrs back we had a group of seniors that wore a t-shirt that had double meaning.It offended a lot of people...it got by our advisors...and Jostens that does most of the books around the country.We had 700 books arrive and before we gave them out ..saw the error. We had over 10 pictures in each book we had to black out.Thats 7,000 pictures we had to do something about.....so I got 50 freshman from gym class..put them in the caferteria ...marked the pages and created an assembly line...each kid would with a black magic marker crossed out the words on the t-shirt...and pass the book to the next kid who did another page.We had 4 lines with 10 kids...In under an hour we had blacked out all 7,000 t-shirts...
When we gave out the books and 95% were already paid for parents of these kids were calling me complaining about there kid in the group picture with a mark arcross there t-shirt. They could care less about the sexual and racial comment.I told every parent your lucky I didn't black out there faces too.Several parents threatend to get lawyers,go to my superintendent,etc,etc. About a week after we had given the books out we made an announcement...any parent or student who wants a refund for your yearbook can come to the school office and get a full refund. I think it was $50..back then.About 20 seniors took me up on the offer...when they came down I was ready ...I asked them to give me your books and here's your check....Since most of them had them all signed already no one took me up on the offer. My secretary said to me prior to the kids coming down the office...we have no checks or money to give these kids...I said.. I know...no one will take me up on the offer when they realize they have to surrender there books....
This year already we had a minor problem. Jostens always goes on the roof of our school and takes a pictures of our 300 seniors in the shape of our schools letters.We tell the kids no hand signals or gestures..Just look up...The group picture is always on the inseam of our books. Well,last week Jostens sent the picture.We look at it and we have 3 seniors giving the finger....So my advisor says we can white out the finger with some image remover. I said.." no..white the students out". So come June 15th when we give out the yearbooks my school will have 297 kids in the picture...think I'll get a call on that from the parents...if they want a refund...I have the checks.. Also all three students were suspended for 2 days..We told there parents they were welcome to come look at the picture...none did...to bad..they willl never see there kids in the new one...

 

[yyz]

The funny thing is, many years from now, this kid will be happy as hell that his picture never made the book!

 

[SixFive]

when it was time for my senior class yearbook photo, somebody made a very wise decision, and I still think it's one of the classiest yearbooks ever put out. All of the seniors had to wear formal attire. The photographer provided tuxedos for the guys and formal looking dresses for the girls. These were only head/shoulder shots, so these were things you slipped over your head. The yearbook pictures looked terrific and super classy and have stood up over time as the best looking senior class I've seen since.

I think one of the biggest problems with kids now is that they're given too many choices and don't have enough structure.

Box, your way or the highway. My kind of guy.

 

[Looselugs]

[QUOTE=SixFive;1617392

I think one of the biggest problems with kids now is that they're given too many choices and don't have enough structure.

I can`t agree more.

 

[Jinxbreaker]

I've had to hear about this on the local radio for the last 2 weeks. What's even worse is a teacher in Smithfield RI lost her job for fake stapling(mini stapler) a student in the head. The staple fell out into his hair and when he touched his hair looking for it his scalp was cut. Everyone in the class laughed and that was the end of it. A week later his mother reads one of his e-mails where the other kid recalls how funny it was. SHE goes to the POLICE and files Chargers and the teacher gets arrested. Believe me I'm not making this UP!!! It ended up getting thrown out of court but she ain't getting her job back. ZERO TOLENCE Stay Tooned.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

more school related notes---


Not-So-Honored Roll

Students who make the honor roll at Needham High School in Massachusetts will no longer have their names in the local newspaper. That's because principal Paul Richards says publishing the honor roll represents "an unhealthy focus on grades" and goes against the school's mission to "promote learning."

Richards tells a Boston TV station that the new policy is aimed at reducing students' stress levels in what he calls "this high expectations, high achievement culture." The principal says the change was prompted by a complaint from a parent. He says he's received dozens of messages both for and against the new policy ? which he says is "subject to review."

and on student freedom of expression issues---
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/479395p-403229c.html


'Terrorist' lauded at CCNY

By MIKE JACCARINO and KAREN ANGEL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

These days, Joanne Chesimard is known as Assata Shakur, but she's had dozens of other aliases in a life on the run.
She now lives in Cuba, a guest of dictator Fidel Castro, and carries a $1 million price tag for her capture and return to prison in the U.S.

She's a convicted cop killer who left behind a lifetime of pain for the family of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.

But in at least one corner of City College, Chesimard is a hero, honored and remembered.

Her latest alias enshrines theGuillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community Center at the City University of New York's flagship campus.

It's a punch to the gut that has furious police groups demanding the publicly funded institution strip away the Black Liberation Army militant's name.

"We use tax dollars to support an institution that indemnifies a cold-blooded terrorist?" asked Dave Jones, president of the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association.

"She's a cowardly, cold-blooded convicted murderer who's part of a murdering sect," he said. "She's no different from those people who flew those planes into those towers and destroyed all those innocent lives."

Shakur was sentenced to life for her role in the the 1973 murder of Foerster.

Foerster was shot twice at point-blank range with his own weapon when he pulled over a car carrying Chesimard and other activists on May 2, 1973, on the Jersey Turnpike.

His partner, James Harper, was wounded.

She was freed in a daring 1979 prison break and fled to Cuba. Last year, the feds put her on the terrorist watch list with a $1 million reward for her capture.

The Morales/Shakur Center got its name in 1989, a reward to radical students who took over City College's North Academic Center to protest a proposed tuition hike.

---and re lawsuits--how about this one on man claiming Vioxx caused his heart attack

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061214/vioxx_federal_trial.html?.v=2

Dedrick's lawyer, Andy Birchfield, acknowledged in his closing statement that Dedrick had other risk factors for his heart attack, including tobacco use, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and cocaine use.

However, he said, Vioxx was also a risk factor and that -- as has been argued in other cases -- Merck failed to adequately warn doctors about the risk.

 

[IX_Bender]

I think one of the biggest problems with society now is that they're given too many choices and don't have enough structure.

I can`t agree more.

Fixed.

 

[Agent 0659]

when it was time for my senior class yearbook photo, somebody made a very wise decision, and I still think it's one of the classiest yearbooks ever put out. All of the seniors had to wear formal attire. The photographer provided tuxedos for the guys and formal looking dresses for the girls. These were only head/shoulder shots, so these were things you slipped over your head. The yearbook pictures looked terrific and super classy and have stood up over time as the best looking senior class I've seen since.

I think one of the biggest problems with kids now is that they're given too many choices and don't have enough structure.

Box, your way or the highway. My kind of guy.

You probably had what, at least 15 or 16 ppl in your graduating class?



:142smilie

 

[SixFive]

You probably had what, at least 15 or 16 ppl in your graduating class?



:142smilie

300, dilbert

 

[redsfann]

wow, 300 in your graduating class? is that big for gooberville?
I was friends with at least 300 and knew by name 500, of my high school class of 1000+.
Pretty sure BahamaMama's class was even bigger than that as the baby boomer numbers slipped a bit by the class of 1983...

 

[bjfinste]

Are you sure there were 1,000+ in your actual class? Or in the whole high school? Where the hell did you go to HS?

There isn't a single high school in the state of Wisconsin with a 9-12 enrollment of 3,000. I *think* Stevens Point is the biggest with a little under 2,600 total. None of the Milwaukee public city schools are close to that.

My little rural hillbilly town graduating class had 78 kids (way back in '97). I think the classes are around 100-110 now.