California Conservative

KABC-TV in Los Angeles reports: “A ninth-grade student has accused officials at a Southern California high school of discrimination for suspending him for wearing lipstick and eye makeup.”

The 16-year-old argues that “the five-day suspension imposed Monday by administrators at San Bernardino’s Pacific High School was unfair because females are allowed to wear cosmetics on campus.”

What’s next, a mini-skirt and high-heels?

James Herndon says he wears goth-like clothing and make-up because it makes him feel better about himself.
(Click on image to enlarge)

Alrighty then, friends. It appears we found another poster-child for the disaffected, rock-duh-vote, MTV (soon-to-be GoreTV) generation. Very sad. If dressing like a freak show “makes him feel better about himself,” then it’s a fair guess that self-mutilation is the next logical step to achieving adolescent self-confidence. Conversely, it presupposes that a regular hair cut, a clean shirt and a pair of khakis would kill him. (Hey, somebody call Gene Simmons of KISS for an intervention)

Herndon says his black lipstick and red eye makeup express the Wiccan religious beliefs he shares with his mother, a priestess in the neo-pagan faith. He contends the suspension violates his constitutional right to free expression.

That’s very interesting. Both Herndon and his mother were interviewed on FOXNews this afternoon and, when asked about why he wears make-up, neither of them mentioned paganism. Wonder why?

As the Whittier Daily News also reports: “Christine Sun, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said two Education Code sections protecting students’ freedom of expression and guarding against gender discrimination appear to have been violated.”

They would know. According to the ACLU, something, somewhere is always being “violated.”

“High school is the time where many students are expressing themselves and really finding themselves and so to suspend the student is such a severe punishment it’s wrong. It’s wrong not only as a legal matter, but it’s not good policy.”

Is that so? Maybe the ACLU gets it wrong, again. Isn’t school a dedicated place for students to focus on learning, to study, and to mature? It should be. And that is good policy.

RELATED: Education Is Not Color-Blind

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2005 at 7:05 pm and is filed under ACLU, Academia, California, Culture, Youth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.