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    Justin and the First Amendment
    Justin and the First Amendment
    Justin and the First Amendment
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Justin and the First Amendment

    By Verna Safran

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    Does The Constitution give kids the right to freedom of speech? And does free speech include wearing a T-shirt with a message on it?Justin Conroy finds out, when he wears a peace T-shirt to school. His dad is in the reserves, fighting in far-off Gazolia, and Justin wants him home. But the school authorities accuse him of being unpatriotic and suspend him. His friend Gwen circulates a petition defending him, which a teacher rips up. When a student journalist interviews the two activists, the teacher in charge of the school newspaper withholds the article. Luckily, their class is studying The Constitution, and their history teacher, Mr. Graham, introduces them to their First Amendment rights. But what's the best way to fight for those rights? How do you speak truth to power? Justin and his friends discover that heroes and heroines come in all shapes and sizes, and the doers of brave deeds can be the most unexpected folks around -- nerdy dweebs, jazz musicians, beauty queens -- they might even be you!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateJul 22, 2013
    ISBN9781481773430
    Justin and the First Amendment
    Author

    Verna Safran

    VERNA SAFRAN taught English and History in middle school and high school and also worked as a freelance journalist, with articles on health, civil liberties and women's issues published in national magazines. She's currently on the board of her local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Originally from New York, now retired in Sarasota, Ms. Safran helps organize current events forums at the Unitarian-Universalist Church and is an actress/director/writer with the Asolo Play Readers. She has a son who does cancer research, and three grandchildren -- all geniuses, of course. Since she doesn't get to see them as often as she'd like, she's grandmother-at-large to the many youngsters she tutors in reading, writing, and social studies.

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      Book preview

      Justin and the First Amendment - Verna Safran

      CHAPTER ONE

      TROUBLEMAKER

      "Of all the T-shirts you could have worn today, you had to go and wear that one! Justin’s little sister Kaylee squeaked at him. It’s true; he had a huge wardrobe of ironed T-shirts hanging in his closet. He could have worn the Tommy Hilfiger, or the Tampa Buccaneers, or the Marathon 2013, or even the cool one with the dolphins. But when opened the closet and saw his dad’s fishing gear in the corner, he decided to wear the T-shirt he’d bought at the peace rally,. It said, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS; BRING THEM HOME NOW!"

      All it showed, he thought, was how much he missed his dad, who had signed on for a short stint in the National Guard and had been gone for almost two years, fighting in far-off Gazolia, the new country in Antarctica where oil and gas had just been discovered. Justin didn’t expect that his shirt would become a major issue at Harriet Beecher Stowe Middle School.

      From the time he boarded the school bus, his shirt attracted more attention than he expected.

      Where’d you get that shirt? Teddy Gruber, the class bully, shouted, In Russia or in France?

      I got it at a peace rally, Justin answered him, and then wished he hadn’t. By lunchtime, Justin was the talk of the school, with everyone taking sides—Pro Shirt (and against the war) and Anti-shirt (for supporting the president). Justin was rather pleased that just a few words on a piece of cotton fabric had managed to stimulate discussion where there hadn’t been any before. Even the teachers seemed to want to express their opinions about it. But they didn’t. They either just smiled or scowled. The entire school seemed split right down the middle, just like the nation at election time. But soon the discussion turned violent. An eighth grader came over to him on the cafeteria line and knocked his tray down, spilling soup and sandwich all over the floor.

      What did you do that for? Justin asked.

      Wanted to see if you would fight, or if you were a coward like your old man. That made Justin so angry he almost did want to punch the guy out right then and there, but a teacher came over with a broom to help clean up the mess, and stood between the two boys.

      The first period after lunch was English. Miss Hightower was trying to teach them the parts of speech and today it was adverbs.

      An adverb is a word that describes a verb, Miss Hightower wrote on the board. It answers the question How or Where or When.

      Justin’s friend Gwen, who sat next to him in English, passed him a note. She wasn’t terribly pretty and wore braces on her teeth, but she wrote the funniest notes anybody ever wrote anybody. He knew she was brave, too, because she always passed notes right in front of the teacher’s nose and never got caught. This one said: HOW are we going to stay awake this period? WHEN is English going to get interesting? And WHERE does Miss Hightower get those little-girl dresses from the 1950’s? Everyone was paying lots more attention to the shortness of the teacher’s skirt, however, than they were to the lesson. And the rumor was flying that she was having an after-school romance with Mr. Lane, the Science teacher. Miss Hightower rapped on the desk to stop the whispering and bring the class back to attention. She said if they got through the lesson and showed that they understood adverbs, they could then read a radio play about the Statue of Liberty as a reward. Justin suggested they read the radio play first, and try to find adverbs in it.

      He’s always the troublemaker, a hugely overweight girl called from the back row. Whatever everybody else is doing, Justin Conroy wants to do the opposite.

      Yeah, agreed Teddy Gruber. Like he wants this country to pull out of Ant-ark-tikker and give it to the Eskimos, just ’cuz they live there.

      That’s not what Justin thinks, his friend Gwen defended him.

      Oh, yeah? How do you know what Justin thinks? the heavyset girl asked. Are you his girlfriend?

      Miss Hightower spoiled her pretty forehead with a frown. I don’t see what all that has to do with today’s lesson, she said. Justin made a legitimate suggestion about re-ordering our agenda, she went on, (a recent graduate from college, she was full of the latest educationese expressions.) But since midterms are approaching, and I’d like you to do well, I think we can reach consensus about concentrating on Grammar for the first part of the lesson.

      They had read about adverbs in their workbooks and were quietly beginning a written exercise, when a monitor came into the room with a note. Miss Hightower read it, folded it, and looked at Justin with surprise.

      Mr. Conroy, she said. That was a bad sign already. Teachers at this school only called you by your last name when you had done something wrong. Mr. Pomerantz wants to see you in his office. Right now. Better take your books with you. A shocked silence fell upon the room. Rumor had it that Mr. Pomerantz’s unconventional discipline techniques included making tall boys crouch under a table for a whole hour, and hanging short boys up in the closet by the back label of their coats. He was also known for The Water Torture, which involved dousing the head of an unruly pupil under the spray of the drinking fountain. Kids could not complain to their parents, and their parents could not complain to the school, because these punishments, while uncomfortable and humiliating, left no visible marks.

      Justin got up from his seat and exchanged glances with Gwen and with his friend Benji Rosensweig, who was sitting there drawing pictures of space ships.

      Okay, Justin said with a shrug.

      Miss Hightower had a stroke of inspiration. See if you can give me adverbs for how Justin is leaving the room.

      Reluctantly! Unwillingly! came the responses. Fearfully! Angrily! Obediently! Slowly!

      You’ve got it, the teacher beamed. Justin wasn’t too happy that they got it at his expense.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE PRINCIPAL’S PRINCIPLES

      M r. Howard Pomerantz wore an American flag in his lapel. And he had an American flag on his desk. Although he never talked about it in the teacher’s room or in the assembly, he was very much in favor of the war. Maybe because his nephew Mark, a sweet, smiling boy who played the guitar and loved to crack jokes, was killed in Gazola under an avalanche of ice. Mr. Pomerantz felt that in order to find some justification for Mark’s death, he had to believe that the war was right, and that America was bringing Democracy to the Eskimos.

      Mr. Howard Pomerantz was hoping to become Dr. Howard Pomerantz very soon, for he was working on his Ph.D., which was now A.B.D. (All But Dissertation). He had changed the topic for his dissertation four or five times before finally settling on School Law and the Middle School Administrator. So it cannot be said that he did not know the law. He knew it very well. T-shirts with racial or religious epithets were taboo. But when it came to patriotism—here was murky ground.

      Just this week, he had met a legal challenge. Some students wanted to conduct a prayer vigil in the schoolyard for the soldiers who had just been sent overseas from the community. Much as he wanted

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