Graduation Speech - Student Referrs To School As "Prison" - Silenced

[matcom]

<snip>

It was not the speech that school officials approved.

So they pulled the plug on Nicholas Noel's commencement speech to fellow graduates Wednesday night when in the fourth sentence the senior class president referred to Grand Rapids Union High School as a "prison."

As more than 1,000 people watched, power to the microphone was cut and Noel returned to his seat at Ford Fieldhouse. Officials later refused to give him his diploma, although a school spokeswoman said he would receive it soon.


"He has nothing to apologize for," said his mother, Connie Noel. "It was a perfectly good speech, and they would've realized that if they had allowed him to talk."

Noel said he described the school as "the Union High Prison System" because students were expected to act alike. The message of his speech was that high school paints for students "a picture of life that is incomplete," he said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1085065060308630.xml

[iconoclastic cat]

1. I love it!

Perhaps we are entering a new era of progressive social/political engagement!

[BlondieK143]

2. Uh oh...

This one was posted this weekend. :D

[matcom]

3. cut me some slack

:D

i've been away and i'm still technically asleep :hangover:

[BlondieK143]

4. Hmmm, sure?

:) But only because you asked nicely. And didn't bother posting a Good Morning on the day you get back. Hmpf.

[7th_Sephiroth]

5. i posted it first

in GD as the subject 1984 in new mexico

[1monster]

6. Well, look at the birght side: The school certainly proved his point!

Reminds me of an event during the Parent's Weekend Entertainment when I was in college.

A student wrote verses to the tune of Fulton Prison Blues about the college.

The Dean of Students was not happy and thus insisted that the song be changed or not done.

The student then added a disclaimer verse at the end saying that the college really wasn't so bad, that it was all a joke. But when she sang the song at the Show, she changed the last two lines to: "Just ask Dean__________! He made us write this verse!"

It brought down the house. :D