perfidy

Via The Spoons Experience, we learn that a high school in Omaha has punished several students for making an unofficial nomination for the school's annual "Distinguished African American Student Award." According to the Omaha World Herald;

The students' actions on Martin Luther King Jr. Day upset several students and have led administrators to discipline four students.

The posters, placed on about 150 doors and lockers, included a picture of the junior student smiling and giving a thumbs up. The posters encouraged votes for him.

The posters were removed by administrators because they were "inappropriate and insensitive," Westside spokeswoman Peggy Rupprecht said Tuesday.

The student in question was a white South African whose family had moved to the states six years ago. Trevor Richards, the student who was featured on the posters, was suspended for hanging them along with two others. The fourth student was punished for circulating a petition in support of the first three.

Volokh has weighed in on the first amendment aspects of the case, and I would never presume to tread on his feet on legal matters. What amazes me is that some high school kids could come up with such a brilliant, nuanced and effing hilarious strike against the blinkered, arbitrary and offensive hyphenated-American worldview that contaminates our schools and society.

When I was a kid in high school, back before walkmans, cell phones, computers with hard drives and - frankly - anything cool at all; we had a situation that was structurally similar to this one. The art department sponsored a contest open to the entire student body to design a new piece of artwork for the grassy area outside the senior commons. Submissions were to be small models, and the winning entry would be created in full by the hardworking craftsman of the shop classes.

The winning entry was submitted by a girl named Erin, and it was as banal an example of derivative modern art as you'd ever run across. It was a spiky metal thingy, vaguely star-shaped but decidedly lopsided and ugly. The shop classes dutifully made the final version out of scrap steel, and the custodial staff installed it on a concrete pedestal so that everyone could admire it on their way to lunch. This piece of faux art elicited a fair amount of criticism, both for its complete lack of aesthetic value and also because of the general regard the student body had for its creator. (Erin was given a brand new Porsche for her sixteenth birthday. Persistent rumor insists that she demanded daddy give her a new one with an automatic transmission because she couldn't be bothered to learn to drive stick. Whether this story is true or not is irrelevant, as it does accurately reflect her character.)

One dark and moonless night, a group of students stealthily crept up to the monstrosity, and bolted a toilet bowl to it. They also used locktight on the bolts. The poor, benighted custodian spent most of the next morning attempting to remove the toilet. The school administrators were furious at this lese majeste, and bent every effort to determining the identity of the renegades.

The next night, either the same group or possibly a different crew altogether attached a second toilet bowl and managed to move the sculpture to the roof of the high school. The administration redoubled its efforts to find the miscreants, but with no success.

But the funny thing is that the principle didn't really lose it until copies of an unsigned manuscript managed to be inserted into the newest edition of the school paper. This essay defended the actions of the vandals as a valid form of art criticism. I wish I still had a copy of the little manifesto, as it was rather well written. The principle was reduced to threats dire punishment and offered rewards to anyone who would narc on the guilty students. But, no one was ever caught or punished for the incidents, and eventually the artwork found repose in an unmarked grave somewhere on the north side of town. The whole episode was marked by a higher than average comic sensibility - for high school students. Instead of crude graffiti, outright destruction or other stereotypical high school hijinks - they actually made a comment on the hated artwork. A rude one, but clever.

But no one in my high school, ever thought about larger issues as these kids in Omaha did. Or pierced them so ably. My hat's off to them.