Text Response of "The Schools Are Destroying Freedom of Speech" page 338-339

“The Schools Are Destroying Freedom of Speech” is an article written by John W. Whitehead who is experienced in the matter of policies from his work as a constitutional attorney and being a president of The Rutherford Institute. The article I am critiquing was first published in March 2009 in the Right Side News magazine which is a conservative news group. In this case the writer was preaching to choir because of the magazine his article was published in and the amount of support a certain claim has over other claims.

                John W. Whitehead begins his claims and support with a quote from Nat Hentoff, a renowned speaker for the first amendment, pulling the argument to focus on high school graduation. He then supports his argument with statistics of how much an average high school student actual knows about their government and their rights.  He then puts blame on the public educators and government officials.

                Now that I know who the writer holds responsible for the loss freedom of speech in public schools, it is clear to me that he does not understand the other side of the argument. There are two examples of high school graduation speeches that the writer chose for his argument. The first example, given the space of one paragraph, is about a boy who refers to his school as a “prison” in his speech. Choosing an example with the word prison sets a bad energy about the idea of high school for the next example. The second speech, given the space of four paragraphs, is about a girl who wants to bring religion into the speech. The writer’s next choice of words is disconcerting.

                “Unfortunately, the trend in the federal courts is to agree with this type of skewed reasoning.” Controlled speech that is sponsored by the school is his idea of skewed reasoning. He then pursues to support his claim by comparing Hitler and Saddam Hussein to the ACLU and the federal courts.

                John W. Whitehead begins and ends his writing with credible sources and data but adds his distasteful opinion without respect to the complexities of the argument.