no art allowed...

AngeloAngelo Super Moderators Posts: 8,937 moderator
edited February 21, 2012 in The Big Picture
even in liberal leaning Santa Monica, CA schools censor artistic expression

http://laist.com/2012/02/17/santa_monica_photography_teacher_re.php

:dunno

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www.angelo.smugmug.com

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Comments

  • SamSam Registered Users Posts: 7,419 Major grins
    edited February 18, 2012
    Utter nonsense! Just out of curiosity what laws were violated? What written school policy was violated?

    How were the students harmed? How was society and / or the community harmed? ne_nau.gifdunnone_nau.gif

    Sam
    www.samlinvillephotography.com
  • RyanSRyanS Registered Users Posts: 507 Major grins
    edited February 18, 2012
    Courts have ruled over and over again, schools can restrict student speech in certain cases. I'd be willing to bet this is one of those cases. Every time it happens people get all bent out of shape, but not enough to actually demand that it be changed.

    I learned this the hard way growing up. Some students published an independent school newspaper that was critical of the administration. All got suspended for a week. The school board and lawyers got involved. One of the parents of the authors was a lawyer, which helped. It ended up on the nightly news and in the local papers. It created a heated debate. Guess what? The students lost. The reason? We distributed the paper on school property. Had we simply hung out on the sidewalk and passed out our paper we would have been okay. The child of the lawyer ended up being expelled on other "non-related" issues... yeah right. It was a hard lesson to learn at 15. I didn't write any of it. I simply helped pass out a few copies. That was all it took for me to end up with a week of no school. Fortunately my parents were cool with it. They gave me $100 and let me go crazy for a week as a reward for standing my ground. It was interesting seeing my folks argue with the principal. Usually they were on the same side.

    Had this girl produced these images on private property the school wouldn't be able to do much. Because she produced these images at school, the school can control her speech. This extends all the way up to the University level.
    Please feel free to post any reworks you do of my images. Crop, skew, munge, edit, share.
    Website | Galleries | Utah PJs
  • marionetmarionet Registered Users Posts: 382 Major grins
    edited February 18, 2012
    I think the quote marks around Artistic in the headline are loaded and are a denigration.
  • PupatorPupator Registered Users Posts: 2,322 Major grins
    edited February 18, 2012
    I'm trying to think about why this was such a big deal and here's what I came up with:

    As a parent, I don't want a teacher giving my children access to naked human beings. If I sign them up for an art class outside of school then I know what I'm getting them in to. When I send them to a public school and they take art, I probably don't expect that they'll be given live (nude) models to work with.

    Again, I'm not saying I agree with the decision to fire the teacher. I'm just trying to provide one possible rationale for this decision.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited February 19, 2012
    Pupator wrote: »
    I'm trying to think about why this was such a big deal and here's what I came up with:

    As a parent, I don't want a teacher giving my children access to naked human beings. If I sign them up for an art class outside of school then I know what I'm getting them in to. When I send them to a public school and they take art, I probably don't expect that they'll be given live (nude) models to work with.

    Again, I'm not saying I agree with the decision to fire the teacher. I'm just trying to provide one possible rationale for this decision.

    You are making up factoids. No one "gave" this girl live nude models to work with. She asked for permission to use the school's studio, then photographed her friends. Where did you get the idea the school provided the models?
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • PupatorPupator Registered Users Posts: 2,322 Major grins
    edited February 19, 2012
    Wow John. How about being a little less hostile?

    Is it possible I wrongly inferred that from the article?

    I'll just be on my way now.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited February 19, 2012
    Pupator wrote: »
    Wow John. How about being a little less hostile?

    Is it possible I wrongly inferred that from the article?

    I'll just be on my way now.

    Well, I suppose I had that coming. But yes, I do get riled up over a few things, several of which were popped by this incident.
    1. First amendment rights. No where in the articles (yes, there were more than one) did it say or imply that either the photographer's OR the models' parents raised any objection.
    2. Moralistic, puritanical busybodies minding other peoples' business.
    3. Gutless school administrators, especially ones who fall back on the hypocritically transparent cop-out of refusing to discuss an issue based on the privacy of a fired employee.
    4. Sensationalist journalism (why'd they run an image of a totally unrelated frontal nude sculpture to accompany the article?)
    5. They CONFISCATED the photographer's prints that had been well received at the school's art show.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • DemianDemian Registered Users Posts: 211 Major grins
    edited February 20, 2012
    RyanS wrote: »
    Had this girl produced these images on private property the school wouldn't be able to do much. Because she produced these images at school, the school can control her speech. This extends all the way up to the University level.

    You... might be surprised. I see a lot of news where kids are disciplined for stuff they did off campus (a lot of it on Facebook).
    Icebear wrote: »
    Well, I suppose I had that coming. But yes, I do get riled up over a few things, several of which were popped by this incident.
    1. First amendment rights. No where in the articles (yes, there were more than one) did it say or imply that either the photographer's OR the models' parents raised any objection.
    2. Moralistic, puritanical busybodies minding other peoples' business.

    Sadly, courts have often ruled against first amendment protections for children in school, particularly relating to speech that goes against its "basic educational mission." Which is a BROAD category.

    And as you might have guessed, I certainly agree with you on the second point rolleyes1.gif but what might seem like moralistic, puritanical busybody to me might be seen as correcting a gross injustice by you.
  • RyanSRyanS Registered Users Posts: 507 Major grins
    edited February 21, 2012
    Demian,

    You are totally right. However, the ability of schools to control speech outside the classroom has been narrowly restricted. This is were it stands now, but you are right to point out it is a moving target. In this particular case I don't think the school could have done much had she produced these images away from school.
    Please feel free to post any reworks you do of my images. Crop, skew, munge, edit, share.
    Website | Galleries | Utah PJs
  • SandSand Registered Users Posts: 40 Big grins
    edited February 21, 2012
    One other point to consider - this school is only a few miles away from an elementary school where a teacher has been accused of sexual abuse of his students for over a decade. Photography is involved in the accusations. All of the staff at the elementart school have been removed from the classroom until the investigation has been completed. I suspect the high school administrators are highly sensitive to anything that contains anything like photos, underage students and sexual inferences.
    It may not be fair to the high school students, but when you think about how fast the careers of the innocent teachers at the elementary school could be destroyed, I can understand the overreaction.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited February 21, 2012
    Sand wrote: »
    One other point to consider - this school is only a few miles away from an elementary school where a teacher has been accused of sexual abuse of his students for over a decade. Photography is involved in the accusations. All of the staff at the elementart school have been removed from the classroom until the investigation has been completed. I suspect the high school administrators are highly sensitive to anything that contains anything like photos, underage students and sexual inferences.
    It may not be fair to the high school students, but when you think about how fast the careers of the innocent teachers at the elementary school could be destroyed, I can understand the overreaction.

    I hear you, but destroying the career of another dedicated teacher, and dissillusioning creative students is certainly not the answer. Administrators get paid the big bucks to use good judgement, not to be knee-jerk automatons. A machine could do that.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
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