Civics Student...or Enemy of America?

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Civics Student...or Enemy of America?

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 03:00:00 -0700

 

 

 

http://www.alternet.org/walmart/26503/

 

Civics Student...or Enemy of America?

 

By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive. Posted October 7, 2005.

 

 

After a Wal-Mart employee turned in a high school student's anti-Bush

poster to the police, the Secret Service came calling

 

 

Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at

Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to

having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.

 

But that's what happened on September 20.

 

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class " to take

photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights, " she

says. One student " had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine

and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his

head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the

President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted

it on a poster. "

 

According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just

doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent. But over at

the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be

developed, this right is evidently suspect.

 

An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk

police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter

over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret

Service came to Currituck High.

 

" At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service

had taken his poster, " Jarvis says. " I didn't believe him at first.

But they had come into my room when I wasn't there and had taken his

poster, which was in a stack with all the others. "

 

She says the student was upset. " He was nervous, he was scared, and

his parents were out of town on business, " says Jarvis. She, too, had

to talk to the Secret Service.

 

" Halfway through my afternoon class, the assistant principal got me

out of class and took me to the office conference room, " she says.

" Two men from the Secret Service were there. They asked me what I knew

about the student. I told them he was a great kid, that he was in the

homecoming court, and that he'd never been in any trouble. "

 

Then they got down to his poster.

 

" They asked me, didn't I think that it was suspicious, " she recalls.

" I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project! "

 

At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident " would be

interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student

could be indicted, " she says.

 

The student was not indicted, and the Secret Service did not pursue

the case further.

 

" I blame Wal-Mart more than anybody, " she says. " I was really

disgusted with them. But everyone was using poor judgment, from

Wal-Mart up to the Secret Service. "

 

When contacted, an employee in the photo department at the Wal-Mart in

Kitty Hawk said, " You have to call either the home office or the

authorities to get any information about that. "

 

Jacquie Young, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart at company headquarters,

did not provide comment within a 24-hour period.

 

Sharon Davenport of the Kitty Hawk Police Department said, " We just

handed it over " to the Secret Service. " No investigative report was

filed. " Jonathan Scherry, spokesman for the Secret Service in

Washington, D.C., said, " We certainly respect artistic freedom, but we

also have the responsibility to look into incidents when necessary. In

this case, it was brought to our attention from a private citizen, a

photo lab employee. "

 

Jarvis uses one word to describe the whole incident: " ridiculous. "

 

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive.