Three Girls

Today is the first International Day of the Girl.  This is the story of three girls.

Samantha Pawlucy with Romney shirt

The first is 16 year old Samantha Pawlucy who resides in Philadelphia Pa.  She gained notoriety because she was singled out and humiliated by her teacher for wearing a Romney shirt to school.  My daughter,who attends a private Catholic school in suburban Philadelphia, has not been harassed, but her history teacher makes it a point each class to remind his students that he is a Republican and that Republicans are the best choice for the country.  He does so because he has a pretty good idea that the student body comes from a mostly Republican stock.  My daughter and I have talked about what she and I believe politically, and we try to determine in what ways our views differ from what this teacher says in class and why.  I have no problem with a history teacher talking about elections, but no teacher has the right to impose his or her views on students-- at the very least this is an easily avoidable distraction and at worst an easy way to make a student who does not agree feel inferior or less likely to learn from that teacher.  The single most important connection between a teacher and student is trust-- the action make by this teacher forever disables this trust.

I do have an issue with this girl's (and her family's) decision to wear this shirt to a school which is overwhelmingly African American?  Did the parents know?  Did they think there would be no ramifications?  My son loves the Pittsburgh Penguins, but we do not wear any Penguin paraphernalia to Philadelphia Flyer's games-- we are free to, but why would we?  If I were to enter certain towns in the deep South, I might avoid wearing anything Obamaesque.  Even while my wife was attending law school in Virginia, I cannot tell you how many times my PA license plate provoked comments from the natives such as "We are still fighting the war!" I shrugged my shoulders and drove quietly away.   Just because we are free to do something doesn't mean we must do it.  There are actually times when exercising our right not to express ourselves is best.  What possible good could come of wearing a Romney shirt into a place where it would not be respected.  While I agree that the teacher must be punished (one should never humiliate children, especially one whose job it is to nurture them), I cannot agree with all those supporters who came to cheer her on and into school as a kind of hero.  Heroes do not provoke for the sake of provoking.  Not all things are right for all situations.  Picking spots, learning when to make assertions and when to let things slide, these are part of the maturation process.  These parents should never have allowed this girl to walk out of the house with an advertisement likely to cause their discomfort for absolutely no good reason.

Abigail Fisher, plaintiff suing the University of Texas

     Abigail Noel Fisher, a young women of college age, is right now in the middle of a law suit before the United States Supreme Court which is likely to end affirmative action in colleges.  Conservative talk shows are lauding this girl as a heroine.  I just cannot see how.

     First of all, the University of Texas automatically admits all applicants who have graduated in the top 10 percent of their classes.  So if this girl had only studied a little more, she would have had no problem getting into the University of Texas.  The fact that she has to resort to using the success of others as a rationale for her own lack of success is the classic example of sour grapes.  As a teacher, I understand that colleges always look at several factors in determining admittance-- SAT, ACT, and other standardized test scores; grades and the difficultly of classes from transcripts; personal interviews; and involvement in extra-curriculars-- anything from having worked in a recording studio to making regular service visits to the local veterans hospital.  In fact, these extra-curriculars are often the reason why a student who does not have the absolute best grades and test scores is admitted while the one who does is not.  I see this all the time.  Purely in terms of creating a diversified student body, preference given to African American students achieves the same end as accepting students who have unique characteristics but may not be the stereotypical "smart" student.  

     But there is something else wrong with the decision made by this girl and her family and attorneys to pursue this matter.  They all missed what I would call a extraordinary teachable moment.  When Abigail first complained that "this is so unfair," someone should have explained the rationale behind affirmative action.  One would start by saying, "So, you think this is unfair..."  This young woman's eyes might have been opened to certain facts about her country's history:  founding documents like the Declaration of Independence and Constitution that proclaimed all people to be free while considering a whole race to be less than human but that for purposes of reckoning the number of states' federal representatives counted each piece of their black property as 3/5 of a person; that a group of states continued o demand their states' rights to maintain human beings as property until they forced the country into a devastating civil war; that once these slaves were emancipated, they were treated as lower than second -rate people, particularly in southern states where they were segregated to protect the purity of the white race through Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.  So many men, women, and children lacked basic human rights in America from its birth in 1776 until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  But changes in law did not suddenly and miraculously alter the entrenched social and cultural status of blacks in America-- they still suffer the highest rate of poverty, the highest rate of unemployment, the greatest number of students attending the nation's worst public schools.  And I would conclude my history lesson by telling this girl that it is more than fair for her to experience a little rejection when the entire history of blacks in America has been one of legalized discrimination followed by the a still present and deep-seeded racism. Why is it so hard to view the matter from an objective historical perspective?  There is not a level playing field between whites and blacks.

Malala Yousafzai, gunned down by the Taliban

Finally there is a 14 year old girl in Pakistan named Malala Yousafzai who nearly paid the ultimate price for wanting to be free, in particular the freedom to learn.  My allergist is a woman who was born in Pakistan and whose mother practiced medicine in Pakistan her entire life.  This young girl has done far more to show the international community just how wicked organizations like the Taliban are than any world leader ever could.  This girl spoke out for the right reason.  She spoke for women all over the world who are still humiliated and abused because they are not considered equal members of human society.  In order to experience the totality of human life, this girl was willing to risk her own life.  This is the hero of today.  Not going out of one's way to be provocative,  not selfishly complaining about a situation for which one lacks historical perspective, but staring violence and death in the face in order to claim the right to be a human being worthy of education.

One of the best ways to express our appreciation for the learning we all have had is to continue to learn.  If we do so, we may find that some of those misperceptions of ours, which fear seems to have rooted like weeds so deeply in our souls, will disintegrate and be replaced by the fresh blooms of an American spring.