Musings on various subjects

[mojosmom]

Massacre fallout: Charges for essay

High school teacher 'disturbed' by violent content of assignment

By Jeff Long and Carolyn Starks
Tribune staff reporters

April 26, 2007

Told to express emotion for a creative-writing class, high school senior Allen Lee penned an essay so disturbing to his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct, officials said Wednesday.

Lee, 18, a straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with the misdemeanor for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

Neither police nor the school would release a copy of the essay written Monday. School officials declined to say whether Lee had any previous disciplinary problems, but said he was an excellent student. Authorities said Lee had never been in trouble with the police.

The charge against Lee comes as schools in the Chicago area and across the country wrestle with how to react in the wake of the massacre at Virginia Tech.

Bomb threats at high schools in Schaumburg and Country Club Hills caused evacuations. And extra police were on duty at a Palos Hills high school this week because of a threatening note found in the bathroom of a restaurant a half-mile away.

Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge against Lee was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.

Disorderly conduct, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is often filed for such pranks as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911 unnecessarily, he said. But it can also apply when someone's writings disturb an individual, Delelio said.

"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.

The teen's father said he understood concerns about violence but not why a creative-writing exercise resulted in charges against his son.

"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said Albert Lee. But he added, "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."

Some legal experts said the charge is troubling because it was over an essay that even police admit contained no direct threats against anyone at the school. A civil rights advocate said the teacher's reaction to an essay shouldn't make it a crime.

"One of the elements is that some sort of disorder or disruption is created," said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "When something is done in private -- when a paper is handed in to a teacher -- there isn't a disruption."

Yohnka also said that it was inevitable that schools would focus on potentially threatening writings in the aftermath of what happened at Virginia Tech, where a gunman killed 32 students and teachers, then fatally shot himself.

"After so much attention was paid last week to what was written by the shooter at Virginia Tech, I think there is no question people will be paying more attention to things like this," he said.

The goals this month for Lee's Creative English class were for students to communicate ideas and emotions through writing. But students were warned that if they wrote something that posed a threat to self or others, the school could take action, said Community High School District 155 Supt. Jill Hawk.

Lee's English teacher, whom officials declined to identify, read the essay and reported it to a supervisor and the principal. After a lively discussion, district officials decided to report it to the police, Hawk said.

"Our staff is very familiar with adolescent behavior," she said. "We're very well-versed with types of creativity put into writing. We know the standards of adolescent behavior that are acceptable and that there is a range."

But Hawk added, "There can certainly be writing that conveys concern for us even though it does not name names, location or date."

Simmie Baer, an attorney with the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, said the school's action was an example of zero-tolerance policies gone awry.

Children, she said, are not as sophisticated as adults and often show emotion through writing or pictures, which is what teachers should want because it is a safe outlet.

"They should be able to show their feelings or thoughts without fearing they will be arrested because of them," she said.

On Wednesday, some students at the school rallied behind Lee, organizing a petition drive to have him readmitted. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher that encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.

"I'm not going to lie. I signed the petition," said senior James Gitzinger. "But I can understand where the administration is coming from. I think I would react the same way if I was a teacher."

Albert Lee came to the United States from China 30 years ago and has lived in Cary for 16 years. His son, Albert Lee said, posted $75 bail Tuesday and later met with a psychiatrist. The teen was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere, his father said.

"The teacher graded [the essay] and was disturbed," Albert Lee said. "She reported it to a department head, who reported it to the principal. The first contact I had was by the police, when they arrested him Tuesday."
Chief Delelio would only say that Lee was arrested outside of school, near his home on Ardmore Drive.

Albert Lee said his son, a wrestler at Cary-Grove, was "very upset" about the incident, adding that the boy would have no comment.

The essay may have been a joke on his son's part, but he can't say for sure because he hasn't read it, Albert Lee said.

"That's the only logical explanation," said the father, who would not say whether his son had ever had disciplinary problems at school.

Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer, was from South Korea. Albert Lee would not say whether he thinks the fact that his son is Chinese-American had any bearing on the incident.

"I can't tell you what they were thinking," he said.

During a short interview at his family's two-story home in a Cary subdivision near the high school, Lee said he felt administrators did the right thing.

He added, however, that he does not think his son is a threat to anyone.

"I definitely think that there is some misunderstanding," he said. "That's my only interpretation of this."

Lee said he was confident his son will graduate as scheduled this year with his class.

"With Virginia Tech, everyone is more sensitive to these kinds of issues," Lee said. "I'm sure if he wrote something last year, nothing would alarm anybody. It's just the timing."


Was anyone else as deeply moved as I was at the story about Stephen Hawking's flight into weightlessness? I have always admired his brilliance, and his complete and utter refusal to let his physical limitations limit him intellectually and experientially. So three cheers for Zero Gravity Corp. for giving him this opportunity, and who cares if they did it for the publicity? The idea of the man who knows probably more than anyone else living about the universe "reach[ing] for the sky and touch[ing] the heavens" gives me goosebumps.

Here's what the Guardian said:

For almost four decades, the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has studied black holes, exploding stars and the origin of the universe from his wheelchair.
Last night, the renowned Cambridge University professor took a bold step of his own by experiencing the weightlessness of space firsthand on a zero-gravity trip over the Atlantic.

His two-hour adventure aboard a converted airliner nicknamed the Vomit Comet was the achievement of a lifelong ambition for Professor Hawking, 65, who was once told by doctors not to bother finishing his PhD because of his advancing motor neurone disease.

"It was amazing," said the scientist, whose bestselling book, A Brief History of Time, popularised the theory of quantum gravity. "I could have gone on and on," he said.

Peter Diamandis, founder of the Zero-G company that hosted the flight, said his star passenger did not stop grinning throughout. "Prof Hawking reached for the sky and touched the heavens today," he said. "We had a wonderful time, it was incredible - far beyond our expectations."

The rigours of the mission left the scientist tired after his landing on the space shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, but he was smiling broadly as he was lifted from the aircraft and wheeled away under a guard of honour formed by his fellow flyers.

The professor, who has spent most of his adult life in a wheelchair and speaks through a voice synthesiser, was attended by four doctors and two nurses, who attached an oxygen sensor to his earlobe, fixed monitors on his arm and chest to check his blood pressure and heart rate during the ascent, and cushioned his head. Unlike many of the other 2,500 commercial passengers who have experienced weightlessness aboard the plane, also known as G-Force One, and been sick on the plunge back towards Earth after a steep climb to 9,753 metres (32,000 ft), Prof Hawking did not need a vomit bag.

"The doctors felt he was in tremendous condition. He didn't want to come back," said Dr Diamandis, whose Las Vegas firm has offered the adventure for £1,875 a ticket since 2004.

The zero-gravity effect was produced for Prof Hawking by the Boeing 727 flying in a series of eight parabolas, rather like a rollercoaster ride.

Each nosedive, to about 7,315 metres, produced 25 to 30 seconds of weightlessness before the plane levelled out and climbed again. The flight was also a step towards Prof Hawking's goal of an excursion beyond the Earth's atmosphere as a guest of the Virgin Galactic space tourism company, the creation of Sir Richard Branson.

"Space, here I come," he said through his famous voice synthesiser. "I'm excited about some day flying in space and this zero-gravity flight is my first step. I want to encourage public interest in space. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."


I've been thinking lately about when and why flags are flown at half-mast. It seems to me that this should be limited to public figures. After the Virginia Tech massacre, flags were flown at half-mast. Why? It was certainly a tragedy, but what is the reason? Was it the number of the victims? But no flags flew at half-mast after Katrina, and many more died. Was it the fact that it was homicide? Homicides occur in this country every day. And in- or near-school shootings almost as often. Eight people were killed in a horrific car crash today in Indiana. Why aren't flags flown at half-mast for them? We ought not to be parsing deaths to determine if they are "worthy" of having the flag lowered. Leave that, as the Flag Code requires, for prominent national (or state) figures.


I went to hear Sara Paretsky read from, and talk about, her new book, Writing in an Age of Silence, in which she traces her struggle to find her voice, and the traditions of dissent that inform her writing. Her V.I. Warshawski mysteries have always been political, in the very basic meaning of the term, in that they show how institutions, corrupt and otherwise, affect the lives of citizens.

Although I've heard her speak before, it's always been about her mysteries. This time she is writing and talking about herself. (She noted that it has always been easier for her to speak about her intellectual rather than her personal life, and, therefore, she fits right into the University community.) It's interesting that I've always thought of her as the consummate liberal, feminist, politically aware and active Hyde Parker. Yet she grew up in a very patriarchal household in rural Kansas, near Lawrence (a bastion of "white male Protestant Republicans"), in a home that must have sent her very mixed signals. Her brothers' education was important, hers was not, despite the fact that her parents were educated and well-read (her father was a research scientist and her mother had been accepted at medical school, though she never attended). She attended the University of Kansas on scholarship, yet at first she saw no other use for her education than to be a "better wife and mother". Fortunately, the Dean of Women talked turkey to her (and other women).

The reading was at 57th Street Books, so she was singing to the choir in her condemnation of censorship and her fears for the direction in which this country has been headed. With this crowd, she was able to get an appreciative chuckle when she described a t-shirt she saw a student wearing; it bore the slogan, "That's all very well in practice, but in theory . . ."