Harvey misses the point entirely which the article was seeking to put forward. The Socialist Workers campaign statement from Linda Marcus clearly underlines the main reason for these repressive measures against the students, "The capitalists want youth in school to learn to be obedient, to be prepared to work hard throughout their life as a wage laborer and to be grateful to get any employment at all."

This is what all these various attacks stem from, including banning cellular phones and pagers. School administrators have no right to determine, nor in any way to decide if pagers and cell phones are needed by students for various aspects of their lives. Having worked and gone to high school at the same time, I can see how they are sometimes necessary and useful, especially for young mothers. Harvey does nothing more than play into the bourgeois campaign against youth with his statement that these things are "unnecessary accouterments of bourgeois `success.'" It's useful to note that similar arguments have been used to justify school uniforms.

The idea that administrators of public schools have absolute authority to submit whatever rules they care to and then bar a requested assembly of students and faculty to discuss this is an example of how the rulers of this country seek to push young people down today.

It's not directly important to me what exactly the principal's excuse was for banning the assembly or "what happened before the principal refused." The point is that it is a denial of a discussion on rules and measures that attack students and strengthen the campaign to beat resistance out of them before they reach the workforce.

Harvey goes on to criticize the article for not giving direct quotes of supposed "abusive language" that caused Superintendent Douglas Sears to refuse to meet with the protesters saying, "I don't meet in the face of demands couched in abusive language and loud tones." Should Leonard have also given decibel levels for the yelling protesters in order that readers could determine if Sears was correct in this regard?

Again Harvey misses the point. I think Sears was most offended that high school students demonstrated their capacity to fight back in the face of these draconian measures and showed some backbone in the face of a system that seeks to break them and smash their democratic rights.

Finally, Ian Harvey believes that readers of the Militant cannot have any other opinion than that of thinking teachers, who are not mentioned in the article, are automatically passive drones who follow school administrators to the letter. It is true that it would have been a positive thing for Leonard to include any information on supportive teachers. However, readers of the Militant, a paper that, as Harvey points out, covers the struggles and strikes of working teachers, are more likely to believe that there are teachers like Harvey himself who are opposed to at least some of these attacks.

Students continue to face jail like conditions such as metal detectors, cops, police dogs, locker searches, and ID tags that, if they are caught without, could end in suspension. This further proves that protests and walkouts like the one at Chelsea High are needed more and more and should be fully supported. I'm confident that the Militant will continue it's coverage of all such protests in the future. Cops out of Chelsea High!

Tami Peterson

Chicago, Illinois

Protest sanctions on Iraq
A delegation traveling to Iraq with medical relief supplies held a press conference here on November 17. The delegation was organized by Voices in the Wilderness, a group that is campaigning to end the United Nations and United States sanctions against Iraq. The meeting with the press was held in the Sea-Tac Airport just hours before the delegation boarded a plane with over $20,000 worth of medicines that will be delivered to hospitals in Iraq.

The delivery of the medicine is an open violation of the sanctions against Iraq. "A United Nations study estimates that well over 500,000 children, more than 200 per day, have died unnecessarily in Iraq as a result of the sanctions which have been in force since August 6, 1990," the delegation said in a written statement to the press.

Joseph Zito, at age 27, is the youngest member of the delegation. Zito said that this is the seventh such delegation to travel to Iraq since March of 1996 and that U.S. authorities have warned the organizers that the penalties for violating the Treasury Department law regarding such shipment of goods is a $1 million fine, 12 years in prison, and/or a $250,000 civil penalty.

"So far they have filed no charges for our violations of their sanctions," said Zito. "If they charge me I would use the trial as a stage to ask U.S. officials why they are killing children."

Zito and the other delegates plan on doing speaking tours and engagements upon returning from their 10-day trip in Iraq.

Estelle DeBates

Seattle, Washington

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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