A couple years ago I wrote about an incident in which a Utah high school tried to prevent a student there from wearing a t-shirt that carried the slogan, “Vegans Have First Amendment Rights.” Utah had been the site of a number of animal rights-related attacks by some Straight Edge hooligans, and the high school completely overreacted by banning the word “vegan” from clothing claiming that it qualified as a bonafide gang symbol.
In the intervening couple years, American schools have been carrying out one action after another in the name of “zero tolerance” that makes that little dustup pale in comparison. Now administrators at Stonington High in Connecticut have decided to join this dubious honor roll by punishing a student whose only transgression was criticizing McDonald’s at a school assembly.
The setting was a job interview skills session that took place at the school that McDonald’s agreed to host. The student, Tristan Kading, is a 15-year-old vegetarian and animal rights activist. At the assembly, the representative from McDonald’s asked for volunteers to participate in a mock job interview and Kading volunteered.
When the interviewer asked Kading to tell her a little bit about himself, Kading told her that he hated large corporations like McDonald’s. According to Kading, then “She says `Give me back the mike,’ and I said I would not want to work for a company that falsely advertises its French fries.” (McDonald’s until recently claimed its french fries were vegetarian, when in fact they contain a beef byproduct in the flavoring).
The principal of the school told Kading he was an embarrassment to the school, and forced Kading to read an apology over the public announcement system.
Legally, the principal was almost certainly within his rights as a school administrator to administer such punishment. But ethically the whole incident stinks. I don’t agree with Kading’s view of McDonald’s at all (in fact I think it is one of the more responsive and customer-oriented corporations around), but the only embarrassment to the school I see here is the heavy handed actions of the principal.
Source:
Forced Apology Sparks Debate. Rick Green, The Hartford Courant, June 3, 2001.