MIC IS ZAPPED ON GRADUATION SPEECH Posted by Bill Bissell, Admin II on June 8, 2013 at 1:13pm in Patriot Action Alerts Send Message View Discussions . From Our Own Liberty News Team Joshua, TX valedictorian Remington Reimer’s speech was not cut short at the school’s graduation ceremony held at Owl Stadium. But his microphone was turned off just one minute into the speech. The speech started off much like hundreds of others at graduation ceremonies across the country, “I’m honored to stand before you today as the Valedictorian of 2013!” Reimer thanked his parents, teachers and classmates and said, “Most people have never ever heard me speak much less see me smile.” It was after that statement that the night began to change. According to the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, Serena Bair of Cleburne, who was in the crowd at Owl Stadium to watch her daughter graduate, said Reimer spoke for about a minute before the audience heard clicking sounds before the microphone was turned off. “He talked about how God was the reason why he and his fellow classmates had graduated,” said Bair, who organized a senior breakfast the morning of graduation. “He just talked about Christ and about Jesus being put up on the cross and dying and giving up his body and his blood for our sins, so that we could be there.” Bair said Reimer finished his speech without the microphone, but graduates sitting near the stage could still hear the rest of his remarks. Those teens led the audience in a standing ovation after Reimer finished his speech, Bair said. Joshua’s graduating class had 245 students. “I went up to him afterward and shook his hand and said, ‘Hey I don’t know you but I’m really proud of you for what you had to say tonight. It really touched my heart that he continued on with it,” Bair said. Some in the audience thought the speech was over when the microphone was turned off and they began to clap. However Reimer was not finished and he concluded the speech without a microphone. While a few graduates thought Reimer was out of line, many who came by the by the high school Friday to pick up their diplomas expressed concern that Reimer was shut down because he mentioned God in his speech. Like many schools, JISD officials require all such speeches be pre-approved. One of the graduates, Bryce Daniels said, “He sent in a prior speech before that and they threw it away so he wasn’t going to let them tell him what to say – what not to say.” Joshua ISD has released the following statement: The District has reviewed the rules and policy regarding graduation speech, and it has been determined that policy was followed at the Joshua High School 2013 Graduation Ceremony. The valedictorian, salutatorian, and class historian speeches were reviewed in advance by the campus staff, prior to the graduation ceremony. Student speakers were told that if their speeches deviated from the prior-reviewed material, the microphone would be turned off, regardless of content. When one student’s speech deviated from the prior-reviewed speech, the microphone was turned off, pursuant to District policy and procedure. Fran Marek Joshua ISD Superintendent Prior to the graduation ceremony, JHS principal Mick Cochran said of Reimer, “You could put Remington in the middle of a desert all by himself and he would still find a way to be successful. I fully expect him to be a general someday. For that young man, the sky is the limit.” Reimer received a full scholarship to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he will major in physics. His father, Todd Reimer who is a physics teacher at JHS said, “During Remington’s freshman year, we needed to find a sport for him to participate in and we sort of randomly chose JROTC, thinking that he would just try it for a while and see how he liked it. But, as it turned out, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He loves it. And now he’s going to the Naval Academy.” Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for the Liberty Institute in Plano, TX said the school district’s actions violated its own policy, the First Amendment and state law. The Texas legislature passed the Religious Viewpoints Anti-discrimination Act in 2007 which does not expand religious expression in schools, but rather reiterates a student’s existing right to expression and clarifies what religious rhetoric is permitted for teachers and administrators. This Act affirms that freedom of religion should not be mistaken for freedom from religion. While the Constitution prohibits government from sponsoring or endorsing a particular religious view it does not require government to sanitize all dialogue from religious viewpoints in a public setting. Sasser said. “The reason why their policy does not allow for prior review and prohibits religious viewpoint discrimination is because Texas state law requires that of their policy. One of the whole points of the RVAA was to eliminate all this prior review stuff. The whole point of this policy is to get the school district out of the business of censoring speech and controlling the speech of the students.”D
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:41:50 +0000