Video: High school suspends students after banning the word “meep”
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High school suspends students after banning the...
High school suspends students after banning the word "meep". Jonathan Hall reports.Published: November 15, 2009
Updated: November 15, 2009
A Massachusetts school has a warning to students: No more “meep-ing”.
Any student at Danvers High School who uses the word “meep” will be suspended.
“Meep,“ a nonsense word, was first made popular by the Road Runner and increased in popularity thanks Beaker from “The Muppet Show”.
Senior Alex Buzzi takes credit for starting the craze.
“You see someone in the hall and you go ‘Meep’ and they go ‘Meep’ back and nothing, it’s harmless,“ Buzzi said.
Putting First Amendment concerns aside, the principal banned the word, threatening any student who uses it with suspension.
An automated call went out to every parent informing them of the ban.
Students said a freshman biology teacher felt threatened by the word.
“They like to anger him and walk by his class and say it so people get suspended for it now,“ said Brianna Lapointe, a junior.
Many parents are not upset with the ban.
“The real issue here is that they were asked to do something to stop doing what they were doing and they disobeyed,“ said Linda Collinsworth, a parent.
Danvers superintendent Dr. Lisa Dana issued a statement that read in part:
“The principal was exercising his responsibility to maintain order so that an environment conducive to learning could be maintained.“
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Reader Reactions
Try as I might, I cannot imagine our James Madison diligently crafting the language of the First Amendment to make sure that students had the right to say ‘meep’. Unfortunately, juveniles making nonsensical noises to disrupt classes or test the patience of the faculty is not a practice of First Amendment rights, no matter what high school students (or bloggers) may think. Our First Amendment is in place to protect the free discussion of information, ideas, beliefs, and political convictions, not to protect annoying noises intended as a display of relational aggression.
To cry “First Amendment!“ to students behaving badly cheapens the principles on which our country was founded and makes a mockery of our culture. Thanks, all of you at the back of the class.
Take a lesson from previous posts, less time meeping and more time studying things like Constitutional history and spelling, will do a world of good.
I spent 20 years teaching secondary students..Sounds like principal needs to re-examine his school’s philosophy. He sounds a little insecure in his position..The teacher that felt threatened..He needs to find another job or change professions..sorry..kids win on this one..
COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF ROGUE
this is a most ridiculas and unnerving exercise in descretionary power by an official in charge of educating our children. No one can be expected to take the Constitution and the Bill of Rights seriously if their 1st Amendment rights are so aggregiously and summarily trampled upon.
how friggin ridiculous can people get. “meep, meep”
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