Youth & Education

• Even before the judge's decision, Jessica Ahlquist had been ostracized, bullied, and even occasionally threatened over her lawsuit. But when the court ruling came down last week, the climate of harassment and hostility against her escalated out of control, into widespread vilification, venomous bile, and explicit threats of violence, rape and death.
• Jessica Ahlquist: American Hero(ine)
• Teen stands tall for First Ammendment

Greta Christina, AlterNet

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Jeanette Eastman
 
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If you take away just two things from the story about atheist high school student Jessica Ahlquist, and the court case she won last week (Jan 8-14) to have a prayer banner taken out of her public school, let it be these:

• The ruling in this case was entirely unsurprising. It is 100 percent in line with unambiguous legal precedent, established and re-established over many decades, exemplifying a basic principle of constitutional law.
• As a result of this lawsuit, Jessica Ahlquist is now being bullied, ostracized and threatened with violence in her community. She has been called "evil" in public by her state representative, and is being targeted with multiple threats of violence, rape and death.

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Related:
 
Jessica Ahlquist: American Hero(ine), by J, A Way Less Walked
You may not have heard of Jessica Ahlquist, which is unfortunate if such is the case.

Teen stands tall for First Amendment, Freedom From Religion Foundation

• "I’m a junior in high school at Cranston West, which is in Rhode Island."
• Transcript of Jessica's speech and Q&A
   

The latest push comes a year after the Texas Board of Education approved revisions to its social studies curriculum that would put a conservative twist on history through revised textbooks and teaching standards.

Trymaine Lee, Huffington Post

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A person portraying a blacksmith inspects a "slave" during a re-enactment of a mid-19th century slave auction in St. Louis, Missouri on Jan. 15. Such portrayals of U.S. history have become heated with recent pushes in states like Tennessee and Texas to overhaul how it is taught.

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

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