To follow up Brant's post on violence/free speech/recent events, in a 4.29.07 NY Times article, novelist Kathe Koja argues that Wilton High School missed an opportunity when they banned Voices in Conflict, a nonpartisan play created by students. The production was banned by school officials, "citing questions of political balance and context."

Ironic, innit, that public officials can send 18 year-olds to war, but don't want to offend their delicate sensibilities by conscientiously exploring the war and its effect as a community.

Koja argues that schools are the ideal places to hold measured, educational debates and discussions on such topics as the current Iraq war. Pointing out that even Shakespeare is filled with "violence, betrayal, teenage suicide" and questioning who gets to decide what is appropriate material for teenagers (a minefield query surprisingly separate from television and film ratings), Koja writes:

Surely a school is one of the safest, sanest places available for this struggle. Allowing free expression, even of views that we may disagree with -- especially the ones we disagree with -- would enlarge that educational setting to include real life itself, where real people act with real consequences, while acknowledging that school is indeed a special place, a neutral zone where ideas are free to battle, within parameters that insist on simple human courtesy.