If you didn't know about it already, two kids were expelled or rather "asked to leave" Holy Ghost for smoking marijuana on the Forensics trip to Harvard. These kids were very very intelligent; apparently one was all-AP and pre-Med. Lots of people thought it was unfair, so someone wrote an article and distributed it at break on Friday. The faculty got worked into a frenzy and we were called into the chapel, where Mr. Pomeroy called the anonymous author "gutless" and called it "cheap shots" and "misconceptions."
I strongly disagree with Mr. Pomeroy on these accusations: firstly, writing anonymously is not gutless; in our environment, there is tremendous societal pressure on us which dicates our lives. To express your opinion with your name affixed is brave indeed, but to express your opinion anonymously is not weak or cowardly; in an environment such as this, expression of opinion is critical and must be guarded. With names attached, people will be compelled to adjust their written opinions in order to be more in line with social expectations and to avoid reprecussions. This is unacceptable. If anonymity must be maintained in order to have an opinion expressed without self-censorship and moderation, then so be it. It is not gutless to share an opinion without putting your societal life on the line; to say that all works must have the name attached is to be a sponsor of supression.
Secondly, these "cheap shots" just don't exist in my opinion. The faculty said that shots were taken unfairly at Fr. Jeff Duaime. If you read the article, you see that there is a critique of Fr. Jeff's behavior and handing of the situation. However, I see a cheap shot as something that attempts to ruin a reputation, spread slandor, or outright lie about someone in order to satisfy a personal agenda of destruction. The author of this article did not make personal attacks on Fr. Jeff, and even included a line explaining that Fr. Jeff is a man with good character and a good heart. What the author had a problem with was the way Fr. Jeff handled the expulsions, and the author explained why he felt this way, he didn't just throw mud at the administration.
I dunno. Read the article and see what you think, see if you agree with me or with the administration.
I scanned in the article and auto-translated it to a Word document, so please excuse any misspellings.
This really gets me angry. Not so much the expulsions, but the administrative response to the piece; they said that the author could've done the "right thing" and submitted it as an editorial to the school newspaper, but even they admitted it would've been "edited" aka censored. Argh. I've griped about the lack of original journalism in our school before, but this gets me even more riled up; I'm glad that someone took the initiative and produced a more authentic journalistic piece--alive, passionate, controversial, albeit a little one sided. This just shows that we need an open forum to freely and openly discuss these types of issues, which is why I am in support of an authentic school newspaper; one which, while moderated to make sure the entries are of high quality, is not edited and censored. We need an open forum; until then, these little "illegal handouts" are all the independent media we're getting.
