Retractions and Reactions
May. 25th, 2004 08:06 amOver at The Volokh Conspiracy, there's a "clarification" of the Rio Rancho New Mexico poetry slam story.
It didn't happen.
Both the Rio Rancho High School district and Ms. Butler, the student whose poem supposedly sparked this whole shebang, issued statements describing the Daytona Beach News-Journal's article as without substantial merit.
It's a made-up story with some vague relation to real life. Yes, there was an incident in which anti-war posters were torn down-- at a different high school. Yes, the teacher who taught poetry at Rio Rancho is on administrative leave, but the student who wrote the poem herself writes that it is not for reasons associated with her, or any students' that she knows of, writing. Yes, the principal said the phrase "shut your face," but he did so because it happens to be a line in the poem.
Whichever of these stories is true, remember: it's always a lot more complicated than the newspaper column makes it out to be.
It didn't happen.
Both the Rio Rancho High School district and Ms. Butler, the student whose poem supposedly sparked this whole shebang, issued statements describing the Daytona Beach News-Journal's article as without substantial merit.
It's a made-up story with some vague relation to real life. Yes, there was an incident in which anti-war posters were torn down-- at a different high school. Yes, the teacher who taught poetry at Rio Rancho is on administrative leave, but the student who wrote the poem herself writes that it is not for reasons associated with her, or any students' that she knows of, writing. Yes, the principal said the phrase "shut your face," but he did so because it happens to be a line in the poem.
Whichever of these stories is true, remember: it's always a lot more complicated than the newspaper column makes it out to be.
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