thestar.com
Dozens of people cheered and chanted Friday outside Northern Secondary School in Toronto to support a student suspended for criticizing the school.
“Commended, not suspended,” the group of mostly students shouted.
Loud cheers broke out when the suspended student, Emil Cohen, read a speech he had been stopped from delivering at the school on Nov. 22.
“This is an issue of free speech, especially when the speech made was constructive,” said Harrison Jordan, one of the rally organizers. “It was the right time and the right place.”
The group is demanding the school apologize to Cohen, reinstate his physical education privileges, and wipe the suspension from his record.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has joined those urging Northern’s administration to rescind Cohen’s suspension.
In a letter to Principal Varla Abrams, the organization said it has “significant concerns” about a school policy that allows staff to “effectively censor students by receiving any speeches they intend to deliver in advance or prevent them from voicing their complaints.”
“Emil stood up for what he thought was right,” said Henry Lee Hienonen, a 16-year-old Grade 12 student who was also a rally organizer.
The principal’s decision to suspend Cohen, 17, was one Northern’s principal made with a “heavy heart,” said Supt. Ian Allison.
“The issue here is not the speech itself,” he said. “The issue is there was a process and he didn’t follow through.”
Another crowd of students heckled the rally from across the street, yelling “Find a real cause.”
“I'm upset because it shows the school in the wrong light,” said Grade 12 student Daniel Sorek.
Rugby and football player Lucas Valverde, also a Grade 12 student, shouted back at the rally: “Who is we? The school's over here, not over there.”
Cohen was suspended after he was cut off delivering a speech at an athletics assembly at the north Toronto high school that criticized the way the soccer team had been treated.
The school didn’t try hard enough to find his soccer team a teacher-coach last year, which meant they had to sit the season out, he said.
Cohen has said he made his speech more positive after exchanging emails the night before with his teacher. The school has countered that the speech he read wasn’t an approved version and he disobeyed his teacher.
“I’ve been taught that if you are treated poorly you should do something about it,” Cohen told the Star earlier this week.
1 comment:
He was told not to do something and he did it. As a result, he was suspended. What did the kid think was going to happen? A speech was approved and he decided to read the none approved speech. Am I missing something here?
He had a beautiful chance to address a very important issue professionally, and he screwed it up. Instead of the focus being on the lack of attempts for a soccer coach, Cohen is now the focus. In need of attention much?
What about future problems that students wish to address? Do you think the school will allow issues to be addressed at an assembly ever again? Thanks Cohen...
He deserves what he got. Trash the school and see what happens. Wait till he gets into the job market and does something like this...
Is there any surprise?
Just my $.02
Jason
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