If only these administrators would either hire good PR people, or at least think ahead and consider how the story will play out, envisioning themselves standing in front of an armada of New Yawk media types trying not to look like local yokels...and then consider whether settling the issue would be a better course of action.
There are issues you go to the mat for....issues you fight to the end.
But doncha think the pink cleat battle against a photogenic jock could have been settled without a court battle? Or do they have a lot more money for education in Mississippi than we have in Alabama?
At the very least, the Principal and his staff should have defused the issue by wearing pink sneakers every day to show the school supports the breast cancer issue...to make sure the affair is framed as a school discipline issue.
But you have to know something about the media to make suggestions like that.
[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]
I think the pink thing has gone overboard. The MA even printed one issue on pink paper. Every day for the month of October they printed a "survivor's story."
ReplyDeleteAnd my Cheerios box carried a pink ribbon.
I'm all for awareness of all kinds of diseases. I nearly died from colon cancer some years ago. But the "pink thing" has gone kudzu.
Personally, I don't give a rat's rip. My maternal grandmother died from cancer that metastasized to her brain AFTER a double radical mastectomy.
ReplyDeleteDeath happens. We get sad. We get over it. Life goes on.
But, I hope the lad sues the (*#$ out of the school system and WINS!
"Jackpot justice"?
Perhaps.
But what about our "jackpot rights"?
Just plain DUMB!
I recollect during my senior year in high school not shaving for a period of time. Having good genes, I had a good beard - at least as good as a young man could have, perhaps even better!
At the time, beards were against school policy, and I didn't understand how facial hair would or could interfere with my or anyone else's learning. So, I set out to be the "point man" and to change that rule. I think Henry David Thoreau termed it "Civil Disobedience."
And though my home room teacher spoke to me on several occasions about what the principal would do, he did not inform on me, or order me to the office.
Having done my best to avoid being seen by the principal for several weeks, I had the displeasure late one afternoon, while walking around the corner of a building, to accidentally run into him. He stopped me, and said that I could not return to school unless I was clean shaven.
Living nearby was a distinct advantage for me, for I bargained with him to immediately go home and shave, and returned - even though school was then out for the day - and was allowed to return the following day.
The next year, the school board changed their policy.