Superintendent of NYC Schools Denounces ACLU
The Superintendent of New York City Schools attacked the ACLU on this day, charging that its defense of civil liberties was “undermining” all the work the schools were doing to promote “the right ideas on religion and patriotism.”
The Superintendent made his charges at a public conference with a special committee of the NYC schools, created to examine the question of whether the ACLU should be granted permission to hold a meeting on “old fashioned free speech” in a public school building.
For other incidents involving the ACLU’s struggle for the right to speak in the New York City schools, see May 21, 1926, November 27, 1928, and April 19, 1929.
Learn about the struggles of the ACLU in the 1920s: Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990)
Learn about the free speech rights of students today: https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/student-speech
And more about the First Amendment rights of students: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/k-12-public-school-student-expression-overview