Three guesses what change they imposed on this Valedictorian’s Speech.
Usually, the reward for being Valedictorian is an opportunity to speak to your classmates in your own words.
If you had a sports hero, a friend, or a relative that had inspired you to rise to the top of your class, it would be perfectly natural to include that in your speech.
But don’t say THAT name.
No, this isn’t a Trump-hating thing, either.
It’s a ‘Jesus’ thing.
Sam Blackledge was set to deliver the speech at West Prairie High School on May 19. According to the 18-year-old, school administrators informed him that he needed to take out anything that mentioned God and Jesus minutes before Blackledge was scheduled to go on stage.
“It was terrible. I felt like I wanted to cry,” the valedictorian said, via The Kansas City Star. “Christ is the only reason I was a valedictorian. He’s the reason I got that 4.0. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be up there. I was giving him the credit for that.”
Attorney Jeremy Dys of the non-profit legal group First Liberty Institute told reporters that the school didn’t even want Blackledge to speak, but eventually allowed the senior to give a “very generic” address.
The student’s attorney is accusing West Prairie High School of violating the boy’s rights regarding freedom of speech and religion. “They actually violated the Constitution. They’d do well to remember, as ‘Tinker v. Des Moines,’ the case in 1969, reminds us, that students do not shed their constitutional rights when they walk through the schoolhouse gates,” Dys told KFVS.
Source: CBS
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What makes America so different from other nations? Other nations are built around regimes or systems. But America was built from on ideas. From a blank slate.
Built on ideas that are DANGEROUS to tyrants.
That we have God-Given Rights, like Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Dangerous ideas. Like this one: the people, when threatened, have a God-Given right to stand up in defiance of any government that dares threaten any of those rights.
There’s a men’s version…
And a women’s version, too…
Because in America, the bros AND the ladies BOTH have a rich history of badass rowdiness.
