Last Friday night, three honor students from Cross River, NY’s John Jay High School — Megan Reback, Elan Stahl, and Hannah Levinson — took to the stage during a school sponsored open mic and read an excerpt from Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues: “My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country,” the girls read. School Principal Richard Leprine wasn’t impressed and immediately suspended the three girls for one day, thus placing a moral magnified glass over the American school system.
“Our main point is that ‘vagina’ isn’t a word that should be censored from young children …It’s an important word. It’s a part of the body,” Megan Reback said on the Today Show this morning (March 9). So as hordes of bloggers sound off on America’s education system and freedom of speech, some conservative’s protect the Principal’s right to censorship. Where do you stand?
Here’s what bloggers are saying about the suspended school girls:
“I have to wonder about sex-ed at this school (if there is any). Are students allowed to use the word “vagina” in class?” — Shan, mnvalleynow.org
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“I have sympathy for the principal, who had a very difficult decision to make.” — harlequinaide.livejournal.com/
“Are our daughter’s aware that they have one, too? Mine has known what she has and what it’s called since she was young enough to mispronounce it: “Boys have a peanut. I have a bagina.” What happens if audience members attending a high school performance that includes a reading from The Vagina Monologues suddenly hears the word ‘vagina’? Gasps of shock and horror? Fainting? What is wrong with naming a body part? I have arms and legs and I also have breasts and buttocks. And a vagina.” — peris, periswrinkle.wordpress.com
“If it had been a prayer, you’d clearly have been offended. So why is a passage with a sexual context of vagina not inappropriate? And please don’t argue that it’s not sexual. You’re blithering idiot if you don’t get that from the passage.” — nickuofm, nyjournalnews.com
“YOU GO GIRLS!!” — Adrie, 1trackmind.com
“What play? It was, of course, The Vagina Monologues. What kind of stupid country are we living in?” — Jason, www.xenogere.com
On the Web:
The Vagina Monologues at Random House
Talk: How would you have responded to the girls’ open mic speech?
