Statewide 'Student Bill of Rights' Proposed by Andrew Warde High School Student 39 Years Ago This Week

A proposal for a statewide meeting of high school students to formulate a student bill of rights was made by an Andrew Warde High School student at a meeting of the Fairfield county chapter of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, Monday evening, January 12, 1970.

According to a story published 39 years ago today, Marc Cohen said he would meet with students from 10 other towns to plan the meeting, which centered on several cases concerning rights in which the CCLU chapter is involved.

Cohen gave a report on this and other activities in Fairfield involving student rights. He discussed the meeting of the Board of Education a week earlier at which students and what he called "right-wingers" were heard.

He also pointed out the failure of the board to answer a bill of particulars which the Fairfield Student Union presented to it two months earlier. The issue concerns a situation which began when a faculty member did not allow a student to read a position paper on Vietnam over the school's loudspeaker system.

Another Fairfield student told of a situation in which he was suspended for five days for handing out what school officials called obscene material. He said that he had given some underground newspapers to some of his friends and was suspended for doing that.

An issue has been raised by local lawyers who have discussed the matter with local officials, it was reported. The issues concern student rights, whether there was distribution, and whether students should be limited as to which materials should be distributed, among others.

This was supported by Cohen, who said he had been given varying sets of rules by school officials as to where and at what time his paper could be distributed.

Paul

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Watch the AWHS 1976 vintage "film".