The New York Times is a critically acclaimed American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and since then has been the largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. The New York Times have won over one hundred Pulitzer Prizes for its achievements in newspaper journalism. This corporation website is amongst the top rated and has the most viewed online newspaper and publishes about eighteen other newspapers. It also has a large foreign news bureau around the globe. This newspaper is very powerful source of institutionalize media and can structure how society views race, class, and gender. The New York Times is a media outlet perspective for current events and popular culture which will help me examine our current educational system in the United States of America (Liptak The New York Times).
The education system in the United States has seen a drastic change since the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education that integrated the school system because of African American students were not receiving equal educational opportunities compared to white students. Since then there was has been many more changes to the school system; but also have seen school districts that were predominately white students have left to the suburbs to build their own schools with up to date technology and advance computer systems with new textbooks. Compare this to the families who are underprivileged and can’t afford to send their children to a better school to receive top of the line education because of the disadvantage they are in financially. The approach that I will be taking is that the school system is an institution based on the public sector and controlled by three levels federal, state, and local. Each has its own ideal ways of thinking that can greatly affect a school system on how it’s run from its morals, values, and beliefs and how it connects directly with the children positively and negatively.
When dose strip searching at school crosses the limit from reasonable search to an embarrassing, freighting, and humiliating search? That’s what Savanna Redding at the age of 13 felt when a mandatory strip search conducted by school officials at her middle school accused her of giving away ibuprofen. Two female school officials conducted a strip search on Ms. Redding and made her disrobe all of her garments including both of her undergarments exposing her naked body. Ultimately they did not find any pills and it should not have caused a degrading strip search because the extent of danger of the pills weren’t sufficient enough to conduct this type of rigorous strip search. After many years, now 19 years old, the court ruled in Ms. Redding’s favor that these acts were a violation of her constitutional rights.
I read this article in The New York Times and I was intrigued by this notion that the defense made a comment that it was “comparable to her changing into gym clothes” (The New York Times). The defense was able to turn the accusation around like it was a playful matter and make the victim feelings seem worthless. By doing this she is becoming more oppressed and the act itself is dehumanizing. “Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it” (Paulo Freire). It is also a form of gender microaggressions which inflect gender discrimination. At the innocent age of 13 a transition period from childhood to puberty can be the most fragile years for a young lady to go through, according to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview conducted by USA Today and quoted on Liptak article about her male colleague’s comments that they don’t appreciate what Ms. Redding endured. The case was gendered bias because the defense, mostly male, don’t understand the pain she endured. At the end she regains back her self worth/power of what was stripped away from her on that horrible day at school.
As for the school system should be allowed to execute this type of behavior no. While strip searches were implemented to keep the schools safe, there was a boundary that they crossed and after this example should eliminate strip searches in school unless the district is looking for a lawsuit that is bound to happen. Some school districts don’t feel that way because they believe that the law is behind them and it makes there actions justifiable. Schools function part as an “Ideological State Apparatus and function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic” (Louis Althusser).
Education is very powerful for oneself to get ahead in life and it is something that can not be taken away from you. For many people getting an education is a privilege, but here in the United States we are fortunate that everyone can get an education no matter what is your race, class, and gender is. Getting an education and be able to obtain it is very crucial and many take it for granted. Since the recent budget cuts across the nation education is one of the first to be cut from and it is hurting many underprivileged families who can’t afford to attend private school. Summer school is an essential important factor for these underprivileged families whose children need to go to summer school because of their situation back home. This might be because parents can’t afford a babysitter, hunger, trouble with the law, and education.
In The New York Times article talked about summer school being cut in Florida and many other states. Summer school is getting eliminated and soon everywhere else it will be. Many states who did receive federal stimulus loans are not using that money for their school districts, even if so it not enough of money so therefore their only option is to cut down the spending. This is very important to know because first it effects low income families and widens the achievement gap between the poor and affluent children. Many low income students hold summer jobs or are inactive with their education, and because of that many of times forget more “math and reading skills over the summer than their affluent classmates, who often receive intellectual stimulation in the summer from canoe trips, language camps or ballet lessons.” (Sam Dillon, The New York Times)
Works Cited
Althusser, Louis. “On the Reproduction of the Conditions of Production.” Lenin and Philosophy
and Other Essays Monthly Review Press 1971
Dillon, Sam. "Facing Deficits, Some States Cut Summer School." The New York Times
1 July 2009, Education sec.
Freire, Paulo. “Chapter One,” Pedagogy of the Oppressed
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/idelogy.htm
Liptak, Adam. "Supreme Court Says Child's Rights Violated by Strip Search." The New York
Times 25 June 2009, Education sec.
