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Civil Liberties

Brickbat: WTF?

Charles Oliver | 8.28.2012 6:00 AM

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Officials at Oklahoma's Prague High School have refused to give a diploma to Kaitlin Nootbaar, the valedictorian of the 2012 graduating class. They say they won't give it to her until she writes an apology for saying "hell" in her graduation speech.

Brickbat Archive

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Charles Oliver is a contributing editor at Reason.

Civil LibertiesEducationCensorship
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  1. Suthenboy   13 years ago

    Go to any HS in America and you can find any assortment of petty tyrants in minutes. Seriously, where the hell do those people come from?

    1. Pound. Head. On. Desk.   13 years ago

      Seriously, where the hell do those people come from?

      Uh-oh! No diploma for you, young man!

  2. Whiterun Guard   13 years ago

    I’d give her a diploma, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.

  3. Whiterun Guard   13 years ago

    Also is Nootbaar liks Swedish for Snickers? Or nudie bar?

    1. fried wylie   13 years ago

      Payday, not Snickers.

  4. invisible furry hand   13 years ago

    When tasked with writing the graduation speech, her dad said she got her inspiration from the movie “Eclipse: The Twilight Saga.”

    I had wondered why some people think the West is going to hell in a handcart

    1. Suthenboy   13 years ago

      I was thinking the same thing, then I realized that she is just a kid. Then a quote came to mind;

      I cant find it now but either crazy horse, sitting bull, or geronimo said (I am paraphrasing here) “Indians have killed their first man by the age of 10 and are full warriors, while the white boys are still little girls.”

      So yeah, she is a HS grad, and still a kid.

      1. Whiterun Guard   13 years ago

        And a girl. From Oklahoma. I mean she’s the exact target demographic for the asexual high school vampire soap opera genre.

    2. BarryD   13 years ago

      Given that I considered Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Animal House to be the Holy Trinity at that point in my life, though…

      Okay, those movies are still great…

  5. Whiterun Guard   13 years ago

    So one of my extremely painful weekly meetings (that was due to start in about 8 minutes) just got cancelled.

    I know it’s only Tuesday, but can I still crank Party Hard on repeat for the next two hours?

  6. Pound. Head. On. Desk.   13 years ago

    The principal needs to be tarred, feathered and lit.

    1. invisible furry hand   13 years ago

      That’s a tad… extreme. I say he should be sentenced to watch this until his head explodes from the sweary shock

  7. Drake   13 years ago

    I’ll help!

    Dear fucking douche bags,

    I am very fucking sorry your delicate fucking ears were hurt by the mildest curse in the whole goddam English fucking language. Since our school mascot is the “Red Devil”, I wouldn’t think that the shit between your ears would get all butt-hurt at hearing where the devil actually comes from.

    Eat shit and die, I’m never coming back to this fucking hick town,

    The only smart girl in town.

    1. BarryD   13 years ago

      I would have worked in a lot more foul language, but otherwise that’s about the size of it.

      1. Drake   13 years ago

        I haven’t listen to a Richard Dirty Dick Marcinko book on tape lately. He is a true artist when it comes to profanity.

  8. Night Elf Mohawk   13 years ago

    As far as I can tell, they’re just withholding the diploma, not saying she didn’t graduate. I’d tell the principal to stick the diploma up his ass, and see how he liked that language.

    1. H. Reardon   13 years ago

      She’s the Valedictorian. I’m sure she doesn’t intend to hang the framed HS diploma on her wall. If she’s anything like I was, she looked around at the graduation ceremony, and judged from the quality of people that were graduating with her that her diploma wasn’t worth shit.

  9. Rich   13 years ago

    Oh, if only she had said “H-E-double-hockey-sticks”, which everyone agrees is cute and harmless.

  10. fangfooo   13 years ago

    I like the sound of this dude, It is very cool man, I like it.

    http://www.Private-Anon.tk

  11. Seamus   13 years ago

    Presumably she’s been admitted to college somewhere, and presumably the college isn’t going to rescind its admission. So she should just get on with her life and not look back. (My HS diploma is in a file drawer somewhere in the basement. I’m not quite sure why I still have it. I certainly have never felt any urge to have it framed and hung on my office wall next to my law school diploma.)

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