High school journalists pen viral editorial after being turned away from Betsy DeVos event
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If you’ve ever worried about the youth of this country not being engaged in politics enough, this story will offer some relief. High school students from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky, tried to attend a discussion between EducatioHigh school journalists pen viral editorial after being turned away from Betsy DeVos event
If you’ve ever worried about the youth of this country not being engaged in politics enough, this story will offer some relief. High school students from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky, tried to attend a discussion between Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican governor Matt Bevin, with the goal of covering it for their school paper. This should be a wonderful opportunity for the students, right? Wrong. The students weren’t allowed in. As they report in their editorial, a man told them they weren’t allowed inside because they didn’t RSVP. Not to be deterred, they wrote an editorial called “No Seat at the Roundtable” instead. Surprising no one, it (rightfully) slams DeVos. Notably, the event was a roundtable discussion held at a local community college. It was described as an open press event, but as reported by the Washington Post, the students were turned away because they hadn’t received an invitation, and hadn’t RSVPed. Mind you, they’re students who are trying to be politically engaged, so perhaps the typical “rules” of a press event shouldn’t apply to them. Because, again, they’re teenagers. In their editorial, the students don’t shy away from calling out how ridiculous the situation was. «We expected the event to be intense,» they wrote.«We expected there to be a lot of information to cover. But not being able to exercise our rights under the First Amendment was something we never thought would happen. We weren't prepared for that. … How odd is it that even though future generations of students' experiences could be based on what was discussed, that we, actual students, were turned away?» They also called out the eye-rolling-inducing rules about the RSVP. “Not that we’re happy about it,” they wrote, “but we understand why a student news organization wouldn’t have been considered important enough to receive a copy of the media press release. Why, after our explanation that we were not given the press release asking for an RSVP, weren’t we allowed to enter as students and stakeholders?" Read more