Recently the ACLU of SD presented an informative guest column on 1st Amendment rights;
Freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, and petition: This set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights would wither away.
That 1st paragraph pretty much sums it up. Notice the mention of ‘the press’. This is important.
The rumor going around is that a local journalist prepared a story about the Sioux Falls School District and the school district became unglued and threatened the entire news organization if they ran the story.
So guess what? No story.
Just like the Title Nine lawsuit, a total shutdown of communications with the public.
What makes this even more distressing is the news organization* allegedly caving after being threatened. The 4th Estate should not cower to these folks, especially local governmonkeys. In fact, I would say it is their duty to cover important public policy stories regardless of the topic or policy.
I have suspected for a very long time certain local government leaders in this community control the media and get stories killed and we might finally have the pudding.
It’s one thing to have closed government with all four branches in Sioux Falls, it’s entirely another thing for our local news to pull a story because they were threatened, and what does this say about the peeps running the school district? Do they have a bullying policy when it comes to the media?
What do you think Bob Woodward would have done in this situation?
Recently a local government public servant (who does not serve on the school board) asked me who forms policy for the school district? The Board or the Administration? I told him I could not answer that question, but my speculation is the administration handles it, shoves it down the board’s throats and if they dissent the Super threatens to quit her around $400K a year job.
Don’t let the FREE cheese sandwich hit your behind on the way out the door.
*I am aware of the name of the alleged news organization, the reporter, and the ‘story’. But unless they choose to run it there is not much I can share. It also has nothing to do with the Title Nine litigation. Ironically, I was told today, as I have been snooping around for more sources, there are multiple stories the District is actively trying to squash.
I’m not shocked. This is a public school system which had a cross hanging from one of the windows of its building. This a public school system that brought back MLK and Native American Day as school holidays after it’s flirtation with the “Save The Summer” movement, but when they did it they made no mention of MLK or NAD, but rather just referred to them as in-service days unlike the other holidays, which they acknowledged on their school calendar. This is also the public school system, during the school boundary meetings, which proposed a boundary plan that would have had low income kids, who lived very close to Roosevelt and Memorial, going instead to Jefferson and McGovern, while this same public school system showed no interest in busing students so that their would be a better racial balance amongst all of the schools. This is also the same public school system, during the boundary meetings, which would response to boundary participant members’ proposed boundary maps with form emails, and if they did present a participant’s boundary suggestions to the whole committee and pubic, they did it without the same professional powerpoint presentation capability that the public school system’s boundary proposals were given…. Yah, I’m not shocked, and I also witnessed, with the exception of the Argus, which was willing to print public complaints of how the boundary meetings were handled and what was handled, that most members of the local press did not want to touch the issue of racial mixture of our schools with a ten foot pole, but rather preferred to promote the local public school system’s song and dance on the boundary issues…. So yah, I’m not shocked.
OH, and let’s not forget our local public school system’s love for super precincts, which is voter suppression, their reluctance to publicly promote the 2023 school board election and petition period, and their inconsistency as to when school board elections are to be held whether with or without a city election, or a primary election, or on their own.
“2022 school board election” 😉