Dear editor:
(This letter is really addressed to Laurel and Oswin Sewer Sr., the parents of Oswin Sewer Jr., but offered for publication in the Source for all concerned citizens to read.)
If you choose to sue over the school administration's censorship of your son's graduation exercises speech, there is considerable precident for you to win. I was the teacher-advisor of the Student Council at Intermediate School 44 in New York City in 1965 when the school administration confiscated all the copies of a student newspaper which criticized the administration. The article under scrutiny was written by Josh Mamis, whose parents enlisted the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled that First Amendment rights also apply to minors.
But, of course, you know the consequences of taking that kind of action here in the Islands, especially since both of you are public employees. Just another example of "It's all right to do wrong, but very wrong to talk about it."
I'm sorry your son's courage to speak out, his concern for his community and his sense of right and wrong have been diminished by traditional decorum. Tell him to keep speaking up. His generation is our only hope.
Carol Lotz
St. Thomas
