Schiff talks election, issues at Flintridge Prep assembly
Election-year politics came to life at Flintridge Preparatory School Monday, as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) addressed a school-wide assembly at the request of a faculty member who wanted students to gain perspective on what’s become an embattled presidential race.
The congressman shared his viewpoints on international relations, cybersecurity and the credence and credentials of candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, speaking as an official Clinton surrogate.
“I’m usually not allowed, when I come to the schools, to speak about politics,” Schiff said in his introductory remarks. “But I’ve been given the green light today because I hear you’ll have a speaker who will come in to give the opposing view — and I wish them a lot of luck.”
Student Laura Ratliff, 17, asks a question to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).
Schiff, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, also discussed terrorism and civil rights in the wake of a series of bombings in New York and New Jersey over that weekend that culminated just hours before the assembly with the capture of a suspect.
“Obviously, we have a continuing challenge in dealing with terrorism (and) in dealing with homegrown radicalism,” Schiff said. “This is a challenge that is going to go on, not only through the end of this presidency, but well into the next presidency.”
Christine Madsen, chair of the school’s history department, said faculty members came up with the idea of arranging visits from representatives of both the Democratic and Republican parties as it was an election year and they wanted students to be able to hear and discuss issues of national importance from both sides of the aisle.
Typically, the school hosts election year debates with student speakers, but Madsen said with all the negativity that’s amassed around the contest between Clinton and Trump, the history department thought it would be more instructive for the student body to hear from speakers like Schiff than to risk lapsing into name calling.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) listens to student Flintridge Prep student John Murphy, 17.
“We were concerned with some of the statements that have been made (in the campaign),” Madsen said. “We didn’t want to set the students up for a situation where their roles would be to be these two candidates and end up inevitably saying something we didn’t think would be appropriate to say at Flintridge Prep.”
In a Q&A session following the discussion, preselected students put the congressman through his paces on a number of controversial topics, from the Democratic National Committee email leak and Secretary Clinton’s trustworthiness to the Black Lives Matter movement and the government’s ability to safeguard against terrorist threats while protecting civil liberties.
Prep senior Christian Yeghnazar, president of the campus’ Young Republican Club, said afterward that while the congressman seemed to focus more on criticizing Trump than building up Clinton’s electability, he was intrigued by Schiff’s remarks on the DNC email leaks being the result of Russian hackers.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) addresses the Flintridge Prep student body.
“I personally love hearing both sides of the argument, so I was interested to see what he was going to say,” Yeghnazar said. “It was informative hearing the other side.”
A Republican counterpart to Schiff has not yet been selected to visit the campus, but science teacher and adviser of Prep’s Young Republican Club, Rob McLinn, is working on bringing a speaker to represent a GOP viewpoint, according to Madsen.
Headmaster Peter Bachmann said he was excited for Prep students to have the opportunity to hear about important national views from someone who actively participates in the decision-making process.
“This is a primary source,” he said on his way to the assembly. “We love to give students a chance to hear and work with primary sources.”
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
