Human Rights Group Could Be Real Teacher

It is preposterous to suppose that allowing students to form chapters of Amnesty International on the campuses of Dana Hills and Capistrano Valley high schools somehow would violate the constitutional requirements of separation of church and state.

So is the contention that the work of Amnesty International does not fit the high school curriculum. And also that the organization is political. But those are some of the misguided concerns to which officials in the Capistrano Unified School District have alluded in their refusal to allow students to form Amnesty International chapters on those campuses.

School officials of more than 1,000 other public schools, across the country--including seven here in Orange County--do not harbor such misconceptions. They have welcomed Amnesty International chapters on their campuses. Those school officials correctly recognize that the organization is not religious, political or partisan.

Amnesty International, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, is a humanitarian group dedicated to the preservation and protection of human rights. It has a worldwide membership of about 700,000 in 60 countries. Its only weapons in its war against torture, government executions and the imprisonment and mistreatment of prisoners of conscience are protest letter-writing campaigns and its ability to spotlight public opinion on human rights violations.

We can think of nothing more suited to academics. As Chris Bergerud, a senior at Dana Hills High School and Natalie Pierce, a senior at Capistrano Valley High School, both of whom have been attempting to gain their principals’ approval for campus chapters, point out, the California Board of Education requires human rights education. So it seems ludicrous that educators would not be eager to help students become active in an educational and informational program that is tied to the reality of human rights in the real world.

Bergerud and Pierce, having been rejected by their principals, are taking their case to the school board March 6. Board trustees should follow the example set by the Los Angeles school board last October when it granted an appeal filed by a senior from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, reversing a decision that rejected her request to form an Amnesty International club on campus. No less is needed now in the Capistrano district.

Teaching human rights in class from a textbook is fine. But it is far better for students--and for people suffering the loss of their basic rights--to have that knowledge put to practical use through extracurricular humane efforts. An on-campus chapter of Amnesty International would be just such an effort.