ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : In the End, a Message That’s Needed

While Tustin High School got caught up in hand-wringing over a surprise visit last November by Rodney G. King, Saddleback High School in Santa Ana provided a memorable learning experience Tuesday when King spoke at a student assembly. What a difference a few months made for a single visitor at two different schools.

King, the motorist whose videotaped beating at the hands of Los Angeles police officers became an international incident, praised the civil rights accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. and urged the 100 Santa Ana youngsters who attended to stay in school. Those, clearly, are critical messages for our time.

In Tustin, when King was brought along by his lawyer, Milton C. Grimes, a speaker scheduled by the African-American Student Alliance Club, he talked about the problems of growing up black in Southern California. That, too, offered an important learning experience for youngsters.

The reactions in the two school communities offer a useful case study of contrasting ways that schools might handle controversial guest speakers. One was a success; the other resulted in too much noise and the dilution of an important message. In Tustin, there were expressions of outrage, not because King said anything controversial, but because he was there.

It’s hard to imagine that any student hadn’t already heard of King before his school appearances. His life and times--the allegations of police brutality, the acquittal of police officers in Simi Valley and the subsequent Los Angeles riots that exposed anew the sorry plight of American inner cities--are a crucial part of the context in which today’s high school students are preparing for adult life.

That’s reason enough to have received King and his message affirmatively. This was, after all, a man whose words after the riots--”Can we all get along?”-- rang all around the world as a profound comment on the human condition. In addition to its important domestic implications, the King case came to be regarded in other countries as a kind of international human rights incident.

In fairness to Tustin officials, Saddleback did have the benefit of advance notice and thus had the opportunity to plan ahead. But it’s ironic how sharply at odds the real experience of King was when measured against the apprehensions of some parents and administrators. A man whose name stirred controversy turned out at two schools to be the bearer of a message of peace and harmony.