This is beyond absurd.
A young woman in Oklahoma-- her class valedictorian, going to college this fall on a full ride-- is being denied her high school diploma because of this:
Nootbaar says, “Her quote was, when she first started school she wanted to be a nurse, then a veterinarian and now that she was getting closer to graduation people would ask her what do you want to do and she said ‘How the h*** do I know? I’ve changed my mind so many times.”
He says in the written script she gave to the school she said “heck,” but in the moment she said h*** instead.
No, she is not being denied her diploma because shes a Twi-hard. Everyone stand next to your fainting coaches... Ready?... Its because she said 'hell' instead of 'heck'.
“We went to the office and asked for the diploma and the principal said ‘Your diploma is right here but you’re not getting it. Close the door we have a problem,” says Nootbaar.
He says the principal told Kaitlin she would have to write an apology letter before he would release the diploma.
This is whats odd-- The graduation ceremony was in May. It is now mid-August. The school administrators did not immediately tell her something was wrong... because they probably had the appropriate reaction to the slip-up like the rest of the audience: "Not a Big Deal".
Here is what I think happened, based off of my own experience with the Ned Flanders Language Police-- The administrators got complaints from jerk-offs/losers with a lot of time on their hands post graduation, who probably continually harassed the administrators about it, and 'forced' the admins to 'do something'.
Also (again, just guessing based off of my personal experience with these kinds of people), the kind of person who would complain about 'naughty words' is, in reality, petty enough to use 'naughty words' as an excuse to settle something 'personal'. Kaitlin pushed someones daughter in a first grade soccer match, didnt invite someones nephew to her sweet-16, or beat out someones granddaughter for valedictorian, or hell, maybe she is a real-life Mean Girl, so her utterance of the word *whispers* "HELL!" cannot be tolerated.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Kaitlin doesn’t plan on writing an apology letter because she doesn’t feel she did anything wrong.
Her family supports that choice.
Good for her, and good for her family. And though what her school is doing is BS, it doesnt technically matter. She is already accepted into college and has her scholarship-- My uncle actually didnt even graduate from high school, he just went to college. I thought about a program that basically skipped your last couple years of high school and smashed it up with college. High school isnt a terminal degree, it doesnt matter.
Kaitlin is going to go on to live her life, while the losers who demanded she apologize for saying a *whispers* 'NAUGHTY WORD!' will continue not having lives.
Rod: What are you doing, daddy?
Ned: Imploring some people I never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish an innocent man for doing something that nobody saw. Thats what I'm doing!
Rod: Daddy, we think you need a new mommy.
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Great post Abbie....thanks so much for the work you do here...all of it.
What the hell is wrong with those people? Oops, my bad!
Excellent post-- and the woman did the correct thing by ignoring the idiocy that is her high school "administrator" (in quotes, because clearly, he's an administrator in name only).
The total hypocrisy of the "naughty word police" is without limit, and without a trace of ethics-- the sort of azzholes who would complain about "hell" are also the same sort that use far, far worse words themselves.
Words that can really hurt, the way they use them.
Good for you, Abby, for bringing this hypocritical behavior to light.
I know it's not your bag, and it maybe out of place, but the situation Ned describes at the end of your post, ironically enough, is pretty much what religious traditionalists did about 2,000 years ago to a man who ended up nailed to a tree. He got even. There's a whole religious franchise named after him today. Sadly, many of the folks involved in said franchise are involved in the same sort of activities he spoke out against and/or got him killed.
oh lord. that diddly feelerino.
I didn't follow your links, but read elsewhere that the school teams are called the Devils. I guess they'll have to expel all their athletes now, and anyone that cheers for them. Cheering for devils? Gasp!
Abbie:
My daughter did that, where you can take classes at a local community college at part or all the last two years of high school. She hated high school, and even though she "graduated" from that high school she did not participate in the graduation ceremony.
I ran into the mother of one of daughter's old soccer team mates. That young lady also hated high school and did a program with the university called "Young Scholars." The university identifies candidates through standardized test scores and invites certain tenth graders to totally skip the last two years of high school and become full time college students. So this young lady essentially dropped out of high school after tenth grade and is a junior in mechanical engineering.
The entire Prague school district website (http://prague.k12.ok.us/) is down: just a 404 error page. (As ye sow, so shall ye reap...) Still, I think I speak for many when I say this:
Hey Rick Martin! Yeah, you, the bald-headed [*expletive deleted*]ing [*expletive deleted*]er! You and your [*expletive deleted*]-licking lackey David Smith can go [*expletive deleted*] each other with a tennis racquet. Kaitlin Nootbaar's father has more self-control than me, as I would have shoved the [*expletive deleted*] diploma up your [*expletive deleted*]... Without taking it out of the desk drawer. You and Smith are both tiny-[*expletive deleted*]ed, punk-[*expletive deleted*] little [*expletive deleted*]es who can only achieve [*expletive deleted, sort of*] by bullying and intimidating children. Get a job as night manager at a [*expletive deleted*]ing Denny's, maybe you'll learn some humility and stop being such a complete [*expletive deleted*]. Cowardly, [*expletive deleted*]-breathed little [*expletive deleted*].
In short, go [*expletive deleted*] up a rope.
Love,
Leonard Schneider
Women do tend to engage in social warfare with each other. It is better than lead flying but is still rather nasty.
So silly! I don't even think of "hell" as a bad word. She should have told them that it's a very frequently used work in church, so it can't be bad. :P
I can believe you typed he . . . double hockey sticks in all caps. I can never read this blog again, for I am permanently scarred!
Abbie, why no trigger warning on a post like this?