Death Penalty Final Response

         I would have to support Governor Ryan's decision to take everyone off of death row. I believe that he did the right thing by abolishing the death penalty in Illinois as well. We've heard many stories from victims families who didn't feel any better after the murderer was killed and to me that is a very powerful reason. Another big reason why I don't believe in the death penalty is because of the chance that the person could be innocent. This is showed by Governor Ryan in the very beginning of his speech. He mentions the many people who were wrongfully accused and forced to be on death row, one for over 17 years. Most of them were just young teens as well.
       When thinking about the death penalty, I always seem to go back to the old cliche "Two wrongs don't make a right". The death penalty in general seems very nonsensical to me. They are trying to punish people who are doing something wrong, so in order to punish them they commit the same crime that the other person did. This is a very hypocritical way of going about this. I also believe that killing the person doesn't benefit anyone at all. The person is going to spend the rest of his life in jail anyways so what is the purpose of taking another persons life.
          Overall, I completely agree and support Governor Ryan's decisions with the death penalty in Illinois. The death sentence is cruel and unusual punishment and shouldn't be legal anywhere in the United States of America.

Student Privacy in School

          In the case Board of Education vs. Earls, students were forced to consent with randoming drug testing if they were in any extracurricular activites. Two students and their families went against this, saying that it was in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. The case was later brought up to the supreme court where it was ruled that students in extracurricular activies have a diminished expectation of privacy and the school was completely within their rights to administer the random drug testing. They also used the precedent from the Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton case. That case was very similar to the previous case in which the Supreme Court ruled with the school saying they were reasonable in light of the schools' interest in preventing teenage drug use.
           I disagree with the school and courts decision to allow random drug testing at the school. I find it a huge invasion of privacy to require students to give up their urine to the school administration. If students don't have any privacy rights in school then what do they have. If the school can take away this amendment right then what's stopping them from taking all their other rights away from them. I feel like when the school is given this power to take away their right to privacy, then it could lead to more restriction and the school will just get power hungry and take away all their rights.
          After reading the article about the drug sniffing dogs, I was even more against this whole scenario. Bringing drug sniffing dogs to the school is not only a huge disruption to the learning environment, but it could also bring up health issues with the students. Their could be multiple students with dog allergies so this could cause further complications. I feel as though the disruption this can cause to the school would be very bad. When the dogs are at the school, I would imagine that no one can focus and everyone's minds are just on the dogs and what they're doing at the school.

Speech Codes on Campus

When I opened up the slideshow I definately wasnt expected what I was about to see. I was in complete shock looking through the pictures. I couldnt understand how these students thought that it was OK to do the things they were doing. They not only made fun of African Americans in general, but they also poke fun at Omega Psi Phi which is Auburn's oldest African American Fraternity. This whole scenario would have been completely different if just a few students went to the party as certain African Americans, but they took it to a whole new level. The fact that they simulated lynching and wore Klu Klux Klan outfits was way over the top. The picture I just refrenced is shown below.

 The university said that they would continue an investigation with the situation, but I'm not sure with what the final result was. If I was in the situation of being part of the administration I would definately issue suspensions to all the students that were seen in the pictures taken from that night. The students didnt do this just for the fun of it. There was definately the thought of a personal attack on African Americans with these actions. If it was just for entertainment then I believe that they wouldnt have taken it as far as they did with the KKK outfits and lynching. I would be very shocked if the administration at Auburn didnt follow up on this and give out some disciplinary action to the students involved.

Never Forget

Reflecting back on 9/11 it doesn't seem like it was 10 years ago. I can still remember very clearly the events that happened that day. I was in the second grade and we were not aware of anything going on when we were at school. The teachers didn't tell us anything so I didn't find out about it until I got home. I walk in my door and I see the towers on the TV. The same thing on repeat over and over again. Plane hits the tower, the towers go down. Over and over and over again. I watched this in disbelief for a good while until my mom turned the TV off because she felt like I've seen enough.
         Growing up, I've heard many people talk about how different things are now that the attacks happened. Many people mentioning the airport security being different, some people even talking about refusing to ride on planes anymore. But to me everything is the same as it has always been. Since I was so young when this happened, I don't remember how life was before the attacks so nothing seems different to me.

A Students Freedom of Speech

         In class for the past couple of days we have been discussing the speech rights that students have when they are in school. We have gone over a few different cases with the outcome being different. In Tinker vs. Des Moines, two children decided to wear black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school suspended them and they decided to take it to court. In the end, the court ruled that the school's decision to suspend the children was unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment. I agree with the courts decision in this case. The kids were having a protest that didn't disrupt anyone so why wouldn't they be allowed to wear the armbands. As for the second case we talked about, well that had a little different circumstances.
         In the case Morse vs. Frederick, Frederick and a few friends decided to put up a 14 foot banner that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" on national television. This is also a matter of freedom of speech, but in this case they were disruptive. Because one of the school's jobs is to inform us of the DANGERS of illegal drugs, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for them to let these kids hold up a huge banner that promotes and encourages the use of drugs. So as for the second case we looked at, I agree that although the students have their freedom of speech, there are certain restrictions when they are at school.

First Post

Hey. My name is Cody Thuente and I am writing this blog for my Issues class. We can write about whatever we want in this first post so I'll start my blog off by talking about the upcoming hockey season. The NHL season is a little over a month away and the Blackhawks are looking good. I'm excited to watch Sharp score a bunch of goals and to see Carcillo hopefully get into a bunch of scraps. I can't really think of anything else to write so I'm going to end my first post now.