A Little Civility Please by Mark Davis

Mark Davis's column is full of dry humor and plenty of examples to illustrate his point. The main idea of his article--to question the intentions of schools and their specifics rights over students. There actually seems to be two different points made. First of all, that schools are inconsistent with what is considered appropriate and inappropriate and second, that our society today laughs at the idea of having an intellectual debate. From the get-go, he starts with a suggestion that is bound for failure: sending a kid into school with a shirt that says "Martin Luther King Jr. Was Evil" or "Jews Lie: There Was No Holocaust." He then says to see if anyone suggests that the kid was not spreading hate, but rather trying to spark a debate (Paragraph 2). I think this clear-cut example is a great opening for the column, he gets attention right off the bat by suggesting something so outrageous. He points out that schools are inconsistent in their decision of what is disruptive or not--"Well, how exactly does a T-shirt disrupt?" he says in paragraph 10. This is a fairly true point. I remember walking around in high school seeing guys wearing Hooters shirts--those got banned. I think the icing on the cake of this article is in the 14th paragraph, when he says that debate on controversial issues should happen and in-fact be encouraged, but within reason. The title of the column says a lot--A Little Civility Please. It's okay to do controversial things and to be scolded for it. But if it has to happen, then we might as well have a discussion about it.