While the rules are in the early stages of development, committee members are weighing the possibility of barring cheering, heckling, prolonged clapping, banners, signs, and props, and also prohibiting speakers from turning their backs to the board and addressing the audience directly.
What rankles the School Committee the most, members say, are the personal attacks that some attendees lob at them.
“When people point the finger and call you names and threaten you, I consider that disrespectful,’’ member Alfreda Harris said during a School Committee discussion last month on the proposed policy. “They have no right to disrespect the superintendent or us as a board… . People who come here and disrespect us need to be removed.’’
The proposed rules are already proving unpopular among many students, teachers, parents, and activists, who say the mayor-appointed board is attempting to muzzle their First Amendment rights while delivering students a poor lesson in civic engagement in a city where civil disobedience sparked the American Revolution.
Richard Stutman, the teachers’ union president who irked the committee last fall when he turned his back to the board on more than one occasion to rally the audience, said in jest, “I think the School Committee should instead adopt rules from Stalinist Russia, because neither group wanted or appreciated democracy.’’
“It’s bad enough the School Committee doesn’t listen,’’ Stutman said. “Now they are saying people can’t make noise?’’
The Rev. Gregory Groover, the board’s chairman, emphasized that the panel wants to foster a welcoming environment at its meetings and that “we don’t want to create an imperialistic tone.’’
“We believe people can express anger, but in a respectful way,’’ Groover said in an interview.
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