Poetry teacher wins settlement

BY BUSTER SOUTHERLY

The Rio Rancho Public School District in New Mexico has settled the federal lawsuit brought against it on behalf of Bill Nevins, the Green Left Weekly writer and poetry teacher fired by the district in 2003. A settlement in excess of US$200,000 was made to Nevins and his attorney.

Nevins, who claims he was fired for permitting his students to read out anti-war, anti-Bush poems and for criticising the Rio Rancho High School's censorship of controversial poetry readings at the school, asserted this is "a tremendous victory for freedom of speech and for the rights of students and teachers".

Nevins, and several of his former poetry team students, were in a peaceful protest line of some 200 people on July 31 when US Vice-President Dick Cheney spoke at a Bush-Cheney re-election rally at Rio Rancho Mid-High School. Despite a request to cover the rally as a journalist for GLW, Nevins was barred from the rally itself, along with all persons who refused to sign a "pledge" to support Bush and Cheney in the upcoming US presidential election this November.

This barring of non-supporters and protesters from Cheney's speech at Rio Rancho has been condemned in the local press as "unconstitutional", "questionably legal" and "un-American".

From Green Left Weekly, August 11, 2004.

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From GLW issue 593