To say that the MACE pickets are popular would be a tremendous understatement!
The MACE staff and friends cannot oblige all the requests for pickets and, because of the MACE
staff's busy schedule, must turn down many more than it can honor. Although pickets are a time-honored expression of
free speech protected by the U.S. Constitution, they are fairly unusual in today's society,
and they therefore cause quite a stir among each school's community when they are staged.
Why does MACE picket? MACE pickets when it feels that the teaching conditions
arre so egregious at the school that the quickest and most effective method -- after other attempts at resolution
have failed -- to bring about improvement is the dramatic exposure of the conditions at the school.
After past MACE pickets (some covered by television, radio, and newspapers), some administrators have been
transferred, one principal shortly retired, some have panicked
and/or cried, and many have "gotten religion" -- if only for a short while. The pickets
are effective and hugely popular among members; however, MACE will not be prostituted over pickets!
MACE will not accept any remuneration whatsoever for a picket. And, the MACE staff
members are not bellhops who will jumpt at any "demand" for a picket. MACE will entertain requests
and will listen to the rationale for the picket, but will not be coerced to picket.
It is
always fun for the MACE cavalry to picket! Teachers enjoy observing their administrators
when they are not in control. Some paranoid school systems nearly always send out the cops to drive MACE
away. The cops can do nothing to MACE because the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly
established that parks and sidewalks are category one free speech forums. In Grayned v. Rockford
(1972), Justice Thurgood Marshall, in the majority opinion, wrote that "(w)ithout interferring with
normal school activities, daytime picketing and handbilling on public grounds near a school can effectively publicize those
grievances." In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down floating
buffer zones around people entering and leaving abortion clinics. The Court wrote: "Leafletting and commenting
on matters of public concern are classic forms of speech that lie at the heart of the First
Amendment, and speech in public areas is at its most protected on public sidewalks, a prototypical example
of a traditional public forum" (Schenck et al. v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York et al.,
1997).
