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A recent issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine addressed two subjects that I see converging in news stories from around the country – intolerant attitudes toward students who are atheist and teachers using their positions to bully students.

The time had come. It was Dec. 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on the Montgomery public bus. This act led to Parks’ arrest, ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott and ushered in the new civil rights movement.

A year ago, we introduced a new curriculum, Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond, citing the “pressing need to change the tenor of public debate from shouts and slurs to something more reasoned.” This weekend’s carnage in Tucson, with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords gravely injured, six people dead and 14 others wounded, is a terrible tragedy, not just for the victims and their families. It is a tragedy for a nation whose political process depends on people airing issues, managing conflict and confronting controversy in the public square.

Protest Songs in the Classroom