HAHA PULL UP A CHAIR KIDS https://twitter.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1253131794469261312

Freshman year was kind of uneventful. I played football, was on the debate team, general nerd stuff. The principal was a fairly normal guy, kinda hands-off, and the teachers were mostly cool with me.

Then the principal retired, and our idiot school board got... ideas. /1

Specifically, they went out and hired this uber-religious kooknut who decided he would take a moderately high-performing, oil-money rich small town school in West Texas and COMPLETELY FUCKING RUIN IT FOR NO REASON. /2

He started sophomore year off right, coming in and starting to micromanage classroom teachers and imposing a strict dress code. High schoolers HATE being taught how to dress, and I used my position as junior editor on the school paper to criticize the decision. /3

To the other students, this was heroic stick-it-to-the-man-ery; to the principal, it was a declaration of war. But I was still untouchable, as a football player and emerging debate team captain. So began the Cold War. /4

Throughout my sophomore year, he slowly tried to encroach on the newspaper, asserting more and more editorial control. Our journalism teacher, a wise old Yankee, had NONE of this bullshit. And since our paper won ALL of the UIL awards, he got his way. /5

But the behind the scenes battles continued, and for every minor infraction I'd commit, like being late to class or holding hands with a girl in school, I would get scolded or minor disciplinary actions. But it was a'brewin. /6

That summer, the journalism teacher took some of us to a nerdy, journalism-themed summer "camp" (really just a workshop). I was put into the "Editorial Leadership" class, where I quickly became teacher's pet and taken under the wing of a really cool guy from Ohio. /7

He put me in touch with the Student Press Legal Center, taught me all about Tinker and Hazelwood, and even helped me set up a presentation to the principal for my junior year asking for greater press freedom and editorial control. /8

Tactically, this was not a sound move. As we began our new year, my journalism teacher and I gave a very strong presentation about why an independent student newspaper was better than one where the school exercised editorial control. We had binders. BINDERS! /9

We went down in FLAMES. This was the presentation of the Magna Carta, but King John didn't meekly acquiesce. He called his banners and set us on the course for war. He denied my request, and started exercising DRACONIAN control. /10

Y'all know me. I did NOT take this quietly. I began to publish ever-more... outspoken... editorials. I used my position as editor-in-chief to promote creative works by students and encouraged the paper to tackle real issues, not just be a propaganda rag. /11

This set off a firestorm. After I quit football when they let my favorite coach go, I also inherited my step-dad's curse. You see, my step-dad WAS the baseball coach, until he got on the wrong side politically of the athletic director/football coach. /12

Cursed with the last name Haygood, and lacking my same-aged cousin's quarterback skills, I was relegated to eternal junior varsity starting position, and not given a chance to even try for varsity. So I quit. Thus ended my immunity. /13

At the next pep rally, I participated in a skit as I usually did with my friends from the theater classes. I played Bill Clinton. I do a GREAT Bill Clinton impersonation. So despite the fact this was 2000, and thus relevant, I got in trouble for the following skit: /14

When I entered, my hair slicked back and grey, with my pants halfway pulled down and some red-and-white-heart boxer shorts showing (OVER my underwear), chasing a cheerleader, this was apparently "inappropriate" for a high school audience. /15

I was given the choice -- public corporal punishment or a month of Breakfast Clubbing it up at Saturday detention. I put on my John Bender denim vest and chose the detentions. But my war was NOT over; this was not my Waterloo. /16

My chemistry teacher was this pervy loser who spent all of his time telling the Swedish foreign exchange student he could buy her beer, and getting mad at me because a girl would sit in my lap and flirt with me for the answers (hey, I was 16, you don't turn that down). /17

Weekly, I would march from class and report his pedagogical malpractice to the front office, only for them to ignore it. I turned in projects that technically met the definition of competent work but were subtly insulting. I got banned from the Honor Society as a result. /18

So I did what anyone would do; I involved the wider school board. I continued to publish envelope-pushing stuff in the paper. I made the principal's life an administrative nightmare. /19

Then junior year ended. Over the summer, the chemistry teacher was fired, and I sent him a BLISTERING ICQ message (remember those!) which he forwarded to the principal. Despite this being out-of-school conduct after school ended, I was punished the next year. /20

I spent the first two months of my senior year in ISS for cussing out a pedo teacher. But my revenge was not yet done; the light workload and my ability to get done really quickly in ISS meant I had more time to WRITE. /21

And write I did; I published an editorial scathingly critical of then newly-elected President Bush's first 100 days that said his ineptitude would get us attacked. This editorial was published on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Yes. That September 11. /22

The ensuing shitstorm involved death threats to me, the principal apologizing to the whole town on my behalf, my emphatic response that I wasn't fucking sorry in the slightest, that their clownish idiot GOP prince deserved everything heaped upon him, etc. /23

This, in retrospect, did not endear me to my neighbors. Now in full-on battle with the principal, lawyers, the Student Press Legal Center, MSNBC tv hosts, and the New York Times were involved. /24

My comrade, the journalism teacher, had been dismissed over the summer on trumped-up DWI charges. He was falsely stopped, arrested, and never even charged with DWI, but the arrest was public, and the school fired him "for cause." /25

The scab they brought in was some toadie who'd blown his own heart out in college on uppers while working on his paper, so the message was clear: don't cause him any undue stress or he'll DIE on you. /26

Effectively neutered, I had to take my EIC duties underground to try to find ways to subvert the system. I first tried a "student art showcase," but the editorial control was too great, and I didn't get to show anything really thought-provoking. /27

But my great chance came in February, the "love" issue. I proposed to do a fully scientific study of the students at my high school, anonymously, to see who was having sex and at what age. We partnered with statisticians from nearby Texas Tech to make this all above-board. /28

The principal took the bait. He was so sure that his Godly Prosperity Gospel Leadership had cleaned up the school of its Cities-on-the-Plain ways that he would come out looking like the Man Who Cleaned Up Texas. /29

Bear in mind my hometown is a flyspeck bit of oilfield trash notable only for having a nuclear waste dump (more on that later!) and being a DRY COUNTY up until like 2012. The kids had nothing else to do but fuck. /30

Even a huge D&D playing nerd like me was getting laid. That's how bored kids were. And the survey said... over half the students had already had sex by age 16, growing up to 2/3 by graduation. Womp womp. /31

This was NOT kashrut according to the Good Baptist Folks of my hometown. A church meeting was held (not kidding). My neighbors, people I'd had barbecues with, asked the "men of the church" to "do something about me" (also not kidding). /32

But the principal couldn't; he had OK'd the story thinking kids weren't being kids. So he found another way. The nuclear plant. Of course, I'd been opposed to the idea of burying napalm, medical waste, and nuclear waste in our backyard. That's... dumb. /33

But, when I surveyed the editors of my paper, we ALL agreed it was a bad idea, and so published several editorials highly critical of the way the disposal company, Waste Control Services, bribed and bought off town officials to get approval. /34

(Incidentally, this is the same plant where my outgoing congressman, Mike Conaway, managed to have his wife buy stock in the delivery companies servicing the plant while he was drafting the laws that permitted the storage of waste there. Fun!) /35

So WCS got the other sponsors in town to pull their advertisements out of the school paper. I had been #canceled and I didn't even know it yet. Furious with me, the journalism teacher didn't let me publish my traditional end-of-editoriship column in the last paper. /36

I was not valedictorian or salutatorian of my high school; apparently, easy As in band and choir counted for more than not-easy-As in college prep classes. D'oh. But I was the student-selected speaker. /37

Friends, do you really believe that a little democratic vote for student-selected speaker was going to win this day? No. Noooooo. I was summarily denied the opportunity to address my idiot peers one last time. /38

And so I passed from high school robbed of my ability to say anything, in, well, less grace than I was before, forced to travel to neighboring cities to find friends and comrades since I was now socially ostracized at home. /39

And that ends my tale of how I ruined my senior year by being nothing more than a mouthy smart ass. But there IS a happy ending. When I got my JD, before I got my bar card, I went back and taught as a substitute for a month. /40

The old principal had been fired (that happens when you ruin all of our state championship teams). But he had come back for some sort of meeting, and I ran into him on the sidewalk outside of the administration building when I went to go get my paycheck. /41

Rubbing my achievements in his dumb, mustachioed face might have been gauche, but damn it felt good. He told I would never be anything because I had an innate desire to buck the system and damn the people who could help advance my career because I wouldn't play along. /42

Whereas, I say my cavalier attitude and GFY mindset have done nothing but propel me along through my career. The stakes are higher now, but I LOVE sticking up for the little guy, the oppressed, the one in the path of all that political machinery, and saying, "nah. Not today." /43

I LOVE who I am . I have a great fucking life. And I do think those experiences helped shape who I am. When you've tasted unfairness, even trivial unfairness, you learn you don't like it. And if you've got the guts, you'll try to shield others from having to suffer it too. /end