Why zero tolerance doesnt work

[KeepOnTruckin]

I dunno if this goes here, maybe its more of a school related thing. anyways,

http://www.rutherford.org/articles_d...?article_id=71

Basicially a list of cases where zero tolerance failed.

Heres some of the better ones

Benjamin Ratner v. Loudoun County School Board (VA)
Loudoun County Public School administrators suspended Ben Ratner, an eighth grader at Blue Ridge Middle School, for taking a knife from a suicidal friend in an effort to prevent her from committing suicide. Ben's friend passed him a note in study hall saying that she had brought a knife to school and was contemplating suicide. Ben persuaded her to give him the knife, and he placed it in his locker for safekeeping until he could take it home and speak to her parents about it. A fellow student informed school officials of the knife in Ben's locker, and they removed Ben from school for violating the school's weapon possession policy. Officials for the Loudoun County Public Schools have said that Ben's actions were "noble" and "admirable" and admit that he posed no threat to himself or others. Nevertheless, they suspended Ben through February 1. The suspension was upheld by the school board at an appeal hearing. A complaint was filed in Federal District Court and dismissed. Rutherford Institute attorneys appealed the case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the district court’s ruling. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied.

Hearn v. Muskogee Public Schools (OK)
School officials suspended 11-year-old Nashala Hearn for wearing an Islamic holy head covering to school. The school refuses to allow any exception to its dress code regarding the wearing of caps and, therefore, will not recognize the Muslim student’s request for religious accommodation. Institute attorneys are investigating the matter.

Williams v. Bluefield High School (WV)
A high school student was expelled from school for disarming a fellow student and throwing the gun in the bushes outside the school. After discarding the gun, the student attempted to call his mother, a school board member, for her advice on what to do next. Before he could get his mother’s advice, he was called into the principal’s office and expelled, along with the student who initially brought the gun onto school property. The Rutherford Institute provided local counsel with legal analysis.

Brown v. Lee County School District (FL)
After discovering a table knife on the floor of 18-year-old honor student Lindsey Brown’s car, school officials at Estero High School in Ft. Myers, Florida, suspended her for five days and had her arrested and held in county jail on a felony charge of possessing a weapon on school property. In addition to being suspended without a hearing or an opportunity to explain the presence of the flatware in her car, school officials have refused to allow Lindsey to participate in her senior class graduation ceremony. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in federal court, in the hopes that Lindsey would be permitted to participate in the graduation exercises with her classmates. The motion was denied.

So, you should not save your suicidal friends or prevent them from shooting up the school. We dont tolerate religion at all (thats what Sunday is for) and possesing a table knife makes you a terrorist.

[Syphilis]

The problem with zero tolerance with anything is that it is impossible to enforce 100%, so it's not actually zero tolerance. (By the way, I didn't read those quotes.)

[The Better Version]

It's like blindly ruling with an iron fist. Some of those posts were stupid like the court cases over 2 day suspensions, but yeah the rest are pretty fucked up.

[Echidna]

I brought a multitool into school in 5th grade. I got it for xmas and found it again a couple months later. I showed it to my (now) friend and he told my teacher. She took it from me but later that day cops pulled me out all ruggedly and shit. I got 2 years probation but no suspension or anything. This was around the time that some kid in kindergarden got expelled for bringing nail filers to school (major news at the time). I got lucky as fuck.

[Slice_760]

I fucking hate school systems. They're so backwards and wrong half the time, it's insane. I can't wait to graduate soon and get out of high school.

Seriously, administrations and the rules they blindly impose do not at all help my learning experience, in fact they hinder it. There are things I am sometimes afraid to do or talk about and therefore learn about because they might be "illegal." I'm lucky I'm allowed to do the demo I'm making in my chem class... I learned the chemistry behind the classic KNO3 + Sugar smoke bomb reaction, which could be considered dangerous because the reaction gets so hot. I'm doing the demo for middle schoolers next week.

[Aerogone]

Hedgepeth v. WMATA (DC)
Washington, D.C. Metro Police arrested 11-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth for allegedly eating French fries in a Metro station after school. Police officers handcuffed Ansche and took her to the police station where they formally booked and charged her. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute filed motions for summary judgment in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and the Washington, D.C. chief of police. The court recently dismissed the lawsuit, and an appeal will be filed.


Collins v. Prince William County Schools
A Virginia high school student was charged with four felonies and expelled for a year for
performing a chemistry experiment off-campus that involved exploding a plastic bottle with a mixture including toilet cleaner. The Rutherford Institute is investigating the possibility of litigation.

Jesus fucking Christ!
These motherfuckers are brainwashing kids.

After a permanent record smear, or worse 4 felonies, try getting into a good college... hell try getting any type of job with a felony.
Not even to speak of all the under 10 year old kids who have gotten suspended for...playing cops and robbers.


And what the fuck is the school doing getting police involved and forcing probation/psychological evaluations, in minor incidents like drawing a gun?


If the kid wasn't a criminal before you arrested them...they sure will be now.
Im really suspecting that just maybe the prison lobby is the only one benefiting from this.

Perhaps instigating students to actually undertake criminal activity... you know after the high school kid gets denied from all his job applications because he has 4 fucking felonies for making a water bottle explode with relatively nondestructive air pressure, on his own fucking time, off campus.

Hell, it could even be played off as a science experiment

[deus]

Whatever happened to common fucking sense?

[Mantikore]

i think it comes down to fear. No not fear of a girl with a butterknife in the car, but fear of legal action and a bad reputation.

I personally think the best way to solve a problem like this is to make a huge, and highly public fuss about the school every time they pull some shit like this.

[Cir]

Originally Posted by deus

Whatever happened to common fucking sense?

It's not so common anymore.

[JustAnotherAsshole]

Originally Posted by deus

Whatever happened to common fucking sense?

It went out the window as soon as every school in America decided to employ a rigid, one-size-fits-all code of rules (That don't require common sense) that cannot be violated without incurring penalties, no matter what the circumstances.

Come to think of it, in high-school, this girl plagiarized her end-of-year paper. Completely. Stole every word. They were going to suspend her, but she also happened to be the Valedictorian and was related to some guy on the educational board.

She wasn't punished because "Her future was too bright" to be cut down with an accusation of plagiarism. She kept her scholarship and went to some Ivy-League school.

Public School: Fairness.

[Jim "fuck latinos" Carrey]

Zero tolerance doesn't work my ass. Some people need to get a little bit more competitive with themselves to just drop out.

[-Fuck-]

A lot of things don't work.

Like sexual harrassment. If you have a manager that is at the top of the world financially, and is fat, married, spoiled and really "ego secure" in their position, you bet your ass theyre going to use sexual attraction to judge your performance. Theyll hire more attractive employees, will flirt constantly, and if you aren't interested (reject their advances and keep your distance), or show naturally utter contempt for such a dishonest, cheating, spoiled liar of a person, they can start to treat you like shit. Because your survival, really isnt important to them, because they have everything already. All you really are is a pawn, and they'd much rather have a pawn they can maybe fuck on the side away from their spouse.

I'm only saying this because I haven't seen this at one place, I've seen it time and time again, in different people. And really, any complaint about it could sound so stupid and far-fetched that no one is going to say anything, and they know it too.

[KeepOnTruckin]

I found it crazy that they punished the kid who disarmed another student and threw teh gun away. Its different fromt eh one who put the girls knife in his locker becuase he didnt have it except during the time he was disarming him, and yet he got expelled. Now that is an injustice, IMO

[PirateJoe]

Broadfield v. Delavan Schools (IL)
A teacher at Delavan School assigned a group of junior high student students a book to read about the Holocaust and allowed them to choose whether to do a written report or act out being a Jew for one day. The following day, the students were instructed to write an essay describing what they would do if the Holocaust were to take place at Delavan School. One student, Travis, wrote a paper stating he would help the Germans by killing all the teachers and then engage in cannibalism. Travis was suspended indefinitely for threatening speech.

lol

[PROJECT PAT]

Originally Posted by deus

Whatever happened to common fucking sense?

Fuck I hate the United States. How are complete failures like the people who made these decisions in charge of training generations of people?

[Nightshade]

This is what happens when you have the administrators who are too lazy to do their jobs to take the incidents on a case by case basis.

But this gem right here really took the cake.

Moffitt v. Florida High School
A 14-year-old student enrolled at a K-12 development research school owned and run by Florida State University was arrested after cutting herself with an Exacto knife. The student, who cut herself when she accidentally picked up the Exacto knife along with her pens and pencils while preparing to leave her Engineering Technologies class, visited the school nurse for help. After the student explained to the nurse how she had cut herself and showed her the knife, the nurse contacted the Dean of Students, who, in turn, reported the incident to the Student Resource Officer. Several days later, the student was arrested. The Rutherford Institute is investigating the possibility of litigation.

Only in public school can you get arrested for cutting yourself accidentally with an Exacto knife.

[nshanin]

lol @ related threads