One of the great ironies I learned in high school was that while one was being taught civics, participating in the civic process was often not a popular action with the high school administration. For some reason the very places that are supposed to teach students to be risk takers and thoughtful citizens shun students actually practicing those skills. Challenging a principal gets you about the same reaction that challenging a police officer does–a lot of grief even if one is correct. I had some specific teachers who pointed out that while they didn’t like it, get used to it and fight it. I went to college and found those skills quite helpful in outperforming students not prepared to challenge professors on a daily basis and professors who enjoyed having someone interested.
Glenbrook North is often cited as an exception to the above, but this week they fail miserably by backing down and trying to suspend students for non-school conduct. Eric Zorn does a bang up job arguing why the school has no business being involved in punishing these students.
Stubborn facts, all of them. And they lead to the conclusion that District 225 officials are making up policy as they go along in a public relations effort that’s nearly as disgraceful, though not as messy, as the event that prompted it.
This is not to say that the drunken girls in yellow shirts seen in all those home videos beating and throwing ick on girls in white shirts should not be punished. They should be. First by their parents, and then by the criminal courts.
The closed-fist pummeling, kicking and striking with objects that resulted in bloodshed look an awful lot to me as though they meet the definition of simple battery, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. Prosecutors should charge the worst of the offenders.
It was an appalling incident. But it wasn’t a school matter, no matter how much figurative slime it has since tossed upon the school’s image.
Schools do not and should not have anytime-anyplace authority over students. What students do on their own time is the business of their families and of the legal system, not of red-faced educators who can’t even understand their own rules and, when they get desperate, will do such things as try to apply an anti-fraternity law to an annual and non-exclusive ritual.
Schools have a responsibility to teach about civil liberties and the rule of law. The best way to teach in this case is through practice.
The teenagers involved should be punished, but by the law. In fact, allowing the school to handle this case may result in far less serious of punishment than they deserve.