Health Freedom is the Hottest Political Issue on the Entire Globe; Our World Will Never Be the Same after This

 

Pazuzu, ancient Mesopotamian god of pestilence and air born disease, is reawakened...

SOURCE

By Michael Snyder 

July 25, 2021 

We are witnessing an epic global struggle for freedom, and the outcome of that struggle is going to greatly shape what our world is going to look like in the years ahead. 

Ultimately, one of the most fundamental rights that we have is the right to make our own health decisions. 

If someone else has the authority to make those decisions for you, then you aren’t really free.  

This pandemic has transformed the debate over health freedom into the most hotly contested political issue on the entire planet, and the intensity seems to have been turned up a few more notches in recent days.  As governments around the world have begun instituting new lockdowns, new mandates and new “health passports”, we have seen huge eruptions of anger all over the world.

For example, over the weekend there was an enormous health freedom protest in London…

Thousands have gathered today Saturday, July 24, in London’s Trafalgar Square to protest against the lockdown rules and COVID-19 vaccinations. A wide range of speakers is attending the event, including well-known British conspiracy theorist, Kate Shemirani, who spoke to the crowd. Demonstrators are angry about the recent move which will see vaccine passports becoming compulsory in England to access nightclubs and other packed venues.

At the same time, there were also massive protests in the heart of Paris…

French anti-riot police fired tear gas Saturday as clashes erupted during protests in central Paris against COVID-19 restrictions and a vaccination campaign, television reported.

Police sought to push back demonstrators near the capital’s Gare Saint-Lazare railway station after protesters had knocked over a police motorbike ridden by two officers, television pictures showed.

Images showed a heavy police presence on the capital’s streets. Scuffles between police and demonstrators also broke out on the Champs-Elysees thoroughfare, where tear gas was fired and traffic was halted, the pictures showed.

On the other side of the globe, we continue to see violent protests in Sydney and other major Australian cities…

Thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney and other Australian cities on Saturday to protest lockdown restrictions amid another surge in cases, and police made several arrests after crowds broke through barriers and threw plastic bottles and plants.

The unmasked participants marched from Sydney’s Victoria Park to Town Hall in the central business district, carrying signs calling for “freedom” and “the truth.”

Millions upon millions of people are fed up and are refusing to accept any more violations of their fundamental rights.

But of course there are millions of others that are eagerly embracing the tyrannical measures that have been implemented by national governments around the globe.

In the end, the scale is going to tip one way or the other, and the outcome is going to greatly shape the direction of humanity’s future.

So let us hope that freedom wins.

Right now, the corporate media continues to work very hard to generate as much panic as possible.  Earlier today, I found it quite comical when one news outlet ran a story about how authorities are now warning us that COVID can be spread by flatulence…

The official advice is to open a window to increase ventilation and slow the spread of Covid, but now there could be an added incentive ~ the virus may also be spread by flatulence.

Ministers have privately pointed to evidence that Covid could be spread by people breaking wind in confined spaces such as lavatories. One said they had read “credible-looking stuff on it” from other countries, although government scientists are yet to produce a paper on the matter.

The source said there had been evidence of a “genomical-linked tracing connection between two individuals from a [lavatory] cubicle in Australia.”

You better run out and do as they say, because someone sitting in the next bathroom stall may have gas.

Here in the United States, we are now being told that more mandates and more lockdowns are coming because “this pandemic is spiraling out of control yet again”…

“More mitigation is coming. Whether it’s masking, or whether it’s closures or whether it’s your kids having to return to virtual learning, that is coming,” the Trump administration surgeon general told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“And it’s coming because this pandemic is spiraling out of control yet again. And it’s spiraling out of control because we don’t have enough people vaccinated.”

In fact, we are already starting to see some local governments put new mandates into place.

ED Noor: Since this horrific clampdown began I have often thought of Pazuzu, the ancient Mesopotamian god of pestilence spread by air and wind. 

For instance, a new mask mandate has just been announced in St. Louis and St. Louis County…

Faced with a rising tide of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, St. Louis and St. Louis County leaders announced Friday that they will reinstate a mask requirement, for vaccinated and unvaccinated residents alike.

As more mandates are instituted by local governments around the country, it is inevitable that we will see widespread protests break out just like we are seeing in other countries.

Meanwhile, other “pestilences” continue to make headlines as well.  A drug-resistant “superbug” that is “resistant to all existing treatments” is causing quite a bit of alarm for U.S. health officials at this moment…

Cases of a deadly fungal infection resistant to all existing treatments have been spreading through nursing homes and hospitals in the United States for the first time, health officials said.

In the past we have seen isolated cases, but now we are being told that it looks like this “superbug” is spreading pretty easily from person to person…

“This is really the first time we’ve started seeing clustering of resistance” in which patients seemed to be getting the infections from each other, said Dr Meghan Lyman, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If that wasn’t bad enough, scientists have recently confirmed cases of the Bubonic Plague “in animals and fleas” in six different Colorado counties…

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says there have been laboratory-confirmed reports of plague in animals and fleas from six counties.

One of the six counties with confirmed plague is LaPlata County, where a 10-year-old resident died from causes associated with the plague. Laboratory testing has since confirmed the presence of plague in a sample of fleas collected in the county, according to CDPHE.

For even more examples like this, please see my previous article entitled “4 ‘Pestilences’ That Everyone Should Be Keeping An Eye On Right Now”.

As I have stated before, I believe that we have entered a new era of great pestilences.  Scientists all over the globe are constantly playing around with deadly diseases, and in many instances they are actually attempting to make them even deadlier.

ED NOOR: These discoveries from the permafrost are beyond amazing. However, we never can tell just what they are releasing into our current planetary ecosystem.

With that in mind, it chilled me to the core to read that 33 ancient viruses were recently discovered “trapped in the ice of the Tibetan Plateau”…

Glaciers can preserve all sorts of relics from the distant past. So could they also be home to a pandemic from prehistoric times as well? It’s possible. A team from The Ohio State University has discovered a collection of viruses that have never been seen before in the ice of a glacier in China.

Scientists say the viral samples date back nearly 15,000 years and may reveal how pathogens evolve over the centuries. Of the 33 viruses found trapped in the ice of the Tibetan Plateau, the team considers 28 to be completely novel. About half of them also seem to have survived specifically because of the freezing conditions.

Now these ancient viruses will be “brought back to life”, and it is inevitable that scientists around the world will start playing around with them.

So what happens when there is an “accident” and one of those ancient viruses gets released?

We live at a time of incredible stupidity, and our stupidity is going to end up getting a whole lot of people killed.

THEATRE OF THE ABSURD: NEW CHILD SAFETY RULES GOVERN BALLOONS AND WHISTLES

 Check her ID papers for age! She is playing with a controlled substance!

You can literally sink under the weight of all the heavy handed measures passed into legislation by the big bureaucracies. Supposedly they alone, faceless bureaucrats and temporary politicians, have all the wisdom and knowledge on hand to decide every single issue in society, even to the small toys that we buy for our children. You could almost scream but soon they will pass a regulation for that too I warrant.

If a child of 13 does not know how to safely blow up a balloon, there is already something tragically wrong. These new rules prove the point I have been making for years. The NWO is out to suck every last vestige of joy from life starting from the earliest age possible.  Turning playtime into something of great danger as these regulations do is beyond ridiculous and demeaning to both parents and children.

Save us from the nanny state. If the British cannot turn their government on its heels over the wars and financial failings, surely a ban on balloons might do the trick?

What such rulings can only do is teach people to laugh at their idiocy and to correspondingly disobey them. This, in the long run, only weakens their already shaky claim to validity. Experts! Pah!

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By Brian Koenig

New American

October 11, 2011

Under a new European Union edict on toy safety, unsupervised children below the age of eight will no longer be permitted to blow up balloons due to choking hazards, according to Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

Balloons and other toys ~ including magnetic fishing games, toy lipsticks, and recorders ~ have been added to the expanding catalog of Euro Zone regulations that are further empowering the region’s nanny state government.

The directive’s official guidance reads:

"For latex balloons there must be a warning that children under eight years must be supervised and broken balloons should be discarded."

Further, the EU’s legislation uplifts restrictions on the loudness of noisy toys, like rattles or musical instruments; likewise, all teddy bears marketed for children under three-years-old must be fully washable, as to prevent spreading of diseases and infections.

Critics note that such regulatory authority means the popular "Lots O’ Hugging Bear" will be facing a ban if it does not undergo strict and costly new guidelines.

Despite their decades of entertainment, party toys such as small whistles and magnetic fishing games will be regulated, and possibly banned, because of small parts or dangerous chemicals that are allegedly hazardous to children’s health.

Indeed, the popular "paper tongue" whistle blowers, commonly used at birthday parties, are now "unsafe" for all children under the age of 14, due to the possibility of a child swallowing and choking on pieces of the whistle.

An EU official insisted that the government’s safety experts know best, while an EU spokesman asserted that:

“The safety standards have been agreed by the UK together with the other EU member states in order to prevent every parent’s worst nightmare."

Another official stated,

"You might say that small children have been blowing up balloons for generations, but not anymore and they will be safer for it."

Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at the renowned University of Kent, signaled that toy safety bans are a burgeoning legislative trend to micro-manage children’s lives, while discounting their right to learn, explore, and develop both socially and independently.

"Toys and activities, such as blowing up balloons, are part and parcel of the type of children’s play that helps them become independent and self-reliant," Furedi averred. "These bans diminish the experience, both of having fun and learning, by turning play into a danger zone with rules that stifle life and adventure for children."

Paul Nuttall, who retains a seat on the European Parliament’s consumer safety committee, called the EU’s authority:

“A kill joy" for children’s well-being. I would say that this is crackers but I’m sure children are banned from using them too. EU party poopers should not be telling families how to blow up balloons."

But such regulatory power not only robs children of their freedoms, but also the parents of EU children.

Must the government circumvent a parent’s authority in protecting their children, critics ask?

Is preaching to parents about the dangers of eating marbles really necessary, or for that matter, judicially moral?

Although EU officials have noted that governmental authorities cannot regulate how products are used in the home, the mere act of regulating will manipulate what retail stores are able to supply, as certain products will be lifted from the market due to inflated supply and manufacturing costs. 

Does this mean OTOVENT, a legitimate medical tool used for relieving sypmtoms of a diseased middle ear and the Eustachian tubes now go off the marked? Consistency consistency! Oooops guess not, it is by prescription only.

Although not a direct "ban," the aftereffects will surely lead to products being eliminated from the market.

For toy products that remain on the market, opponents suggest that the directive will undoubtedly hike consumer prices, due to new research and development needed to meet regulatory requirements.

Suppliers have already warned that they will be increasing prices this Christmas to offset the costs of new tests mandated by the EU legislature.

Clive Shelton, an expert on toy safety, asserted,

"The new provisions for suppliers to keep detailed technical information about their products are proving to be very challenging ~ not to mention, very costly.”

UK MAN INVESTIGATED FOR TERRORISM AFTER PHOTOGRAPHING DAUGHTER IN MALL

This site, Photography is not a Crime, is very interesting for those who wish to maintain the freedom to use their cameras and is worth the visit. It is full of examples of police state tactics and how people dealt with them. 

By Carlos Miller

PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT A CRIME

October 10, 2011

After snapping a photo of his 4-year-old daughter eating ice cream at a shopping mall in Glasgow Friday, Chris White was confronted by a security guard who told him he had just broken the law.

The security guard told him he would let it pass this time as long as he deleted the photo.

But White refused to delete the photo, which prompted the security guard to call the cops.

Police arrived and threatened to confiscate his phone under the United Kingdom’s Prevention of Terrorism Act, which apparently is worse than our very own Patriot Act.

The cops then told him that they would not confiscate his phone as long as he provided his name, age, place of birth and employment status.

White reluctantly provided those details, only to not prolong the confrontation for the sake of his daughter, who was crying.

It turns out that the Braehead shopping center had a policy forbidding photography.

Despite that, White wasn’t about to let the issue go.

He went home and launched a Facebook page titled “Boycott Braehead,” which has more than 17,000 likes at this time.

This is how he described the experience on the Facebook page:

Walking down the shopping mall a man approached me from behind as I was carrying my daughter in my arms. He came from behind me, cutting in front of me and told me to stop. That was quite a shock as I am wary of people with crew cuts and white shirts suddenly appearing in front of me, but then realized he was a security guard.

He then said I had been spotted taking photos in the shopping centre which was 'illegal' and not allowed and then asked me to delete any photos I had taken. I explained I had taken 2 photos of my daughter eating ice cream and that she was the only person in the photo so didn't see any problem. I also said that I wasn't that willing to delete the photo's and there seemed little point as I had actually uploaded them to facebook.

He then said I would have to stay right where I was while he called the police, which seemed as little extreme. My daughter was crying by this stage, but I said that was fine I would wait and began to comfort my daughter who was saying she didn't like the man and wanted to go. After about 5 minutes two police officers arrived.

The older police officer was actually quite intimidating in his nature. He said that there had been a complaint about me taking photos and that there were clear signs in Braehead shopping centre saying that no photographs were allowed. I tried to explain that I hadn't seen any clearly displayed signs and that I had taken 2 photos of my daughter.

The BBC picked the story up earlier today and within hours, the shopping center issued an apology, promising to change its no photo policy.

White posted the apology on the Facebook page.

"Dear Mr White

I am writing to formally apologize for the distress that we may have caused you and your family when you visited Braehead last Friday.

As you may be aware, in light of your complaint and the public debate surrounding the incident, we have decided to change our photography policy to allow family and friends to take photos in the mall.

Once again, I wish to sincerely apologize for any distress we may have caused,

Kind regards

Peter"

The lesson here is: 

Never underestimate the power of social media.

ZERO TOLERANCE: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DISPLACES COMMON SENSE

Criminal behaviour! Sexist too! Jail the fiends!

When I was growing up we used to run and play outside a lot.  There weren’t any video games and no computers.  Neighborhoods were noisy with the sounds of children playing what are now deemed politically incorrect or violent anti-social games. You remember, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, tag, hide and seek, or just plain silly games.  You could find half the neighborhood running in groups as we played in the sun.  T.V. was fairly new and who wanted to stay indoors all day when all your friends were outside? Ah times have changed! 

We have had political correctness enforced upon us to kill our freedom to hold thoughts of our own, and along with that, a draconian legal system that preys upon all, but especially our young. Welcome to the police state that is the stuff of the nightmares we had as children.... even more so as adults.

Zero Tolerance for guns is not about school safety, it is about gun control. 

Zero Tolerance for bullies is not about school safety, it is about legitimizing and promoting homosexuality. 

Zero Tolerance in general seems to be mechanism used by teachers and school administrators to escape the burden of tough decisions, avoid charges of favoritism, and let the local police do their dirty work.

ED: An 11-year-old died of asthma because his school's zero tolerance policy prevented him from carrying an inhaler. The New York Times, November 19, 2002.   

By refusing to consider each individual's personal history and the intentions that inspired their actions, zero tolerance policies deny the unique worth and dignity of every person.*

If public schools have become so dangerous, and if guns, knives, drugs and inappropriate touching are such great problems that the administrators have had to resort to these measures, then it is time to take your kids out of the public school system. 

Private schools are expensive, and home schooling is a lot of work, but it is a viable option for many families.

More unfavorable information about the education system in America can be found on this page.

INTRODUCTION:

A "zero tolerance" policy is one that enacts harsh punishment for any violation of school rules, without exceptions and without any consideration of mitigating circumstances.*

There are many cases surfacing, all over the country, in which Zero Tolerance has trumped common sense. 

An eight-year-old was suspended from school for three days, for pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying "Pow, pow, pow." 

Two eight-year-olds were charged with "making terrorist threats" because they were playing cops and robbers with a paper gun.  And the list goes on and on. 

Someone at the Rutherford Institute stated it well: 

"By refusing to consider each individual's personal history and the intentions that inspired their actions, zero tolerance policies deny the unique worth and dignity of every person."¹ 

Zero Tolerance policies put teachers and principals in the position of having to make irrational decisions in relatively simple cases.  It makes no sense to suspend children for playing cops-and-robbers on the playground or giving a cough drop to a friend.²

For openers, here is a story, quoted in its entirety from CNSNews, which exemplifies Zero Tolerance stupidity:

THIRD-GRADER SUSPENDED FOR DRAWING ARMED SOLDIER
(CNSNews.com) ~ A picture of a soldier holding a canteen and a knife has earned the third-grade boy who drew it a suspension from school. Wire reports said the third-grader also drew a fort, listing its inventory as guns, knives, and first-aid kits. The principal of Lenwill Elementary School in West Monroe, La., is quoted as saying that the school "can't tolerate anything that has to do with guns or knives." The boy's father said he's been forced to explain to his son that being in the Army and owning guns "is not bad." According to press reports, school officials stand by their decision to punish the child for what they consider "a violent arrangement."

The same story quoted on Newsmax:  Pupil Suspended for Drawing Soldier.

Links to other web sites dealing with "zero tolerance" are listed at the bottom of this page.

ED: Yet video games for children are so obscenely violent as warfare/military training! Are these mixed messages not just a tad confusing for the kids?

OUTRAGEOUS! 
97-year-old handcuffed, jailed for unpaid traffic ticket.  Police say they had no choice but to go by the book when they handcuffed a 97-year-old woman and took her to jail for failing to pay a traffic ticket.

EDITOR’S NOTE: 
The police are really saying they have no common sense, no judgment, no latitude or discretion of any kind.  This is the inevitable end product of zero tolerance policies.  Is the arresting officer any safer with this woman handcuffed?  Is Highland Park safer with the old lady under arrest?  Can you imagine the riots that would have resulted if she had been black?

Other sources  for the same story.

More schools rethinking zero-tolerance discipline stand.  Nearly two decades after a zero-tolerance culture took hold in American schools, a growing number of educators and elected leaders are scaling back discipline policies that led to lengthy suspensions and ousters for such mistakes as carrying toy guns or Advil.

More schools ease zero-tolerance policies on drugs.  At least four Hunters Lane High School football players who were suspended last fall for smoking pot before a game will graduate with their class on Saturday.  That makes them the most high-profile beneficiaries of a new Metro Nashville Public Schools effort that takes student discipline for drugs on a case-by-case basis, instead of applying a zero-tolerance policy to all.

The Editor says...
In other words, zero tolerance policies are to be overlooked if they adversely affect blacks.  (I doubt if these "students" are being shown favoritism just because they play football, although that would be just as bad.)  This means that the discipline standards for black students are lower than the standards for other students.

The Bullied Nation.  After the Columbine Massacre, all the conferences on bullying yielded a Zero Tolerance madness that criminalized everything from toy soldiers to plastic knives to playing cops and robbers.  Six-year-old cub scouts have been suspended for bringing camping equipment to school.  Arrests have been made for shooting rubber bands.  Advil and Midol have become controlled substances. ... There will be no conferences held on this type of bullying because it is practiced by the conference attendees, the school bureaucrats and teachers, and the public officials who enable them, against the children placed in their care.  And their only solution to every problem is more of the same.

Restoring Integrity at Dansville Schools.  Dansville School administrators needlessly dragged my son's name through the mud, yet takes no responsibility for their own actions and little accountability.  This Blog is an ongoing diary of the issues that face Dansville Public Schools and their administrators that will ultimately result in the district failure if they aren't resolved.

Zero Tolerance, Zero Sense.  Two good kids.  Two broken rules.  Two parables of justice, except one offers a bracing lesson in honor and the other just leaves you heartsick at the latest evidence that zero tolerance often makes zero sense.

Arvada Police arrest 11-year-old over 'inappropriate' stick figure drawing.  An 11-year-old Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs for drawing stick figures in school, something his therapist told him to do.  His parents say they understand what he did was inappropriate, but are outraged by the way Arvada Police handled the case.

9-year-old suspended for 'kick me' sign.  It's a sign of the times.  The classic schoolhouse prank of slapping a "kick me" sign on a classmate's back is no joke at one Upper East Side school, where the city's zero-tolerance anti-bullying policy was strictly enforced against a 9-year-old boy.

Boy Bagged For Taking Eco-Unfriendly Ziploc to School.  Isabel Theoret was preparing a sandwich for her 6-year-old son's Kindergarten class one day last week, when he screamed out, "No Mommy! Not a Ziploc!"  The child, who lives with his family in the town of Laval in Quebec, explained that his teacher would exclude him from a contest to win a stuffed teddy bear if he brought an environmentally unfriendly plastic baggie to school.

Texas school police ticketing students as young as six.  School police officers in Texas are doling out more tickets to children as young as 6, who under past disciplinary practices would have been sent to the principal's office instead, according to a report by a Texas nonprofit.

Model Student, Sports Star Suspended for Paring Knife Mix-Up.   On its face, this looks like it's an asinine decision which is probably the product of a culture that makes lawsuits possible in every breath we take.  How else to explain what the school principal has done here?  It's either the school's fear of a lawsuit, or a total lack of common sense among the school's leadership, or there's something we don't know about all this that hasn't shown up in the media reports.

Sorry, But We Deserve Our Schools.  Public schools aren't the failures they're castigated for being; they are misunderstood successes.  True, they don't teach very much English, math, or history but that's a secondary job.  Young kids are regularly suspended for drawing pictures of guns, wearing T-shirts with guns on them, possessing empty ammo casings, or anything else suggestive of an armed citizenry.  That's primary, and the public schools are good at it.  The students maybe can't multiply or read, but they all know guns are bad, just as they know how to do sex and sell green theory to their parents.  They are turning out well-trained future voters favoring the current leftish pieties who will obediently support Progressive government and who will not ask too many questions.

High school student faces expulsion for unloaded hunting rifle in car.  A 16-year-old high school student in Columbia Falls, Montana faces possible expulsion after accidentally bringing an unloaded hunting rifle to school.  Though the gun did not pose any danger to others at any time, the school's zero-tolerance policy might mean Demarie DeReu will be labeled a domestic terrorist, her college career derailed and record tainted forever.

Columbia Falls girl faces expulsion after leaving hunting rifle in trunk.  A 16-year-old Columbia Falls High School student faces expulsion after inadvertently bringing an unloaded hunting rifle to school.

Now that the news media have picked up the story...

Expulsion unlikely in school gun case.  The story of a Columbia Falls High School junior who was suspended after inadvertently bringing an unloaded gun to school has attracted national attention — and, school officials say, has been blown out of proportion.

Don't let feds dictate gun rules.  There's probably no better example of how a "one-size-fits-all" federal policy does not work than the opprobrious law that tells Montana schools what gun policies they shall adopt and enforce.  The issue got some well-deserved attention this week after a Columbia Falls High School student was regrettably suspended for having an unloaded hunting rifle in the trunk of her car while parked at school.

Update:

Expulsion hearing moved to hold crowd.  An expulsion hearing for a Columbia Falls High School junior who inadvertently brought a gun to school has been moved. ... According to a memo from the district office, the location change "was made to accommodate the expected public participation."

Another update:

Columbia Falls girl back in school.  The Columbia Falls High School junior who inadvertently brought a rifle to school is back in class today [12/14/2010] after school board trustees voted not to expel her.  Demari DeReu, 16, faced an expulsion hearing Monday night after bringing an unloaded hunting rifle to school earlier this month.  DeReu told school officials about the rifle and was, per district policy, suspended immediately.  She has been out of school ever since.

Zero Tolerance = Zero Common Sense.  Zero-tolerance restrictions are tools of deranged public education bureaucrats who are more interested in tossing good kids out of school than tossing bad teachers out of school.  Poor-performing teachers are protected by powerful teacher unions and other such mystical impunity.  Little kids who make innocent mistakes are protected by no one because it appears that no one in the public school system actually [cares] about the students.

Child Still Expelled for Toy Gun ~ a Year Later.  Samuel Burgos has fond memories of his friends at school, but he only gets to see them in pictures now.  The 8-year-old boy hasn't been in school for a year and will likely miss another year if the Broward County School Board has its way.  Burgos was suspended from school in November after a teacher found a toy gun in his backpack.

Mom:  R.I. School Bans 8-Year-Old Son's Patriotic Hat With Army Figures.  A Rhode Island mother says her 8-year-old son's school would not let him wear a patriotic hat she says he designed for a project to honor Army troops because the school thought it was inappropriate.  Christan Morales says her son David was assigned to make a crazy hat for his second grade class at the Tiogue School in Coventry, R.I.  Morales said her son came up with an idea to glue small plastic Army figures to a camouflage hat with an American flag.

Toy soldiers run afoul of school's weapons ban.  Christan Morales said her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.

2-Inch-Tall Army Soldiers Gets School Kid Reprimanded.  A policy of no tolerance for weapons got an 8-year-old boy in trouble at his Rhode Island grade school this week.  The boy brought in nearly a dozen M-14 Army rifles to his Tiogue School in Coventry, R.I. grade school and was chastised by the principal for the outrage.  How did he get all those assault rifles into the school you might ask?  Why he did it by gluing seven or so of his 2-inch-tall green army soldier toys to his camo colored ball cap for "make a crazy hat" day at school.  That's right, a few green army man toys were enough to trip the poor child up in this foolish school's "no weapons" policy.

Update:  After a bunch of negative publicity...

RI school to alter policy that banned soldier hat.  The superintendent of a Rhode Island school district that banned a second-grader's homemade hat because it displayed toy soldiers with tiny guns said Saturday he will work to change the policy to allow such apparel.

Teen faces suspension over rosary beads.  The parents of a high school student from Rockland County are demanding answers after their ninth grader was suspended for wearing rosary beads to school.  He was suspended even though the school doesn't even have a policy banning them.

Boy, 6, gets suspended from school after making gun sign with fingers, pointing at classmates.  It's handgun control in the extreme.  A Michigan kindergartener's make-believe gun ~  which he created with just his fingers ~ got him suspended, the Grand Rapids Press reported.  Mason Jammer, 6, who attends Ionia's Jefferson Elementary School, pointed his finger-gun at a fellow student Wednesday [3/3/2010] and got kicked out of school till Friday.

Boy, 11, Charged with Felony over Alleged Pencil Attack in Math Class.  A math class dispute among middle-schoolers in upstate New York led to a felony charge against an 11-year-old boy after he allegedly attacked with a sharp pencil a classmate who had annoyed him with offers of help. ... In New York City last week, a 12-year-old girl was arrested and cuffed after getting caught doodling on her desk in erasable marker.  She was detained for a few hours and released.

Girl's arrest for doodling raises concerns about zero tolerance.  There was no profanity, no hate.  Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith.  Lex was here 2/1/10 :)" scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker. ... Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and ~ the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl ~ her classmates.

Child "Experts" Backpedal on Socialization Dogma.  So, what's different about bullying?  Weren't there bullies in the 1940s?  Yes, but the bullying of today is of a type that would have sent shock waves through families of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.  Today it's vicious, Lord-of-the-Flies behavior. 

What, then, do we have to show for the diktats of child experts?  First, an entire education system based in the abandonment of moral absolutes.  Schools grounded in moral relativism are passing along the notion that there are no standards or principles of behavior that cannot be bent or broken, only petty "gotcha"-type rules of political correctness infamy are inviolable.

The Case of Kathryn Nurre.  Despite the absence of lyrics, the superintendent of Everett School District No. 2 refused to allow the ensemble to perform "Ave Maria" at their graduation ceremony because she believed the piece to be religious in nature.

The Case of Donna Busch.  One activity made available to all featured students during "Me Week" was the opportunity to have the child's parent read aloud from his or her favorite book.  Wesley, a Christian, had chosen the Bible as his favorite book, and Mrs. Busch decided to read an excerpt from Psalm 118 of the Bible.  However, on the day of the reading, Wesley's teacher directed Mrs. Busch not to read the passage and the school's principal backed that decision, informing Mrs. Busch that she could not read from the Bible in the classroom because it was against the law and that the reading would violate the "separation of church and state."

Ed: And if she had wanted to read from the Torah or the Qu’ran?

The Case of Brittany McComb.  During the spring of 2006, graduating senior Brittany McComb was chosen to give the valedictory speech at Foothill High School in Henderson, Nev., by virtue of achieving the highest GPA in the school.  After composing her remarks, she submitted them to school administrators according to standard district policy.  School administrators, with the advice of their district legal counsel, censored her speech, deleting all three Bible references, several references to "the Lord" and the only mention of the word "Christ."

New York Eagle Scout Suspended From School for Keeping Pocketknife in Car.  A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days ~ for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car.

School Chief Sticks By 'Zero Tolerance' Ruling for Eagle Scout.  The upstate New York school superintendent who suspended an Eagle Scout for 20 days for keeping a 2-inch utility knife locked in his car is unwilling to speak to the teen's family or bend in his ruling.  Lansingburgh Central School District Superintendent George J. Goodwin, 55, said in a written statement that his district "has an established policy of zero tolerance with respect to the possession of weapons of any kind on school property or in school buildings."

The Editor says...

Really? 

Can a baseball bat be used as a weapon? 

How about a javelin? 

How about a backpack full of textbooks? 

Weaponry is in the eye of the beholder.

Outlawing Manhood.  Across the nation, "Zero Tolerance" polices are commonplace in public school district after public school district.  And while they were ostensibly instituted to stop kids from bringing weapons on campus following the 1999 Columbine massacre, they're actually just another tool which liberals and overzealous school board members use to war against manhood. 

ED: These policies seem aimed at the psychological castration of our children, especially boys.

School board reverses expulsion of Willows student in gun incident.  The Glenn County Board of Education has reversed a decision to expel a Willows High School student for having two shotguns and ammunition in his truck parked off-campus. ... Tudesko, 17, was kicked out of school after a school security dog alerted to the shotguns and ammunition in his locked truck on a public street next to the school's tennis courts.

Jennifer Rankin's protest.  What harm would it have done to leave her alone? ... Jennifer Rankin wasn't hurting anybody.  She wasn't bothering a soul.  She covered her mouth with red tape in mute protest.  That's all.  For this, officials at Peninsula Shores District School brought out the police?  For this they kept her isolated in a room at the school for an entire day?

Gangs rattle schools.  He has a gun.  Those words sent confusion and fear through the hallways of John Overton High School.  Students ran to get away from a classroom where a teacher stared down the barrel of a .38-revolver.  The self-proclaimed Kurdish Pride Gang member wanted his teacher dead.  Why?  She dared to discipline him.

The Editor says...
This incident shows the futility of zero tolerance rules.  When this kid brought a gun to school, he obviously knew it was prohibited, but I suspect he couldn't have cared less.  All the laws in the world cannot deter criminals from being criminals.  The only effective deterrent is the fear of swift and sure punishment.

Des Moines school suspends girl over empty gun shells.  An 11-year-old Des Moines girl was at home on suspension Tuesday [10/27/2009] for bringing a handful of empty shotgun shells to school last week.  Jazmine Martin, a sixth-grader at Brody Middle School, picked up the shells as souvenirs during a family trip to a ranch in South Dakota, where the rounds were fired as part of a show.  They were blanks.

Big brouhaha over boy's tiny toy gun.  A 9-year-old New Dorp boy earlier today learned there is no wiggle room in the Department of Education's "no toy gun" policy ~ even if the toy gun is just two inches long.  Patrick Timoney, a fourth-grader at PS 52, South Beach, was nearly suspended after playing with LEGOs during his lunch period because one of the action figures was carrying at toy machine gun.

Photo courtesy Jan Somma-Hammel/Staten Island Advance

Zero Tolerance or Overreaction?  9-year-old punished for bringing tiny toy gun to school.

Mayor:  School boss should apologize to boy who drew cross.  Taunton Mayor Charles Crowley called School Superintendent Julie Hackett from his vacation today [12/15/2009] and asked her to apologize both privately and publicly to the family of an 8-year-old special needs student sent home from school and ordered to undergo psychological testing after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross.

Kid Draws Jesus; Required To Undergo A Psychological Evaluation.  Shortly after attending the lovely Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, Massachusetts, an eight year old boy with special needs drew a picture of Jesus in class.  The teacher had asked students to draw something that reminded them of Christmas, so the boy drew a stick figure Jesus.  Because of that picture, the boy was sent home from school for drawing a "violent" picture and he was required to undergo a psychological evaluation.

6-Year-Old Scout Suspended for Bringing Knife-Fork-Spoon Utensil to School.  Six-year-old Zachary Christie was so excited to become a Cub Scout that he brought his camping utensil to school.  The tool serves as a spoon, a fork and a knife, and Zachary wanted to use it at lunch.  What Zachary didn't know was that the gizmo violated his school's zero-tolerance policy on weapons.

Boy's camping utensil violates 'zero tolerance'.  Zachary Christie, 6, was so excited about joining the Cub Scouts that he brought a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school to use at lunch.  School officials concluded he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary faces 45 days in the district's reform school.

It's a Fork, It's a Spoon, It's a ... Weapon?  Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy.  But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother's fiancé by his side to vouch for him.

Common Sense Is Wholly Uncommon for School District.  A Delaware first grader fails to consider the serious consequences of his innocent action and has been suspended by school administrators.  He now faces 45 days in the district's reform school having been found guilty of violating the school's zero-tolerance weapons policy by a disciplinary committee.

The Editor says...
There was a "disciplinary committee"?  This sounds as if there were at least three adults involved in this ridiculous decision, and apparently none of them has the ability to exercise good judgment.

Update:
Zachary Christie, first-grader suspended for scouting utensil, returns to school.  During last night's [10/13/2009] school board meeting in Delaware's Christina School district, supporters came out to rally for change in an over-the-top-zero tolerance policy which left Zachary Christie, 6, facing a 45 day reform school suspension for bringing in a camping utensil for lunch.

Boy suspended over utensil gets reprieve.  This morning [10/14/2009], Zachary Christie is on his way to school for the first time since he made the mistake of taking his favorite camping utensil to school and ran into his Delaware school system's zero-tolerance policy.

 And now the Editor says...

I don't expect many people to find out about this incident from this web site.  Most of you knew about it before you came to this page.  The purpose of this web page is to document cases like this, so that they do not fall down the memory hole.  In all likelihood, you'll never hear about this little boy again, but you must never forget about this exercise in heavy-handed totalitarianism. 

If you have children, and you want them to grow up to be productive, God-fearing pillars of the community, you must take them out of government schools.  Private schools are expensive, and home schooling is difficult, but government schools are turning into socialist (environmentalist, feminist) indoctrination centers.  

The longer your kids stay in government schools, the worse it gets.  I can speak from personal experience:  Even when our son was in the third grade, we had to un-teach a lot of stuff he learned at school.  (Today he is working on a doctorate in mathematics.)

Zero-tolerance ~ zero-thought.  For 75 days or so our kids have escaped the clutches of that bureaucratic government-employee union operated system of quasi-instructional gulags we sometimes erroneously refer to as "public schools."  They're not "public schools," you see; they're government schools.

Criminal Intent.  The Texas Legislature is debating reforms to the 1995 Safe Schools Act.  Under this "zero tolerance" law, otherwise exemplary Texas students have been expelled to juvenile justice boot camps and referred to prosecutors.  Their heinous crimes?  Unknowingly bringing a pocket knife to school that was left in a jacket from a weekend hunting trip, or taking Celebrex at lunch to relieve pain from a broken knee, are just two examples.

The End of the Pocket Knife.  Some misguided and over-zealous officials in the public schools' war against violence have turned good students into collateral damage.  They have instituted zero-tolerance rules and procedures that fail to distinguish between, say, a student who comes to school armed because of gang-related activity and a Boy Scout who forgets before school to take his pocket knife out of his pocket.  Unreasonable zero-tolerance standards make it certain that school officials will not make their disciplinary decisions based on sound judgment ~ and that some good kids will be punished for no good reason.  Miles Rankin is one example of zero-tolerance's collateral damage.

ABA Zero Tolerance Policy.  While zero tolerance began as a Congressional response to students with guns, gun cases are the smallest category of school discipline cases.  Indeed, zero tolerance covers the gamut of student misbehavior, from including "threats" in student fiction to giving aspirin to a classmate.  Zero tolerance has become a one-size-fits-all solution to all the problems that schools confront. 

It has redefined students as criminals, with unfortunate consequences.

True Tales of Zero Tolerance Overcriminalization.  Zero tolerance policies ignore the distinction between wrongful intent and innocent intent, instead focusing mechanistically on the act alone.  Supporters of zero tolerance claim that it serves the interests of efficiency or that it prevents biased enforcement, but to innocent kids struck by the sword of supposed justice it is only arbitrary and unjust.


Misdemeanor Mistakes and Felony Forgetfulness.  A 12-year-old with hyperactivity disorder told students ahead of him in the lunch line to leave some potatoes, or "I'm going to get you."  The principal called the police and the Louisiana boy was arrested for making a terrorist threat.  He spent two weeks in jail awaiting a hearing.  In Arlington, Virginia, two 10-year-old boys put soapy water in their teacher's drink.  The teacher insisted that the young boys be charged with felonies, although their case was later dismissed.  An 11-year-old girl was arrested after asking her teacher for permission to use a smooth-edged steak knife that she had brought from home to cut a piece of chicken that she was eating for lunch.


Kindergartner Suspended for Make-Believe Game of 'Cops & Robbers'.  Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of elementary school student A.G. and his parents in their case against the Sayreville Board of Education and the principal of Wilson Elementary School.  The lawsuit stems from a playground incident that resulted in four kindergarten boys being suspended from school for three days for playing a make-believe game of "cops and robbers" during recess.


Rutherford Institute Calls on Appeals Court to Honor Student's Constitutional Rights.  Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider and reverse its decision against Benjamin Ratner, a Loudoun County eighth grader suspended for four months after taking a knife away from a suicidal friend.


What I Learned at Graduation: I Have No Rights.  Political correctness ~ a philosophy that discourages diversity of viewpoints ~ has become a guiding principle of modern society.  If someone might be offended, freedom of speech is erased.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the schools, especially when religion is involved.  Things have gotten so ridiculous that the mere mention of God is enough to send public school officials into a tailspin.


Tracking and Fighting Zero Tolerance.  A long list describes The Rutherford Institute's activity in defense of schoolchildren whose rights to freedom of speech, due process, property, privacy and public education have been violated by imposition of Zero Tolerance (ZT) policies.

Overregulating "the Smallest Needles in the World":  Carolyn Starks of the Chicago Tribune reports that the over-bureaucratization of schools and their fear of lawsuits has now extended to diabetics and the treatment of their condition.  Emblematic of this trend is the story she relates of a suburban Chicago mother who had to drive every two hours to her son's elementary school to test his blood sugar, as the school considered his blood-testing device's lancet ~ "the smallest needles in the world" ~ a weapon and wouldn't allow it on the bus.

Student faces expulsion for fake drill team guns.  A local school district has suspended a member of the Young Marines youth leadership group after students saw drill props in her vehicle.  Marie Morrow, a 17-year-old senior at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, is serving a 10-day suspension.  Her punishment could be extended at an expulsion hearing later this month. ... The school also called police, who seized the three drill team guns made of wood, plastic and duct tape.

When a Zero Tolerance Policy Makes Zero Sense.  The story started like this:  Marie Morrow, a junior in Cherokee Trails High School in Aurora, Colorado, is a cadet staff sergeant in the Young Marines and the commander of her local drill team.  She made a mistake:  she parked on the school's parking lot with several wooden "parade rifles" in her car. 

The problem?  A Colorado state law that requires "zero tolerance" of any student in possession of any dangerous weapon ~ or anything that an uneducated person might take as a facsimile of a dangerous weapon. ...

She was suspended and came under threat of expulsion for possession of lumber.

Update:

Tolerance waning for zero-tolerance rules.  A week before Colorado marked the 10th anniversary of the iconic [Columbine] tragedy Monday, the legislature sent to the governor a bill making an exception in the state's zero-tolerance policy on weapons in schools. ... Colorado State Sen. Kevin Lundberg said he proposed the legislation in his state after Marie Morrow was expelled for leaving three facsimile drill-team rifles in her car in the school parking lot.

Justices Hear Arguments Over School Strip Search.  The Supreme Court seemed worried Tuesday [4/21/2009] about tying the hands of school officials looking for drugs and weapons on campus as they wrestled with the appropriateness of a strip-search of a teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen.  Savana Redding was 13 when Safford, Ariz., Middle School officials, on a tip from another student, ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear looking for pills.  The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

More Than a Silly Strip Search.  When she was a 13-year-old student at Safford Middle School in Arizona, Savana Redding was strip-searched by school officials in search of ~ this is no joke ~ ibuprofen.  Now she is suing the district and the officials for violating her Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Update:

Justices Say Child's Rights Violated by Strip Search.  A strip search of a 13-year-old girl by officials at her middle school violated the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday [6/25/2009] in an 8-to-1 decision.  The student, Savana Redding, had been suspected of bringing prescription-strength ibuprofen to the school, in Safford, Ariz.

Supreme Court: Strip search of 13-year-old unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the strip search of a 13-year-old student violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Rutherford Institute Wins First Amendment Victory for Student.  The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana has ruled in favor of the First Amendment rights of a high school student who was prohibited under his school's dress policy from wearing a T-shirt bearing the likeness of an M-16 rifle and the text of the Marine Corps Creed.  While the court ruled that the school's ban on "symbols of violence" is permitted by the First Amendment, it held the ban on the Marine T-shirt in question to be unconstitutional.

Student Denied Diploma After Blowing Kiss.  Justin Denney's family watched as he ascended the Cumberland County Civic Center stage during graduation Friday night [6/12/2009] to accept his diploma, but the superintendent told him to return to his seat.  The Bonny Eagle High School senior's mother said she can't believe her son's taking a bow and blowing a kiss on stage led was grounds for the superintendent to withhold his diploma.

Diploma Denied to Student Who Blew Kiss to Family, Pointed at Friends.  A Maine high school senior was denied his diploma at graduation after he took a bow when his name was called, pointed to friends and blew a kiss to his family.  Justin Denney was graduating from Bonny Eagle High School June 12 and had gotten up on stage to receive his diploma when he gestured to his friends and relatives.

The Editor says...
Public schools are not about education.  They are all about submission and control.  This episode demonstrates that until you learn to submit and conform, you can't get a diploma.

 Fourth grader suspended for using broken pencil sharpener.  A 10-year-old Hilton Head Island boy has been suspended from school for having something most students carry in their supply boxes:  a pencil sharpener.  The problem was his sharpener had broken, but he decided to use it anyway.

Texas School Suspends Student for Answering Call in Class From Dad in Iraq.  A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad's call during class.  Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq.

Attack of the preschool perverts:  Is American public education a form of child abuse?  The Washington Post's Brigid Schulte reported this month on a student named Randy Castro, who attends school in Woodbridge, Va.  Last November at recess he slapped a classmate on her bottom.  The teacher took him to the principal.  School officials wrote up an incident report and then called the police.  Randy Castro is in the first grade.  But, at the ripe old age of 6, he's been declared a sex offender by Potomac View Elementary School.  He’s guilty of sexual harassment, and the incident report will remain on his record for the rest of his school days ~ and maybe beyond.

Zero tolerance policy nixes common sense.  According to a district spokesperson, the code of behavior stipulates that police may be called for "offenses involving weapons, alcohol/drugs, intentional injury, and other serious violations."  Um, call us crazy, but what [Six-year-old] Randy Castro did doesn't meet that test.

Ninth Grader Punished For Taking 40-Cent Lunch.  A Sumner County ninth grader is charged with theft and sent before a judge for taking a 40-cent lunch without paying.  Krista Goetleuck thinks her son's school went way too far.  She said her son is not a troublemaker, he was just hungry.  "Our last hospitalization was $78,000.00," said Goetleuck, who moved to Nashville a few months ago.  She said her youngest child has had brain surgery.  With a family of six and a sick child, every penny counts for her family, Goetleuck said.

Girl, 10, Arrested for Using Knife to Cut Food at School.  A 10-year-old Florida girl faces felony weapons charges after bringing a small steak knife to school to cut up her lunch, according to a report on MyFOXOrlando.com.  School officials say the Ocala 5th grader had brought a piece of steak for her lunch, and a four and a half inch steak knife with which to cut it.  According to the report, a couple of teachers took the utensil and called authorities, who arrested the girl and took her to the county's juvenile assessment center.

Same incident:

More zero tolerance idiocy:  ALa has the story of a 10-year-old fifth grader in Ocala, Florida, who brought her lunch to school from home, a piece of steak ~ and brought a deadly weapon a steak knife from home to cut it.  She didn't use the knife for anything other than its intended purpose ~ to cut her lunch ~ but a couple of teachers saw it.

When "Policies" Run Amuck...  I completely understand the need for caution in schools when it comes to weapons in the building, but I would also hope that the college-educated staff would incorporate common sense into their day-to-day enforcement of those policies.

5th Grader Suspended For Anti-Obama Shirt.  An 11-year-old in Aurora says his first amendment rights are being trampled after he was suspended for wearing a homemade shirt that reads "Obama is a terrorist's best friend."  The fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School wore it on a day when students were asked to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism.

Teacher Throws a Fit Over Student's Linux CD.  A teacher has thrown a student into detention and threatened to call the police for using Linux in her classroom.  The teacher spotted one of her students giving a demonstration of the HeliOS distro to other students.  In a somewhat over-the-top reaction, she confiscated the CDs, put the student on detention and whipped off a letter to the HeliOS Project threatening to report it to the police for distributing illegal software.
 

Synopsis by Mike Rechtman.

Zero Tolerance for Common Sense.  The American Bar Association says the modern zero-tolerance-for-children movement is a response to the school shootings of the 1990s.  No one doubts the good intentions of those who pushed these policies; it's the enforcement that has raised concern.  And Adam Liston is far from the only victim of this noxious over-criminalization, although he may be one of its older victims.

3 suspended for not standing for Pledge of Allegiance.  Three small-town eighth-graders in Minnesota were suspended by their principal for not standing Thursday morning [5/8/2008] for the Pledge of Allegiance, violating a district policy that the principal now says may soon be reworded to protect free speech rights.

Did someone mention the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pragmatism vs. Zero Tolerance ~ Let Science Be the Guide.  Whereas policymakers may not be looking critically for evidence before making decisions, the good news is that real parents dealing with real teenagers in the real world seem to be paying attention.  Recent news from the California Parent-Teacher Association suggests that parents fed up with zero tolerance "horror stories" will lead the way in making pragmatic, science- based decisions.

Texas Zero Tolerance.  When our children in Texas public schools can be accused, found guilty, ticketed, often times arrested, and removed from school before parents are notified, there is something intrinsically wrong with a system that claims to work in partnership with parents for the education and well being of their children.

Has Zero Tolerance Eliminated Campus Danger?  Zero Tolerance, once adopted by a school district, cannot take into account a student's age when meting out discipline for violations. … The problem with the zero tolerance policy in academia is that the policy champions "a one size fits all solution to schools' problems".

The School Crotch Inspector:  Fighting the Advil menace, one strip search at a time.  There are two kinds of people in the world:  the kind who thinks it's perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who thinks those people should be kept as far away from children as possible.  The first group includes officials at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, who in 2003 forced eighth-grader Savana Redding to prove she was not concealing Advil in her crotch or cleavage.

Update:

US school rebuked for ibuprofen strip search.  A divided US appeals court has ruled an Arizona school violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old student by conducting a strip search for ibuprofen.  Suspecting that a student had violated a policy against prescription or over-the-counter drugs without permission, public school officials in Safford, Arizona, ordered a search of Savana Redding.  A school nurse had her remove her clothes, including her bra, and shake her underwear to see if Ms Redding was hiding anything.

Backlash Forms Against 'Zero Tolerance'.  Lawmakers in several states say the strict policies in schools have resulted in many punishments that lack common sense, and are seeking to loosen the restrictions.  "A machete is not the same as a butter knife.  A water gun is not the same as a gun loaded with bullets," said Rhode Island State Sen. Daniel Issa, a former school board member who worries that no-tolerance rules are applied blindly and too rigidly.

Boy, 8, suspended after sniffing Sharpie marker.  A Westminster parent says Adams School District 50 overreacted by suspending a third-grade student for smelling Sharpie marker fumes and the clothing on which he'd drawn a stripe

School suspends boy for sketching gun.  Chandler school officials have suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching a picture that resembled a gun, saying it posed a threat to classmates.  But parents of the Payne Junior High School student said the drawing was a harmless doodle of a fake laser, and school officials overreacted.

Boy punished for T-shirt with gun image.  The family of a middle school student who was given detention for wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of a gun has filed a federal freedom of speech lawsuit against the school district.  Donald Miller III, 14, went to Penn Manor High School in December wearing a T-shirt he said was intended to honor his uncle, a U.S. Army soldier fighting in Iraq.

Oregon first-grader suspended for violent drawing.  School officials in this southern Oregon town suspended a first-grader whose drawing of a stick figure shooting another in the head attracted complaints from parents.  Ryan Weathers, 6, was sent home from Little Butte School on Tuesday [11/13/2007].

New Jersey 2nd-grader suspended from school for drawing stick figure with gun.  Kyle Walker, 7, was suspended last week for violating Dennis Township Primary School's zero-tolerance policy on guns, the boy's mother, Shirley McDevitt, told The Press of Atlantic City.  Kyle gave the picture to another child on the school bus, and that child's parents complained about it to school officials, McDevitt said.  Her son told her the drawing was of a water gun, she said.

Zero-Tolerance for Doodling:  A 13-year-old was suspended for doodling a picture of a gun on his homework.  While it is discouraging that this type of over-criminalization is continuing to occur in our nation's schools, hopefully the increase in media attention will continue to highlight the ridiculous and harmful consequences of these policies.

I Have Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance Policies.  I have a confession to make.  When I was a child, I was a chronic, repeat doodler.  During dull moments at school, I admit, I not only drew soldiers shooting one another, but also tanks, bombers, fighters, and even the occasional space ship with planet destroying powers. 

These days, of course, any of them would have been enough to get me kicked out of school.  In our era of zero-tolerance, I would surely have spent most of elementary and middle school shuttling between suspensions and expulsions, with an occasional time out for social studies.

Ill. students lose diplomas over cheers.  Caisha Gayles graduated with honors last month, but she is still waiting for her diploma.  The reason: the whoops of joy from the audience as she crossed the stage.  Gayles was one of five students denied diplomas from the lone public high school in Galesburg after enthusiastic friends or family members cheered for them during commencement.

ED: The crime of expressing emotion in public must be outlawed?

Boy charged with felony for carrying sugar.  A 12-year-old Aurora [Illinois] boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed.

ED: Ludicrous. Does this mean sugar will be criminalized next? Now, until the GMO created sugar is gone, or even white sugar period, that might actually be a good idea.

Schoolboy Turns in Found 'Weapon', Gets Suspended For His Effort.  In school we tell our children that guns are bad.  We tell them to be good little children and turn in those bad, evil guns to a parent, a policeman or a teacher.  We tell them to do the supposed responsible thing.  Be an upstanding citizen and take that evil gun out of circulation so that someone else won't kill half the city, runs the logic.  So, a young boy at Troy Middle School near Joliet, Illinois follows this sage advice and what is his reward?  He is kicked out of school for following his indoctrination.

A new policy to keep students in line.  The district's proposed policy has already drawn support from some parents infuriated at what they regard as heavy-handed discipline at schools.  Students on the receiving end of such chastisement may become more prone to miss class or drop out entirely because they feel they are misunderstood.  Parents also are concerned that administrators aren't giving suspended students a fair shake.  Naomi Haywood is one such parent.  She believes her 16-year-old son, Jonathan Hargrove, has been suspended twice for fights he did not start because the school he attends, Fremont High School in South Los Angeles, has a zero-tolerance policy for fighting.

Zero Tolerance for Security Guards.  Security guard George Stevenson chased a suspected burglar onto Arlington Elementary School property and through the school itself.  When he was apprehended, the suspect was armed with a knife.  According to school officials, however, the real criminal was Stevenson.  Because he carried an otherwise legal pistol, Stevenson was arrested and charged with felony possession of a weapon on school property.

Suspended for folding a piece of paper.  Destiny Thomas, an 11 year-old student at Amber Terrace Intermediate School in the Desoto Independent School District, folded a piece of paper into the shape of a gun.  She and two classmates were suspended and sentenced to 30 days of alternative school for their flagrant violation of district anti-gun policies.

Perhaps they would have given her a lighter punishment, but...

SELECT PUNCH LINE:
  •   her paper gun was loaded!
  •   she had modified it for full-auto!
  •   she didn't draw a trigger lock on it!

Toy gun on transit bus leads to police investigation.  A police investigation for an action that is not criminal, plus a school district investigation.  The goal:  to expel a student for posession of a toy gun that was not used improperly.  Does this strike anybody else as ridiculous?

Indiana students punished for school rule violations that occur "anywhere at any time".  Although the streaker was not on school grounds, the event did not happen during school hours and did not involve any of the corporation's schools, East Porter County [says it] was well within its legal right to suspend the student.

Boy Faces Suspension For Bringing a Butter Knife To School.  A butter knife in a boy's book bag led to suspension at Omaha Public Schools this week. … Now, there's a standoff.  Gray's parents say they won't send their son to school until the district backs down on its mandatory suspension, and the district said it doesn't have any plans to do that.

"Zero Tolerance" Policies and the Constitution.  The Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999 produced a climate of fear and near-hysteria among school administrators around the country.  Many public school systems responded by imposing disciplinary policies calling for "zero tolerance" for weapons possession, drug use and threatening speech, in some cases creating absurd and tragic results.  School authorities justified these "zero tolerance" policies under a Clinton-era federal law, the "Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994" that required as a condition of receiving federal funds (as all state educational systems do) that states enact laws mandating one-year expulsions for any student who brings a "weapon" to school.

Zero Common Sense School Discipline Rules Cheapen Students' Humanity.  Ever since an over-eager school administrator first dreamed up the concept of "zero tolerance" policies, the outrages have been pouring in from all across the country.  Incidents include a boy suspended for bringing a water pistol to school, a student disciplined for telling friends that breath mints would make them jump higher, a girl expelled for bringing a nail file to class and a high schooler commended for his valor in taking a knife away from a suicidal friend ~ although he was then suspended for violating the school's zero tolerance policy against weapons possession.

ED: Are your heads swimming from the conflicting crimes of these children? This lad disarms a suicidal friend and then HE is charged with possession of a weapon!

Why tolerance is fading for zero tolerance in schools:  Unaware it had turned cool overnight, Eddie Evans's 12-year-old son bolted out of the house in shirt sleeves.  He was on his way to the bus stop when his mother called him back for a jacket.  In third period the boy discovered that the three-inch pocketknife he had taken to his last Boy Scout meeting was still inside his coat ~ a definite no-no under the school's zero-tolerance policy.  Unsure what to do, he consulted a friend before putting the knife in his locker.  The friend turned him in and, after lunch, police arrested him and took him to a juvenile-detention center without contacting his parents, according to senate testimony.

ED: What has this lad learned about trust and friendship? What do we learn about the Big Sister effect on the future for our children?

5-year old censored by NY school will get his day in court.  5-year old Antonio Peck had no idea when he turned in his homework assignment ~ a poster about protecting the environment ~ that it would land him in federal court. … It featured, among other things, a cut out picture of Jesus ~ something he reportedly thought applicable to the environment, and the assignment.

4-year-old suspended for hugging teacher's aide.  School administrators gave a 4-year-old student an in-school suspension for inappropriately touching a teacher's aide after the pre-kindergartner hugged the woman.

ED: Seventeen years ago, the teachers at my daughter’s school had to stop giving hugs to their children and settle for handshakes at the end of the day. We parents thought at the time that this was ridiculous, but it seems we were just ahead of the times!

Cops and Robbers?  Not On This Playground.  From California to New Jersey, public schools are banning the children's game of "cops and robbers" and threatening students with expulsion out of a fear that even imaginary weapons pose a threat.

Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence.  Despite the controversies that it has created in school districts throughout the country, zero tolerance continues to be a widely used response to school disruption and violence.  This paper explores the history, philosophy, and effectiveness of zero tolerance school disciplinary strategies.

"Zero Tolerance" = Ethically Inert.  One can sympathize with schools and school boards, in this litigative era, that decide to install "zero tolerance" policies that eliminate any opportunity for debate or analysis.  You do "X" and the punishment is "Y."  No excuses, mitigating circumstances, or special dispensations allowed.

Zero tolerance or zero common sense?  A first-grader at Struthers Elementary School in Youngstown, Ohio, was suspended for 10 days for taking home a plastic knife from the school cafeteria in his book bag.  The 6-year-old wasn't threatening anyone; he just wanted to show his mother he had learned how to spread butter on his bread.

Suspended for disagreeing.  Tyler Zilz, a sixth-grader at Willowcreek Middle School disagreed with new school rules that prevented students from socializing before school and during lunch periods.  With the help of his older brother he wrote a three page letter and distributed copies. … The principal gave him a one day in-school suspension for "interfering with the educational process".

Eight year old boy faces charges for pointing toy gun.  An 8-year-old Whitmore Lake boy is facing criminal charges for pointing a toy gun at three other youngsters and threatening to shoot them.  Even though the incident involved a toy gun, the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office said, Tommy Davis' intent was to threaten and scare the other children.  The boy, who was 7 at the time of the incident, has a hearing on three felonious assault charges … in Washtenaw County Juvenile Court.

School drops knife case against student.  Warren Township school leaders today [4/4/2006] ordered a halt to the disciplinary proceedings against a teenager who said he accidentally brought a pocket knife to his middle school.

AK-47 boast earns Pottstown Middle School student suspension.  A seventh-grade student was suspended for four days last month after talking about bringing an AK-47 assault rifle into Pottstown Middle School.

Bar Association Wants End To "Zero Tolerance".  The American Bar Association voted [in February, 2001] to recommend ending "zero tolerance" school discipline policies.  Advocates hope the resolution will prompt school districts to re-evaluate such policies, which cover weapons, drugs or violence in schools.  The National Association of Secondary School Principals didn't agree.

Report Details the Folly of "Zero Tolerance".  Destructive "zero tolerance" policies in the nation's schools are leading students off the academic track, sometimes straight to the jailhouse, critics say.  In what's billed as a "first-of-its-kind" report, a public policy group called the Advancement Project noted, "In school district after school district, an inflexible and unthinking zero tolerance approach to an exaggerated juvenile-crime problem is derailing the educational process."

Zero Tolerance and the Never-Ending Lockdown in America's Public Schools.  The imposition of draconian zero tolerance penalties teaches our young people a very bad political science lesson:  that government authorities have total power and can violate constitutional rights on a whim.  To those who are concerned with the erection of a police state in America, such policies should be causing alarm bells to go off.

Scented hair gel, deodorant could mean jail time for Canadian youth.  "A Halifax-area teenager may face criminal charges for wearing Dippity Do hair gel and Aqua Velva deodorant to school after his teacher complained to the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mounties] about his fragrant abuse of the school's no-scent policy.

Board of Education expels student for three policy violations.  Although the student did not actually have access to any firearms he was expelled as the district has made the idea of a gun equivalent to actually possessing one

Editor’s Note:

Here is another interesting point in the story above:  "[Superintendent Lynn] Evans noted that although the student is expelled, he is still considered a student in the district; however, he cannot attend classes.  The superintendent explained that the district remains responsible for the student's education."  What does that mean?  He cannot attend classes, but the school district wants to retain control of his education, and wants to be reimbursed by the US Department of Education as if he was still in a classroom.

Zero Tolerance and the U.S. Supreme Court:  The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a New Jersey boy who, as a kindergartner in 2000, was suspended for playing cops-and-robbers (using pointed fingers as "guns") with three other little boys during recess.  The appeal of the summary suspension ~ there was never a warning given ~ claimed that the school district had violated the boys' constitutional rights to free speech, procedural due process and equal protection of law ("just plain silly" is not a basis for a Supreme Court appeal).

"Zero Tolerance" Policies and the Constitution.  The Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999 produced a climate of fear and near-hysteria among school administrators around the country.  Many public school systems responded by imposing disciplinary policies calling for "zero tolerance" for weapons possession, drug use and threatening speech, in some cases creating absurd and tragic results.

This commentary was written in 1999:

Smashing Free Speech and Turning Our Schools Into Pressure Cookers.  During the past seven years, less than one percent of the schools across the country have experienced a violent death on campus, according to June Arnette, associate director of the National School Safety Center. 

However, since the latest shooting in Conyers, Georgia and Littleton, Colorado, schools have instituted oppressive "safety" measures such as sign-in sheets, metal detectors, uniforms and unwarranted searches. 

As a result, many of our nations' schools now resemble prisons more than educational institutions.  The students are paying the high price for such safety, and it is costing them their civil rights.

Let Boys Be Boys, Not Criminals-in-training.  By today's zero-tolerance standards of child's play, my brother and I both should have been sent to the electric chair decades ago.  In fact, every child in our neighborhood and at school would qualify today as a juvenile delinquent at least, a potentially homicidal maniac on average.

Silencing Student Speech ~ And Even Artwork ~ in the Post-Columbine Era:  The relevant Supreme Court cases, and how they have been misapplied.

One Strike and You're Out.  A female Cadillac Junior High School student who brought prescription drugs on school grounds was expelled for the remainder of the school year.  Principal Jack Richards said the student received an immediate 10-day, out-of-school suspension and the incident was reported to the local police.

Another GI Joe Suspension.  A third-grader at Sun Valley Elementary was suspended for bringing a G.I. Joe toy handgun to school. … "It's about an inch long," said Vicki Stewart, the boy's grandmother and guardian.  "(The principal) had to tape it to a piece of paper to keep from losing it."

"Zero Tolerance" Must End Now.  It's clearly ineffective, since there have certainly been more school shootings over the past five years than ever before. 

It teaches children that Constitutional guarantees don't apply to them, which goes against everything schools should be teaching them. 

It tells children that schools consider them untrustworthy, violent creatures, which is the sort of thing some children will take to heart. 

It takes decision-making responsibility away from teachers and forces principals and administrators to defend ridiculous decisions, eroding respect for the school system.

And most importantly, it punishes the innocent.

Watching You:  A Diet Coke shared among friends was enough to undo 12-year-old Alyssa Nemec's life.

When Policies are blindly Applied:  Andrew Follett, Jr., 18, was a junior at Downingtown High School East until he was permanently expelled March 18 by a vote of the Downingtown Area Board of School Directors.  He was charged with possession of a controlled substance and being in possession of a weapon.  The problem is the items he is charged with "possessing" were found in his father's car across the street (Route 113) in the parking lot of Calgary Fellowship Church.

ED: That is unbelievable!
 
Florida teen takes Mom's car to school, gets expelled.  Amanda Conroy had some car trouble so took her mother's car to school.  That happened to be the day that police did a random search of students' cars.  Inside her mother's Durango was her mother's stun gun.

Dangerous cookie carrier suspended for a month and a half.  Jules Gabriel was suspended on April 2 and will remain suspended until at least May 13.  His crime was possession of a deadly weapon ~ a snack pack of Nutter Butters.

Patterns and stripes go next.  School bans solid color T-shirts to counter gangs.

School suspends teen for rap lyric:  A 15-year-old Brookfield Central High School student's homemade rhymes earned him a five-day suspension and could get the honor student expelled because of a lyric deemed threatening toward the principal ~ perhaps the first such case in Wisconsin.

Zero tolerance is turning students into criminals.  Acts once handled by a principal or a parent are now being handled by prosecutors and the police.

Sledder hurt in accident may be arrested.  Julie Miles has two kids at A.G. Bell Elementary in Kirkland, a school with a zero tolerance for snowballs.  Students there say they were told they can't even touch the snow, much less pack and hurl it.

ED: This would teach anyone just how stupid rules are! Throwing snowballs is part of childhood but to not TOUCH the snow? No wonder North Americans are becoming such controlled robots if they grow up and absorb these idiocies.

Zero tolerance has its limits:  A student's suspension is cut so his school won't lose money.

The zero-tolerance failure:  Administrators and board members must always look for ways to put more common sense into the procedures.  Blanket policies are no substitute for a thoughtful approach to each case.  "When in doubt, kick 'em out," is not good legal or education policy.

Student Punished For Keeping Extra Soda From Machine.  A Rio Rancho [NM] teen was slapped with an in-school suspension for taking both sodas that came out of a vending machine, when he had only paid for one.

Bleeding Through the Band-Aid of Zero Tolerance:  The fear that school violence is escalating is unfounded.  According to the US Department of Education, school violence has actually been on the decline since 1990.  Some sources say that it has decreased as much as 30%.  In fact, a child is three times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed violently at school.

Department of Overreaction Department:  We're fooling ourselves and conning our kids if we claim that zero tolerance for normal practices that involve trivial risks will result in zero disasters.  The world just doesn't work like that.

4th-grader suspended for gun shell in pocket:  Campus sponsors "Camouflage Day," then kicks out the boy due to "zero tolerance".

Student broadcaster suspended for saying "God bless".  A high school student dismissed from his school broadcast program for signing off with "God bless" is rallying community members to his side. James Lord, a senior at Dupo High School in Dupo, Ill., was suspended for one month from his daily news broadcast on the school's closed circuit television after signing off his Dec. 17 broadcast, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.

ED: As with all of these anti-Christian punishments, these rules would be the result of the Zionist influence on the school system to remove all references to their detested Jesus and his Christian followers. And before anyone suggests that atheists might complain as well, remember that atheism is promoted by Talmudic Chabad Lubavitch to weaken Christianity in the West. This group has been known to fund the Atheist associations around Christmas for their anti-Christian messages. I have explored this in depth in “Merry Christmas! Now Off With Your Head!” series.

SNIPPITS AND SNAPPITS: MERRY CHRISTMAS: OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! Pt 1

SNIPPITS AND SNAPPITS: MERRY CHRISTMAS: OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! Pt 2

SNIPPITS AND SNAPPITS: MERRY CHRISTMAS: OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! Pt 3

SNIPPITS AND SNAPPITS: MERRY CHRISTMAS: OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! Pt 4

Pro-life shirt barred as "obscene":  A Virginia high school student was barred from wearing a shirt with a pro-life message because it violates the school's policy against profane or obscene language.

Expelled, and it wasn't even a real phaser.  Zero-tolerance policies along with gutless administrators combine to destroy a young man's education.

High School student suspended for possession of Tylenol.  Rachel Warrick changed into her PE clothes and headed for the gym, leaving her book bag in the locker room as she always did.  She then joined the other students as they waited for class to begin.  Shortly, an announcement came on through the PA system explaining that all students would be locked into their second period classes until further notice.  Drug bust.  This is a normal event in almost every high school across America.

ED: These horrific things are going on now. I wonder just what effect they would have had on me, educated in what would now be considered the wild and woolly fifties and sixties when we actually played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, doodled guns and cars, and if our freedoms were so squashed by drug raids and terrorism drills. One can only imagine the damage that does to these children. Permanent damage that I am sure is just as intentional as it is vicious and limiting.

Common Sense Urged over "Zero Tolerance":  The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) says that no evidence exists that proves that zero-tolerance laws lower school crime rates nationwide.  The NCES, an arm of the Department of Education, is conducting a study on the effectiveness of such laws.

Zero-tolerance and school discipline policies:  State-by-state evaluation. [PDF]

Losing my Tolerance for "Zero Tolerance".  (See photo below.)

Reader Comments on "Zero Tolerance":  "This collection of letters is not representative of all letters received.  The balance is actually a much higher percentage of agreement than disagreement than shown here!"

Zero Tolerance Equals Zero Thinking:  What are we really teaching children by zero tolerance?  To see evil where none exists?  Or that justice is arbitrary and authorities are waiting to get you?  Who is really out of control?

Toy Soldiers:  "Zero tolerance" is a handy buzz phrase for concerned citizens dealing with bad things.  But the phrase is also a good sign that people are putting their brains in neutral and surfing a popular panic of the moment.

Less Than Zero:  This isn't just another story about zero-common-sense policies in the schools.  It's about how families can show zero tolerance for these policies by taking matters into their own hands.

Zero Tolerance, 100 Percent Control:  In its daily editorial website, the Wall Street Journal keeps a running tabulation of the "zero tolerance" inanity that has swept public schools in this country.  From the suspension of a third grade boy in Monroe, Louisiana, for drawing a picture of a soldier to the high school honor student kicked out of school because someone saw a dull table knife in her car, we are treated to accounts of "education" bureaucrats running amok.

America is a police state.  Would you say that kicking a young girl out of school because her Tweetie Bird key chain is a weapon is just a bit rigid?  How about expelling an Eagle Scout who inadvertently came to school with his Boy Scout ax in the trunk of his car after a Scout meeting the previous night?

Girl gets "unexcused absence" for Bush event.  Student sings in choir at presidential speech, punished with 'D' grades.

Schools' Zero Tolerance Not Always Best, Schlafly Says:  A pro-family leader says many of the zero-tolerance policies being implemented in public schools across the U.S. are having a detrimental effect on young boys.

The Problem with "Zero":  No human institution can be run by the inflexible application of bureaucratic rules, without any regard for individual cases or any attempt on the part of those in authority to apply thoughtful judgment to situations.  Why would anybody think so?

The insanity called "zero tolerance":  What are we doing to children? 

They can no longer have imaginations. 

They can no longer have innocent flirtations, even in the first grade. 

And worse, they can no longer do the right thing and get a hero's appreciation. 

They have become victims of a totalitarian nightmare called "zero tolerance."

California: No Gun Photos Allowed.  A nine-year-old is almost suspended from a Los Angeles Unified School District school because a substitute teacher discovered photographs of him and his brother shooting firearms.  The photos were taken when their aunt, a police firearms instructor, took them for some safety training.

The Insanity of Zero Tolerance:  I am here to express my outrage over a widespread shortcut being utilized in public schools throughout the nation, and also by law enforcement in many jurisdictions.  This shortcut, this doctrine of destruction, goes by the name of zero tolerance.

Special Report:  "Zero Tolerance Policies":  On June 20, [2000,] The Civil Rights Project of Harvard University released "Opportunities Suspended:  The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline Policies."  The Report described zero tolerance as "a brutally strict disciplinary model that embraces harsh punishment over education." 

"Children are not only being treated like criminals in school, but many are being shunted into the criminal justice system as schools began to rely heavily on law enforcement officials to punish students."

Back To School Special:  The school year begins, and parents have two new things to worry about:  Will our children be safe from violence, and will our children be safe from school administrators who ~ over-reacting to the actual level of danger ~ might suspend our children, expel our children or send our children for psychiatric evaluation because of a joke or a misunderstood comment or a nail-clipper.

From the Zero Tolerance Follies: Doodles of Death!:  A Pennsylvania sixth-grader was suspended for three days for drawing stick figures of two teachers with arrows through their heads.  The school called them "terrorist threats".

Draw Your Weapon:  An 11-year-old fifth grader was taken from his elementary school in handcuffs after his classmates turned him in for drawing pictures of weapons.

Schools' solution to violence:  Silence the weird.  What a windfall Columbine has been for timid educational bureaucrats:  They don't have to deal with their disaffected students; they can just wash their hands of pain-in-the-backside kids and ship them off to jail.

This ties in nicely with the Draconian Punishment of the Month:  In the 7th century B.C., an Athenian named Draco established a code of laws which, rather than promoting stability and equality as expected, became known for their terrible severity.  Even 2600 years later, we use the word Draconian for cases like [the ones on this page.]

Zero tolerance strikes again:  Under Nevada state law, a student who has never had a problem before can be deemed a "habitual" troublemaker with one erroneous act.

Sunscreen is Banned while Ritalin is Abused.  It is especially important for children to avoid sunburn, because research has found that childhood burns may much later lead to cancer.  But sunscreen has now been banned as a drug in schools.

Crackdown on Children Won't End School Violence:  Although school violence is rarer today than in more than a decade … politicians and interest groups continue to push their own pet solutions.

Texas City Restricts Toy Guns in Public:  The Carrollton City Council has restricted the possession of realistic toy guns in public after a recent scare in which a police officer mistook a replica gun held by a child for the real thing.

Anti-Gunners Targeting Kids' Toy Guns In NYC:  Criminals in New York City are increasingly turning to children's toy guns as their weapon of choice, according to some members of the city council, who want their colleagues to consider banning the sale of plastic pistols altogether.

Schools contend with complications of zero-tolerance policies:  Zero-tolerance policies on violence have become hotly contested in some public school districts where strict interpretations of the code have demonstrated that a policy which looks good on paper may not be in practice.

Zero tolerance rule upsets kids and parents:  Kids playing with finger guns were accused of "violent and aggressive behavior"; then the parents are asked if they had guns in their homes.  One parent's reply:  "It's none of their business if we have a gun."

Imaginary gunplay backfires:  A fifth-grade girl, armed only with an oak leaf, is now in big trouble thanks to Zero Tolerance.

Madison [Wisconsin] Sixth-Grader Faces Expulsion Over Science Project:  A Cherokee sixth-grader could be expelled for a year, after bringing a kitchen knife to school for a science project.  He needed it to cut an onion.  Chris' father Larry Jorgenson reportedly said that district officials unofficially told them that Chris would be eligible to return to school if he admits he committed a "crime," submits to psychological evaluation and completes an anger management course.  District officials consider this a no brainer.  There is "no tolerance" for weapons in school.  However, Chris Schmidt, 12, considered the knife a kitchen utensil ~ not a weapon.

Editor’s Note:

On one point we agree:  It is a "no brainer".  But apparently it is the school officials who aren't using their brains.

Guidance for Fighting A Zero Tolerance Injustice:  Free advice from "just another parent that has experienced this injustice and has heard from countless others who have had similar nightmares."

The failure of zero tolerance:  A nationwide crackdown on students has resulted in disproportionate punishments and racial profiling.

Criminalizing Toy Guns:  Gun control has reached absurd limits in America.  In Michigan, an 8-year-old boy is being prosecuted for pointing a toy gun at three other youngsters and threatening to shoot them.  If this had happened in my day, every boy would have spent his youth in prison.

British Gun Control Activists Want to Ban Air Rifles:  British gun control advocates have launched a campaign to strengthen laws restricting the use of airguns by children and teens, but shooting associations call the new restrictions unnecessary.

ED: But DO allow the elite their vicious fox hunting!

Senator Seeks to Confiscate War Relics, Other Guns:  An anti-gun senator has added a provision to the Defense Authorization Bill that would allow the federal government to confiscate antique military rifles and other military surplus items.

Town's curb on BB guns becomes a clash of values:  Once an icon of Rockwellian America, the lone boy toting a Daisy BB gun as he wanders the woods has a new reputation ~ that of an outlaw.  In the boldest of a growing ledger of laws across the country aimed at grade school "gunslingers," a new ordinance here makes it a crime to let children under 16 use a BB gun ~ or its modern cousin, the paintball gun ~ without parental supervision.

How Firearms Background Checks Backfire:  The Brady anti-gun law has resulted in denial of a firearms purchase to a former policeman who is an honored war veteran.  Why?  A juvenile record from 42 years ago that was supposed to be "sealed" nonetheless came back to deny him the right to buy a gun for his wife's protection.

Patriotic pins are not "gang paraphernalia".  Officials say teacher banning flag button "acted outside district policy" In prohibiting a pair of students from wearing patriotic pins emblazoned with an American flag and the words, "God Bless America," a teacher misapplied the district-wide ban against "gang paraphernalia," according to California's Anaheim Union High School District.

Zero Tolerance = Zero Common Sense = Zero Justice.  This page is devoted to challenging and exposing primary and secondary school administrators' mindlessly inflexible enforcement of so-called "zero-tolerance" policies, which dictate that all infractions, however minor, against certain regulations will be punished as major offenses. 

It's no laughing matter when innocent children, who have no criminal or malicious intent, have their learning disrupted by long expulsions, or are labeled as 'drug-smugglers', 'weapons-carriers', or 'sexual harassers' in semi-permanent academic records that may be shown to law-enforcement officials or potential employers."

Teachers, Guns, and Zero-Tolerance Tyranny:  Teachers are the forgotten casualties of the education establishment's absolutist war on guns.

Zero-tolerance spiral, quoted from OverLawyered.com:

The OpinionJournal.com "Best of the Web" feature has lately made it a special project to collect reports of zero tolerance excesses, which are fast mounting beyond our ability to record them. 

F'rinstance, there are the school officials in West Annapolis, Md., who have banned kids from playing tag during recess, citing the school's "no-touching" policy;

and the honor student given an in-school suspension in West Monroe, La., for drawing a GI Joe-style commando with canteen, knife and grenades.  A 16-year-old student at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colo. "may be charged with a felony after school officials found an unloaded BB gun in his car."

Criminalizing Kids:  The officer pointed out a kitchen knife lying on the floor of Lindsay's car.  She was surprised to see the knife and realize that it must have fallen out of one of her moving boxes.  For unknowingly having the kitchen knife in her car, Lindsay was arrested, handcuffed, and hauled off to the Lee County jail.  She was suspended from school and banned from graduation events.

Update:
No charges in a kitchen knife case.  Florida state prosecutors won't file criminal charges against Lindsay Brown, an 18-year-old whose arrest made national headlines after she was barred from high school graduation because she had a kitchen knife in her car.

"It once again helps us realize our system works and common sense at least works there (in the judicial system)," her grandmother said.

ED: OMG! @ Gradmother. If there was “common sense” there would never have been need for all of this waste in courts. Has anyone considered the inordinate waste of money in pursuing these frivolous and dangerous cases? The people pay for every moment the officers are involved. The arrests, the paperwork, the courts, the counselors, etc etc all come from the public purse. Meanwhile police forces are cutting back everywhere due to lack of funds! Tell me just how sensible is this.

Criminalizing Kids II.  It was a cool, clear October day in Washington, D.C., when the closing bell rang and twelve-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth ran out the door of Alice Deal Junior High School.  She stopped at a fast-food restaurant for an order of hot French fries and then headed for home.  

Ansche took the escalator down into the Tenleytown/American University Metrorail station to catch her train.  In the station, she ate a single French fry.  Moments later, the junior high student was in handcuffs and headed for jail. 

Ansche had no idea that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) had picked that Monday to kick-off a week of "zero tolerance" enforcement of "quality of life offenses."

Shut Up, They Explained.  The speech police discover "zero tolerance."

"The notion that having 'zero tolerance' of second- and third-graders engaging in harmless play is going to do anything to stop high-schoolers from shooting up their schools is sheer lunacy.  And such policies do have a potential cost; it's hard to see how they can do anything other than sow moral confusion among young children. 

How are parents supposed to teach their children right from wrong when they are subjected to school rules that are completely unhinged from common sense?  … These eight-year-olds will be teenagers by 2006.  Can we expect them to have any respect for adult authority when they have seen it exercised in such a capricious way?" ~ Quoted from The Archives of the Zero-Tolerance Watch. 

Coalition Resists "Tolerance" Police:  The group plans to place an ad in at least one major U.S. newspaper. "It will be about the extent to which the left in this country has misused and misapplied the term 'tolerance' to impose a rigid, politically correct ideology on America," the group's national director explained.

Teen will fight zero-tolerance insanity:  A Canadian family wants their school board to apologize after a boy is suspended without evidence for drugs.

November 1997:  A Colorado Springs, Colo., school district says it did the right thing when it suspended 6-year-old Seamus Morris under the school's zero-tolerance drug policy.  The drug?  Lemon drops. 

Taylor Elementary School administrators called an ambulance after a teacher saw the boy give another student some candy, which was a brand teachers didn't recognize.  "It was not something you would purchase in a grocery store," a district spokesman said.  "It was from a health-food store." 

A spokesman for St. Claire's Lemon Tarts, however, noted that the candy is indeed sold in Colorado's largest grocery store chain.  School officials were not impressed, and not only upheld the half-day suspension, but told the boy's mother that a child who brings candy to school is comparable to a teen who takes a gun to school. ~ Quoted from This is True by Randy Cassingham. 

Popular, Obscure Symbols Defined as 'Hate':  Many images and symbols have been used in the promotion of racism and violent bigotry in western culture; Nazi swastikas and other military insignia, or hooded Ku Klux Klansmen gathered around a burning cross.  But increasingly, the number of symbols is growing to include numerology, acronyms and religious symbols, some of which are generating confusion and even lawsuits over their use and interpretation.

Propagandizing the Police:  In principle, the Connecticut law is of a piece with recent proposals to give the FBI and other agencies enhanced power to keep political "extremists," almost always of the "right-wing" variety, under special scrutiny.  Those "extremists" considered particularly prone to violence would be subject to interrogation as a means of deterring such outbursts.

Zero tolerance comes to two Tucson intersections.  "From what I've seen the first three days, I'm not sure we have enough cops to take care of all the infractions," said one Tucson policeman after watching vehicle and pedestrian traffic at one of the targeted intersections.  They plan to issue citations for just about everything as part of a "traffic safety" campaign.

Anti-Smoking Policy Reminiscent of '3rd Reich':  If you smell like smoke, you'll be suspended for five days.  That's the message students of a Massachusetts high school will receive when they return this fall, under their school's new anti-smoking policy.

End Zero-Tolerance Idiocy.

* "Even in our courts, there is no such thing as Zero Tolerance.  Each case is decided on only its merits and there is no one right answer."

Editor’s Note:

In order to prove "weapon possession", ordinarily you'd have to prove that the item is a weapon.  Except in California, of course.

 

Other web sites dealing with zero tolerance issues:

Zero Intelligence:  The implementation of a zero tolerance policy is the equivalent of giving up on common sense, reasonability and intellect.  All infractions are grouped into types with uniform punishments regardless of the individual facts of the incident.  Possession of Advil is treated as if it were equivalent to pushing crack.  An honor student with the wrong type of pencil sharpener is punished the same as a known delinquent with a switchblade would be.  Improper use of an inhaler leads to arrest as assault with a weapon.  It is easy to see why we call these "Zero Intelligence Policies".

End Zero Tolerance:  "A comprehensive and up-to-date national resource for those interested in learning more about the negative impact of Zero Tolerance upon students, families and society."

Z T Nightmares:  This site publicizes the downside or evils of zero tolerance school discipline policies, and contains dozens of rather alarming anecdotes and numerous additional links.

Parents Against Zero Tolerance:  This is a newsgroup on Yahoo, and apparently requires registration.

Katy Zero Tolerance.  (Katy is a suburb of Houston.)  This site has lots of information about a recently passed Texas law addressing this issue, and links to other resources for Texas residents fighting the same battle.

Jerry Moore's Zero Tolerance News Blog.  Many more anecdotes and lots of useful information about the ZT problem and ways to deal with it.

Social Consequences of Zero Tolerance.  Yet another page that describes a number of ZT cases.

Parent Advisory Council Team.  This site offers advice about due process and describes ways to effectively deal with injustices at public schools by filing complaints with the right people.

The Madness is Spreading.  You might think "Zero Tolerance" is a playground issue ~ just a way for school administrators to deal with violent kids.  If you did, you would be wrong.  ZT is a mindset of black-and-white rules applied to a gray world.

Our Horrible Children  is a frequently updated weblog devoted to tracking the idiocy of the zero tolerance policies prevalent in most public schools today.

THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE

Not addressed below are the problems faced by the children of homeless families. These children do not have access to the basics of life and in areas where tardiness is severely punished, are at a very high disadvantage. At the bottom I provide links to two previous pieces on this topic. Considering that America has the highest percentage of prison inmates, and a very large inmate slavery manufacturing base, especially of coloured or Latino males, should also be considered. 

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

June 6, 2008

Posted by Noor

October 10, 2011

The school-to-prison pipeline is one of the most important civil rights challenges facing our nation today.

The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the national trend of criminalizing, rather than educating, our nation’s children. 

The pipeline encompasses the growing use of zero-tolerance discipline, school-based arrests, disciplinary alternative schools, and secured detention to marginalize our most at-risk youth and deny them access to education. 

Zero-tolerance disciplinary policies are often the first step in a child’s journey through the pipeline.

Zero-tolerance policies impose severe discipline on students without regard to individual circumstances.  Under these policies, children have been expelled for giving Midol to a classmate, bringing household goods (including a kitchen knife) to school to donate to Goodwill, and bringing scissors to class for an art project.  

Even the American Bar Association has condemned zero-tolerance policies as inherently unjust: “zero tolerance has become a one-size-fits-all solution to all the problems that schools confront. It has redefined students as criminals; with unfortunate consequences…Unfortunately, most current [zero-tolerance] policies eliminate the common sense that comes with discretion and, at great cost to society and to children and families, do little to improve school safety.”(1)

There is no evidence that zero-tolerance policies make schools safer or improve student behavior.  On the contrary, research suggests that the overuse of suspensions and expulsions may actually increase the likelihood of later criminal misconduct. (2)

Schools today rely on law enforcement, rather than teachers and administrators, to handle minor school misconduct.

Growing numbers of school districts employ full-time police officers, or “school resource officers,” to patrol middle and high school hallways.  With little or no training in working with youth, these officers approach youth as they would adult “perps” on the street, rather than children at school. 

Children are far more likely to be arrested at school than they were a generation ago. The vast majority of these arrests are for non-violent offenses such as “disruptive conduct” or “disturbance of the peace.”(3)

Children as young as five years old are being led out of classrooms in handcuffs for acting out or throwing temper tantrums. Students have been arrested for throwing an eraser at a teacher, breaking a pencil, and having rap lyrics in a locker.  These children do not belong in jail. 

The explosion of school-based arrests cannot be attributed to an increase in youth violence. 

Between 1992 and 2002, school violence actually dropped by about half. Despite the fear generated by a handful of highly publicized school shootings, schools remain the safest places for young people.(4)

 
Resources that could be put towards improving under-resourced schools are instead used for security. 

School districts spend millions of dollars for police officers and security personnel, (5) despite the fact that these very schools are the ones lacking basic educational resources like textbooks and libraries. 

The rise in suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests may be due, in part, to the rise of high-stakes testing. 

As a result of test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, schools have an incentive to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores. 

One study found that schools meted out longer suspensions to students who performed poorly on standardized tests than to high-performing students for similar offenses. 

This “punishment gap” grew substantially during the period of time when standardized tests were administered, indicating that schools may use “selective discipline” to keep low-performing students out of school during testing days.(6)

We must demand accountability for the education of all students.
  
In some states, students who have been expelled or suspended have no right to education at all. 

These children are left to fend for themselves, while the government and school districts are absolved of any responsibility for educating their most at-risk children.
 

In a growing number of jurisdictions, struggling students are sent involuntarily to disciplinary alternative schools.  These alternative schools ~ sometimes run by private, for-profit companies ~ are not subject to traditional school accountability standards (such as minimum hours and curriculum requirements), and frequently fail to provide meaningful educational services to the students who need them the most.  Some lack even the basics, such as teachers and textbooks, and many do not offer high school diplomas upon graduation.
 
Students confined in juvenile detention facilities have access to few, if any, educational services.
 
Students who enter the juvenile justice system face many barriers blocking their re-entry into traditional schools, and can be haunted by their criminal records later in life.  The vast majority of juvenile justice-involved students never graduate from high school, and may be denied student loans, public housing or occupational licenses because of their prior criminal records.

Students of color are disproportionately represented at every stage of the school-to-prison pipeline. 

African-American students are far more likely than their white peers to be suspended, expelled, or arrested for the same kind of conduct at school.(7)

In 2003, African-American youth made up 16% of the nation’s overall juvenile population, but accounted for 45% of juvenile arrests.(8) 

There is no evidence that students of color misbehave to a greater degree than white students.  They are, however, punished more severely, often for behaviors that are less serious. (9) 
 

Students with special needs are disproportionately represented in the school-to-prison pipeline, despite the heightened protections afforded to them under law.

Children who have unmet special learning or emotional needs are particularly likely to be pushed out of mainstream schools and into the juvenile justice system.  

While approximately 8.6% of public school children have been identified as having disabilities that impact their ability to learn, (10) a recent survey of correctional facilities found that students with disabilities are represented in jail at a rate nearly four times that.(11) 

 
Minority students with disabilities are particularly vulnerable, since many schools regard jail as the default special education placement for poor and minority children.

African-American students with disabilities are three times more likely to receive short-term suspensions than their white counterparts, and are more than four times as likely to end up in correctional facilities. (12)

Previous relevant posts: 

DOODLING IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE ~ 12 YEAR OLD GIRL ARRESTED

ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES: ARE SCHOOLS BECOMING POLICE STATES?

ENDNOTES:

1 ABA Juvenile Justice Committee, ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY: REPORT (Feb. 2001).
 

2 Advancement Project, EDUCATION ON LOCKDOWN:  THE SCHOOLHOUSE TO JAILHOUSE TRACK (Mar. 2005), p. 16; Johanna Wald & Dan Losen, “Defining and Re-directing a School-to-Prison Pipeline,” NEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT (No. 99, Fall 2003), p. 11.
 

3 Advancement Project, EDUCATION ON LOCKDOWN: THE SCHOOLHOUSE TO JAILHOUSE TRACK (Mar. 2005), p. 15.
 

4 Advancement Project, EDUCATION ON LOCKDOWN:  THE SCHOOLHOUSE TO JAILHOUSE TRACK (Mar. 2005), p. 11.
 

5 Advancement Project, EDUCATION ON LOCKDOWN:  THE SCHOOLHOUSE TO JAILHOUSE TRACK (Mar. 2005), p. 17.
 

6 David N. Figlio “Testing, Crime and Punishment,” JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS (Vol. 90 Iss. 4-5, May 2006).
 

7 Russel J. Skiba, ZERO TOLERANCE, ZERO EVIDENCE (2000), pp. 11-12; The Advancement Project & The Civil Rights Project, OPPORTUNITIES
SUSPENDED: THE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES OF ZERO TOLERANCE AND SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICIES (June 2000), pp. 7-9; Russell J. Skiba, et al., THE COLOR OF DISCIPLINE: SOURCES OF RACIAL AND GENDER DISPROPORTIONALITY IN SCHOOL PUNISHMENT (2000).
 

8 Howard N. Snyder, “Juvenile Arrests 2003,” OJJDP JUVENILE JUSTICE BULLETIN (2005), p. 9.
 

9 Advancement Project, EDUCATION ON LOCKDOWN:  THE SCHOOLHOUSE TO JAILHOUSE TRACK (Mar. 2005), p. 8.
 

10 Sue Burrell and Lauren Warboys, “Special Education and the Juvenile Justice System,” OJJDP JUVENILE JUSTICE BULLETIN (July 2000), p. 1.
 

11 Mary M. Quinn, Robert B. Rutherford, and Peter E. Leone, ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education, STUDENTS WITH DIS¬ABILITIES IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES (2001).
 

12 Johanna Wald and Dan Losen, “Defining and Re-directing a School-to-Prison Pipeline,” NEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT (No. 99, Fall 2003).

Published on American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org)

Source URL: http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline-talking-points