Ringgold just says “NO” to racists.
Ringgold student expelled over slur
A white high school student was expelled by the school board in a unanimous vote. His crime was an alleged racist remark that he wanted to “line up all of the black students and kill them”. So was this zero tolerance against hate speech? Zero tolerance against threats? Zero tolerance against racism?
The board voted 8-0 to require the 15-year-old Carroll Township resident undergo a drug and alcohol assessment and a psychiatric evaluation.
Going by the school board’s decision, it could easily be taken as zero tolerance to drugs and alcohol. They apparently believe that uttering such a statement is evidence of drug use. Or are they supporting a policy of zero tolerance to mental illness? After all, they seem to think that the student needs psychiatric help because he uttered a violently racist remark.
If a mental health official determines the student is not a threat to other students or faculty members, the teenager will be admitted to the district’s alternative learning program for the remainder of the 2003-2004 school year.
This makes less sense than sentencing him to drug and alcohol treatment. If they are satisfied that the student is not a danger to anybody at the school then why force him into an alternative school? Since they are obviously not convinced that he is a danger now why a unanimous verdict to expel him?
I received an email from a reader who doesn’t see that there is a problem here. There’s a problem any time a school board acts capriciously and inconsistently in a knee jerk reaction. What the kid did was wrong (and stupid) and needs to be addressed but the punishment here is so overboard that it marginalizes the offense. Added to the improper scope of the punishment is the contradictory nature of elements within the punishment. It makes the school board look like a reactionary gang and it turns the student into a victim.
When are the school boards going to start acting like they have educations and stop following the party line?
Do the parents not need to be involved for the board to act? Was there any proof that this student was able or actually intended to commit such a crime? If soo, how was he going to get the cooperation of the rest of the students, including the black ones to stand against a wall to be shot?
It is the actions of these supposedly “educated, intelligent” people that have led to this problem in the first place, now they think they can stop it with a “time out”! Too late to find out that actions (or lack thereof) have consequences. No wonder our children are not taught in public schools, they just have to “feel good” when all they can do is flip burgers.