Massachusetts proposes legislation to eliminate school documents
An Act RELATIVE TO THREATS IN SCHOOLS
A proposed law in Massachusetts would make virtually every document produced in a modern school illegal.
Chapter 7 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 37N the following section:â€â€
Section 37O. Whoever, in any public or private school in the Commonwealth, produces alone or in concert with another or others, a document by any means, containing the name or names of fellow student or school personnel or both which would thereby cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort to any person or groups of persons shall be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than 2 ½ years or by a fine of not more than $5,000 or by both such fine and imprisonment in a jail or house of correction.
Any document with a teacher’s name on it that causes discomfort would be illegal. Say goodbye to report cards as well as teachers’ performance reviews.
Any document with a fellow student’s name on it that might cause anxiety would be illegal. Say goodbye to group projects.
The law states that if any person feels anxious because of a document with names on it the list writer is a criminal. It does not even go so far as to restrict the victim pool to people who are actually on the list.
To add insult to injury, this law is completely unnecessary. There are already statutes in Federal law as well as Massachusetts law that adequately handle written threats.
I have seldom seen a more worthless law proposal, or one with more obvious opportunities for abuse. I live in Georgia so that’s saying something!
Contact information for legislators sponsoring this law:
State Representative Brian Knuuttila; 2nd Worcester District
State Senator Scott P. Brown; Norfolk, Bristol & Middlesex District
State Senator Stephen M. Brewer; Worcester, Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin
State Representative Christopher G. Fallon; 33rd Middlesex District
State Representative Edward G. Connolly; 28th Middlesex District
(Tip credit to Michael Rich)
Thanks for posting this so quickly, Jim. Your list of outlandish possible uses of this law highlights its stupidity in ways that I wasn’t even thinking about when I sent you the tip.
I believe that the purpose of the proposed statute is to overcome a recent Massachusetts Appeals Court case that ruled that the threats statute could not be used to punish the author of a “hit list” that was only disclosed to the “target” by a third person. The Zero Intelligence folks couldn’t take “no” for an answer. No, writing that you are angry at someone is not a crime.
I wrote to the Chief Sponsor of this bill who is an otherwise reasonable legislator and with whom I have worked on other issues to ask him to withdraw it or at least not actively seek its passage. I hope your posting it here will produce a lot of corrective mail from your readers.
Regards,
Mike
Michael L. Rich, Esq.
The Law Office of Michael L. Rich
Concentrating in Children’s and Family Law
www.michaelrichlaw.com
Eep. That’s more ill-considered than the Virginia Civil Union bill that also bans business contracts.
Clearly the product of a system devoted to “solving” one problem over and over again by every possible means, and that one problem isn’t “how do we best educcate our kids?”
(The usual disclaimer: “I am not a lawyer”.)
I believe that the Supreme Court has already ruled that restrictions on speech (which is what this law really is) *must* be the narrowest possible restriction which accomplishes the intended goal. (And that goal must be something which is actually needed.)
For example, the “Child Protection Act” (or whatever it was called) was struck down as unconstitutional because it was too broad. In order to “protect the children”, it also made it illegal for two adults to carry on a perfectly legal conversation, simply because a child “might” see it, and there are already other less obtrusive means to accomplish the same thing.
If the “need” here is to protect people from “hit lists”, this law is way too broad, as pointed out in the examples alread listed. I would think (hope?) it would be struck down quite quickly were it ever to actually pass.
Another absurd example:
I make a list of my friends. How could this possibly be a “threat”? Well, given the wording of the law, isn’t it possible to cause anxiety to someone who was not listed, because they wanted to be my friend and now find out they’re not?
I just noticed this additional gaff:
Whoever, in any public or private school in the Commonwealth, produces…
It’s okay to make hit lists at home and bring them to school. The proposed law is written so it only applies if a person produces the document at school.
Jim: That “public or private” wording is pretty scary. Parents send their kids to private schools to get away from the government school BS, but with this wording it appears as if the Commonwealth is infringing on the abiility of the private school administrators from making their own decisions. I cringe when I think of ZT slowly creeping into the last bastions of decent education. What next, parents who homeschool will be expected to call the police when their kids use a butter knife to make a PB&J sandwich? I know that sounds absurd, but stranger and more ridiculous things have evolved right under our noses.
Well,
This clearly means you can never critize anyone that works at a school.
It won;t take a Federal Court more than a few minutes to strike this stupidity down as a clear violation. It;s even prior restraint of the Press for if they do an article or editiorial then they could be ‘nicked.
Tests often caused me anxiety in school… under that new law, it would be illegal to hand me any test document that contained my name…
> under that new law, it would be illegal
> to hand me any test document that contained
> my name
Simple… They hand you the test for you to take without your name on it. You write your name (and your teacher’s name) on it, so you are the one breaking the law.
Of course, the law is so broad that, even though you are the one writing your name on it, the document itself was produced “in concert” with the teacher. (And let’s not forget SATs and other standardized tests. Imagine all of those people involved “in concert” with the production of that document.)
No documents that make people uncomfortable? I guess this means no more progress reports and report cards. The kids will like that.
The first thing that came to me was the Dean’s list as it was called in my school. It made me feel uncomfortable to be on it because of the nature of kids I hung around with. I can just imagine that it would make some african americans uncomfortable also since they might be called uncle Toms for making it.
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Honor rolls and dean’s lists have already begun to be eliminated in the name of self esteem and also because they potentially violate educational privacy laws.
Report cards will simply no longer contain names.
Every student will be given a number. It will be tattooed on their hand. The Bill of Rights is void where prohibited by law.
Err, I didn’t even know about this, and I am a newspaper-addict high schooler. The wording for this new law is also indissiferable.
It’s like we can’t even talk about things anymore than concern us! BULLSHIT!