Judge calls shenanigans on Middletown school officials
Judge slams officials at Middletown schools
In October of 2003 an 11 year-old student of Twin Towers Middle School made a drawing at a slumber party. It had two gravestones with teachers’ names on them. The party host found the drawing the next day and alerted the police who then alerted the school. The school immediately suspended the girl.
In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant refused to throw out a case brought against [Middeltown City School District], former acting Superintendent Patricia McLeod, and Gordon Dean, the principal of Twin Towers Middle School, where the girl was and still is a student.
The judge determined that the district officials violated the girl’s rights to free speech as well as due process, and that “the defendants knew clearly that their Code of Conduct did not apply to off-campus conduct that was not related to school functions.”
Qualified immunity normally protects administrators who make honest errors. In this case the judge has thrown out qualified immunity and the school officials could face charges for violating the student’s right to due process.
“For the judge to say that the qualified immunity protects all but ‘the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law,’ and then holds that the officials are not entitled to qualified immunity, the judge is making a very strong statement,” [lawyer Robert] Isseks said. “They are either plainly incompetent or they knowingly violated the law. That is a strong, strong ruling by the court.”
(Tip credit to Opinion Journal)
Sweeeeeeet.
I hope to here more about this soon.
“The party host found the drawing the next day and alerted the police who then alerted the school” Why were the police his first call? What happened to calling the parents…clearly this man was never 11 years old. If I was in grade school nowadays i would have been expelled or in jail by the second grade. Adolescent mischief should not be considered a crime.
I recall doodling jets making bombing runs over city skylines on my school notebooks. I suppose today I’d be arrested for making terrorist threats?
Glad to see we still have these “activist judges” who can think for themselves while carrying out their jobs.
EITHER plainly incompetent OR knowingly violated the law?
Not both?
O hope the friend’s parents have been sued as well.
When I was in elementary school, we made a Halloween decoration for the door of our classroom. It was a cemetary with graves for the teacher and some members of the class. Each of the tombstones had little “ghosts” hovering above them with the faces of the “deceased.” I guess we’d all be in jail today.
….
*cheers*
Note to self: If ever in Middletown, buy this judge flowers and expensive liqour
Judge calls shenanigans on Middletown school officials
Does that mean the townspeople get to grab their brooms and wail the tar out of these jerks? LOL
Seriously, though, I found it amasing to read that there is actually a judge out there with honor and common sense. If this ruling is a typical example of his rulings, he is one man I’d be proud to call “Your Honor.”
HUZZAH!
I am angry about this judge…
lemme explain why. When I heard it was in Middletown, I had imagined that maybe, MAYBE there was a chance that he could have been in Middletown, CT, near my hometown.
So, in short, I’m angry because he can’t be near me.
Chad
Chad, if it will make you feel any better, your publicly stated sentiments might get him to grace you with a restraining order.
“I’m angry because he can’t be near me?”
Why don’t you just ask him to play ‘Misty?’
LOL dweeb.
If the things that come out of CT started coming out of YOUR area, you might mirror the same wording.
Chad
Thank God! This judge is using what the schools in general should be using…reason and common sense and not blindly imposing “justice” without giving credence to the situation. If I were still in school, I would hate to think of all the things I did back then that would get me expelled in this day and age. Expulsion was a rare thing when I attended high school. You had to do something really bad and you had to have been suspended for something before expulsion was even considered. Nowadays, they are expleling children willy-nilly for the most minor of offenses.
Stupid narcs.
One of my friends is in Twin Towers. I’d like to see him get in trouble so I can laugh. PSYKE!!! -LOL. To: someone i know in 8th grade now(g.l)
When I was in third grade I attended a claymation class with two of my close friends. There was a new student who was particularly annoying, and we made a video involving a crude version of him getting crushed, eaten by dinosaurs, and many more circumstances like that. I guess if we had been found out we could’ve put up for the electric chair.