Outrage of the Week

In March, we reported on the outrageous case of a seven-year-old Baltimore, Md. student who, according to a Daily Caller article, was suspended for two days for the "horrendous" act of shaping a breakfast pastry into what his teacher thought looked like a gun. 

This week's outrage is a follow-up to that story.  According to a WashingtonPost.com article this week, the request by the family of the second-grader to have the incident expunged from the child's record was denied by the Anne Arundel County School System.

According to the article, the family's attorney met with school officials after filing an appeal asking that the suspension be reversed or that the child's record be cleared. School officials denied both requests.  As the lawyer argued, the child was simply playing, and, "No one was hurt.  No one was scared."

The article goes on to note other, equally outrageous cases of "zero-tolerance" rules being applied with zero-common sense that occurred at about the same time.  In those cases, children were suspended for pointing fingers "like guns" and for talking about shooting a Hello Kitty "gun" that blows bubbles.

The boy's father said he had hoped for a better outcome. "I guess I expected more of a fair result," he said. "I don't view the punishment and the mark on my son's record as a reasonable reaction to the situation that took place."

These types of ridiculous cases are now all-too common, and the trend is disturbing.  As we've said many times before, we all can agree that we want our children to be safe at school, and that reasonable safety measures should be followed.  But such overreaching, misapplied standards encroach on our freedom, and in many cases, place an extreme burden on innocent children and their families.  This is outrageous and should not be tolerated.