Thursday, February 3, 2011

Has the pendalum swung too far...

This from www.law.com:

When Schools' Zero-Tolerance Policies Make Zero Sense

Being a typical 14 year-old freshman, Andrew Mikel II got bored one December day and decided to use the plastic tube from a pen to blow small plastic pellets at his fellow students.

As it happens, the federal Gun-Free Schools Act requires that students who bring weapons to school be expelled. Accordingly, Virginia's Spotsylvania High School school, which deemed Mikel's pen to be a "projectile weapon," expelled him for possession and use of a weapon.

Mikel was also charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault. Was it assault? Technically, yes -- but is a pen-tube really a "projectile weapon" ... [MORE]

Guest blogger Ruth Carter is a law student in her final semester at Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

More on student violence:






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