“Amber Dauge was by all accounts a good student at Goose Creek High School” in South Carolina, until the fateful toast-assistive implement got her busted under the school’s zero-tolerance-for-weapons policy. (Chris Francescani, “Expelled for Possession of a Butter Knife”, ABCNews.com, Oct. 22). See Oct. 23-24, 1999 (knife to cut cake), Aug. 25, 2003 (bread knife). Related: May 2, 2005.
Butter knife expulsion
“Amber Dauge was by all accounts a good student at Goose Creek High School” in South Carolina, until the fateful toast-assistive implement got her busted under the school’s zero-tolerance-for-weapons policy. (Chris Francescani, “Expelled for Possession of a Butter Knife”, ABCNews.com, Oct. 22). See Oct. 23-24, 1999 (knife to cut cake), Aug. 25, 2003 (bread knife). […]
13 Comments
Zero tolerance is in reality zero intelligence. Expelling a student for the mere possession of a butter knife is a draconian rule. If the court system worked the same way that the school disciplinary system works they would be giving the death sentence to everyone convicted of a crime that had a weapon on their person.
If a butter knife is a weapon, so are pencils and pens. None are intended to be used as weapons, all make excellent weapons.
Well, of course she was expelled. That so-called “butter” knife could actually be used for spreading peanut butter which could have caused an allergic classmate to have a reaction and die.
So yes, the expulsion was justified.
Dangerous, dangerous butter knives. I better stop letting my 4 year old spread her own peanut butter and jelly on bread.
Isn’t this the same Goose Creek High School that recently settled a suit over a warrantless search of the entire student body using drug dogs and armed cops?
Relatedly…
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303796,00.html
Zero tolerance policies appear to involve zero intelligence as Richard points out, but as long as the school can get sued for every conceivable mishap that could potentially involve a butterknife, and lawyers are allowed to second guess educators as to what should, and should not be allowed on campus, regardless of whether or not educators had a Policy, or negligently maintained a deficient Policy, then the zero tolerance policies will continue to act at the very least, as a minimum firewall to liability.
My uninformed knowledge of the issue is that ZT policies are the result of the courts ruling that schools needed to provide due process to students. Since this usually resulted in lawsuits over whether the process was “due” enough, they adopted the simple rule that all violations were the same and punished the same.
While other societal changes did coincide with this new emphasis on ‘justice’, it seems like the quality of education at public schools really started dropping when the courts made this call.
OBQ,
The quality at public schools dropped long before that. There was a time (not too long ago, sadly) when functionally illiterate students were managing to get normal high school diplomas in some public schools.
This was just another blow to a system that was already ridiculously bad.
A little girl with a shank…too bad for her family that she wasn’t being treated for a mental disorder: she might have had grounds to sue. Nope, not this time.
I agree with Richard N. A zero-tolerance policy is an announcement that “I am a really stupid person incapable of reasoning and making distinctions. Kick me.”
If zero-tolerance policies are needed to provide due process, why isn’t all liability strict liability?
In an episode of “King of the Hill”, Bobby brought a putty knife to his carpentry class in high school, and was expelled. When Hank Hill went to the principal to explain, the principal said:
“I’m sorry Mr. Hill, but if we showed any tolerance, then we couldn’t call it zero-tolerance.”
These policies and their outcomes are the finest example of application of reductio ad absurdum ever. What is astounding is that the fact that the outcomes are absurd doesn’t seem to register with the adminstrators (or originators) of the policies.
Mr Rohan, I don’t watch “KotH” much, are you sure that isn’t a quote from a real school district official?
“What is astounding is that the fact that the outcomes are absurd doesn’t seem to register with the adminstrators (or originators) of the policies.”
Oh many of thm do acknowledge that the rsult is absurd… but when those absurd results are shielding them from multi-million dollar lawsuits (which many of them have been around long enough to have seen, before ZT became the policy), you learn to live with them.
That is, the results only look absurd when you don’t consider the longer-term results (big lawsuits).