Zero Tolerance

locksley2k writes "Eighteen High School baseball players from my hometown of Massapequa, NY were suspended from school and thrown off the team for visiting a strip joint while they had official unsupervised "free" time during the attendence of a baseball camp in FL. while on Spring Break. The coach and assistant coach were fired although they had no knowledge of what the players were up to. They were supossed to be at the beach. All the players were 17 or 18 years old.

As far as I'm concerened this is a good example of the ill conceived and dangerous concept of ZERO TOLERANCE that appears to have infected our schools on a national level. Zero Tolerance (ZT) has caused the suspention of first graders for sexual harrasment, put tens of thousands of students on Ritalin and forced unnatural and superficial behavior upon a whole generation of minors,mostly boys.
It appears to me that ZT is attempting to convolute children into a short sighted concept of the perfect social member while destroying whom they really are. They are saying to the children "We are going to remove what makes you you because it may offend someone. If you have excess energy we will drug you (I'm not refering to ADD but kids who just fidget), if you stomp in a puddle we will arrest you, if you act like a healthy teenager we will severely punish you, if you are 6 years old we will still treat you like a pervert without regard to the fact that you innocently do not understand.

I wonder if the ball players had visited a gay strip joint they would have been so radically punished.
I believe they wouldn't have been, a message like that may offend someone."

NOTICE: This story was migrated from the old software that used to run Mensactivism.org. Unfortunately, user comments did not get included in the migration. However, you may view a copy of the original story, with comments, at the following link:

http://news.mensactivism.org/articles/03/05/11/1512218.shtml