Ray Rice isn’t a very nice person. He knocked out his fiance in an elevator with a single punch to the face. Then he dragged her body out of the elevator into the hallway with a foot still lodged in the elevator. He speaks calmly with a security guard and doesn’t even look down at her on the ground. I almost find his disregard for her lifeless body as disturbing as the punch.
There is no disputing those facts. The elevator camera documented it all. What is in dispute is whether the NFL administrators knew about this video before TMZ put it up on their website. If they knew about it, why didn’t they either fire him or take him out of the game for a long time? If they hadn’t seen the video, why didn’t they ask to see it?
The NFL president is pleading ignorance, which doesn’t seem entirely honest. Clearly, this Rice dude was worth a lot of money, and they didn’t want to damage that property. Also, I think that they didn’t consider the behavior of their players off the field to be any of their business.
A few weeks ago, a group of nasty children in Ohio pulled a prank on an autistic kid. Instead of dumping ice water on his head for the Ice Bucket Challenge, they got up on a roof and dumped urine and excrement on his head. They videotaped it, because that’s what assholes do. The victim covered in shit wipes the nastiness from his eyes and looks confused.
School officials were interviewed for the story. They said that this was indeed a horrible act, but they couldn’t expel the perpetrators, because the act happened outside of school grounds. Schools have taken a very strict line between things that happen during school hours and on school grounds versus everything else. Their responsibilities end when the kids take a step outside the school building. Even school buses are grey areas.
If we think that the NFL is responsible for their players’ crimes, should schools also take responsibility for their students’ crimes? Should all places of employment penalize their workers for outside-the-workplace crimes? Do they have the means to investigate every crime and then form an impartial committee to determine the punishment?
Apt. 11d 
Isn’t it an actual crime to throw feces on somebody?
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Yep.
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Probably. But the schools won’t do anything in this case or any other crime if it happens outside of school grounds. Kids can go to jail for crimes, but there will be no disciplinary action by the school. Maybe that’s fine. Maybe it’s not. Just throwing out questions this morning.
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I’ve always gone to Catholic schools. They had no issue at all with disciplining kids for actions outside of the school. Not that anybody would expel you over it, but you always got a punishment from the school after your minor in possession citation.
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Private schools don’t operate this way, which makes me think that public schools are more afraid of legal challenges than actually taking a philosophical stand. Many private schools have parents agree as part of enrollment that their students will abide by their rules whether on or off-campus. This policy has really helped schools like mine be more proactive about things like cyberbullying, but of course, realistically we will never be able to “catch” all misbehavior.
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Yes, the private schools we know have consequences. Now, few parents will turn in a child to a school for drinking, for example. Something like the assault by ice bucket challenge, though, would get them kicked out.
Milder misbehavior could get suspensions. The high schools we know inform colleges of disciplinary infractions, above a certain level. That can be a severe consequence. (But things such as demerits for sleeping in would not be reported.)
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I was imagining all of the steps that those kids went through to execute that harassment, from start to finish. So along the way not one adult knew/saw anything at all? Where do you get a pail full of excrement? I mean, I can imagine how but it’s not something that happens in mere minutes. This is a plan that took some time to organize ahead of time.
And how do you gather everyone together? Was the location so remote that no one saw a group gathering and got curious about what was going on?
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Where do you get a pail full of excrement? I mean, I can imagine how but it’s not something that happens in mere minutes.
Taco Bell run or break into the portable toilet at a construction site.
(P.S. Per below, it doesn’t look like it was excrement, but rather urine and tobacco.)
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I’m calling you if needed!
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They’d just think the kids were executing the ALS ice bucket challenge — a group of 6 kids, with a bucket, on a roof? It’s not particularly suspicious.
I think that when we’re parenting younger kids, we don’t recognize how independent the kids begin, right around this age of 14-17. My 13yo did the ice bucket challenge, with a group of friends. They’re friends, and they’re kind, and it was sweet (and a great photo opportunity for me).
But, they could easily have gotten together the same challenge unsupervised. In fact, earlier that day, they had been planning a mission to rent sailboats at a local dock and go sailing (no, that wasn’t going to happen without supervision, but they thought it could) and, when they decided instead to walk to the pool, I tracked my kid in a nearby park (yes, iPhone tracking, yes, she knows I track her), where they’d detoured to play on the playground. I trust this group of kids quite a bit (though not completely — there’s trouble they could get into), but a similar group could easily have executed that cruel assault, if so inclined.
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Here’s more info. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ohio-prosecutors-mull-charges-ice-bucket-prank-25559588
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Well, there was a public school in Florida that had the opposite reaction. They tried to suspend or expel an 18 year old who was acting in porn films. That seems very wrong. (Of course, it’s a) crazy Florida; and b) the student’s side of the story, so who knows what the truth is.)
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/student-kicked-out-of-school-for-performing-in-porn/24027014
Personally, I don’t think public schools should kick out students for legal or illegal conduct that occurs outside school and off school grounds. Minor students general have a right to public education. Obviously schools can control/limit misbehaving students’ participation in extra curricular activities (e.g., sports, National Honor Society that can have their own behavior codes–our public school kicks you out of sports for drinking or tobacco use at anytime) and/or work to keep the students separated from their victims. But expulsion? No. Not the school’s mission.
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“They said that this was indeed a horrible act, but they couldn’t expel the perpetrators, because the act happened outside of school grounds.”
Bullshit. If the perpetrators had instead been caught at a party with alcohol and pot off school grounds, most schools would have no problem punishing them with suspension or expulsion. What a world we live in.
Schools have responsibility for what happens on their watch (and that includes the bus ride) and anything that directly impacts other students. So – shoplifting, no. Beating up another student on the way home from school, yes. Smoking pot on the weekend, no. Cyber-bullying another student via a laptop at home, yes.
Students have the right to an education, yes; but students who would deny other students the right to learn in a safe environment can go to a specialized setting.
God, I hope those kids are prosecuted, regardless of what the cowardly school district does.
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“If the perpetrators had instead been caught at a party with alcohol and pot off school grounds, most schools would have no problem punishing them with suspension or expulsion.”
I don’t think so, though different schools’ policies might vary. I think some schools are more aggressive about using the levers they have to regulate behavior (and, as an aside, I think those levers are more likely to be used against out-groups in the school, and thus, are less likely to interfere with the activities of the football team or the popular kids, which is one of the dangers of expanding the mission/responsibility of schools). For example, if the party was planned at school, or invitations distributed at school, or conversations about it became rampant at school, those become levers but, in general, I don’t think children get suspended/expelled for drinking outside of school.
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I believe that *public* schools have as their primary mission educating everyone in the community, and thus, have limited ability to regulate behavior outside of school.
Schools have been tangling with this issue — especially with social media, because what happens outside the school is brought into the school. I think some public schools have been developing policies that say that if something that happens outside the school significantly disrupts the learning environment of the school, they can take action. So, in the case of bullying on social media, if the media is brought into the school, or shared on school grounds, that they can intervene. But in that case the school-based violation would be the sharing of the media, not the creation of it (if the creation occurred off school grounds). I also think that schools have a right to regulate the learning environment by expelling students who create an unsafe environment at school (including a psychologically unsafe environment). Both interpretations, a reasonable extension of the mission to provide an education to everyone, might give them authority to intervene in specific incidents, but, the standards should be school centered. In some cases, that might give the school authority to intervene even though the action was legal, and, in some cases, there might be no authority to intervene even if the action wasn’t legal.
I think the right tack in this particular bullying incident is a criminal case. I personally think there’s too much focus on the “15-year-old [being] diagnosed autistic.” The cruel prank could have been played on anyone, and it should be judged by the act, not the victim. Would the prank been OK if a group of kids had found another kid, a neurotypical one, and convinced them to do the challenge? no.
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And even if it did happen outside of school hours, victim X goes to school and sees perpetrators A-E. How can that not affect the learning environment?
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This is pretty complex. Didn’t we have this discussion about universities and student misconduct? I really wonder if campus security should be investigating crimes that happen off campus (or even some of the ones on campus).
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The way our local private schools get around this issue is by saying, “We don’t want you here if there are questions about your character, since one of the reasons people send their kids to this school is so that they can develop a good character.” in that way, it’s similar to the ways in which the military used to dump guys who were found to be committing adultery, arguing that you can’t lead people or serve in a position of leadership if there are questions about your character — regardless of where you are at the time in which you are engaged in the behavior. (If you lie about your private life, you will also lie about your public life, etc.)
Many military folks will tell you that the Bill Clinton fiasco effectively put an end to ever again arguing about the line between public and private behavior and the question of character. Clearly, his adultery was pardoned, and seen as having no effect on his ability to lead — so why should it be different for other public officials?
Regardless, this is why public schools for a while flirted with the idea of ‘character education’ — the problem being that it’s easier to teach about character if you’re also allowed to talk about things like morality and God. Character education was tough to teach in a completely secular environment which was also culturally diverse.
That said, I don’t think it would be wrong for a school to say ‘Regardless of what you believe poiltically, religiously, ethnically and culturally, there are certain aspects of character which we don’t tolerate — whether you do them at home or at school or somewhere else. We don’t torture people, etc.”
However, as I recall, this was the crux of all those legal battles about whether or not they could throw you out of the National Honor Society for getting pregnant — essentially, one group of people felt it was seen as a sign that you had blighted your character and that you were no longer a role model, while others argued that this wasn’t what the organization was actually about.
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I don’t think the question is whether or not the school should punish the perpetrators. I think the question is, how should they change their educational approach to the preps to teach them what they obviously haven’t caught onto yet. Because it’s a school, and teaching is its purpose.
I think the school needs to provide some sort of counseling and closely supervised community service opportunity (ideally with people with disabilities) to the perpetrators; I’d also like to see them separated as much as possible, e.g., not assigned to the same classes, study halls, lunch bells, etc.
What happened may have occurred off of school grounds, but in order to prevent other incidents from happening on the school grounds, these boys must get the message that the school is watching them, that they are essentially on a type of probation. Not just for them, but as a message for the entire student body that this sort of behavior is not tolerated and that when it does happen, there are consequences. A school-wide anti-bullying and disability awareness campaign also couldn’t hurt — this could be the start of a very teachable moment. And a chance to make some good PR out of a very unfortunate situation.
Someone upthread asked what did the victim having autism have to do with it, the perps could have just as easily attacked a neurotypical kid. Well, maybe, you might not know for sure in a particular situation. But the fact remains that people with disabilities are bullied, harassed and sexually abused at extremely high rates. It’s much more likely that the perps attacked the kid because his behaviors marked him as different than not. Every time a person with a disability is attacked, it can’t be a coincidence that they just happened to be disabled.
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There are due process issues involving public schools and not private schools. Public Schools are governmental entities and need to follow the Constitution. This usually means some kind of hearing before punishment whether it is detention, suspension, or expulsion. The substantial disruption test comes from Tinker.
There are no easy answers here but there are good reasons to want to limit the jurisdictional access of schools. Civil Liberties are a double edge sword but everyone tends to imagine a universe where it all works out in their favor. I can easily see a conservative school official trying to punish kids for running say an off-campus literature mag or theatre group that published more provocative things than you would see on campus. Do we want that to be a possibility? Or a school deciding to punish a kid where a parent might not and the parent might have legitimate reasons not to punish. Do we want schools to be able to override parental decisions?
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Yes. And the hard cases are the ones where, say, a constitutionally protected activity, like commenting on a blog, or publishing a magazine is being used to harass or bully.
But, throwing body fluids on a person is assault, a constitutionally acceptable felony and this case is one properly adjudicated in the criminal justice system.
As in the discussion with colleges, I think we want to have a method of enforcing rules in a community that’s different from our justice system (which, among other things, has constitutional protections activities, individuals, and standards of proof). Some communities might be able to enforce these standards (private schools, which one attends voluntarily). But public schools are like the police. They have to follow the rules, not make their own.
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