From Reason’s Daily Brickbats:
Officials at Tennessee’s Portland High School did not notice Samantha Elliott’s facial piercings for almost a year, but a week before graduation they did, calling them violations of the school’s dress code. And officials then barred Elliott from her graduation ceremony. “Walking the line at graduation is a privilege, it’s not a right,” said Sumner County Schools spokesman Steve Doremus. Elliott’s 14-year-old brother was slated to attend Portland, but her mother now says she will home school him.
Okay, so this is a pretty lousy thing to do. But on the plus side, at least they didn’t try to prosecute her criminally for felony hate crimes against her powerless epidermis.
Oh. And just so we’re clear, who thinks that had this student not been white the Sumner County Schools would have taken a hard line?
It’s one thing to enjoy and abuse your arbitrary wielding of petty power; but it’s quite another to be accused of having racial motivations for doing so.
Had it been me, I would have immediately claimed that I was being singled out for my sexual orientation, watched the school relent, then set the record straight as I picked up my diploma on stage.
Which is at about the same time I would have asked what my sexual orientation had to do with mitigating my piercings.
But then, I’ve always been a bit confrontational.
FIGHT THE POWERS! THE PUMP DON’T WORK CAUSE THE VANDALS TOOK THE HANDLES! &cetera.
WhoTF gets piercings surgically implanted?
Does this make any sense, when Rosie O’Donnell’s beamed into millions of homes, daily? I mean, talk about piercing.
FIGHT THE FUTURE!
I wonder what the property tax payors think of this wonderously judicious use of their monies? I suspect they are not amused.
I think you called this one right – tyranny at it’s most petty and smallminded level.
Snap, Push & Pop!
“PLAY IT LOUD! PLAY IT FUCKING LOUD!!!!!”
Wrong song, I know.
I did it for Jeff.
This should be about loud enough.
Is that the official “Disco Stu” model, happyfeet?
I had to google Disco Stu. NTS: watch more tv.
Um. Maybe.
Meanwhile, the impact on the School District from their home-schooling decision?
Reduction in students: 1
Reduction in funding: $0
Tough shit.
It is irrelevant, although peculiar, why school officials waited until graduation to call Elliot out on her faux pas. Walking the line or not, having shit on your face is not acceptable in certain academic and professional environments. It is her right, and she can also wear it when she is working at the record store after graduation, but it is also the right of the employer/educator to deny employment/access to events.
Good call on the homeschooling for the other kid. Maybe the mother can exert a little more control over that kid and keep him from jacking his face up.
Are you sure about the funding DrSteve? Were I is from they take attendance and figure an Average Daily Enrollment number that DOES affect the money they get from the state. This is why they focus on sick days and truancy every so often. It adds up to serious coin.