JJ Ross's picture

If You're Not Here to Play Catholic Gladiator . . .

then you might be engaged by the larger public policy issues in such news, which aren't religious but secular and civil:

Silly me, I always thought the law was on the side of kids entrusted to the school for education’s sake. But the kids and their education are barely an afterthought in such stories.

The gun-seeking teacher story seems to have gotten precious little attention as an education story — maybe we’re all too busy thinking about school police tasering that mouthy UF student, for felony abuse of a campus microphone?
(See "School's Out of Control" for more.)

The University of Florida student tasered by a six-pack of university police at John Kerry's campus speech last year, was [like Webster Cook] singled out as "disruptive" by another student (the student in authority for that particular event.)

That student's cue was the entire basis for the police to move in on the young man at the mike, not John Kerry himself being upset.

After the fact, the same self-centered justifications were given by the student in authority at UF, that we hear about Cook -- the tasered student had been disrespectful, looking for trouble and trying to provoke a disruption, thus got no more than he deserved. And good riddance!

So a troubling (secular) question I'm seeing is: do we think it's good public policy to empower one student to freely abuse authority over others, to sic university police on a student breaking no rules or laws but merely annoying them by daring to challenge that very authority to control them?


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