This morning comes our reminder (hardly news!) that "competitive civil rights" can only cut so far until those cut against bleed too, and we're all covered in the stuff and muttering out damn'd spot! --

MILTON, Mass. --A senior boy at Milton High School has filed a federal civil rights complaint contending that his school discriminates against boys by making it easier for girls to succeed academically.

Doug Anglin, in his complaint filed last month with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, claimed girls faced fewer restrictions from teachers and boys are more likely to get punished.

"The system is designed to the disadvantage of males," Anglin, 17, told The Boston Globe. . .

Girls outnumber boys almost 2 to 1 on the Milton High honor roll, and almost 60 percent of the students in Advanced Placement classes are female, according to information provided by school officials.

Anglin, who plays soccer and baseball and plans on going to college, hopes the Education Department will react to his complaint by coming up with national guidelines on how to boost the academic achievement of boys.

Turns out the boy's complaint was written by his lawyer FATHER against the school superintendent, the WOMAN in charge, whose name is, let's see, Magdalene, while a male staffer for the F-eds will review the case.

Named no doubt for Mary Magdalene, she who wrote:
"Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it."
-- you gotta love it, really, how can people not read the news for cheap entertainment??

But I digress. So, what do the latest oppressed say school could do to be less girl-dominant?

Anglin wants Milton High to give credit for playing sports, as it does for art and drama; allow students to take classes on a pass/fail basis so more students will take advanced course without risking their grade point average; and do away with the school's community service requirement, which he says is resisted by many boys.

Here's the real rub then. We girls apparently have gotten cocky ourselves, so busy running things now that we neglect to run our own ranks with an iron hand, be ruthless (without Ruth? - so SHE's the problem!) and unilateral in our consolidation of Girl Power and control. Seems we've let some emotive sissies and - gulp - maybe even some justice-minded lawyer advocate types into our sex!

. . .some of Anglin's fellow students, including some girls, see his point of view.

Kelli Little, a senior and student body president, said there is just one boy in her 22-member honors Spanish class, and that while she rarely gets asked to produce a hall pass if she is not in class, boys walking close behind her are routinely questioned.

She said that one teacher at the school expects students to type class notes and decorate their notebooks.

"You can't expect a boy to buy pink paper and frills to decorate their notebook," she said.

Well, except in the role of Lady Macbeth one supposes. . . where the king and queen persist in imagining that physical actions can root out psychological demons, but the whole play is an exposition of how wrong they are (hat tip to Shakespeare author Michael Macrone who seems not to have suffered overmuch for his sex?)

Ask MisEducation!