Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools - John Whitehead

Here's a link I sent to Rob and Leslie, along with the article's concluding paragraphs and some comments:

Here are the last two paragraphs:

Finally, these policies, and the school administrators who relentlessly enforce them, render young people woefully ignorant of the rights they intrinsically possess as American citizens. What's more, having failed to learn much in the way of civic education while in school, young people are being browbeaten into believing that they have no true rights and government authorities have total power and can violate constitutional rights whenever they see fit.

There's an old axiom that what children learn in school today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow. As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation -- one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. In other words, the schools are teaching our young people how to be obedient subjects in a totalitarian society.

The zero tolerance policies the author writes about refer to drugs and weapons in school. The first sentence above struck me, especially the phrase intrinsically possess. The fact that our rights are stated in the Bill of Rights doesn’t mean we actually have them. That’s why I’ve been writing and speaking so passionately about this subject. We think that because we’re Americans we have rights of free speech and all the rest. You look around you, though, and observe how government actually behaves, and you have to conclude that Americans don’t actually have those rights. If we did actually have them, government would not behave the way it does and get away with it.

The author is correct in this sense. We are in a time of transition, where we are in the process of losing our rights. The process accelerated immeasurably after 9/11. After ten years the process is far along, but not so far along that we are helpless to respond. The author suggests – and I agree with him – that if we don’t respond with common sense and vigor, we will find ourselves without rights and without the ability to regain them.

The article is well done. It’s written by an attorney, John Whitehead. He knows how to bring forward detailed evidence to support general points.