A Stitch in Haste

What the Court got right — and missed altogether — in Safford and Ricci.

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Are teachers these days really such weaselly wimps that they must call the cops to subdue every smart-aleck (but utterly harmless) brat?

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For (sometimes literally) crying out loud, leave the cuffs in the holster and keep 8-year old kids out of Central Booking.

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Strip searches of students; the 14-year old "terrorist" sent to Guantanamo; the "Barney Fife" exception to the exclusionary rule.

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Students "do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate." Except when they do…
ITEM: When science class becomes "forensic science" class —
A science teacher at Comstock Middle School [in Dallas] is accused of trying to use a little bit of science to track down her missing belongings.
"She said some of the students [...]

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(Introductory note: Ten years later, and we still have to write pieces such as this. How sad…)
I found this hilarious:
For the last several years, the Religious Right has been complaining about GLSEN's annual "Day of Silence" in which students pledge to "be quiet all day to protest the discrimination, harassment and abuse — in effect, [...]

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To review: The high water mark in First Amendment protection of student speech was Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), which famously held, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
In the almost forty years [...]

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I completely misunderestimated the newsworthiness of the call by about 100 college presidents to begin a dialogue on the 21 drinking age:
The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the U.S. drinking age, which is among the highest in the world.
"This is a [...]

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Quick dispatches from here and there —
ITEM: The federal government continues its futile, warm-fuzzy-feeling efforts to censor the Internet in the name of "protecting children." The Child Online Protection Act, enjoined by the Supreme Court in Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656 (2004) (a/k/a "Reno II" — and yes that's "Reno" as in "Janet" [...]

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