Story Archive

Less Tolerance for Zero Tolerance

A 14-year-old girl at an unnamed school in Pittsburgh, Pa., really did attack a boy, stabbing him in the neck with a pencil. Despite apparent provocation (the boy had grabbed her breasts and buttocks, the 14-year-old says, and threw a bottle cap at her), the Pittsburgh Public School District expelled her for a year for the attack, on the grounds that the pencil was a “weapon” that violated the district’s zero tolerance weapons policy. The girl’s parents took the case to a county court, and the judge reversed the suspension; the school appealed to the Commonwealth Court. There, Judge Patricia A. McCullough upheld the county judge. Even though the pencil was actually used as a weapon, the school district can’t automatically declare sharpened pencils are “weapons,” since if that were a valid definition, “then a classroom full of students taking a multiple choice exam would all be in violation of Rule No. 6 and, eventually, there would be no students in attendance at the school,” McCullough ruled. “Obviously, this result is patently unreasonable and absurd.” Further, she lectured, “We believe that any reasonable person looking at a pencil situated on a desk would not associate it with a ‘weapon,’ akin to a knife, rifle or explosive.” (RC/Harrisburg Patriot-News) ...If the standard is a “reasonable person” should judge things, the school district will need to hire someone.