It’s not surprising that the Judge Rotenberg Center wanted to keep this video from public view. At this school for special-needs students, staff members tied down 18-year-old Andre McCollins and delivered 31 electric shocks to him over the course of 5 and a half hours. All the while, he screamed, called for help, and begged them to stop. What did Andre do to deserve this? He refused to take off his coat.
Andre and his mother are suing the center, alleging that the shocks caused him permanent psychological trauma. After viewing the video, I don’t see how anyone could think that what happened is acceptable. Lawyers for the school claim that they were just following a court-approved “treatment” plan. I don’t know whether that’s true, but there clearly is a problem if this is considered an appropriate treatment for anything. As psychiatrist Marc Whaley testified at the trial, ”There was ample evidence to show this treatment was harming that individual at that time and certainly not helping him…They’re treating him like an object.”
What is most disturbing to me is how Andre called for help, but the only authority figures around to help him were the ones who were administering the torture. The most important job of teachers, parents, and other adults who work with kids is to protect them from people who would violate their rights and harm them. I can barely imagine how powerless and betrayed a teenager would feel when subjected to torture at the hands of the very adults who are supposed to protect them, while having no one to answer their cries for help.
Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray is calling for a ban on shock “therapy.” I agree with this idea; no innocent person should be subjected to this type of suffering.
The Center got the video sealed 8 years ago, but this week at the trial, a judge allowed Fox 25 news to film it as it was played in court. If you have a strong stomach, watch and decide for yourself. Warning, the video is disturbing.
Shawn Stevens is in 7th grade at Dover Middle School, New Hampshire. He also has autism. And he loves his country…so much that he brought an American flag to school, which was given to him by a family friend whose son is about to serve in Afghanistan. School officials did not appreciate Shawn’s patriotism. They confiscated the flag, saying that it could be dangerous.
“This was a safety concern. It had nothing to do with the flag, it had to do with the size of the stick that the flag was on,” said the principal.
Shawn, I salute you for your patriotism! America (and the world) needs more kids like you.
Read the rest at My Fox Boston.
Clint Cornelius, 33, was sentenced to a year in jail today. His crime? Parking his car, with guns and ammunition inside, at Mount Holyoke College.
He was initially charged in 2007 with three counts of possession of a firearm without a license, six counts of possession of a large-capacity firearm, and possession of ammunition without a license. A student had seen the guns in the car and, even though they were not hurting anyone and are supposed to be protected by the Second Amendment, decided to alert campus police. The officers then searched his car. He and his lawyer challenged the search and sought the dismissal of the charges because Cornelius,who had recently moved to Massachusetts from Georgia, should have had 60 days to obtain firearms permits, but the Supreme Judicial Court rejected these arguments.
He agreed to plead guilty to the ammunition charge, and his lawyer and the prosecutor agreed to a sentence of one year in jail. The judge said that the sentence “causes me some pain,” and I agree with him. In fact, I would go so far as to say that sentencing Cornelius to jail is an injustice. Nothing that he did was the least bit immoral or violated anyone’s rights. There was no evidence that he planned to use the guns to cause anyone harm. To investigate, prosecute, and imprison him for having guns in his car is an utter waste of law enforcement resources, causes suffering to an innocent man, and benefits no one. Clint Cornelius did nothing wrong and deserves to be free.
Five elementary schools in Texas are getting a $2 million grant to install cameras to track everything students eat. Each tray, with a unique code, will be photographed when the student chooses their food and again when they are done eating, to see exactly what nutritional content they consumed. This would be an invasion of privacy even if the data was only aggregated for statistical purposes, but each student’s food consumption is tracked individually, and the information is reported to their parents! Yes, these are kids, not adults, and yes, a cafeteria is a public place, but this is going too far. Kids have privacy rights too, and the desire to improve nutrition and combat obesity should not make people forget about individual rights. People of all ages should be able to live their lives without having everything they do monitored and analyzed.
On Cinco de Mayo, two high school students in California wore American flag t-shirts to school. The principal told them to either take the shirts off or wear them inside out, calling them “incendiary.” Now the two boys and their parents are suing the school system, claiming that the school’s actions violated their constitutional rights:
Kendall and Joy Jones; John and Dianna Dariano, parents of Matthew Dariano; and Kurt and Julie Ann Fagerstrom, parents of Dominic Maciel, are asking a judge to rule that what happened May 5 at Live Oak violated the First and Fourteenth amendments, and that the school district’s policy regarding student speech is too vague.
The suit also asks for “nominal damages” and to award attorneys’ fees.
The Morgan Hill Unified School District, Live Oak Principal Nick Boden and Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez are named as the defendants.
Some people might call this lawsuit frivolous, but I think it has merit. No one should be banned from showing pride in their country, even during the holiday of another country. So many teenagers try to be cool and fit in at all costs that it’s a breath of fresh air to hear about teens showing their patriotism and standing up for what they believe in. It’s too bad that the Fourth of July doesn’t fall during the school year, because it would be interesting to see if the school allowed students to wear Mexican flag t-shirts on America’s holiday.
Complaint (PDF), thanks to KSBW-TV via the Examiner
This is creepy. A high school in Pennsylvania gave out laptops to its students and then allegedly spied on them at home by remotely activating the laptops’ webcams. One student’s parents are filing a class-action lawsuit against the school. According to CNN,
“The suit said that on November 11, an assistant principal at Harriton High School told the plaintiffs’ son that he was caught engaging in “improper behavior” in his home and it was captured in an image via the webcam. According to the Robbinses’ complaint, neither they nor their son, Blake, were informed of the school’s ability to access the webcam remotely at any time.”
It’s messed up that the technology would even exist to allow people to do this. There may be legitimate uses for remotely activating webcams (perhaps to find your laptop if you lost it) but computers that an organization gives out to people should not have this feature. No one should be able to unknowingly watch another person through their computer.
And I can’t believe that the assistant principal (allegedly) accused a student of wrongdoing for something he was doing at home! How on Earth is what someone does at home the school’s business?
If the allegations are true, the school officials’ actions amount to a violation of the 4th Amendment, since they essentially looked inside students’ homes without a warrant. According to lawyers from the ACLU and EFF, this might even be a criminal violation of federal wiretapping laws. I certainly hope that the school, if truly guilty, is held fully accountable for these egregious violations of students’ rights.
Did you hear about the 8-year-old boy who was ordered by his school to go to a psychologist because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross?
While there are many facts in dispute between the boy’s parents and school officials, there is no doubt in my mind that the school is in the wrong. The boy’s father said that he drew the cross when asked to draw something that reminded him of Christmas; the school denies that. It’s unclear whether the boy meant to draw himself or Jesus on the cross. The school says they didn’t actually suspend the boy but just forced him to have a psychological evaluation before he could return – seems like the same thing to me. They even disagree on whether the drawing the boy’s father has been showing to the media is the one the boy drew.
But even if you interpret the evidence in the way that is the most favorable to the school, what happened to this boy is unjust. It’s just like what I posted about last time – people need to let other people be. A school’s job is to teach kids facts about math, writing, grammar, history, science, computers, and other subjects. It shouldn’t be a school’s job to meddle in students’ lives or to push value judgments on them. Kids should be able to draw whatever they want, and teachers and superintendents shouldn’t psychoanalyze their drawings and send them to shrinks for anything different or unusual.
The father in this case has been criticized for being too willing to speak to the media and for demanding that the school reimburse his son for his suffering and pay for tuition to a private school since the boy is too traumatized to go back to the same school. But I agree with him! The school officials violated the boy’s rights and should compensate him for his suffering. I don’t blame him for wanting to go to a different school. Being singled out and sent to a psychiatrist would be traumatic, and drawing a picture, even if it is of yourself on the cross, does not merit that.
As Pink Floyd said, teachers need to leave kids alone! Schools should teach facts and skills, not psychoanalyze kids’ drawings and single them out for psychotherapy for every little thing. Kids should be able to express themselves without being labeled as mentally ill.
