Zero Tolerance, Zero Intelligence: Indiana School Suspends Girl Who Touched a Pill

School officials in Jeffersonville, Indiana have suspended a middle school student for touching a pill in an act that stretches the zero tolerance policies to a new extreme. Rachael Greer was suspended because she was given a pill by another student and refused it. However, the school decided that, by holding the pill, it was “possession.”

I have written columns criticizing these zero tolerance policies (here), but this one takes the cake.

Greer was given the pill in a locker room at River Valley Middle School. The pills were the prescription ADHD drug, Adderall. She gave it back but, when the other girls were caught, the school decided that she was in technical “possession” of the pills. One of my greatest gripes in these cases is the bizarre interpretations of school officials who cloak draconian and nonsensical actions in quasi-legal rationales.

Janis Joplin missed how one pill makes you suspended:

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall

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