In Nanuet, New York, parents are irate after a second-grade teacher reportedly told her 7-year-old students that there is no Santa and that their parents leave the presents under the tree. In Chicago, the FOX Chicago news anchor Robin Robinson decided to make the case to a bigger audience and proclaimed on the news show that Santa was not real and parents should tell their kids that the presents come from them.
The New York comment was made by a teacher in her geography class at the George W. Miller Elementary School. She was apparently put out because students identified the North Pole as the home of Santa.
District Superintendent Mark McNeill released a brief statement stating “This matter is being addressed internally.” He seems unaware of the naughty and nice list, which is assembled outside of the school and has no administrative appellate remedy regardless of any controlling teacher union grievance procedure.
Over in my hometown of Chicago, Robinson was holding forth in a similar fashion:
“Stop trying to convince your kids that Santa is Santa.That’s why they have these high expectations. They know you can’t afford it, so what do they do? Just ask some man in a red suit. There is no Santa.”
This could be a new series “When Fox Anchors Attack!” for the network.
Parents speak of the emotional distress caused by these disclosures but there is really no legal remedy. It is not consider sufficiently outrageous and severe to be the basis of intentional or negligent emotional distress. As for straight negligence, the injury is too speculative since the same information generally is conveyed within a few years to the pool of injured parties. There are certain problems in life that, while emotionally harmful, are matters left best to adults to hash out. That only leaves the “list” and the visit by the fat man.
Here is the video of Robin Robinson. Do you think this should be actionable in some way?
Source: USA Today
FLOG THE BLOG: Have you voted yet for the top legal opinion blog? WE NEED YOUR VOTE! You can vote at HERE by clicking on the “opinion” category. Please take the time and help make us the top opinion blog this year.
Great goods from you, man. I’ve take note your stuff previous to and you are simply extremely magnificent. I really like what you have acquired here, really like what you are stating and the way in which wherein you say it. You are making it enjoyable and you still care for to stay it sensible. I can not wait to learn much more from you. This is actually a wonderful web site.
Carole,
Please stop being reasonable and rational, you’ll give theists a good name.
Bart Centre
aka Dromedary Hump “The Atheist Camel”
Why do I suddenly have the urge to have someone else, anyone else, clean my chimney?
Bart, As a ‘Believer’ I am appalled everytime I see the kids do the Christmas Pageant or sing the songs they are taught. Nothing but proselytizing and inculcating Beliefs that they are way too young to understand. At a certain age you give up Santa (most of us ((*_*)) ) but G-d has been so strongly implanted there is not much effort as adults to assess how true our faith really is (to us.) And to act in a way that the faith teaches rather then just give mouthplay to it.