It appears that the school officials at Bonners Ferry High School have learned to appreciate the concept of collective population punishment. After a series of faux bomb threats scrawled in the boy’s bathroom, school officials have placed large areas under continual surveillance and reportedly withheld food from all boys to try to prompt them to turn in the culprits.
Last year, the school had a wave of hoax threats. Two students were prosecuted and another was expelled as a result. After shutting down the school after someone scribbled something referring to a bomb, the school reportedly told parents that male students would be denied lunches since the boy’s bathroom was the scene of the scribbling.
I certainly understand the frustration of the school since this is the 11th such hoax. However, the article below reports that the school responded with collective punishment based on gender: all male students at the high school lost their lunchtime privileges for two days to put pressure on students to turn in their friends.
There are a number of problems. Starting with the least problematic, two days of bag lunches hardly seems likely to produce public condemnations or confessions. Second, why wouldn’t there also be a possibility that girls also know of the culprit? Third, in my day, denial of a school lunch would be a reward as a protection from Sloppy Joe overload.
Finally, and more importantly, the school is teaching students that collective punishment and coercions is a proper response to such problems. No individualized suspicion. No reasonable suspicion. Just collective punishment due to some clown who scribbled a thoughtless note on some bathroom stall.
However, Richard Conley, superintendent of the Boundary County School District insists “I think the message got sent. We’ve had a very, very good response from the student body.”
In case any of the “Badger Boys” are looking for authority, they may want to cite Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: “No persons may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” The association of collective punishment with terrorism is worth noting.
Moreover, I am bit surprised that the school can suspend school lunches, which are subject to state and federal law.
I am not saying that this is akin to the Germans taking out every tenth male for a firing squad in a French village for punishment for the activities of the Maquis in World War II. Two days of bag lunches is not a major punishment. However, the use of collective punishment sounds a terrible message to students about basic rights and due process.
What do you think?
Source: Spokesman
I think Nonny’s third paragaph gave me something to think about. That consequence hadn’t occurred to me – at all. It’s always these damn little things that trip you up if you keep gathering all the facts…
I used to live in the Idaho panhandle. The town is Bonners Ferry (not Bonners) which is the county seat of Boundary County. The next county south of that is Bonner County, county seat is Sandpoint. Remember Ruby Ridge from August 1992? That was in Boundary County, Idaho. Google is your friend for maps, as is Wikipedia.
I went to the Spokesman-Review’s web site, and you missed the point of the article in the last paragraph:
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“It puts a hardship on our first responders because they’re up here taking care of nothing when other things could be happening in the community,” he said. “And that’s what bothers me a lot: ‘Hey kid, do you understand that you may be costing somebody their life because you’re playing this kind of prank?’ ”
~~~~~
Stupid pranks cost taxpayer dollars and small communities who don’t take in that much in tax revenue can’t afford this nonsense (and Bonners Ferry is not a rich community). Given that the residents of the area remember Ruby Ridge and the reichwing nut jobs from 1992 (and likely some remain in the area), they take bomb threats seriously even though – logically – it’s probably stupid pranks by kids who just want to cut class for whatever petty reasons they dream up nowadays. Willful ignorance and refusal to learn infects the teenage populations as well as parents (who, if they were or are descendants of any of the Ruby Ridge offenders, are likely Tea Party types).
Almost certainly the boys brought bagged lunches so they were out nothing much at all, and they suffered no hardship.
IMHO, they should have made them clean up the graffiti and wash the entire bathroom, ceiling to floors (with toothbrushes) and repaint where necessary so the janitors wouldn’t have to clean up after these spoiled brats. Clearly, the boys (and girls, if they were involved) need to learn that when they make a mess and make empty threats they have to clean up the messes they leave behind and pay for the inconvenience they put adults through…, and if that means a group chastisement because of some misguided ‘code of silence,’ so be it. None of the kids would be physically harmed, but hopefully they’d be embarrassed enough to learn a lesson from their bad conduct (altho since they’ve done this several times, it doesn’t sound like they’d learn any lessons – their behavior is that of a kid who will do precisely what he/they want(s), come hell or high water, and no amount of punishment will teach him/them any lessons). If the school district and town and/or county and/or state law enforcement ever find out who pulled this crap, I hope they sue the parents for damages to school property and wasted wages for first responders, and actually punish the kids with being jailed in a juvenile detention facility on top of a fine and community service performing janitorial duties and cleaning up after other people – like others have had to clean up after them every time their acts of vandalism and terrorism have wasted other people’s time and money.
[In my day as a high school student in another state in the early 1960s, this kind of idiocy would have meant expulsion from school (and probably jail time if arrested and tried) since the ‘code of silence’ surrounding teenage wrongdoing wasn’t carried to silly extremes and someone would have told their parents or elder siblings who would have told parents and/or authorities at some point.]
Sounds like trick the Gestopo would use.
How did the rule out teachers, other staff and females? If a bomb threat was scrawled on the wall of the teachers lounge would the teachers be the suspects and have their coffee privileges taken away?
…and that explains so much about my psychosis.
Mr. Turley,
You dream of Due Process like… like… well, like this is America or something.
This reminds me of the doctrine that all of us are stained with “original sin.”
Lemme get this straight. I’m guilty because some woman ate a fruit, long ago? Nope, I’m not, sorry.
Collective guilt.
Something like this happened in parochial elementary school. Someone left a lot of paper littering the hallway.
Teacher said all of us had to do a very long, written verb conjugation as homework unless someone confessed.
I told him I wouldn’t do it, because I didn’t commit the crime.
I got some peer pressure, about that one.
I want to know if Bonners Whatever High School received permission from the University of Wisconsin to hijack the official image of Bucky Badger. And, if not, how many lunches will the Principal and School Board forfeit?
“However, the use of collective punishment sounds a terrible message to students about basic rights and due process.
What do you think?” -JT
What process is due?
This process is in our DNA now, placed there by the Machines.
We are Carbon Based Life in the fast lane of the Matrix y’all.
Conform or unplug.
Turn about is fair play. A bomb discerns no victims in its path, all in the school would suffer– even the girls. That is the problem with their solution. Those males need to get some balls and blow up the Principal’s home mailbox with some cherry bombs and in that regard his malebox as well.
I have several thoughts:
1. They should rename the place Richard Bruce Cheney High School.
2. This story reflects the Republican approach to SNAP. Concerned with fraud? Cut billions from the program until the fraud stops.
3. Or how about the now ubiquitous company lunchroom poster: The Daily Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.
Bonner’s Ferry is the only public high school in that district, the rest are private/alternative, has almost 500 students from around an area the size of Rhode Island and 37% of them get a free or reduced priced lunch so yeah, no lunch may be a bigger deal than it appears at first blush, that may be the best/only hot meal of the day for some. From their web site they seem to be a 4 day a week school, having to come to class on a Friday is pat of the disciplinary matrix.
http://high-schools.com/idaho/bonners-ferry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonners_Ferry_High_School
The High-schools dotcom site is interesting, all states and various specialized information that can be supplemented by going to the school’s website if it has one and Wikipedia if there is an entry.
If they were really serious they’d just waterboard them. This is weak sauce.
Looks like the Bonners Ferry school system is also guilty of a trademark violation. UW-Madison: Take note.
JT: “I am not saying that this is akin to the Germans taking out every tenth male for a firing squad in a French village for punishment for the activities of the Maquis in World War II.
Good, JT. I’LL say it then.
Their poor kids – YIKES, getting that stuff 24/7/365*!*
These school officials would be well qualified to work at a national security agency with that mindset:) They would fit in very well!
Reblogged this on Jesse Talks Back and commented:
A teacher with my sons school already does this…and I have loudly voiced my disapproval with the consent of many parents.
School administration is substituting ego for thinking.
Now that they have been called on their stupidity, they have decided to violate the first rule of holes (when in a hole, stop digging).
Sounds like the Bonners School officials have taken a page from the house speaker’s and Tea Party play book. Hostage taking–its not just for Congress anymore!