We have yet another example of school administrators opposing a child over innocent behavior. We have followed the zero tolerance lunacy that has taken hold of schools across the country on guns and drugs where kids are suspended for finger guns or aspirin. We have seen that same blind, senseless application of rules regarding contacts between students including suspending teenagers seen exchanging a kiss. Now a six-year-old boy has been suspended for kissing a girl on the hand as a sexual harasser. That’s right, officials in Canon City, Colorado have nailed a six-year-old sexual harasser under its zero tolerance rules. Hunter Yelton admits that he has a crush on a girl at school and, during a reading group, he leaned over and kissed her on the hand.” That is when he was nailed as a serial harasser by the administrators at Lincoln School of Science and Technology in Canon City.
What is interesting is that the news reports indicate that the girl did not object to the kiss on the cheek. Of course, that is what all six-year-old sexual harassers say.
However, the school officials insist that sexual harassment is sexual harassment and this six-year-old’s sexual predatorial conduct will no longer be tolerated. Of course there is another possibility: that adults are taking their own issues and perceptions into schools and distorting innocent behavior. I have no problem with calling in the parents and raising the issue. However, a suspension for sexual harassment?
School officials insist that the boy has had disciplinary problems, but the use of a sexual harassment rule still seems bizarre and excessive. Yet, District superintendent Robin Gooldy stands by the suspension and insists that this is unwanted touching and that Hunter needed to be stopped.
The solution of these adults is to put sexual harassment on the record of a six-year-old boy. Once again, a kiss on the hand is less disturbing than the response of these supposed adults to a kiss on the hand. Even if you do not consider such a gestures as adolescent chivalry or innocent conduct, it is not sexual harassment by any reasonable definition of that word. From the interview below, I fail to see a budding serial harasser or porn star in the making. I see a kid who may need boundaries but that is the same problem that I see in the school administrators.
Here is the little harasser and the little harasser’s mother in a local interview:
Source:
School drops sexual harassment claim against 6-year-old who kissed girl:
Amid a tidal wave of negative publicity, a Colorado school system has let a 6-year-old boy return to school and said it won’t classify his kissing a girl on the hand as sexual harassment.
The story of first-grader Hunter Yelton made national news and spurred outrage this week after word spread that his school near Colorado Springs suspended him for the kiss and accused him of sexually harassing the girl.
We have a new puppy in the dogpac. He is a Labrador. The dogpac has decided that his name is: SockMonkeyDog. They cannot read the blog here (actually hear it grunted out in dogalogue) because the Dogalogue Machine is still broken. I explained the Sock Monkey story to them and they jumped on the name for newguy.
These administrators should be fired .
As a teacher and administrator I am ashamed tbat the profession has such dim Wit’s in it.
The school was perturbed that the boy behaved in a gentlemanly way. They would have preferred the students having oral sex, or same-sex relations, or even student-faculty relations. But NEVER tradtional boy-girl courting behavior. No, no, NO!
Nice touch Dredd, pun intended. 🙂
Very timely Dredd!
In actuality, the kid was probably playing follow the leader.
Hmmm … perhaps the boy’s mother should contact a lawyer. -Blouise
Yep.
———
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rutherford_institute_sues_maryland_school_over_wrongful_suspension_of_lacro
Rutherford Institute Sues Maryland School Over Wrongful Suspension of Lacrosse Players for Possession of Deadly Weapons (Penknife, Lighter)
December 11, 2013
BALTIMORE, Md. — Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of two former high school lacrosse players who were suspended for possessing “deadly weapons,” namely a penknife and a butane lighter, which were found in their lacrosse bags. Although it was understood that the tools were used by the boys to maintain their lacrosse equipment, the police were called and one player was actually handcuffed, fingerprinted and charged with possession of a deadly weapon. In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for Maryland, Institute attorneys allege that the Board of Education of Talbot County and several school officials violated Graham Dennis and Casey Edsall’s constitutional right to due process by suspending them from Easton High School on the basis that the tools constituted “dangerous weapons,” as well as their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
“By majoring in minors, as it were, treating all students as suspects and harshly punishing kids for innocent mistakes, the schools are setting themselves and their students up for failure—not only by focusing on the wrong individuals and allowing true threats to go undetected but also by treating young people as if they have no rights, thereby laying the groundwork for future generations that are altogether ignorant of their rights as citizens and unprepared to defend them,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, which examines the impact of school zero tolerance policies in shaping young people’s ideas about personal freedom. “Thus far, the courts have done little to improve conditions for young people who are the unfortunate casualties in the schools’ so-called quest for ‘student safety.’ It is our hope that this case will be the tipping point to reverse that trend.” continues…
“…The Rutherford Institute’s complaint in Dennis and Edsall v. Board of Educ. of Talbot County”
https://www.rutherford.org/files_images/general/12-11-2013_Edsall_Complaint.pdf
Here’s a further report from the Associated Press on the Canon City suspension of the 6 year old.
In this article a child psychologist, Sandy Wurtele, is quoted as saying that kissing is normal behavior for children of that age and how surprised she is that the school suspended him. “That really gives mixed messages, negative messages to the kids,” she said. “This part of development is just as important if not more than their academic subjects.”
Hmmm … perhaps the boy’s mother should contact a lawyer. 👿
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_KISSING_SUSPENSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
He will be tried as an adult and receive the appropriate punishment. I addition, he will register as a sex offender for the rest of his adult life. Is there a problem?
Breaking news on a somewhat related subject. This was posted just a few minutes ago on Raw Story:
The rest of the story at this link.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sen-alexander-chief-of-staff-s-residence-searched-in-child-porn-case
Well the ole adage is still true….. When a man has a girlfriend… He is complete….. When he makes her his wife he is finished…. When the wife finds out about the girlfriend…. He is completely finished…..
It happened to a deaf child named Hunter:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13531342-deaf-childs-sign-language-name-looks-too-much-like-gun-parent-says-school-told-him
The kid’s name is “Hunter”?! I’m surprised those morons didn’t try to nail him for some sort of gun violence as well.
On a side issue, did this principal really have no clue how her decision could go viral on the internet? Did she know and just not care? Her overall judgement seems to be seriously impaired.
Otteray Scribe,
Thanks for the explanation. It seems like some of these school officials have been transported from a 1692 Puritan community.
Simms,
It is called projection. That is when one’s own suppressed feelings and urges are projected onto another. I am not sure there is any foundation in the scientific literature for a blanket assessment of the adult as pedophile, but I do think there is a reasonable possibility of sexual hangups of one kind or another.
The alternative explanation may be that a rigid, concrete-minded authoritarian personality will take the rules literally and enforce them in the most literal fashion imaginable. Unfortunately, we have all too many like that working in positions of authority over other people.
Blouise nailed it. A Choice was available and the school made the moronic one.
I recall reading that if an adult tries to attribute sexual motivations to a young child, it could be a sign that the adult is a pedophile. I haven’t been able to find the article, so maybe one of the psychologists here could comment.