We have been discussing the trend toward suspending and expelling students (and teachers) for comments that they make on social media (here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Teachers and administrators have been criminalizing juvenile conduct rather than dealing with such issues with the students and their teachers. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has issued an opinion upholding one of the most ridiculous examples of the criminalization of our schools. The Tenth Circuit said that Albuquerque school officials and police were justified in ordering the arrest of 13-year-old boy who was burping in class. The Tenth Circuit ruled that the school officials and police officer were entitled to immunity for their excessive response to what was at worst a class clown.
The Tenth Circuit simply held that a New Mexico law prohibits anyone from interfering with the education process — an interpretation that would seem to allow any school prank or immature act from being charged as a crime.
In this case, you had a class clown in the seventh grade at Albuquerque’s Cleveland Middle School. The teacher, Margaret Mines-Hornbeck, reported to officer Arthur Acosta that the boy was disrupting the class by continually burping in class. The boy was taken to an administrative office. In addition to the burping incident, the child was also searched for possible drugs. The assistant principal suspected the teen of involvement in a marijuana transaction and told him to remove his shoes and jeans, and flip the waistband of a pair of shorts he was wearing under his jeans. No drugs were found.
The son was then suspended for the remainder of the year which seems an absurd response in itself to such a juvenile act. Then, however, they proceeded to charge him criminally.
The provision itself is breathtakingly vague and could cover virtually any childish act. Subsection (D):
“No person shall willfully interfere with the educational process of any public or private school by committing, threatening to commit or inciting others to commit any act which would disrupt, impair, interfere with or obstruct the lawful mission, processes, procedures or functions of a public or private school.”
N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-20-13(D). The Tenth Circuit readily embraced the virtually limitless scope of this crime:
We believe the text of N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-20-13(D) manifests the New Mexico legislature’s intent to prohibit a wide swath of conduct that interferes with the educational process. The statute renders unlawful, inter alia, the commission of “any act which would . . . interfere with” or “disrupt” school functioning and, thereby, “interfere with the educational process.” N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-20-13(D) (emphasis added). The common meaning of the word “any” is, inter alia, “one no matter what one” and “some no matter how great or small”). . . .
The ordinary meaning of these statutory terms would seemingly encompass
F.M.’s conduct because F.M.’s burping, laughing, and leaning into the classroom stopped the flow of student educational activities, thereby injecting disorder into the learning environment, which worked at cross-purposes with Ms. Mines- Hornbeck’s planned teaching tasks. More to the point, we cannot conclude that the plain terms of subsection (D) would have given a reasonable law-enforcement officer in Officer Acosta’s shoes fair warning that if he arrested F.M. for engaging in his classroom misconduct he (i.e., the officer) would be violating F.M.’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from an arrest lacking in probable cause.
What do you think?
Here is the decision: Tenth Circuit Opinion
Blame it on mom’s home cooking…..Pasta Fagioli
Cannellini beans, garlic & broccoli rabe. Cleared out a class room & never got caught.
Would this be considered as interfering with the education process? Would mom’s home cooking be a crime?
ALL Readers of the blog should take time out today to call the Clerk of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and when they answer, state the name of the case and then burp!
This is an example of why Americans are taking the kids out of school and “home schooling”.
If I lived in that town I would go to school board meetings and burp and go by the Principal’s office and FART!
The case load must be slow for these justices. I guess they needed a little job security boost.
Glad to see the taxpayers’ dollars are being properly utilized from the local level on up.
Aren’t teachers and staff members being trained currently across the country with crisis prevention strategies that START off with deescalation?
What do they do when a kid has a gun, call in the National Guard?
@peltonrandy : ” This said, the majority of schools – of which there are more than 90,000 – are providing their students an adequate or above education. ”
Meanwhile…
” According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can’t read. That’s 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t read. ”
Clearly, the government schools are doing a GREAT job when 1/5 American HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES is UNABLE TO READ. Sorry… an “adequate or above” job….
All the parent had to do for this child, who probably exhibited anti-social behaviors many times prior to this, is to get him qualified for special education, specifically as “emotionally disturbed”, then he could sit in class and burb all day and no teacher, principal, or law could touch him unless he physically harmed someone. and even then, years of chances are given before expulsion so the school’s can’t get sued by parents who didn’t raise their kids.
I don’t know all the facts but I am pretty sure “burping” couldn’t be the only thing that led to his expulsion.
It has become impossible to teach in the United States (having taught in 3 different coasts).
@1EarthUnited
Fahrenheit 451 — we should all re read the book and re watch the film.
@Graciela Huth
I agree with your assessment of the decline of education. The standardized testing regime has driven many fine educators out of teaching along with many other factors. The late great Neil Postman wrote a lot about the changes in education. A few years ago I sat down with my niece to help her study for her social studies class — the material was wrong, but when I brought it up to my sister her response was “who cares? she needs to pass the test” Pathetic!!
Reblogged this on 1EarthUnited and commented:
Home schooling is looking better than ever. Here’s a living example of George Orwell’s 1984 .
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
While I agree there existed probable cause to arrest, we find in this case a complete lack of permissible discretion on the part of the school and the SRO. The ensuing ordeal was a complete waste of criminal justice resources. The child might have prior history of problems but arresting the child for what should be a standalone act should be irrespective of the past.
We need to examine what the spirit of the law is with juveniles. Offenses committed by juveniles are prosecuted as delinquency whereas adults are as crimes. The spirit for juvenile justice means that age and deference factor in toward rehabilitation and that juvenile offenders may be corrected into adhering to society’s expectations. Prosecuting a juvenile for transgressions typical of naughty boys of the defendant’s age as crimes breaks the spirit of the juvenile justice system. I have to wonder what the legislative intent was of the crime for which the state prosecuted the boy. The statute seems to be more of an analogue of a Disorderly Conduct crime than a misbehaving child. Discretion involves having the ability to differentiate between the two.
As I have said for years, it is the Stupid Stuff that often mushrooms into a protracted ordeal. This case is archetypical of this.
Reading the opinion substantiates what I had assumed…..this wasn’t just an isolated incident of kid burping in class to get a few laughs, but rather a kid who appears to be out-of-control; disruptive, dealing drugs, gang attire, and to make matters worse, no father in the home and a mother who enables his bad behavior by being combative and uncooperative with school officials. He’s only 13, but appears to be on a one-way street to adult prison. Probably his only hope would be to remove him from his mother’s custody and place him with responsible foster parents for his remaining teen years, but unfortunately there just aren’t enough available to meet the demand.
@Sqeek,
SERIOUSLY? you of all people are for punishing the class clown? I think you just wanna push sticks in eyeballs =) Cause YOU my friend are a classic prankster (like me, I might add).
Cheers!!
@PeltonR
The law says: “No person shall willfully interfere with the educational process of any public or private school by committing, threatening to commit or inciting others to commit any act which would disrupt, impair, interfere with or obstruct the lawful mission, processes, procedures or functions of a public or private school.”
I mean, “committing any act” gives some pretty wide latitude. Plus, you weren’t there. You don’t know how disruptive this kid was. I doubt he burped twice and got arrested. He was probably a smart a$$, and this was not his first rodeo.
In the old days, a principal, or teacher would just spank his bottom, or whomp him with a belt. But, schools have eschewed techniques that work for a bunch of namby-pamby mumbo-jumbo time-out crap, and “Don’t you feel really bad about what you did???” stuff.
Sooo, i say arrest the little twerp, and let his parents have to to hire a lawyer, and pay his bail, and maybe they will get mad enough to clobber him!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@Gracieia
“The quality of our children’s education has been going down for a long time.”
Evidence please. Posting a link to what appears to me to be a website devoted to one of the many ridiculous conspiracies about of education system is not adequate. I was a teacher for 22 years. I know for a fact that your statement is a gross exaggeration. There are problems. There are school districts that are doing a poor job. But there are numerous school districts around the country that are doing an excellent job of educating their students. As far as solving what problems may be afflicting schools in the country, fixing them isn’t likely to happen without adopting some form a nationalized approach. Given that our system of education is based on local control of education, and that there are over 13,000 school districts, fixing any problems won’t come easily without some form of coordinated national approach. This said, the majority of schools – of which there are more than 90,000 – are providing their students an adequate or above education. Many school districts and individual schools are providing students an excellent education. I worked in one of those districts in my home state. It is unfair to give the impression that the whole system is failing.
@PeltonRandy
On the other hand, the more I think about it, this is probably a good law. Teachers have enough problems trying to keep order, and they need a broad law to cover all sorts of disruptive behavior. My goodness, but the kids are coming out of high school (and even college) as dumb as a bag of hammers.
Perhaps arresting this one class clown, will scare crap out of all the other class clowns. In which case, this would have been a good object lesson. The legislature passed the law for a reason.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@Squakey
“…not having fair warning that burping didn’t violate the substance of the law.”
Seriously. You don’t think that a person of reasoned judgement would have or should have said, “Wait a minute, you want me to arrest him because he was burping in class?” The officer as well as the school administrators showed a serious lack of judgement here, not to mention everyone up the chain who pursued this as a criminal offense. What are we coming to if we allow the standard of “a good faith arrest” to lead to such idiociy?
If anybody does want to know what is going with our public school system, please go to:
deliberatedumbing down.com
There you will find all the answers. I hope that the American people become aware that something is very wrong. The quality of our children’s education has been going down for a long time.
I think those justices have lost their minds. Any reasonable person should be able to see how ludicrous was the reaction to this student’s burping. I was a high school teacher for 22 years. This decision shocks my sensibilities. It would never occur to me to criminalize burping in the classroom. The law that permitted this instance of inanity needs at the very least to be rewritten, preferably repealed.
First, Hallelujah! The Tenth Circuit uses Word Perfect!
Second, the case was not as dumb as it sounds. The officer basically made a “good faith” arrest, not having fair warning that burping didn’t violate the substance of the law. This is not the same thing as saying that burping does violate the law, or that burping should constitute a violation.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Not directly related, but start with eliminating the Federal Dept. of Education is a good start for improving education. President Carter invented this Cabinet position as a reward to the Teacher’s Union for helping him get elected.
Since that Cabinet position, is US education improved, degraded, or stayed the same? I know, it’s a tough question, right?
Hint: the right answer begins with “d,” as in “devil.”