TRI In The News
Lacrosse Players Off the Hook
From One News Now
Original article available here
The Maryland Board of Education has stepped in for two high school lacrosse players who were suspended last year as part of the school's zero-tolerance policy because they were in possession of what were deemed "deadly weapons."
Casey Edsall and Graham Dennis were suspended last year when school officials found a penknife and a lighter in their lacrosse bags, items they used for equipment repair. Nevertheless, The Rutherford Institute's John Whitehead says both students were charged; Graham was even handcuffed and fingerprinted.
"The facts are clear. The coaches knew they had this equipment, and they had tacitly approved it," Whitehead notes. "But they went ahead and arrested one of the children anyway. It doesn't make any sense."
The Rutherford Institute president believes the board's latest decision is a "victory of reason and fairness over the kind of hysterical, irrational exercise of authority that teaches children to fear those in power."
"What the … state school board saw here, this is just a school district that's gone amok, and I think they were tired of the bad public relations they were getting as well," the attorney offers. "But I think it's a really important victory in the sense that a state board of education actually saw the issues and reversed a local school board."
The Maryland Board of Education has ordered that the students' academic records be completely expunged of the incident.
