TRI In The News
'Spit Wad' Decision Leaves a Scar
From One News Now
Original article available here
The Virginia Supreme Court has turned down a petition to rehear the case of a junior high student branded as a criminal for shooting spit wads in a school hallway.
The Rutherford Institute has been defending Andrew Mikel for two years after his 'spit wad' incident was deemed to be "violent criminal behavior" by school officials. They expelled Mikel for the remainder of the year and a Spotsylvania County Circuit Court upheld the disciplinary action. Rutherford president John Whitehead declares that the courts are hesitant to contradict school decisions.
“What we’re seeing is courts are very nervous about reversing school actions, which I think is a travesty because in these zero-tolerance cases we see kid’s lives ruined because of a minor incident like this,” he says.
If the family is willing to go forward, Whitehead says he would like to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in the potentially precedent-setting case.
“The U.S. Supreme Court could set the standard and say you need to look carefully at what you’re doing to these children’s lives, and that’s the issue here in many of these cases,” Whitehead contends. “Here is a young man whose father is a former Navy Seal -- good people -- and his academic career now has a huge cloud over it.”
According to reports, Young Mikel had set his sights on attending Annapolis Naval Academy. But Whitehead believes that is no longer an option because of the incident of blowing little plastic pellets out of the barrel of a fountain pen.
