SAN
DIEGO (AP) -- “Zero tolerance” policies in schools can be unfair, some lawyers
argue, because a student found with aspirin in his pocket can get suspended as
quickly as one with marijuana.
Leaders
of the 400,000-member American Bar Association probably will come out against
such rules at the close of their winter meeting, even though some schools say
lawyers were a big part of the reason for adopting zero tolerance policies.
“The ABA
is an organization that stands for fairness and justice, and many of the zero
tolerance policies around the country have been unfair and unjust to children,”
said Robert Schwartz, director of the Juvenile Law Center, a public interest
group in Philadelphia.
“The
problem is that children aren’t treated as individuals, but are treated the
same way no matter what they’ve done or who they are,” said Schwartz, a lawyer
who helped draft the recommended policy.
Opponents
of the policies at the ABA and in some civil liberties groups point to examples
they say show zero tolerance has run amok: The Pittsburgh kindergartner
disciplined in 1999 because his Halloween firefighter costume included a
plastic ax, and the Cobb County, Ga., sixth-grader suspended last year because
the 10-inch key chain on her Tweety bird wallet is considered a weapon.
School
districts say parents often demand the policies and most parents like them
unless their own child is targeted.
Tony
Arasi, assistant superintendent in Cobb County in suburban Atlanta, said zero
tolerance works well, although he acknowledged cases like the Tweety wallet “can
look ugly.”
“We say
it treats all students the same based on what they did, not who they are,”
Arasi said.
The
policies came about partly because schools faced lawsuits charging that principals
disciplined unequally based on race or other factors, Arasi said.
Having a
universal policy on paper protects schools from lawsuits by eliminating a lot
of the arbitrary nature of school discipline, he said.
“Those
people saying zero tolerance leads to unfairness in serious discipline may want
to go back 10 or 15 years to before most districts had zero tolerance,”” Arasi
said. “They were saying there was unfairness then. It’s come full circle.”
Once in
place, the policies also help protect against lawsuits from parents charging
the school did not do enough to keep students safe, or from complaints that
individual punishments did not fit the offense.
“In a way
it can be very appealing for school administrators who don’t want
pressure
from parents ... for coming down hard,” said Judy Seltz, director
of
planning and communication for the American Association of School
Administrators.
“The administrator can say, ‘I had no choice, my hands are
tied.””
Seltz’s
organization has no position on zero tolerance policies, preferring to leave the
choice to local school officials.
It is
hard to gauge the monetary effect of the policies for lawyers, and an ABA
spokeswoman, Nancy Slonim, said the draft policy has nothing to do with money.
Lawyers
made money suing school districts before zero tolerance, and they can make
money representing disgruntled parents now. Lawyers also represent children
referred to court through zero tolerance policies, although Slonim said there
is not much money in that.
“The ABA
isn’t being asked to look at it as a fee-generating matter. It’s being proposed
as a fairness issue,” she said.
Zero
tolerance policies typically address drugs, weapons or violence in schools.
They are adopted locally, although same states have laws that all but require
school districts to have such rules.
Many if
not most of the nation’s approximately 14,000 school districts have some kind
of zero tolerance rules.
The
policies vary, but most set out automatic punishments for various offenses that
range from reprimands to suspensions to criminal prosecution.
As a
practical matter, the proposed ABA policy would have no legal effect on individual
school districts. Advocates of the policy hope it will prompt schools to
reevaluate the policies.
On the
Net:
American
Bar Association: http://www.abanet.org/