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<p>AURORA (MyFOXColorado.com) - An 11-year-old in Aurora says his first amendment rights are being trampled after he was suspended for wearing a homemade shirt that reads "Obama is a terrorist's best friend."</p> <p>The fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School wore it on a day when students were asked to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism.</p>

The citizens of the world who hate America are going to love the latest agitprop released this week by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. In a document titled "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools," the left-wing groups seek to paint a horrifying portrait of the nation's classrooms as Abu Ghraib-like torture chambers. The report compiles sob stories of students humiliated after being disciplined by school officials for unruliness, and claims that minority students are "disproportionately targeted" for punishment. Citing international law and threatening lawsuits, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU are...

WASHINGTON – Paddlings, swats, licks. A quarter of a million schoolchildren got them last year — and blacks, American Indians and kids with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, according to a study by a human rights group. Even little kids can be paddled. Heather Porter, who lives in Crockett, Texas, was startled to hear her little boy, then 3, say he'd been spanked at school. Porter was never told, despite a policy at the public preschool that parents be notified. "We were pretty ticked off, to say the least. The reason he got paddled was because he...

Jonathan King told teachers at his north Georgia alternate public school that he couldn’t stand being locked within the four concrete walls of a small seclusion room. In 2004, just weeks after threatening suicide, the 13-year-old eighth-grader hanged himself in the room, using a cord a teacher provided him to hold up his pants, court records show. Now, four years later, as the Alpine Program in Gainesville starts its new school year, Jonathan’s parents are suing the program and the agency that oversees it. Don and Tina King of Murrayville, just outside Gainesville, say the treatment their son received at...

HOW far should a school go in disciplining an unruly student? And what responsibility do parents bear for that youngster’s behavior? These are issues that American educators and parents perpetually wrestle with, and they have been debated around Westchester recently because of two incidents that have received attention not just in coffee shop chitchat but also in the news media. In early June, a trustee of Ardsley’s school board resigned after other middle school parents expressed outrage at her 14-year-old son’s behavior. They accused him of bullying children and repeatedly threatening violence, including a massacre and bombing, and blamed the...

Thank the Calvinists for one of the most thoughtfully provocative moments of the 2008 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. (Of course, if you’re a Calvinist, you’ll say: “No, thank God. That moment was preordained from before the foundation of the world.” Just a little theological humor.) The moment happened while messengers considered the sixth of nine resolutions they passed this year. Resolution Six addressed “regenerate church membership and church member restoration.” It exhorted churches and pastors to “implement a plan to minister to, counsel and restore wayward church members based upon the commands and principles given in Scripture.” But Tom...

June 26, 2008 STATEMENT REGARDING THE CANONICAL DISCIPLINE OF SISTER LOUISE LEARS, S.C. After a canonical process of several months, Archbishop Raymond Burke has, today, decided the case of Sister Louise Lears, S.C., a member of the “pastoral team” at Saint Cronan Parish, who was accused of four delicts, all connected with her encouragement of, promotion of and participation in the attempted ordination of two women to the Sacred Priesthood at a local synagogue in November of last year. Delicts, which must be published in the Church, are grave and external violations against the Catholic faith or moral teaching. A...

A police review shows that New Zealand's new anti-spanking law has not reduced the number of physical abuse cases against children, but it has deterred good parents from properly disciplining their children. The report is the result of a three month review that took place directly after the passing of the bill and a separate three month review which was initiated six months later. New Zealanders are today presenting parliament with a petition calling for the law to be struck down. Family First NZ National Director Bob McCoskrie explained that the police review, which shows an almost 300% jump in...

The youth and his lawyer Edward Paltzik say the charges are trumped up. In fact, Paltzik insists that teacher Sharon Cantante, like Gilda Radner's Lisa Loopner on the old "Saturday Night Live" skit, didn't mind getting a few noogies from the boys. "She had this very bizarre tendency to invite students to give her noogies," Paltzik claimed. "This teacher has a history of encouraging noogie behavior." The teen is taking his case to the state Appellate Division. The Mirenberg camp showed a photo of the eighth-grade teacher smiling broadly while absorbing a male student's noogie. The 39-year-old divorcee seems completely...

In Minnesota, three government high school seniors were suspended and banned from graduation ceremonies for a prank involving Confederate flags. The principal says they were suspended for violating the school district's anti-discrimination rules. The Bloomington Kennedy High School says that three male students brought the flags onto school property. They were apparently suspended after "carrying and waving" the flags in the parking lot as parents and students arrived at school. Something tells me there is more to this story. Ok, here we have a government school that has suspended some students for bringing a freaking flag on school grounds. There...

At least one of the Bloomington Kennedy High School students suspended Tuesday, June 3, for displaying a Confederate flag had been warned about doing so after an earlier incident. Rick Kaufman, Bloomington Public School's executive director of communications, said three students who participated in the flag display have been suspended and won't be permitted to take part in Kennedy's graduation ceremony tonight, June 4, at Target Center in Minneapolis. At least one of the suspended students had been warned against displaying the flag following a previous incident, said Kaufman. He declined to give details but said the student must have...

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) ― Flying the Confederate flag has long been controversial in Southern states but now it's causing a heated debate at Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn. Three seniors who displayed the flag will not be allowed to attend their graduation ceremony Wednesday evening. "It was sitting like that in the parking lot," said Justin Thompson, as he held a Confederate flag that was hanging from a pole inside a pick-up truck bed. On Tuesday, three seniors, each with a rebel flag on the back of their pick-ups, parked at Kennedy High School. "I'm just a country type...

A 12-year-old 6th-grader in Hutchinson, Minn., committed to an unusually brave mission for the month of April: he intended to wear T-shirts with a pro-life message to his middle school every day for a month. His courage, however, was met with resistance. According to the boy's attorney, his principal and teachers told him "not to wear the T-shirts, publicly singled him out for ridicule in front of his classmates, removed him from class, sent him to the principal's office, forced him to turn his pro-life T-shirt inside out, and threatened him with suspension if he did not stop wearing the...

Three high school seniors have been barred from Bloomington Kennedy High School's graduation ceremony tonight at Target Center because of what the school district is calling a prank involving Confederate flags. Rick Kaufman, a spokesman for the Bloomington School District, said three male students brought the flags onto school property Tuesday morning. He said they were suspended after "carrying and waving" the flags in the parking lot as parents and students arrived at the school. Bloomington Kennedy senior Kellie Rezac is a friend of the three boys and helped organize a protest outside the school earlier today. Rezac said the...

Three seniors at Bloomington Kennedy High School will not be allowed to walk in their graduation ceremony after driving to school with confederate flags flying from their trucks. Seventy-five other students showed up at the school Wednesday morning to protest the action taken by the school against Justin Thompson, Joey Snyder and another student. "I figured, you know, we’re seniors, it’s the last day of school…we didn’t mean any offense by it," Thompson said. Added Snyder: "We didn’t look at it as racist or anything." But school officials feel that flying a confederate flag violates the school’s student conduct policy....

Three Minnesota Junior High Students Suspended for Not Standing During Pledge Saturday , May 10, 2008 AP DILWORTH, Minn. — Fourteen-year-old Bishop Edens was suspended from school Friday because he wouldn't stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, but he was quickly invited back once his principal learned that rule might be unconstitutional. The back-and-forth came on the second day of controversy at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High over the school's policy of requiring students to stand — but not necessarily recite — during the pledge. Edens saw three of his classmates get disciplined by Principal Colleen Houglum on Thursday, so he decided...

Did school officials react properly to students who did not stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Whitehouse, OH (LifeNews.com) -- High school students in a Toledo suburb were threatened with having to skip prom and other senior graduation events if they didn't remove their pro-life T-shirts. A group of students had planned to draw attention to the destruction of human life in abortion until school officials got upset. The students wore matching T-shirts with the message, "Abortion is homicide" but the April 21st coordinated event drew the ire of school administrators.Kristen Norman told WTOL-TV the Anthony Wayne High School students were ready to stand up for their free speech rights until school officials kept adding more...

A Texas service member and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water and hundreds of miles, but by a teacher who tried to come between the two as the military dad called his son in his time of need during class.

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child is an axiom that Democratic Assemblywoman Sally Lieber apparently doesn’t recognize. She apparently believes that because spanking “Could Lead to” child abuse, that spanking should be done away with altogether. Let me ask you this Sally, Should every potential ‘gateway’ activity then be made illegal by our government? Should sugar be made illegal because it gives a child a buzz if too much is taken in, which ‘could then lead’ to a desire to experience more intense highs later on? Should alcohol be outlawed because it ‘could lead to’ a desire to use...

6-Year Old Boy Accused of Sexual HarassmentKindergarten student's father fears his son will be stereotyped as a "pervert" Friday, Apr 04, 2008 - 08:05 AM The father says his son brought home a discipline referral that says the child told his teacher that one of his classmates liked looking at her behind. A six-year old boy is accused of sexually harassing a teacher in Greer. The kindergarten student is now facing possible discipline. Malory Pinkney, Sr. says his son came home Tuesday in tears from Skyland Elementary. His father is a minister and says his child has been accused of...

Arizona Hug Ban by: Deborah Lambert, March 20, 2008 First there was the ban on hugs and high-fives at a Fairfax County, Virginia middle school last year that resulted in a flap over a 13-year-old male student, putting his arm around his girlfriend while walking down the school corridor. This year, the Mesa, Arizona school district caused a campus uproar by enacting its own hug ban. Seeking to calm the storm, The local TV news channel (TV News 5) reported that school officials sought to calm the storm by brokering an agreement with the students that allowed hugs of two...

Have you heard the story of Amanda Rouse? Amanda is a government high school student in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District in Seaside, California. One morning, 15-year-old Amanda wasn't feeling well on her bus ride to school. So she decided to stay on the bus as it picked up elementary school students, and then the driver would take her home. While the bus driver was driving the elementary school route, she fell out of seat at a sharp turn and hit her head. The bus started hitting parked cars on the side of the road. So Amanda hopped into...

Even if Hillary Clinton had wrapped up the Democratic party nomination for president on Super Tuesday in early February as most expected her to do, the problem of what to do with Florida and Michigan delegates would have remained. That’s because the Democratic National Committee, in what might be termed a fit of pique, took away all of those states’ delegates as a result of their violation of primary scheduling rules (while also preventing candidates from campaigning in those states). At the time this occurred, I couldn’t have been the only observer who wondered how a national party could disenfranchise...

Sweet smoking Judas, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Mesa Public Schools has instituted a No Hugging Policy? A group of Shepherd Junior High School students in east Mesa protested a new school policy banning student hugs with a giant group hug on Friday. Students waited until school was dismissed before gathering across the street from the campus to begin hugging each other and then chanting, "We want hugs." Some kids sat on the shoulders of their friends during the display. The public display of affection and chanting came at 3:45 p.m. and lasted about 20 minutes. Neither principal Eileen Cahoon...

Shepherd Junior High School student Yolanda Ascencio, 14, (center) hugs a friend outside the school in Mesa. Laura Segall, For the Tribune Hugs are OK if they are one-armed or last less than two seconds at Mesa’s Shepherd Junior High School. A new crackdown on public displays of affection was clarified by principal Eileen Cahoon on Friday after students protested her ban on hugging in the hallways. After school, about 100 kids gathered, chanting, “We want hugs.” Camera crews and reporters descended on the scene. The police were called in order to contain the students to the sidewalks. “It...

At lunch recently, a father of four who works in publishing told me he occasionally gives his children "a clip around the ear". The threat of minor violence, he said, was the fastest way to get his brood into the people carrier if they were all to get out of the house on time. It wasn't so much the fact that this otherwise modern thirtysomething father would slap his children that shocked me, but the fact that he spoke about it so openly. A decade ago, he might have been worried that I'd call social services - or at least...

LOVELAND, Colo. — Five wrestlers from a Loveland middle school are being suspended for what district officials call a "nasty" incident aboard a school bus. Authorities say some of the wrestlers from Walt Clark Middle School touched their own genitals and buttocks on the bus last week, then put their hands on some teammates' faces. Thompson School District spokesman Wes Fothergill says officials hope the two-day suspension will help the students understand how inappropriate their actions were. The offending students also will not be able to wrestle for a week. Fothergill says some coaches were on the bus, but they...

The parents of all 2,550 Palm Bay High School students received a phone call informing them that their child was due for weekend detention. No, there was no coordinated uprising at the school. An accidental push of a button sent the automated call to the homes of the entire student body instead of the intended 16. One parent didn't believe her son's protests that he had done nothing wrong and took him to school Saturday morning anyway. When they learned of the glitch, Amy Stewart took her son Jimmy to breakfast to make up for it. Assistant superintendend Steve Muzzy...

Mother Makes Son Hold Sign In Front Of School To Teach Him A Lesson POSTED: 8:30 am EST February 7, 2008 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Jacksonville boy received a very public punishment from his mother after getting in trouble in class. The boy had to stand across the street from his school with a sign that read: "I was rude to my teacher. I can't come to school. I'm sorry." The second grader's mom said she wanted to teach her son that there were consequences for making bad choices.

Police in Laramie, Wyo., Cite Teen Girls Who Threw French Fries for 'Hurling Missiles' Friday, February 01, 2008 LARAMIE, Wyo. — Three 13-year-old girls accused of throwing french fries during lunchtime at their school were cited for "hurling missiles," an adult infraction covered by city ordinances. The principal of Laramie Junior High and a police officer had warned students during an assembly the day before the french fries' launch that if they threw food, they had to suffer the consequences, Police Chief Bob Deutsch said. The warning came after school officials had heard rumors of an impending food fight. "They...

A student has been threatened with a 3-day suspension from school for bringing to campus, and using, a pen with the corporate logo of the Glock company, a large stylized "G" with the letters "lock" inside. Cooler heads eventually prevailed, and the father reports that he was successful in convincing the school officials to not only withdraw the threat, but also the formal reprimand that already had been placed in his son's educational file. Note: Read the complete article to find out how all this got started and the great response from the father, including what he has to say...

Janine Butler, a 28-year-old New Jersey teacher, knows something about out-of-control students. One girl threw objects, threatened Butler with knives and tried to bite her. Another boy was "just rude, rude, rude," pulling down his pants and swearing at her. The final straw came when another student scratched and hit her. Butler's students were barely out of diapers — 3- and 4-year-olds — and their public preschool in Trenton was not allowed to expel them. "No one would do anything," said Butler, who eventually quit. "I felt alone." Tantrums, aggression, biting and kicking are becoming increasingly common in preschool, according...

The incident apparently happened last month. A six-year-old girl was seen kissing a second grade boy several times while they were riding in the school bus, and the boy was seen kissing her back. The girl's actions landed her in some hot water as her parents were called into the principal's office, and the girl was reportedly suspended from riding the bus for three days. The family could not be reached for comment on Sunday, but other parents in Alexander think school officials overreacted. "I completely disagree with the punishment that was given and I would do something about it...

DECLARATION TO 2008 GENERAL CONFERENCE DELIVERED BY: REV. JERRY P. KULAH DISTRICT SUPERINTENDET MONROVIA DISTRICT CONFERENCE LIBERIA AREA, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 13TH STREET, SINKOR, P.O. BOX 1010 MONROVIA, LIBEIRA DELIVERED TO: A CONFERENCE FOR GENERAL AND JURISDICTIONAL CONFERENCE DELEGATES AND ALL UNITED METHODIST COMMITTED TO THE RENEWAL AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH DATE: 26 -27 OCTOBER, 2007 GREETINGS: Dr. Maxie Dunnam and members of the Invitation Committee of this unique and historic Conference, leaders and members of the Renewal and Reform Coalition Movements within the United Methodist Church, delegates to the General and Jurisdictional Conferences, my brothers and sisters committed...

OCALA, Fla. (AP) -- Authorities have dropped a felony weapons charge against a 10-year-old girl in Ocala who brought a kitchen knife to school to cut up her lunch. The girl, whose name has not been released, was arrested after teachers at Sunrise Elementary School saw her use a 41/2-inch knife on a steak. She was also suspended from school for three days. After reviewing her school record and interviewing her, investigators with the Department of Juvenile Justice recommended that the State Attorney's Office not prosecute the child. The attorney's office agreed. Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway told the Orlando...

CINCINNATI - Three teenagers have sued school officials over lengthy suspensions they received for setting up a Facebook page that identifies a teacher as a pedophile. The entry on the social networking site included the face and last name of the teacher and referred to him as a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which supports sex between men and boys. "They're not saying it's true, they're saying it's just parody," the students' attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday. The boys were suspended from Taylor High School for the maximum 90 days for creating the entry in November. They've...

OCALA, Fla. -- A 10-year old Ocala girl brought her lunch to school and a small kitchen knife to cut it. She now faces a felony charge after being arrested. The school and the sheriff's office disagree on the reason for the arrest. School officials say the 5th grader was brown-bagging it. She brought a piece of steak for her lunch, but she also brought a steak knife. That's when deputies were called. It happened in the cafeteria at Sunrise Elementary School. The 10-year-old used the knife to cut the meat.

GIG HARBOR, Wash. -- A Pierce County High School student is back in school after a three-day suspension for warning classmates about a sex offender on campus. Last week, Raydon Gilmore found a 16-year-old fellow student at Gig Harbor High School at the Washington State Sex Offender Information Center, a Web site that lists the state's level 2 and level 3 sex offenders. "Then it hit me that I was in P.E. freshman year, and this kid was there for a while and he was my neighbor at my locker," Gilmore told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. The 16-year-old was convicted...

OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Marion County school officials say they seized a 4-1/2 inch steak knife from a 10-year-old student. She was using the knife to cut her steak. She is facing a felony charge of bringing a weapon to school. School employees at Sunrise Elementary School told Marion County sheriff's deputies the girl was eating lunch and using the knife to cut her steak when she was spotted by two school officials. They took the knife away from her. The sheriff's office says the student told deputies she brought the knife to school so she could use it for...

An elementary student in Marion County was arrested Thursday after school officials found her cutting food during lunch with a knife that she brought from home, police said. The 10-year-old girl, a student at Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala, was charged possession of a weapon on school property, which is a felony. According to authorities, school employees spotted the girl cutting her food while she was eating lunch and took the steak knife from her. The girl told sheriff's deputies that she had brought the knife to school on more than one occasion in the past. Students told officials that...

Should Parents Be Allowed To Spank Their Children? (POLL)

Kids look cute in their Christmas finery but festive duds won’t cloak the fact that parents aren’t teaching youngsters their Ps and Qs. All the monkeys aren’t in the zoo. Many tykes are on the loose without social skills or discipline and, alas, manners matter. We’ve just survived a Thanksgiving siege with out-of-town guests, a missionary couple and their four children who camped out in our finished basement. Obviously they embraced their call to the Biblical axiom “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel” but it was clear they skipped “Train up a child in the way...

Accusations of racism in a Lee's Summit high school have lead to suspensions, but now the parents say their kids were unfairly punished. Travis Grigsby loves playing drums, but he and his friend Alex Coday weren't able to play for two weeks after they were suspended. It started after the band's performance at a football game. Some kids on the drum line said they were talking about the best knots to use to tie up the drum equipment. "Someone asked if anybody knew how to tie a noose and Travis did admit he knew how to tie a noose," Kim...

EAGLE POINT — A first-grader was suspended Tuesday for drawing a stick figure shooting another in the head with a gun and allegedly threatening students. Little Butte School officials sent 6-year-old Ryan Weathers home after receiving complaints from parents saying he threatened their children, said Douglas Weathers, the boy's father. "He's not a violent kid," Weathers said. "He did not mean any harm." School district officials declined to comment. State law bars them from discussing disciplinary actions against specific students. The disciplinary report given to Weathers stated the reason for the suspension was the boy "threatened to shoot two girls...

Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday. "I feel it is crazy," said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School. "I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend," she said. Megan's mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren't even real hugs - just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze. "It's hilarious to the point of ridicule," Coulter said. "I'm still dumbfounded that she's...

Bellmead, TX - Damarcus Blackwell's four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee. The principal of La Vega Primary School sent a letter to the Blackwells that said the pre-kindergartener demonstrated "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment." Blackwell says it's ridiculous that the aide would misread a hug from a four-year-old. Blackwell wrote to administrators demanding that the whole incident be expunged from his son?s academic file because his son is too young to know what...

SEARCH LINKS COALITION LIBRARY PRESS AREA CONTACT US AWARDS YOU ARE HERE: Boys and Schools · Boys and Schools Blog General > Thursday, October-25-2007 Preschool Harassers and Anti-Boy Bias Boo on the stereotype of men being emotionally unavailable beings who wilt at the need to express the smallest sign of physical affection.  Not only have I never seen a man who fits that description outside of an episode of Sex and the City and certain predictable ?chick lit? stories, but the whole image sends a very confusing and contradictory message to men in general: ?Please be more expressive of...

A North Texas school district is ramping up the fight against what they say is “dirty dancing” going on between students at school events. Administrators in Argyle asked parents to meet Sunday night to discuss the way students were dancing together at a recent school event. The superintendent showed parents a YouTube video of teens doing the same kind of dancing he says happened repeatedly at a school dance earlier in the month. “I’m not being old fashioned,” Argyle School Superintendant Jason Cevanes said. “These students are simulating sex to the point that in some cases it constitutes sexual assault.”...