Posted on 08/31/2010 11:18:40 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Marcel Williams is plopped down on a couch in his family's duplex apartment. The stillness is unusual for the 14-year-old, who a few years ago roamed football fields as a star running back for the national champion Flagler Junior Pee Wee Bulldogs.
Since then, Marcel said he had been earning A's and B's at Buddy Taylor Middle School, where he also expected to continue playing football this year.
Instead, school just started and Marcel finds himself slouched on the couch, expelled from the classroom and the football field until next year because of something called "tea-bagging" -- a crude taunt Marcel practiced while keeping his pants on.
Marcel said the boys were horsing around in the back of a school bus on their way home. Several other kids were suspended over the incident but Marcel said he was the only one expelled.
"We were just playing. I didn't know they would take it that far," Marcel said of the reaction of school officials.
The punishment does not fit the misdeed, said Marcel's father, Darial Williams, 43.
"I'm not condoning this, but why make this as severe as it is?" Williams said. He said he has not had disciplinary issues with his son before.
"I've never had any problems with Marcel, no bullying," Williams said. "He's not stubborn."
Neither Buddy Taylor Middle School Principal Winnie Oden nor the School District's director of student services, Katrina Townsend, would discuss Marcel's case, citing student confidentiality -- that of Marcel's and the other student.
But "tea-bagging," as students call it, can be a gesture subtle enough that teachers may not even know it happened, or it can be flagrant -- a student, still wearing clothes, rubbing his crotch in another's face, Townsend said.
It's generally handled as a "school discipline issue," with a detention or a call to parents or some other action, Townsend said.
But criminal charges propel it to another level, she said.
That's what happened in Marcel's case; the taunted boy's father pressed criminal charges, Marcel and his family said.
And what Marcel called "tea-bagging," law enforcement officials called lewd and lascivious exhibition -- a felony.
The taunted student's father later changed his mind and declined to press charges against Marcel. But it was too late to stop the School District's disciplinary process. The incident went to the Discipline Review Committee, which recommends consequences to the superintendent, who makes the final decision.
"Generally speaking, for all students that have felony charges or incidents where there is a student victim on their campus, it's considered very serious," Townsend said.
Nine students were expelled from Flagler County schools during the 2009-2010 school year; all involved felony charges.
A school bus security camera recorded the incident involving Marcel but district officials declined to release it, citing student confidentiality and protecting the victim's identity.
Marcel's father said school administrators stated they had never seen such a severe, long-lasting "tea-bagging" as in Marcel's case.
Darial Williams wonders if district officials had seen other cases of "tea-bagging," why didn't they address the problem earlier, making it clear to students and parents that such behavior was happening and unacceptable?
"If you are driving down (Interstate) 95, and you see a small brush fire, are you just going to pull over and watch that small brush fire become a big wildfire?" Darial Williams said. "Any sensible person would call 9-1-1."
Marcel's family provided a copy of a police report that described the incident as lasting for "quite some time" before Marcel was "pulled off" the boy by other students.
But Marcel said no one had to pull him off. The horseplay just ran its course and ended. He said several other students were doing it, too.
"Everybody was playing around and stuff and tea-bagging each other," Marcel said. "I was messing with him and stuff and then I tea-bagged him."
Marcel said the other boy was in on the joke. Marcel said the kid he taunted was laughing and covering his face and making mock sounds of disgust.
Marcel's family also showed a reporter a note from one of Marcel's friends who wrote that the boy was laughing as Marcel tea-bagged him.
Marcel thought the whole thing was over when he walked off the bus. Until he returned to school the next day and he and the other boys were summoned to the principal's office. They were suspended. Ten days later, when Marcel tried to return to Buddy Taylor, he said he was told he was trespassing.
Darial Williams said he has talked to the other boy's father, who has agreed to help Marcel get back in school. But the father declined to be interviewed.
On May 26, district officials expelled Marcel until Jan. 11. At that time, he will be allowed to attend the eighth grade at Pathways Academy, the district's alternative school. Once teachers at Pathways are satisfied with Marcel's behavior, he will be allowed to attend Indian Trails Middle School. Marcel will not be able to return to Buddy Taylor Middle School.
Meanwhile, he is attending "virtual school" via a computer at home.
Marcel is stunned. He said when he was at Buddy Taylor there was a "national butt-slapping day" and a day to "pop girls' bra straps," which were relayed via cell phones. So the suspension for tea-bagging knocked the wind out of the running back like a well-placed hit from a linebacker.
Townsend said school personnel review the code of conduct with students at the beginning of every year districtwide.
Marcel's father said he feels his son's future, academically and athletically, is being jeopardized due to an overreaction.
"If it goes the way it's going now, it may effect his admission into a college, hopefully not, but these things tend to follow you," Williams said.
Culture war PING
Marcel is stunned. He said when he was at Buddy Taylor there was a "national butt-slapping day" and a day to "pop girls' bra straps," which were relayed via cell phones. So the suspension for tea-bagging knocked the wind out of the running back like a well-placed hit from a linebacker.
"[pause] Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorence on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon... you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time!" < /Constanza >
I agree. The father should knock it off, take the lumps, and quit trying to make a huge deal out of this in the papers.
Awesome parenting there, dad.
This is why it’ s such an insult to the TEA Party.
This kid rubbed his crotch in someone’s FACE and can’t see what he did WRONG? And the parents, too.
Sue Chrissy Mathews. He started it. It’s his fault.
“a student, still wearing clothes, rubbing his crotch in another’s face, Townsend said. “
That sounds like freaking sexual assault to me!
Tea Bagging is laying your testicles on a face, like tea bags sort of lay against a cup. What this “boy” did to another boy was despicable, humiliating, bullying, and is ASSAULT. Charge the punk.
Hey Marcel, stay away from doing the roman helmet too !
“the kid liked it”, then why did it rise up to the level of the parents being informed?
“we was just playin’”
Methinks Marcel should be happy he still has all his bits and pieces. Try that on me or mine and those little boys will be hanging from a wall with the squirrel tails.
Anderson Cooper.
What kind of idiot does not know that such behavior is not acceptable anywhere?
Wow, check out the fine socialization your homeschooled children are missing!
Glad the father pressed charges, I would have too. Then again my son is a brown-black belt and would have annihilated the crude S.o.B. in milliseconds.
We must be SENSITIVE to their perversion but if a straight kids mocks it, it almost becomes a school felony. Heck, don't they TEACH this is sex ed? I'd be surprised if they don't. Liberals are always preoccupied with the mechanics of anything sexual or perverted.
The lavender mafia on the Left smear tea party patriots with this pejorative and then had the audacity to call them "homophobes".
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