Discretion and zero tolerance are mutually exclusive.
The schools tell the teachers/administrators that they won't back them up if they don't enforce zero tolerance and DO use their own discretion, so the teachers err on the "safe" side of being absolutely stupid.
Actually they are not mutually exclusive. “Zero” will always have to be interpreted—that’s exactly what these horror stories are about. No rule ever automatically interprets itself. All rules have to be interpreted. Zero tolerance is a catch phrase for a set of rules about X, Y, Z (guns, sexual harrassment etc.) No matter how loosely written or detailed the rules are, all rules, all laws, have to be interpreted. And that means discretion is being used. When the Oregon school stupidly tries to make felons out of butt-slapping boys they are interpreting, extremely stupidly and undiscerningly, a set of rules. The same goes for punishing this boy for a drawing of a gun. The rules don’t specify whether drawings of guns = guns, I’m sure. Common sense says drawing guns don’t equal guns. A principal with discretion, common sense, would say to the idiot teacher or teacher’s aide or whoever complained about the drawing, “No dear, I’m sorry, the rules should not be intepreted as equating drawings with guns themselves.” Instead, lacking common sense, lacking discretion, the principal or whoever beat up on this kid, interpreted the rules as applying to drawings of guns. Stupid, lunatic — which is exactly what lack of discretion is.
I see from post no. 110 that apparently the “laws” here did include “threatening drawings.” But my point remains the same. Even if there’s “zero” tolerance for threatening drawings, someone will always already have to interpret whether a given drawing is “threatening” or not. So zero tolerance will always involve interpretation. If people did the interpreting with discretion, common sense, we’d be okay. But the problem is stupidity of interpretation. No matter how good a law is (and these zero tolerance laws are not good laws) a fool can interpret and apply it in a harmful, foolish, stupid, dangerous way. But these laws are bad laws, so it’s a double whammy—bad laws and stupid application of them.