We have similar rules in our league. The students know them, and know the consequences of violating them. Can’t tell you how many bracelets, nose rings, studs and earrings I’ve wound up with in my pockets at the request of the athletes at the meets I have attended. Fighting and changing the rules is another issue. Coaches who may try to get an unearned win by nitpicking are another matter entirely.
One of the most fundamental responsibilities of a jury is to judge the law itself.
Not whether the law was broken, but whether it should be applied even if it was broken. In other words, whether the law is an ass in any particular situation.
Judges generally block the jury’s knowledge of this, but they can’t stop it’s existence The Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) has been fighting for years to educate people about this fundamental right.
Teaching kids to simply obey stupid rules, and accept stupid punishments, simply because they exist - without teaching them about their equal American responsibility to judge rules, or the fact that they are denied full rights in school because the teachers have a responsibility to do what the law presumes they can’t, is sheer hypocrisy.
The fact that millions of people are outraged by this particular story isn’t just popular sentiment - the legal fact is that the the very rules the school is citing were broken by the coaches, would never stand up in court, and violate the equally important rule that coaches must teach sportsmanship.
In other words, the coaches broke the rules by applying this rule in this way at this time. THERE ARE RULES ABOUT APPLYING RULES.
That such gross violation of the rules is being conducted in the name of the rules itself is utterly disgusting - and only serves to shatter the spirit of students. What’s really being taught here is that effort and achievement don’t matter - bureaucracy is the only thing that matters - so let your human spirit be crushed and serve the rules. It is the true Lefitst vision of the purpose of the “rules.”
Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
- Mark 2:27