Randy Cassingham's Blog

Last week's editorial brought a fair number of letters. Here are some of the best.

Weekly Weird News

Subscribe Free to Randy's weekly weird news newsletter. Your privacy is his policy.

Your e-mail address:

Optional: Where did you hear of This is True?

• Dennis in Arizona: "I was a junior in high school when some kid I didn't know tried selling me a bag of weed. I've never smoked anything and I never will. Apparently, one of the school Vice Principals was looking in our direction when it happened. He takes BOTH of us into his office and calls both of our parents. He says that he is going to suspend me for three days, quoting the zero tolerance policy, and stated that if I showed up on campus I would be arrested for trespassing. Basically, I got punished for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. What I have done, and what I urge as many people as possible to do, is to write to your state representatives and senators. Write them soon, and write them often. The zero tolerance policy is good in theory, but the execution of it makes things much worse. We have to let our people in Washington know our thoughts."

• William in New York: "Analyzing 'Zero Tolerance' policies, they all have much in common: 1) Abuse of authority, 2) Disregard for the facts (of each case), 3) Zero 'due process' as in 'innocent until proven guilty', 4) Unrealistic expectations of perfection from humans (usually children), 5) The Death of 'common sense', and 6) Capricious enforcement. Sadly, now as always, enlightened folks are outnumbered by fearful, regimented, 'normal people' who prefer the codification of the rules of life to actually 'learning' how to live it, making their own 'thoughtful' decisions, and exercising their freedom and authority to do so. Always so outnumbered, we plunge into a dark future ruled by an unenlightened majority. Punishment without crime is a crime in itself and 'it' [ZT] deserves prosecution when abused."
• John in Ohio: "We have ZT for several reasons. The primary one is individuals have abused their authority/judgement, and that has led to expensive lawsuits. The reaction has been to take authority and the ability to exercise judgement away from everyone and replace it with a pure process -- no continuum, [but rather] purely yes-no decisions. Since the process rarely takes the nature of the crime or intent of the charged into consideration, we should not be surprised that the punishment does not always fit the crime. Like gun control, this is something where people are being told they aren't intelligent enough to perform well what are truly basic tasks. After long enough, enough people may even believe it that we won't 'need' juries or even elections -- we'll have a 'fair' process that will settle these things for us."

John concluded with a quotation along the same lines: "If we accept the view that the American people cannot be trusted with the material objects necessary to defend their liberty, we will surely accept as well the view that the American people cannot be trusted with liberty itself. Why should a man who can't be trusted to refrain from murder be trusted with the much more difficult and morally subtle task of choosing his leaders responsibly?" --Alan Keyes, "The Armed Defense of Liberty," July 30, 1999

• Ian in New York: "I read your article on zero tolerance -- or more accurately David's story -- and your answer. While your answer is okay, there is another answer which may not appeal to you. It is SUE. Suing gets attention. Very often the act of bringing a lawsuit forces people to reexamine their policies. And if that does not work, it allows an 'independent' judiciary and or a jury to determine what is right and wrong. It also garners press which also very often causes a reexamination of ones position."

I'm not against lawsuits, I'm against frivolous lawsuits (I wrote an entire book about them.) Lawsuits are clearly a good tool to fight ZT, but it's no easy solution. It costs money to prosecute a suit and, very importantly, a lot of time -- usually years. And lots of time in another sense: hundreds of hours of depositions, hearings, answering questions, digging up documents. It's truly an arduous process, but for the truly outrageous situations I not only agree it's a good tool, I encourage it.

Quite a few people sent their own ZT stories, things that have either happened to them, or to others at their schools. Some were several years old, yet the events are still very fresh in their minds, and they're angry. They know injustice when they see it, and to see such injustice being institutionalized in rules makes them seethe. And rightly so: It's just that growing anger that I'm trying to tap into. The tagline on one of the ZT stories I wrote recently -- "This will continue to get worse until enough citizens say 'STOP!'" -- is quite literally true.

I set out some time ago to show that these stories aren't some sort of aberration at just some schools here and there; this is a societal problem that's widespread not only in schools, not only in the U.S., but is growing toward the norm everywhere. And as long as we just sit on our butts and watch, it will continue to grow. Only by saying "NO!" and "STOP!" will something happen. And that's not just when it happens to your kid, but when it happens to any kid, any teen, any adult. When you see something that's clearly not right, you need to say so. In public meetings, in letters to the editor, in letters to your elected representatives. And when you see someone else standing up to defend others being railroaded by ZT, you need to stand together. Back them up, and ask that others back you up. There's something very powerful in a crowd of people showing up at a public meeting to say "I don't want this" -- I've seen it. I've been in the crowd.

Yes, it's hard. Yes, it takes time. But if you, who understands the problem, doesn't work toward fixing it, who will?

As I said, I got a lot of letters, but I won't use them to fill space here -- I really can't do more to illustrate the ZT problem than to demonstrate it with stories and suggest how to deal with it. I've done my part, and will continue to do so. I hope you'll stand up and be counted too. It's the right thing to do.