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Another ‘victory’ for ‘Zero” tolerance
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For those who missed his appearance on Fox & Friends Monday morning, Willows High School junior Gary Tudesko, with his mother, Susan Parisio at his side, seemed like a normal kid who might live across the street in any American neighborhood, and you would be glad to have him there.
This Northern California teen has now been branded by an expulsion by the Willows Unified School District board for having had unloaded shotguns locked in his pickup truck off-campus on Oct. 26. They were discovered by “scent-sniffing dogs.” They belonged to Gary and one of his pals who - and this is the gist of it - had done a little bird hunting that morning, then went directly to school in order to not be tardy.
My son was not even parked on school property."—Susan Parisio
He was careful to park off campus.
But that obviously was not good enough for the school board, or Principal Mort Geivett, who was quoted by the Chico Enterprise Record explaining how he felt the school had jurisdiction to send a nosey dog off campus to sniff around cars in a public area because most of the vehicles belong to students. He and other school officials, according to the newspaper, argued that they had "several justifications" for conducting off-campus vehicle searches. One of those, the paper said, is a legal doctrine called in loco parentis -- "where school officials may act in place of a parent for school functions." (In this case, one might suggest that emphasis be placed on the term "loco.")
I'm erring on the safe side of protecting staff and kids"—Willows High Principal Mort Geivett
Chalk up another victory for “Zero tolerance,” the philosophy that is also known as “Zero Intelligence” because it substitutes Draconian inflexibility for common sense. I wrote about this politically correct abomination here a few weeks ago.
So, what happens to Tudesko? Does he now face social ostracism over this expulsion, which will likely follow him like a bad odor if, and when, he applies to attend a university or even a community college? And what about when he applies for a job, or wants to enlist in the military; how will future employers look at this expulsion “because he had a gun near campus?”
Susan Parisio defended her son during the 105-minute public hearing at Willows Civic Center. She acknowledged that Tudesko was lazy for not storing the shotguns at home after a morning of bird hunting, but she questioned the district's ability to enforce its policies off Willows High School property.
How can we be certain that some future California statute or a federal law will not one day be passed that adds this kid’s name to some “watch list” because of this that may ultimately cost him his firearm civil rights? For those who insist that will never happen here, I give you the history of California gun laws regarding semiautomatic rifles, or the way the Lautenberg Act is used to strip people of their gun rights who may have pleaded no contest or guilty to a misdemeanor several years ago.
Tudesko’s pal reportedly was not expelled. Other students who reportedly had ammunition in their cars that morning were not expelled.
Tudesko has learned a hard lesson about intolerance; perhaps made even harder because his school district pats itself on the back on its own website, where it claims to be “committed to providing a safe, enriched, student-centered learning environment where all our students can…develop respect and tolerance for themselves and others…” That is, of course, unless they happen to hunt birds in the morning before school, as their parents and maybe grandparents did when they were kids.
Wonder what they’re teaching in class today at Willows High School, “Hypocrisy 101,” perhaps, or maybe a course in “Acceptable Forms of Social Bigotry.”
If there isn’t a legion of civil rights attorneys lining up to represent this kid pro bono, then there really is not any justice left in California.
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