Item: Michigan's "zero tolerance" law mandates expulsion for public school students knowingly possessing any "dangerous weapon". Dangerous weapons include any "dagger, dirk, stiletto, [or] knife with a blade over 3 inches in length."
Item: Two years ago, a 9-year old fourth-grader in Fruitport Michigan was expelled for at least 90 days for carrying a "wedding cake knife" aboard a school bus.
Item: Last week, educators decided zero tolerance depended on the meaning of "zero":
A Detroit-area district says Sikh students are permitted to wear a small, religious dagger to school.
The decision by the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools reverses a ban put in place in December after a fourth-grader at a Canton Township elementary school was found with a dull, 3- to 5-inch kirpan.
source: FOX Detroit; other pictures here
According to Sikh community leaders, "After they are baptized, members of the faith, which originated in South Asia in the 15th century, are expected to carry [a kirpan] all the time."
Item: The Michigan decision is similar to a 2006 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Conclusion: Call it a partial victory for the ACLU, which has argued Michigan's zero tolerance law was "disproportionately" applied to black students and thus "unfair." I dislike modern pettifogging school expulsions for harmless offenses. I like even less made-up multi-cultural exceptions to what should be equally-applied laws.
If you want to wear your dagger to school, move to Canada.
MORE:
The "Canadazation" of Canada accelerates:
A dozen Muslim families who recently arrived in Canada have told Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Division that they want their children excused from compulsory elementary school music and coed physical education programs for religious and cultural reasons.(via Jawa Report, Don Surber)
"This is one of our realities in Manitoba now, as a result of immigration," said superintendent Terry Borys. "We were faced with some families who were really adamant about this. Music was not part of the cultural reality." . . .
The families accept physical education, as long as the boys and girls have separate classes, but do not want their children exposed to singing or the playing musical instruments, Borys said.
8 comments:
I do n ot agree that the Sikh students should be allowed to bring a dagger to school. If these are allowed, then it will be the start of chaos.
and I dislike even less than the unequal application of laws, the proliferation of stupid laws in the 1st place...
I'm a Left Coast kid, and 2 old fogeys at my church were buddies from high school; the one made a muzzle-loading black powder pistol in shop class, and they both confirmed that lots of the guys would leave .22's in their cars and on lunch breaks go to the nearby fields and shoot critters (they claimed the farmers loved 'em for this). This was in UC Davis area so nothing but a bunch of farmer's kids, but still, it's spitting distance from the state capitol.
How times have changed...
The heart of corruption is the enforcement of laws unequally. "Some animals are more equal than others".
If Sikh's can carry knives, then everybody should be able to carry a knife. If nobody can, then neither can the Sikh. Perhaps the Sikh's should start their own private schools, which allow knives.
The laws should restrict what's _done_ with the knives, not the knives themselves.
> the families accept physical education, as long as the boys and girls have separate classes, but do not want their children exposed to singing or the playing musical instruments, Borys said.
"I suggest you return to whatever Islamic hell-hole we misunderstood you sought to escape from, sir."
> If Sikh's can carry knives, then everybody should be able to carry a knife.
"I have a religious belief that all members of my religion should be armed with a loaded gun at all times...."
Lame-R -- indeed, there would be target shooting clubs and such at schools as an after-school activity, with 12yos bringing their 22 rifles from home on bicycles and such, and leaving them in their lockers for the day.
Sue: Maybe Michigan's laws should be written that way, but they aren't. Instead, Sikh's are given a "religious" exemption to equal application of the law. So, pace OBH, I wonder--if you wanted to replicate your tribal conflicts, why did you immigrate to the United States?
"I have a religious belief that all members of my religion should be armed with a loaded gun at all times...."
Hmmmm. You're putting bad thoughts into my head...
>>Maybe Michigan's laws should be written that way, but they aren't.>>
Understood. No disagreement. But I still say that unequal treatment under the law is = to corruption.
How do you "prove" you're Sikh? If my son showed up with a knife and claimed to be Sikh, how would they prove/disprove his claim? race? language ability? bring in a pastor of some sort?
I myself belong to the "Church of the Holy Flamethrower."
Multiculturalism a Failure Says…Europe
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/11/multiculturalism-a-failure-says-europe/
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