The Supreme Court convenes this week. It will be taking up the case of one of the stupidest over-reactions in all of American history . . . and we've seen some doozies in our time.
Francis Schmidt was suspended from his job as an art animation professor of a New Jersey college for making threats against the school. So what was his offense? He took a photo of his 7-year-old-daughter and uploaded it to his Facebook page. This little girl happened to be wearing a T-shirt that read: "I will take what is mine with fire and blood." If that phrase sounds familiar, it's probably because it is a well known phrase from the hit show Game of Thrones, and the t-shirt the girl was wearing was simply a piece of fan merchandise. Never the less, the school interpreted this unrelated and incidental act as a violation of the schools Zero tolerance policy. Schmidt was banished from campus, told to see a psychiatrist, forced into a promise that he would not wear clothes with "questionable statements."
Cases such as this serve as an example of how much of an illusion most of the rights we think we have are, and also about the collateral damage that results when paranoia over safety is taken too far.
Click here to learn more about Zero Tolerance School Policy
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