Care & Feeding: My Son Was Punished, How Dare!

[minoanmiss]

I have a son, Kevin, who is a senior in high school. His school has a tradition where sometime shortly before Thanksgiving, students put on sketches or other talent show sorts of things in an evening after school, with most of the teachers and school staff in attendance.

My son put on a sketch last Monday with some of his friends, involving a fake-satanic ritual where they sacrificed a freshman to summon the “Asbestos Demon” to smite the school and get them out of doing their classwork. The school really did have an asbestos leak late last year, and a higher-than-normal number of freshman expulsions. I thought it was a little crude, but just a bit of silly fun.

The school staff disagreed. My son has been banned from all of his after-school activities, and was told he was lucky he didn’t get an in-school suspension. He’s worried that his teachers won’t grade him fairly after this, and the other three students who took part in the sketch have apparently been “disciplined” as well.

I think this is outrageous, but I can’t seem to find an angle in the school administration to get anyone to see sense, and I’m not sure what else I can do about it short of hiring a lawyer and trying to take legal action, which seems like massive overkill. (And honestly, what would we even sue for? And I’m sure any litigation would still be ongoing by the time he graduated). Mostly, I just am stuck and uncertain how to proceed from here. Any advice?

— Furious Father

Dear Furious,

I have several questions that I wish I could ask, because they would influence my response to you. Did the school provide rationale for the punishment? Did they provide any guidelines about what content was acceptable or off limits? Will the disciplinary action show up on his transcript, or does it take him out of activities that could impact scholarship offers (I’m thinking about sports and scouts)? How long does his ban last?

If the ban is short-term and doesn’t have future impacts on Kevin, this might just be one of those life lesson moments about how intent and impact are two different things. Your son might not have intended to be offensive or inappropriate, but it sounds like there is universal agreement that he was. This is a painful but important lesson to learn.

If the ban is long term or has implications for his future, there are a couple avenues I’d suggest you try. I’d start by having Kevin find a teacher or coach he trusts and has a good relationship with for clarity on why the skit was so wrong and suggestions for how he could appeal. They know the policies and politics and can let your son know if he has a shot at reversing this. They also presumably have a good enough relationship with Kevin that they would be willing to help him learn from the situation. I would then arrange an in-person meeting with the principal (or whoever the trusted teacher suggested) where your son takes the lead, and you both come equipped with questions, not anger. If there were not any proactive guidelines or vetting, that seems your best shot at lessening the punishment. (Nobody should blindly trust the sense of humor and decorum of a 17-year-old.) Your son might also offer to “make it up to the school” through a service project or similar.
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I’m afraid I don’t know what your chances are. Be prepared that if it doesn’t go the way you want, you are going to have to model to Kevin how to accept the consequences (even if you don’t agree with them) and rise above. No matter what, you will have taught him how to respectfully and maturely appeal, and how to face the results. It’s small comfort now but may be hugely impactful in the long run.

Comments

[xenacryst]

I would suggest the lawyer route. That will teach him the important life lesson that powerful white men with money and privilege will always win, which is a good thing to understand early in life. If he can get that through his thick skull, he may yet be able to pull through this, force his way into the management of several successful companies, and eventually decimate a social networking site. What a future!

[minoanmiss]

wahahahahahah

[xenacryst]

Sorry, did I go over the top there? I mean, I do see the good points being made in the discussion below, but also, anyone who even casually mentions the nuclear option of lawyers for a high school punishment is in such a different privilege bracket than I can conceive of that I just. Yeah. Get a freaking grip.

I got in school suspension once. Like, a week or so. And kicked out of the class in question. I deserved it. I learned from it. Restorative justice would have been the better path, had anyone heard of such a thing in that century. (Of course, one of the things I learned was that the other folks in ISS were kinda cool, and I learned how to draw some west Texas Hispanic style pencil art from them. Not exactly Breakfast Club, but not exactly not, either.)

[minoanmiss]

No, no, you didn't go over the top IMO. One of the reasons I posted this is that the LW sounds pretty entitled and the lawyer mention is one reason why. That siad maybe something really unfair and even bigoted was done to his kid and he's bad at making his case (and could have used a lawyer's help to write his letter, ahaahaha). I'm not betting on it though.

[redbird]

Either I'm missing something, or the columnist is: the answer says there was "universal agreement" that the skit was offensive or inappropriate, but the letter writer says that they thought it was just "silly fun" but "the school staff" disagreed. That might be the entire school staff, or it might be just the principal and vice-principal, or the principal and some but not all of the teachers.

The columnist is right that intent isn't everything, and something can be a big deal even if the LW and their son didn't think it was. But that doesn't mean that we can jump from knowing that at least a few people in positions of authority were offended, to concluding that there was "universal agreement" that the skit was offensive or inappropriate.

The other question I would have liked to ask is, what's with that "higher-than-normal" number of freshman expulsions. Knowing about those expulsions would have been a reason for the LW's son to consider whether they were likely to get in trouble for a potentially offensive skit, but it also suggests that the administration may be handing out harsher punishments for some things than in past years.

[minoanmiss]

These are all good questions. I also want to know what if any supervision the school maintained during the creative process. I wouldn't let a high-schooler put on a skit without some check-ins during writing the script and rehearsals and so on, not least to prevent an outcome like this one.

[shirou]

LW does not say whether the sketch violated explicit school rules. Is that because LW is omitting this damning detail? Or is it because the school administration has failed to clearly articulate which rule LW's son has broken?

[minoanmiss]

That is the 64,000 question.

[ashbet]

It doesn’t sound like this was an in-school activity — an informal tradition of students putting on humor sketches in an evening venue with school staff *in attendance* but not *in charge* makes me wonder whether in-school punishments are appropriate.

I would also like to know whether this violated any explicit school rules, because it sounds very… squishy… as to whether this was something that the school is responsible for policing.

(If they’d been *hazing* a freshman in a mock-ritual, that’s another story. But a skit with willing participants, in dubious taste but without being in violation of stated school rules, makes me wonder if this was an overreaction.)

A lot depends on whether there was adult/staff supervision of this “tradition,” and whether it violated actual school policies, versus annoying the faculty.

(Not automatically defending it, these are questions that I wish the LW had provided answers to, because it affects my response.)

[azurelunatic]

Do students have a legal right to satire?

[finch]

Only if you get a lawyer involved do students have a legal right to anything.

[lilysea]

Assuming that the skit wasn't eg racist, sexist, homophobic/other prejudice

I think it's unreasonable to punish him just because some people didn't like it

[cimorene]

That's the issue, isn't it? It sounds like the columnist is just assuming it was, but I don't think we have enough evidence for that. Unfortunately the letter is so vague you can't really tell one way or the other. It could cover everything from 'the skit was sexist and racist but I don't think that's a big deal' to 'The skit was harmless and they're in trouble because of satanic panic'.

[lilysea]

Or "the skit was harmless, but talking about the schools asbestos problem was embarrassing for the school"

[p_cocincinus]

I wonder if this was a parochial school and LW is not particularly devout or is possibly not Catholic at all? Sacrificing students to demons would look incredibly different to an administration made up of nuns, and pulling the kid from after-school activities, where he might be seen as representing the school, makes logical sense in that scenario. And if I were the seventeen-year-old who decided that putting on a sketch making fun of a) the school, b) the religion the school teaches, and c) demon sacrifice is a good idea, I would also be concerned about being graded fairly after having gotten what was probably a literal come-to-Jesus speech from the principal.

[minoanmiss]

This letter has so many holes this conqeccture could certainly fit in the gap. (Although if the school is Catholic it was even more irresponsible for no one from the school to oversee what the kid was planning for his skit, especially if this is an old tradition -- SOMEONE must have pushed the limits before. Or did the school advise him to write a different sketch and did the kid switch back to his original Satanic plot, for instance? Again, so much left out.)

[adrian_turtle]

Depending on WHO they pretended to sacrifice (personally, or who the young actor seemed to represent), the skit could have kicked a beehive the dad didn't even know was there. Did they find a kid who thought it would be hilarious to impersonate Kyle Rittenhouse? There probably isn't a school rule against such a thing, and nobody would even know if they saw a rehearsal or a script. Or did they pretend to sacrifice the brother of a boy who was expelled last year, renewing rumors that he was more sinned against than sinning?