First Grader Investigated For Sexual Harassment For Kicking A Bully In His Private Parts
from the world-gone-mad dept
We recently wrote about expanding efforts to make almost anything people don't like considered bullying -- including rolling your eyes at someone or excluding them from a group. Meanwhile, there's this bizarre story, sent in by Aaron DeOliveira about a seven-year-old first grader who's being investigated for sexual harassment after kicking a bully in the testicle. Yes, the other kid bullied him first -- choking him -- and he responded. It's the choice of where the kick landed that seems to be the issue. The principal doesn't seem to care, noting that all that matters is that since one kid hit the other in the groin, "that's assault. That's sexual assault." Is common sense dead?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
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Filed Under: bullying, sexual harassment
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...Somehow, I think not.
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Logic not allowed !
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What about the kid who was choking him?
I blame Woodward and Bernstein for confusing the definition of 'Deep Throat.'
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They had one of the doctors 'companions' who is female kick the alien. I think that's kind of sexist.
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An American simply wouldn't have the balls to think up camp on this level.
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Kirk (maybe Riker) "I'm lucky that guy had knees"
some random "Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place."
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After consulting my copy of the Shatnerverse, apparently, the director was initially adamant that the alien unmentionables be placed on shins for easier access.
However, lawyers on the set decided, quite smartly, that they would not be able to sustain a convergent scifi meme defense against Farscape, who were first to place alien no no places on the shins, as they did with the Scarrans.
So, instead, they moved the position slightly higher, to the knees. Which is completely different course, and a much more realistic area for evolution to place reproduction organs.
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Of course, the kid will have to be home schooled and may never play with other children. Since people on the registry cannot be within 1000 feet of a school, park, or public place where children gather.
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Re: For the good of the community he needs to be placed on the sex offender registry for life.
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Re: Re: For the good of the community he needs to be placed on the sex offender registry for life.
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Re: Re: For the good of the community he needs to be placed on the sex offender registry for life.
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So that's where I fucked up.
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Re: So much for "home of the brave."
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To wit, the kid hasn't been convicted of anything, and there are "mandatory reporter" laws involved.
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[citation needed]
I spent 20 minutes on Google and couldn't find any statistics for how often people are charged for failing to report and I couldn't find any news stories from the last couple of months of anyone being charged.
I think this is the typical overreaction that comes out of schools all the time. Like suspending kids for having a butter-knife in their backpack because of the zero tolerance policy on weapons. Really, a butter-knife is a weapon?
http://www.ketv.com/r/5027982/detail.html
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"The child was told that she'd done the right thing -- then was expelled."
and then classrooms have scissors with metal edges and that huge dangerous paper cutter sitting at the back of the room. But plastic knives ... much too dangerous.
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A seven year old does not have the mental faculties to understand sexual assault in any situation. In this situation, there clearly is no sexual assault only self defense.
The first thing taught in any self defense course is to attack the genitals. Would the principle prefer that his 1st graders avoid the genitals and go for the next best target of gouging the eyes or perhaps trying to break the nose? The author of the original article makes a pathetic attempt to justify the schools actions by asserting that the school must investigate both sides of the story but that's a crock. A 1st grader is incapable of committing a sexual assault in any way shape or form. Even if he crawled under a desk and stuck his hand up a girls skirt, there is still nothing sexual about the act. It's just kids being kids and doing stupid shit that they will learn not to do in the future.
This situation is truly pathetic!
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In the meantime sexual offenders go on doing it for years on college sports teams, junior hockey teams and other forms of activity that's supposed to teach fair play, athleticism, social skills and a host of other excuses schools use for wasting so much money on sports teams after axing PE programs.
Is it any wonder that by the time children reach adolescence they are convinced all adults are raving morons and, in their turn, when they have children become raving morons 30,000.2
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Is common sense dead ?
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Re: Is common sense dead ?
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You appear confused.
political correctness == immense levels of stupidity.
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Hey I'm small I know how to win/stop a fight.
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First thing they taught us in law enforcement training: there's no such thing as a fair fight. If someone attacks you, you do what you have to do to win and make sure you're the one who goes home that night.
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I do make the distinction though that pulling a knife or a gun is not valid. Unless its my daughters boyfriend in which case he would have been thoroughly warned ahead of time.
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"Is common sense dead?"
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The principal in question...
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Re: The principal in question...
Hah, hah, hah, hah ...
You have to see the documentary, 'Waiting for Superman' before you start your wishful thinking regimen.
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Better put me on the list
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Is common sense dead?
Well, taking into account that:
- Killing Michael Jackson has a lighter prison punishment than singing one of his songs in a video without forking $100000 to the RIAA
- The US government can (and will) arrest political dissidents indefinitely without trial, legally
- Bailouts are being given to banks but not to householders
- Excluding any person from any activity for any reason (even if it's common sense to imply that said person has a convincing reason not to take part from said activity) is slowly being redefined as discrimination
... yes, the common sense has long died in the US. Perhaps they can import some from - oh, so it's dead overseas too?
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Re: Is common sense dead?
Maybe aliens?
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The policies supposedly protect schools, but what it really does is remove the responsibility of critical thinking on the part of the administration.
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Which to me means we can cut the administration's salaries, as they have no need to make decisions.
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See the documentary ... 'waiting for superman'
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Good thing too, cause that means that tradespeople still have brains and intelligence because the law school has absorbed all the Darwinian brain failures and turned them into lawyers.
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I don't think it ever really existed, if it did it's been a very long time since I've encountered any evidence of it. We've become a society of blindly following whatever rules are handed to us regardless if they make any sense or not.
Also they would be open to liability if they didn't. It's a way of passing the buck to someone else. If the principle made a judgment call on this, and the school got sued (which is highly likely given our litigious society), it would be his head on the chopping block.
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I disagree. First, there's the matter of right and wrong. Saying sexual harassment or sexual assault happened here is clearly wrong. Trying to ruin a kid's life for defending himself is wrong. The principal, as a human being, should perhaps consider doing the right thing for the children as opposed to what he thinks would save his own skin.
Second, when you make obviously wrong decisions, you open yourself up to litigation that will actually stand up in court. Sure, the bully can try to argue that we should all ignore his choking and his rights are somehow being violated because his victim isn't expelled - you may have a lawsuit, but the school would probably win it. As opposed to the lawsuit from the student you just expelled for defending himself, which the school would probably lose.
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TSA vs. a 1st Grader
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An assault is the placing of a person in fear of a battery. The battery is the unlawful touching.
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BULLY KICK
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Bobby Hill knows how to deal with bullies....
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Probably Some Stupid Parents
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If the DA files, fire them
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????
Kids fight. All the time. It's what they do. The proper thing to do is inform the parents, maybe suspend both parties for a day or two and move on with life.
Sexual Assault? They are 7! There is nothing sexual in a 7 year old's world!
Are they trying to torment this child? Do they give any thought to the message this can send to a kid? Tell them what they did wrong and why, that it's wrong to fight and kick people in the genitals. This is when and how kids learn right and wrong.
They are blowing this out of proportion and risk giving this child some self perceived stigma that he is bad or something is wrong with him. You don't think other kids will tease him about it or call him a perv? That's what kids do. Are they going to arrest them all for harassment? Where does it end.
I apologize for rambling but I am genuinely angry about what is happening here. I fear for my own children.
I will be writing the superintendent and letting her know how wrong I think this is. I urge others to do the same.
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Common Sense?
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Anyway, everyone else had already gone back to class, so the teacher came looking for us. She wanted to know what was going on and he complained that I kicked him "in the balls". The teacher asked if that was true and I just told her that he wouldn't let me leave. She took both of us back to the classroom and then announced to the whole class that I had kicked him in the groin. Half the class started applauding. She told us to take our seats and that was the end of that.
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So the LGBT community wrought a nanny state
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Is Common Sense Dead?
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This is a new law..
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Common sense ?
Karate = molesting others for your own safety
Never underestimate the power of stupidity...
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shame on him...
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Ok that was FUNNY
Personally I love all the tough guys responding to this article. Especially the guy who advocates popping out eyeballs in response to a threat (hope he doesn't have any kids, or live in Boston).
The odd thing is that parents actually leave their kids in the care of people who can confuse a kick in the nuts with rape. 0.o
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Even the author has lost their mind....
1) Child A was attacked and choked by Child B, and responded to the lose of oxygen in an appropriate way. Child A caused pain without damage to Child B in order to illicit the response needed (Not just desired and Air is generally considered a must have) which was have Child B release his throat. This was done with a blow to the genitals.
2) Child A ran up and punched/kicked Child B in the crotch and then Child B started choking/fighting with him.
Either way, one of these two children was reacting to being assaulted. And while we don't want to encourage fighting in situation 1 it's not fight on Child A's part but self defense. The author however comes from the prospective that obviously they should be punished, and obviously the strike to the grown was assault, not self defense at all. I wonder what people like this think they would do if someone had there hands around their throat and was choking the life out of them. Are they going to call 911? What do they do if there is one one around? Do they just lay down and die? People like this that have institutionalize the vilification of natural human behaviors and responses, that cause so many children to end up 'in the system' before they can graduate from High School.
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