Windsor High School announced recently that they would start handing out tickets for “Creating a Public Disturbance” to any student that swears on school grounds. In Connecticut, where WHS is located, this is an infraction carrying a fine of $103.00.
This policy is akin to using a shotgun to kill a fly. It is hypocritical, enforcement will be necessarily capricious, it places unneeded economic burden on families, is possibly an incorrect application of the law being used, and it teaches unquestioning obedience to authority despite common sense.
To take this one at a time, the hypocrisy is obvious — I dare Principal Russel Sills and Resource Officer Gregory Carter to say with a straight face they never swear, either now or in the past. Swearing is a normal, ancient, and common part of language. To pretend it doesn’t exist is a Victorian attitude best left to the past. It is also notable that this policy applies only to students, not to administrators, staff, or teachers that swear on school grounds.
The capricious nature of enforcement is also self-evident. Will WHS be installing language monitors to hand out tickets in every school space? No, of course not. Some swearers will be unlucky enough to do it in front of Sills or another teacher, some will swear in front of a teacher that doesn’t care about the policy enough to enforce it, and some will do it on school grounds but out of earshot of our modern-day Bowlders.
The students have already noted the economic cost: “I don’t have $103. …I can’t even afford lunch,” said Tyshawn Hicks, a junior. Imposing an unnecessary cost on families in a poor economy is extraordinarily tone-deaf.
It is questionable whether this is even the kind of application the Legislature intended when it created the charge of Creating a Public Disturbance. The statute reads:
(a) A person is guilty of creating a public disturbance when, with intent to cause inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he (1) engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior; or (2) annoys or interferes with another person by offensive conduct; or (3) makes unreasonable noise.
Does any person really think a four-letter word really causes “Annoyance or alarm” in this day and age? Is a swear word by itself violent? Obviously not, so the only retreat the school would have is saying swearing “annoys….by offensive conduct.” In all honesty, however, if one is truly annoyed by swearing in a public school, one is probably in the wrong field. Students swear, teachers swear, coaches most certainly swear, and parents swear. Windsor attempts to create a little island of hyper-civility that is doomed to fail.
This last is probably the worst part of the whole mess. When officials state they will implement a policy with these defects it sends probably the exact opposite message the administration wants. It says: “Do as we say, not as we do.” It says: “Our policies don’t have to be right or sensible, we just have to follow them.” It says: “Arbitrary exercise of power is acceptable.” Are these the messages WHS really wants to teach its students?
All in all, a policy born of misguided moralism and not educational need.
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