Kindergartener's suspension appealed to Supreme Court -

WNBC ^ | September 19, 2003

[UnklGene]

Kindergartener's Suspension Appealed To Supreme Court

Playground Gunplay Case Goes To High Court

POSTED: 8:35 a.m. EDT September 19, 2003

SAYREVILLE, N.J. -- Lawyers representing the family of a boy suspended from kindergarten after a playground game involving make-believe guns have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case.

The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit group focused on First Amendment and religious freedom cases, announced the appeal on Thursday.

According to The Rutherford Institute, four kindergarten boys at Wilson Elementary School were playing cops and robbers during recess in March 2000, using their fingers as guns.

The boy represented by the institute allegedly said, "I have a bazooka, and I'm going to shoot you."

Another student told a teacher, and the four boys were each suspended for three days. The Rutherford Institute filed a lawsuit, seeking to have the suspension expunged from one boy's record.

The institute argues the boy's constitutional rights to free speech, procedural due process and equal protection of law were violated by the school. But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, dismissing the lawsuit this June.

Institute President John W. Whitehead said when public schools think children "playing cops and robbers on the playground are engaged in threatening and dangerous activity, one wonders whether it is the children or the adults who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality."

Dennis Fyffe, superintendent for Sayreville's school district, did not immediately return a telephone message left at his office.

[Allegra]

It was fun and stimulating and normal and not a one of us wound up being a serial killer.

Well, there was that kid Wayne, but we didn't like him.

Ummmm...Henley?

[Ed Condon]

When this was first reported, one of the jokes about it was,"the kids that were playing cops had been suspended with pay, until internal affairs completes an investigation."

[humblegunner]

Out of that class, one Navy SEAL, one USMC Sargeant Major, a scientist, farmers,at least one commercial fisherman, and I haven't kept track of all the rest.

We had a pair of Border Patrol Officers, one cop, one pilot, two shippers and a Marine.
Oh, and a rancher, as well.

We even had game involving one team having to be "Charlie"..
Charlie always got waxed but that was their job.

How very un-PC of us to profile the North Vietnamese that way.

[raybbr]

When we weren't playing cops and robbers or cowboys and indians, we were playing army with sticks for guns and dirt-clod 'grenades' (no rocks!).

We used bb guns, but only from a distance, and none of us became criminals either (that I know of).

[jwalburg]

I remember dirt clod grenades! Those were great! Unconstitutional, but great!

[humblegunner]

Nah, not him..

He was 'way older and had a car. He had trouble spelling "sincerly"
and he would have gone postal over "seriesly"...and I think that's what messed him up for life.

I meant his brother, Nelson Wayne.

"Wayne the pain, he makes it rain,
he's gone insane poor Wayne the pain"

[Smokin' Joe]

We especially enjoyed the puff of dust when the clod came apart on impact.. Our opponents included everyone from the Wehrmacht to the even less PC "gooks", but when we were playing, a bottle of Coke was a dime, a hershey bar was a nickel, and penny candy abounded.

[BiffWondercat]

But what happens to the first boy who asks to borrow the "hoe"? Sexual Harassment?

[Eaker]

Hard to believe that after 44 years I have murdered nobody. I have taken up arms, but have never committed murder.

Playing "army" as a kid has come in handy more than once when calculating the next move of an untrained individual. They make the same mistakes as adults as they did as kids.

Thanks for the ping Allegra!

[humblegunner]

But what happens to the first boy who asks to borrow the "hoe"? Sexual Harassment?

He'll probably be slammed into readjustment and sensitivity therapy.

Counselling, medication, special classes, indoctrination...

[Gritty]

...four kindergarten boys at Wilson Elementary School were playing cops and robbers during recess in March 2000, using their fingers as guns.

I'll bet if they were all caught putting condoms on their fingers they would have been promoted to First Grade!

[lorrainer]

Oh, brother! We played with the dried dirt clods, too--WHEN WE WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE THE BOYS LET US GIRLS IN! What's this world coming to? This is even worse than the Chicken Finger Suspension incident.

[jjm2111]

I love New Jersey. Can you imagine the reaction on Teddy Roosevelt's face if you told him back in 1900 that a little boy was suspended from school for playing Army in the playground and the appeal went all the way to the Supreme Court?