The source for this story is the Smoky Mountain News in North Carolina. A cross burning is a felony hate crime and has serious consequences in most place. This is wrong on so many levels. -Susan
A Tuscola football player charged with a felony cross burning
targeting a biracial classmate will remain on the team, at least for
now.
Ben Greene, a rising junior and running back on the varsity football
team, will have to sit out two games and do 25 hours of community
service, according to school board policy. He can continue to practice
and train with the team and is free to take the field again after
sitting out the requisite number of games.“We are following our policy exactly,” said Haywood County Schools Superintendent Anne Garrett.
While Garrett can’t talk about specific disciplinary action taken
against individual students, she could discuss in generic terms what the
school board’s policy is.
In particular, school policy says that student athletes charged with a
crime have to sit out 20 percent of the games in a season and do 25
hours of community service but can continue practicing and training. If
it’s a student’s second offense, they have to sit out a whole season and
can’t practice with their team. On the third strike, they are
permanently barred from playing on any school sports team.
Garret said the school has received a few phone calls from the public
expressing concern over the football player remaining on the team after
news of the charges came out in the past week.
“Schools would have an obligation to take this seriously,” said
Janine Murphy, assistant legal counsel for the North Carolina School
Boards Association. “You might disagree with whether it is enough games
or not enough games, but at least they are taking a stand that this is
not acceptable conduct for someone representing our school.”
Therein lies the conundrum: was it an ignorant, albeit mean-spirited,
stunt? Or did the perpetrators realize the gravity of what they were
doing?
Regardless, “The unintended consequences can be very powerful and
very damaging,” said Mary McGlaufin, a member of a discussion and
advocacy group in Haywood County called Changemakers for Racial
Understanding. “When something happens, like a cross burning, in a
community, it tears the fabric of the whole community. It is a form of
domestic terrorism.”
While the Civil Rights era may seem like ancient history to today’s
teens, they surely would realize that cross-burning is not in the same
vein as graffiti or rolling someone’s yard with toilet paper, Murphy
said.
“It is clearly something that is done to intimidate,” Murphy said.
“The Supreme Court has determined this is a true threat, with intent of
intimidating any person or group of persons, not just trash talk.”
Bullying and harassment in school settings — and the severe and
lasting emotional scarring it can inflict on victims — has been in the
national spotlight in recent years. It can’t be easy for the student
targeted by a weekend cross-burning to come back to school the following
Monday.
“Does it take away her feeling of acceptance in the community?” Murphy posed.
That’s certainly not something that escapes Garrett. Garrett is the
author of a book Bullying in American Schools. The book defines bullying
as a form of violence among children, one that can begin with put-downs
and teasing but has the dangerous capactiy to escalate and sets the
stage for a lifetime of rule-breaking and antisocial behavior.
“Such violence has become one of the most serious problems in America
today, and both bullies and their victims need help,” according to the
publisher’s synopsis of Garrett’s book, which came out in 2003.
The Changemakers for Racial Understanding, a group that has been
meeting for a year to discuss strategies for dismantling racism, hopes
to work with the school system.“Certainly from the administration there is a desire to make sure
there is a zero tolerance. We as a group want to be a back up that says
we as a community support that,” McGlaufin said. If a student is convicted of a felony, other policies would kick in.
But for now, the school board is beholden to follow the policy on its
books, Garrett said.
“There is a big difference between charged and being convicted,” Garrett said.
The Haywood County School Board policy doesn’t take into account the
severity of the crime a student is charged with. Under the current
policy, a student athlete charged with underage drinking theoretically
would have the same punishment as a student charged with murder.
Garrett said that is something the school board may chose to revisit and reconsider going forward.
The policy currently on the books was revised in the fall of 2011 and
matches that recommended by the N.C. High School Athletics Association
and the N.C. Association of School Boards, Garrett said Previously, Tuscola and Pisgah high schools weren’t handling
infractions by student athletes consistently. Repercussions could even
vary from coach to coach, who may have decided on a case-by-case basis
whether to make a particular student run 10 miles or sit out a couple of
games depending on what they did.
“We wanted the two high schools to be consistent,” Garrett said of
the policy revision in 2011. “We are grateful we had a board that was
proactive in looking at it.”
Schools ultimately have a lot of latitude in deciding whether to kick
student athletes off a team. Playing sports is a privilege, not an
entitlement. Students have to have minimum GPAs and attendance records,
for example. Principals do have discretion to bar a student from playing
for their conduct.
“Generally the rule for athletes is you represent the school, and
therefore, you are held to a higher standard as a representative of the
school,” said Murphy. “You can’t anticipate every possible misbehavior,
so you have to have some leeway to deal with specific incidents.”
