Parents Sue Over `Zero Tolerance'

Insight on the News, July 2, 2001 by Andrea Billups

The parents of a Louisiana third-grader suspended in March for bringing his drawing of an armed G.I. Joe to class have filed a federal lawsuit against the school district. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Monroe, La., challenges the district's strict interpretation of a zero-tolerance policy designed to protect students and teachers from classroom violence.

"I think it's more than overkill; I think it's crazy," says John W. Whitehead, president of the Charlottesville, Va.-based Rutherford Institute, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Raleigh "Trey" Walker III, a student at Lenwil Elementary School in Ouachita Parish. Whitehead's public-interest law firm represents several students and their families around the nation who are involved in similar zero-tolerance policy lawsuits.

According to his complaint, Trey -- who has several relatives serving in the military -- drew at his home a picture of a soldier, armed with hand grenades and knives, and tucked it into a notebook. Another student saw the boy's artwork and notified their teacher. The teacher called the principal, who deemed the drawing "upsetting" and punished Trey with a one-day in-school suspension.

"All these policies make no sense," says Whitehead. "Who gets punished are these innocents. Zero tolerance takes away any discretion. It disrupts families and is psychologically damaging to these little kids."

An estimated 14,000 U.S. school districts have adopted zero-tolerance policies. They came into vogue in the early 1990s and peaked around 1995, a year after Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act. That legislation required states to adopt such laws or risk losing federal funds.

Since then, and in the wake of the student massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and other recent school shootings, zero-tolerance policies have been widely discussed and used frequently against misbehaving students, much to the chagrin of parents, who have argued that the policies have been abused.