For Immediate Release: November 19, 2020
Sixth Grader Suspended, Reported to Police for Displaying Toy Gun During Zoom Class as Part of Assignment to Look ‘Scary’
MATTHEWS, N.C.— The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a North Carolina student who was suspended from school and reported to police for possessing a look-alike weapon and making a threat after he displayed a toy gun during a virtual class as part of a Halloween assignment to “look scary.”
In a letter to the principal of Socrates Academy in Matthews, N.C., Rutherford Institute attorneys are demanding that the weapons charges be removed from the child’s school records. In the wake of a growing number of incidents in which students have been suspended and reported to police by school officials for having toy guns nearby (at home) while taking part in virtual schooling, The Rutherford Institute has also made available to parents a precautionary “opt out” letter as a means by which families whose children are taking part in remote learning / virtual classes might assert their Fourth Amendment privacy rights and guard against intrusive government surveillance posed by remote learning technologies.
“While the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly introduced significant challenges for the schools, as they vacillate between holding classes online, in-person or a hybrid of the two, remote learning (by way of online or virtual classes) should not be used to justify the expansion of draconian zero tolerance policies to encompass so-called ‘violations’ that take place in students’ homes and home environments,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “This incident should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the nation’s public schools on what not to do when similar circumstances arise as they undoubtedly will: students would be better served if school officials opted to employ some common sense and did not overreact, overstep and overreach.”
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