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| 1) It is not “equal treatment” to paddle girls and boys “without regard to the gender” of the paddler. It is not even equal treatment if the gender of hitter and child are matched, since a woman’s buttocks is much more a sexual area than a man’s is. A woman paddling a woman is a much greater violation than a man paddling a man is, unless there is a homosexual element felt by the paddler or victim. Women paddling men at the high school level is very rare, but when it does occur it may lead to the male teen feeling he is being emasculated—particularly in the South with a lot of cultural “machismo.” Just such a paddling, in this case of a woman to a junior high male, may have been the trigger for one of the most explosive mass school shootings in US history in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Generally, however, a heterosexual man paddling a woman is the highest sexual violation possible. The violation is compounded because almost all high school paddlings of women are given by, and/or observed, by men. There are very few cases of teen males being paddled by women, and a larger minority of cases of women being paddled by women. This could also be an issue of Title IX enforcement. | | 2) The Bible does not teach school paddling. Paddling, in fact, specifically violates the religious beliefs of some Christian groups, as well as those of other religions such as the Baha’i Faith. This too could become a constitutional issue involving freedom of religion. The draconian alternatives that men offer pretty girls who “get into trouble” at public high schools harms schooling much more than the “paddle choice” would. A person with a religious belief that did not allow the beating of women and children, such as Baha’is, Quakers, individual Christians with those beliefs, as well as Muslims who may be highly offended at a man paddling a teen girl, would have their education harmed more than those who did “bend over.” Violence and sexual abuse should not be an “option” to choose at school, and the person who opts for a non-violent punishment should not have sports and grades harmed any more than the “paddle choice” would. | | 3) There’s a “whole lotta abuse goin’ on,” and it is not the exception. Paddling is always inherently abusive, but is often carried out in extreme ways, even by pro-paddling standards. Sadistic men paddling women for trivial violations and trumped up charges are very common in paddling schools in the South. | | 4) The media often mis-report the incidents of abuse, and hide the cases that make paddling “look bad.” The better media, that try to report it, are often fed “disinformation” by the paddlers that hide the worst aspects. Schools that paddle on a daily basis, for example, tell the reporter that the paddle is “seldom used.” One man, who studied the incident in depth, believes that the media deliberately buried the story that one of the Jonesboro shooters was paddled the day before, and that the teacher he targeted was the one who paddled him. None of the local papers apparently mentioned this "trivial fact." It took the Boston Globe and a very few non-local news sources to open that up. | | 5) States are ignoring a key component of the Ingraham v Wright Supreme Court decision that allowed school corporal punishment to exist when they pass laws to limit the right of injured students, or their parents, to sue. The only reason the courts allowed paddling, without an expanded due process, was that paddling was considered universal, and thus “necessary,” at the time (neither of which is true today). They reluctantly allowed the “after-the-fact” lawsuit to serve as due process. Now the ability to sue has been effectively taken away in Texas and other states with “Teacher Protection Acts,” and huge fines of $15,000 are levied on parents of battered children who try to bring it up in court. States like Texas that impose severe sanctions on parents who try to sue for damages are essentially paddling children outside the Supreme Court’s blessing. They are paddling outside the US constitution. | | 6) Politicians pass mis-labeled laws to protect very abusive paddlers, and tie the hands of concerned parents with lying language in bills that are full of “doublespeak.” “Teacher Protection Acts” only serve to block due process from applying to teachers after they commit legal child abuse, as defined in that state. (But doesn’t it sound good to “protect teachers?”) Similarly “Local Control” laws passed at the state or national level only serve to guarantee paddling schools won’t be mandated by the state to quit beating children. | | 7) Since the only alternates for women to a sexually charged paddling session from a man is suspension (in school or out) that removes her from sports and harms grades (while the paddling does neither), the paddling “option” takes the exact form of “quid-pro-quo” sexual harassment. Submit to the sexually charged assault, or have schooling/career and sports harmed. That the principals enjoy paddling is obvious in their offering of only severe alternates. If they didn’t enjoy paddling they would allow a short detention that didn’t harm schooling as an option, and no one would ever “choose paddling.” The schools would function as well or better, as they do in the majority of states that are non-paddling in fact. |
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