Equal Rights In Schools (Guilty until proven innocent)

Principles and teachers at schools claim to be impartial. They claim 
that someone's appearance wont affect their grade, or whether or not they 
get suspended. They claim that everyone's side of the story will be heard, 
and a student will be "innocent until proven guilty", not vice-versa. This 
is a lie.

The fact is that in today's education system, how you act and dress has as
 much affect on your grade and your "permanant record" as your work itself. 
If I went to public school and wore abercrombie and fitch or tommy lee everyday, 
and made friends with the teachers, but didnt do any work and failed all the tests,
i could still get an "A." I could get in a fight at school and not be punished. 
I could do just about anything i wanted.

But if I wore clothing with the word "Anarchy" in big red letters printed 
on it, a studded bracelet, and had spikey blue hair, but still did all my
work, and just didnt give a teacher my attention and respect when they tried
to force their opinions on me, i would most likely fail the class, and be suspened
or expelled for holding my own opinion. If another kid (of the type described in 
the previous paragraph) started a fight with me and i defended myself, i would 
likely get expelled, and he *might* get a detention.

Also, the "Equal Rights at School" is a joke for racial issues (although this one
goes both ways, as you will see), too. At my school, soon after the WTC attack, 
2 kids, one of hispanic backround, and the other African American, pulled an 
"Anthrax Hoax" at my school. When questioned, they tried to lay the blame on 
a friend of mine, who happens to be white. Not only did my friend have nothing 
to do with the Anthrax scare, but the police didn't even listen to his story 
before sending him to Juvenile detention. At the hearing, which determined his 
punishment, all 3 boys were expelled, but they only listened to one kids story.

Of course, the judge couldn't say that my friend wasn't guilty, since it would 
look like he was discriminating against the minority group. So the judges answer 
was to convict all of them of a felony without hearing their stories.

Now don't get me wrong, im not racist in anyway. I know that a lot of minorities
are discriminated against in many similar cases. That is just as wrong...but so 
is this. My freind didn't get the right of free speech or the right to a fair trial.
He became "guilty until proven innocent", but never got the chance to prove himself innocent. 

The Aftermath: Now my friend's social life is ruined, he can't come back to his 
school district, and has a felony on his record at age 14. And oh yeah, i forgot 
to mention that one of the other kids tested positive on a drug test at juvenile 
detention, and still ended up with a signifigantly lighter sentence.

All in all, Equal rights in todays educational system is a joke. Those who don't 
conform, who don't fit the teachers definition of a "socially acceptable teenager", 
those who think for themselves are the ones who get punished.

-Khaos


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