PUMP UP THE REBELLION

Ontario Student Was Right To Challenge The Use Of Sniffer Dogs, And
School's Authority

I remember the Monday in Grade 11 when our high school population
shrank by about 40. Kids were marched down one at a time to the
principal's office, and make the dreaded call home to inform their
parents they'd been expelled. Over the weekend our ex-military
principal had arranged for sniffer dogs to go through the school, and
those whose lockers contained drugs were marked for expulsion.

No one complained, as far as I recall, and since it was a big school,
it's not like the classes felt empty afterwards. A few of the
banished were in my classes, but whereas I was a "good kid," in
general the perps were not exactly university-bound model citizens.
The automotive program was overrepresented, as were the remedial
academic classes.

Our principal was bent on turning around our school, which had one of
the worst reputations in the city, and getting rid of students who
didn't add value was one way to accomplish that. (Much like the
principal in the Christian Slater movie Pump Up the Volume.)

We never found out what drugs were involved or in what amounts, but
in those pre-meth days, most of it was probably marijuana. Of the
kids I knew who were caught, none of the names surprised me. In fact,
I was amazed at who didn't get nabbed. You didn't need dogs to see
who showed up red-eyed in school every day or hear who boasted about
getting "baked"-an impenetrable code word to teachers, to be sure.

None of us questioned the right of the school administration to
conduct the search, even those of us who didn't think drugs were a
big deal. For a while, some students lamented friends sent off to
lesser schools, but that was about it. We good kids continued our
pursuit of high marks while looking forward to each weekend's
alcoholic excesses, courtesy of older friends from another school and
the basement provided by a classmate's easygoing parents.

After last week's Supreme Court decisions on drug searches, general
sweeps for drugs in schools may be a thing of the past. In R. v.
A.M., a recent case brought to us by a Sarnia, Ontario student,
judges ruled 6-3 that the use of sniffer dogs to conduct a
generalized search in 2002 contravened the Charter, and dismissed the
evidence found in one student's backpack. That student was charged
with possession of pot and magic mushrooms for the purpose of trafficking.

Selling drugs to kids is bad, m'kay? I don't want to see it happen
and I actually do sympathize with principals and others who want it
stopped, along with other illegal and dangerous activities. Schools
should be safe places, with zero tolerance for drug sales on school
property. That includes alcohol, by the way.

Nothing in last week's rulings detracts from this position. But in
the rush to keep kids safe from themselves, some of us adults have
forgotten what we do want them to take in at school. Critical
thinking and questioning authority should be right up there.
Certainly, in my time we were explicitly taught the lessons of moral
and social panics exploited by authoritarian figures. In history, for
example, we learned about Hitler and other fascist leaders mobilizing
supporters on this basis, and in English, we studied Arthur Miller's
allegory about the 1950s McCarthy hearings, The Crucible.

High-school administrators and teachers aren't fascist dictators or
witch-burners, of course, but aside from parents (and sometimes even
instead of parents), they are the principal authority figures in
children's lives. This is a tremendous amount of responsibility, one
that involves not only protecting young people but also preparing
them to be full participants in our liberal democratic society who
can and will stand up for themselves when their rights are threatened
by the illegitimate exercise of authority.

We don't (or shouldn't) stop people at random in this country because
they look a certain way, and we certainly shouldn't deny basic rights
to those who will be running things when we're old and infirm based
on their age and school attendance.

I regret that the lessons we so smugly learned in our high school
classes didn't filter through to other parts of our minds, and that
we unquestioningly accepted what our authorities did to our peers.
These were lessons many of us had to learn again and again as adults
before they took hold with at least some of us.

By the way, I found out a few years later that two of the more
academically-minded students expelled from my school managed to get a
hold of some letterhead and forged transcripts that got them into
good colleges south of the border. I guess vigilance is a relative thing.