JUDGE REINSTATES STUDENT LEADER AFTER DRUG INCIDENT

The Ruling Says Phoenix High School Was Wrong To Strip Him Of His
Office After He Had Marijuana At School

MEDFORD -- A Jackson County judge has reinstated a student body president
at Phoenix High School who was found on campus with marijuana.

Judge Phil Arnold said administrators had no authority to punish Keanon
Ferguson beyond the standard five-day suspension for a first-time drug
offense because the school's rules did not address wrongdoing by elected
student leaders.

"To craft a punishment which is outside the rules, after the infraction has
been committed, is not a fair and consistent enforcement of the rules as
required by Oregon law," the judge wrote in a ruling issued Thursday.

The ruling came with a court-ordered injunction, forcing the school
district to reinstate Ferguson's title.

The school board voted unanimously Thursday night to appeal. In the
meantime, Ferguson's title will be restored.

Retired attorney Bill Ferguson said he sued the school district on his
son's behalf not necessarily because he disagreed with the punishment, but
because he felt it was illegal.

"What the kid did was wrong," he said. "By the same token, he's required to
obey the rules and so is the school. It's a two-way street."

Ferguson sued the school district after his son -- then the student body
president-elect -- was caught in the school parking lot June 12 with a
small amount of marijuana and a glass pipe in his pants pocket. A campus
security officer also smelled the odor of marijuana smoke coming from
Ferguson's car, which contained a roach and roach clip.

School officials initially suspended Ferguson for five days, the standard
punishment prescribed by the school's drug policy. He also was suspended
from the football team for several weeks, missed a game and was forced to
submit to random drug testing.

But during the summer, administrators decided Ferguson's behavior set a
poor example for a student body president. They stripped him of his title,
a decision later affirmed by the school board.

In a hearing before Arnold last week, Ashland attorney Tom Howser argued
that his client was punished more severely than allowed by school rules and
that Oregon law requires consistent enforcement of written rules.

Howser argued that, under the Phoenix High constitution, only students may
recall an elected class officer. Arnold's ruling did not address the
subject, and it remains to be seen whether a recall effort is mounted.