SUMMON THE MONKEYS

The whole idea of "zero tolerance" is to send a message to children. In
Galveston last week, that message was: Do the right thing, and you'll get it.

That's what happened to a 7-year-old who got caught up in a two-pronged
cavalcade of error.

Here's what the second-grader learned in the process. Next time you find a
gun, don't tell. Throw it in the bushes. Flush it down the toilet. Don't
bring it to a teacher. You'll get suspended.

The child in question went to school not knowing that his mom's idiot
boyfriend had put a handgun in his backpack. When he discovered it looking
for pencils and paper, the boy told his teacher. It was exactly what he
should have done.

The boyfriend was dutifully charged with a misdemeanor.

The boy? Reasonable people would have patted him on the head and let him
get on with his childhood. Instead, citing the Texas Education Code (which
is not as clear as the district implies), the school district suspended him
for three days, supposedly to investigate.

School officials said eventually the boy might get a commendation, even a
reward. That doesn't excuse what they did in the name of zero tolerance.

For acting like winged monkeys rather than rational human beings, they
should be suspended three days from the order of higher primates.

Zero tolerance, first implemented to combat drugs in schools, then pumped
up to counteract violence, has become a chilling monstrosity.

On the pretense of curbing assaults and taking threats seriously, children
can be punished severely for acting childishly.

Zero tolerance takes judgment out of the equation at a time when, with
tender psyches at stake, judgment is most needed. Consider these atrocities:

* A Pennsylvania kindergartner was suspended for bringing a toy ax to
school as part of his Halloween costume.

* A 14-year-old boy mistakenly left a pocket knife in his book bag after a
Boy Scout camping trip. He was expelled even though his Scout leader
vouched for his explanation.

* Four New Jersey kindergartners were suspended for playing cops and
robbers during recess. The words, "Bang. I shot you." were judged to be a
"terroristic threat."

In each case some higher primate could legalistically say the
zero-tolerance policy was violated (That's an ax, even if orange and
plastic). But here's where we're supposed to be separated from the winged
monkeys. We're supposed to use reason.

Instead, we set hard and fast rules and hide behind them like torch-bearing
hordes.

"In the rush to make an immediate response [to school safety concerns],
rhetoric has won over common sense," said a blistering report on zero
tolerance by the Harvard Civil Rights Project.

Administrators point out that that zero tolerance pre-dates Columbine,
Paducah and Springfield. It goes back to the Reagan era and "just say no."

So we have instances like the high school boy who got suspended for drug
possession after he convinced a classmate to hand over some
over-the-counter pills when she was talking about suicide.

Here's a quick-thinking hero. But there's no time for reason in Zero-T.
Quick. Summon the monkeys.

The Galveston gun incident is the quintessence of what's wrong with "zero
tolerance." Here you had a child who did exactly - exactly - what a child
should do in a bizarre situation. Instead of saying, "We'll investigate
this thing before disrupting his schooling" school officials decided to
disrupt first, then investigate.

Technically, they were safe. Technically, the little boy broke a law. He
brought a gun to school. Of course, he had no idea he was doing it.

Instead of treating him him like a child, they treated him like a police
officer due an inquest.

They call it zero tolerance. We should start talking about what it's
become, which is zero common sense.

John Young's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. E-mail:
jyoung@wacotrib.com.