VERONA STUDENTS' RIGHTS VIOLATED by Ken Haak; Madison
Copyright (c) 1997, Madison Newspapers, Inc.

Dear Editor: The words lockdown and search may be
appropriate for use in the prisons of Wisconsin, but they
have no place in the educational terminology of our
schools. It is extremely hard to teach the concepts of free
democratic society in a totalitarian environment. The
school officials at Verona should realize this and
apologize to their student body.

The examples of student conduct cited in The Capital
Times on March 26 seem to indicate the Verona schools have
rules in place to deal with students who violate their drug
policies. Why bring in the police and dogs to carry out an
unwarranted and unsuccessful search?

Our system of justice assumes innocence, but Verona
school officials lock down their students while the canine
corps carry out their search. The message to the students
is clear. We do not respect your rights and we think you
might be guilty.

I started my career as a classroom teacher 29 years ago
when students were fighting to remove unfair and unduly
restrictive policies from their schools. The war on
drugs has become the greatest threat to the Bill of Rights
since McCarthyism in the 1950s. It is hard to teach people
to become citizens of a democracy under these conditions.

Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas expressed the following
ideas in Tinker V. Des Moines Schools: Schools are not
enclaves of totalitarianism. The Bill of Rights does not
end at the school house door. I doubt if Justice Fortas
would agree that lockdown and search are appropriate
methods of creating a democratic learning environment. We
shouldn't either.