SHADES OF GRAY

THE ISSUE A Muscle Shoals senior was expelled after drug paraphernalia was
found in his car. WE SUGGEST School districts should use common sense and
focus on rehabilitation in discipline issues.

A large part of growing up is about learning from one's mistakes. In any
society, rules are made, and when they are broken the appropriate
punishments are doled out based on the seriousness and circumstances of the
offense committed. The punishment for fighting, for instance, should always
be less than for premeditated murder.

In this day and age, when so many feel the need to cross our societal
boundaries, there's an understandable desire by many charged with enforcing
the rules to look for easy absolutes. You break a rule, there's a mandatory
punishment. Having black-and-white, set-in-stone consequences is much
simpler than having to look at the factors and people involved.

The problem with this approach is that life is rarely black and white;
there are more often many shades of gray.

That appears to be the case with Cody Dixon, a Muscle Shoals High School
senior who was expelled last week by the district's school board. School
officials say they found a pipe with marijuana residue in his car, which
was parked on campus.

Even though Dixon voluntarily submitted to a test that showed no trace of
drugs in his system, he was tossed out of school for the remainder of his
senior year.

If the pipe was Dixon's, or if he even knew it was in his car, the young
man clearly violated the school's drug policy and deserved to be punished.
The question is, what should be done about it?

In our legal system, a judge would ask a number of questions before making
this decision. Is this a first offense? What are the chances that the
offender would repeat the crime? And, more importantly, how can this person
best be rehabilitated?

If something like this happened in a workplace, most employers would not
immediately fire the employee. More often, an attempt is made to get a
valuable employee help.

But the message the Muscle Shoals school board sent to this young man, and
to all of the children in the district, is that there is no difference
between an offense like Dixon's and something much more harmful - like drug
dealing or having a gun on campus.

By doling out the most severe punishment - expulsion - in this case, the
board put these offenses in the same category and refused to promote
Dixon's rehabilitation.

Interestingly, if Dixon had been enrolled in at least one other area school
district - Florence - the results might have been different. Superintendent
Kendy Behrends said her system's policy allows administrators to take each
case on an individual basis.

"If they go through a reputable program and provide documentation of their
successful completion, they can be transitioned back into school when that
occurs," she said.

This approach is certainly more humane and more consistent with life in the
real world.

While Dixon undoubtedly learned a lesson from this little episode in his
life, we question whether it was the most appropriate one.

Did he learn there is redemption for those who accept responsibility for
their actions and choose to reform themselves? Or did he learn that he
lives in an unforgiving, one-strike-and-you're-out kind of world?

More than likely, he learned the latter of the these two, and that's a shame.