# Corporal Punishment on an 18 year old student **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 30, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560 "2014-12-30T19:56:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/41 "2015-01-04T02:16:19Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I am curious about the following: What would happen if a child at that school hit the person administering the punishment or the people holding her down? > > Are children who hit their parents when their parents are administering corporal punishment committing assault/battery? > > What would happen if this 18 year old had hit the principal? Or fought one off, accidentally killing them in the process? Something tells me the SYG law would keep her from being convicted of anything. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/42 "2015-01-04T02:23:43Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Something about that site rather makes me question what intent it is published with. True, but it demonstrated that corporal punishment in schools is mostly a third-world phenomenon these days. Developing countries and American rednecks. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2015, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/43 "2015-01-04T09:06:41Z")
> [@get\_lives](#): > > Or fought one off, accidentally killing them in the process? > > Something tells me the SYG law would keep her from being convicted of anything. in case anybody here is a Texas teenager in trouble at school, I wouldn’t take that advice to heart, for the following reasons: 1. The Texas stand your ground law doesn’t allow you to kill somebody as a defense against simple assault; only kidnapping, attempted murder, sexual assault, and robbery. 2. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, it’s legal for schools to paddle students in Texas anyway (unless it’s not allowed by the district), so even if the stand your ground law did apply to simple assault, it wouldn’t apply here. So, kids, don’t kill your principal. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/44 "2015-01-04T14:46:50Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > That part is discussed in the decision: And yet to me, that doesn’t address the core of it at all. I don’t have disagreement that _while she chose to attend_, she was required to follow the rules of her charter school. Including submission to corporal punishment and following the attendance policies. But she said she did not want to attend the school anymore. They disregarded that, held her down, and battered her. I cannot sign a contract that makes me another’s slave, or gives that person the right to beat me in perpetuity. I can sign a contract that says I’ll submit to being whipped as part of discipline, or that I’ll be in breach. If the girl refused to be whipped, she’d be in breach and thus _eligible for suspension/expulsion_ from the school for not following the charter school’s agreement. But as an adult that still should not have given them the right to hold down an unwilling adult and batter her with a wooden paddle. It’s odd to me the Federal courts essentially ignored the problem. I suspect to them they were so focused on the lens of school/student, they didn’t fully consider the full rights that all adults have not to be assaulted or laid hands upon against their will. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/45 "2015-01-04T19:07:44Z")
Maybe, but when she committed the offense that got her in trouble, she was a student at the school. I mean, I assume this school has procedures to drop out; paperwork to fill out, stuff to do, etc. You can’t just say “Well, I’m not a student at the school anymore” or just stop going. I agree there’s an optics problem, and I’m not sure the school acted appropriately, especially in restraining her and with an individual of the opposite sex paddling her, but it doesn’t seem to make sense to me to say that, so long as she’s a student at the school, the rules should be different for her because she’s 18. If it’s ok to paddle a 17 year old student for that rules infraction, it seems like it would be equally ok to paddle an 18 year old student. That being said, I’m pretty sure Texas requires parental opt out, so if her parents had a problem with her being paddled, they could have signed paperwork at the beginning of the year telling the school it wasn’t ok to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/46 "2015-01-05T20:35:13Z")
Forget SYG, what about plain old self-defense? Do Texas school children give up the right to self defense? Do they have a duty to stand there and be beaten? Can they even run away, or dodge the hits? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/47 "2015-01-06T00:23:37Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Well in the school districts that still do paddling, you have to sign a consent form. I believe in the ones that still do it, you either sign such a form or your kid doesn’t go to the school. “As described in the link”, would seem to go beyond normal paddling. > > But the real distinguishing factor to me is 18 years old. At 18, it’s really not even the parent’s call, the child should be the one who decides–okay, I’ll let them paddle me because that’s the crazy rules here in this Texas charter school, or no I won’t do it. She said no, and they physically restrained her and paddled her anyway. The forms I remember had the student and the parent sign. Not that it was ever used after elementary school. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2015, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/48 "2015-01-06T00:59:15Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Forget SYG, what about plain old self-defense? Do Texas school children give up the right to self defense? Do they have a duty to stand there and be beaten? Can they even run away, or dodge the hits? That’s a good point. Or, perhaps, consider this. If I were in that situation, how would I know whether the school administrators truly intended to “just” paddle me or whether they were using the “paddling” as a set-up to rape or molest me? Maybe I see his hand move to what I think is too close to my groin. I respond almost automatically, kick him once, and when he moves to advance on me after that, grab a paperweight off of his desk and bash it across his face, causing serious trauma. He then claims that he didn’t intend to molest me, honest, and that the hand near the groin thing was just to steady himself because of his bad right ankle, which I didn’t know about because of, y’know medical privacy and the fact that looking up the Principal’s medical records in advance for no particular reason is just not something that is socially acceptable. Do I deserve a self-defense defense to charges of assault? ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2015, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/49 "2015-01-06T05:30:38Z")
According to research I’ve done on the internet, spanking 18 year old schoolgirls is actually quite common… popular even. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2015, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/50 "2015-01-06T13:31:46Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > And yet to me, that doesn’t address the core of it at all. I don’t have disagreement that _while she chose to attend_, she was required to follow the rules of her charter school. Including submission to corporal punishment and following the attendance policies. But she said she did not want to attend the school anymore. They disregarded that, held her down, and battered her. > > I cannot sign a contract that makes me another’s slave, or gives that person the right to beat me in perpetuity. I can sign a contract that says I’ll submit to being whipped as part of discipline, or that I’ll be in breach. If the girl refused to be whipped, she’d be in breach and thus _eligible for suspension/expulsion_ from the school for not following the charter school’s agreement. But as an adult that still should not have given them the right to hold down an unwilling adult and batter her with a wooden paddle. It’s odd to me the Federal courts essentially ignored the problem. > > I suspect to them they were so focused on the lens of school/student, they didn’t fully consider the full rights that all adults have not to be assaulted or laid hands upon against their will. But signing a contract as a adult to allow oneself to be physically punished for corrective discipline (if this is actually allowed), is substantially different then a ‘parental entity’ disciplining a child. The first is consensual and contractional with the person having rights or benefits or at least limits stated in the contract, the second is non-consonantal, unilateral, however I guess one can state there are limits as imposed by law, though in Tx I don’t know how much protection that affords a child. But the underlying reason is the assumption that a child should be molded by such discipline as part of the parental responsibility. That ends when the person becomes a adult, so doing that to a adult, even under a contract, should not be permitted as it is not the same thing anymore, that time of molding th person is over. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/51 "2015-01-06T16:48:56Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I suspect to them they were so focused on the lens of school/student, they didn’t fully consider the full rights that all adults have not to be assaulted or laid hands upon against their will. If I see a kid doing something dangerous in the park, I can’t walk up & smack their hand, but the teacher/administrator can do this at school because of _loco parentis_ rules. Is there something unique about the nature of the school/student relationship that trumps age of majority? Some (many?) states have criminalized any ‘relations’ between a teacher & a student (or prison guard/inmate), even one who is 18 because of the undue influence nature of the relationship. > [@Spud](#): > > According to research I’ve done on the internet, spanking 18 year old schoolgirls is actually quite common… popular even. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/52 "2015-01-15T23:57:39Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > According to research I’ve done on the internet, spanking 18 year old schoolgirls is actually quite common… popular even. Cite? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/53 "2015-01-16T00:13:04Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > …because of _loco parentis_ rules… Yeah, mine were a bit crazy too. ---
**Author:** ![PaulBoswell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cab0a1/32.png) [@PaulBoswell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulBoswell)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560/54 "2023-08-29T16:50:01Z")
Thank. you for this detail. Frankly, if I ever found myself facing a paddling at 18, I’d quit school immediately and go get a GED. That would send a powerful statement to school administrators. In states where schools are funded by having butts in seats, this would impose a financial penalty on the school. Having witnessed so many abuses of corporal punishment in K-12 there is no doubt in my mind most of these characters are sexual sadists. If you’re interested in this topic, I can recommend Alfred Hitchcock’s “Frenzy.” If you have any doubt sexual abuse is rampant in our schools, one school district in California had 50 victims come forward to complain recently. It was covered by CBS news. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporal-punishment-on-an-18-year-old-student/708560.md?page=2)