Recently, an 18 year old male (de)pantsed a 16 year old female during school hours and on school property in view of other students. In your opinion, what should the school have done? Suspend the student? Expel the student? Call the police? My son (who was a witness) thinks that I’m overreacting when I try to express the seriousness of the situation.
What say you, Dopers?
An 18-year-old male should be charged by the police with (at least) physical assault.
At 18 years old he is likely on his last term before graduation, and with only a couple months left to boot. Unless a suspensin puts him in serious danger of not graduating, or threatens a scholarship or something, then I would argue against attempting to use it as a disciplinary tool here.
The discipline must be explicitly tailored to the individual. At 18 he is free to drop out of school and work at wal-mart if he so desires, and nothing the school does can stop that if that’s his planned course of action. However, if he had planned to go on to college, I would think that perhaps a talk with the college board of admissions might be a way to go.
Getting the police involved also might be appropriate, considering that he is supposedly an adult now. I hesitate at this one because high-school life is high-school, and immaturity runs pretty rampant there. There is iften a big difference betweent he guy who hasn’t graduated and the guy who has, at least in terms of the things he is willing to do.
This is the way that I’m leaning. Discipline must take into account the nature of the infraction.
Is this a guy who is a regular bully, getting into trouble constantly, and this is just one more way for him to attack and demean his classmates?
Is this a generally well behaved student who acted immaturely and did something that was stupid?
We insulate our children from the real world by putting them in tightly controlled school situations. I think it’s a bad idea to automatically treat them like adults when we spend the whole school day treating them like children.
Suspend? Probably. Expel? Call the police? really? What purpose would that serve?
The nature of the infraction is that an 18YO male pulled down a 16YO female’s pants in front of their peers. Whether you call him a boy or a man, if he doesn’t know by know that forcibly removing a girl’s clothing for his amusement and/or her humilation is not okay he should be taught, preferably via a suspension.
Enderw24 - Why should he get away with something at school that would have the cops called on him if he did it elsewhere? If he randomly pulled down the pants of some person on the street, he’d be charged with assault. Kids should be less vulnerable at school than elsewhere, not more.
StG
This is a way different case than if the students were younger. An 18yo pantsing a 16yo girl is on the spectrum of sexual assault, and needs to be dealt with seriously. Suspension and a call to the cops is in order, IMO, to start with. If he’s young and immature, he needs a lesson in adulthood. If he’s a bully, he needs serious consequences.
What ever happened to giving people a good talking to and a few detentions? Is suspension now the minimum punishment?
It’s a sexual assault on a minor. What would happen if a man pulled down the pants of a random teenaged girl at the mall? Why should this be treated any differently? Imagine someone randomly doing that to your wife or your mother (or you, if you’re a woman). Throw the book at the jerk.
An 18 year-old (adult) male forcibly pulling pants off an unwilling 16 year-old (minor) female?
Hell, over in the Pit we’re up to something like 5 pages over an employee touching a co-worker with his elbow! :smack:
He’s old enough to know better, and old enough to bear the consequences. Of course a lot would depend on all of the circumstances. And - I believe - the “victim” ought to have considerable say in the severity of the response. But assuming she was an unwilling participant, it is certainly a battery - an unlawful touching. I believe suspensions are appropriate for many other batteries - such as fights, so I’d have no problem with one here.
Given the guy-on-girl nature it seems there may also be a sexual harrassment/assault element as well. Wouldn’t bother me to see the police involved - assuming the girl desired it.
For those who think no significant discipline is warranted - what response would you deem appropriate if I did the same to a female stranger on the street?
If some guy did this to one of my daughters, you’d better believe I would be demanding some pretty severe response - as well as wanting to kick the shit out of the bastard.
I think it’s probably appropriate to give him a suspension at the very least and perhaps even charge him with some form of assault. Neither the suspension or the assault charge should prevent him from completing the school year. His actions have consequences and if it puts scholarships in danger then that’s the way the cookie crumbles. You make your bed and you lie in it.
Odesio
Calling the police is probably the lightest of the possibilities, I’d say that (well, depending on the area and the officer’s disposition) they might just bring down the fiery justice of a stern talking to, which can still be quite effective at 18 (or so my friends who have been in similar situations have said). The obvious problem is if it backfires and becomes a full blown sexual harassment issue.
Really though, in late April in his Senior year? Unless you want to really harm some of his chances with stuff pretty much the only things that would be appropriate would be barring him from certain extracurriculars (i.e. if they haven’t had their Prom yet, bar him from going, no yearbook signing parties and so on) and giving him some “free time” punishments (think detention tailored for a senior, just stuff like picking up trash, helping to record grades, mandatory study halls or stuff like that).
This is all assuming he’s otherwise a pretty good kid, if he’s been like this for the entirely of his high school attendance suspension or talks with admission boards may be in order.
Detention is for being late for class or cheating on a test. Sexual assault goes beyond just breaking school rules. Forget suspension. It should be an automatic expulsion (and that doesn’t even count the criminal consequences).
I see a big problem with this. What if she’s pressured by her peers to keep police involvement at a minimum? “C’mon, don’t be a bitch. You’ll ruin his life over something stupid.”
Odesio
PotLuck, I can certainly support a suspension, even in the most charitable of circumstances. I think the real question is, do you call the cops and get the student charged with a sexual assault that gets them put on the sexual offender registry, potentially turning this incident into the single most important event (in a bad way) of this person’s entire life.
So, does your son think this was okay?
Would he be okay if someone did it to his sister? To you?
Don’t want to over-react, but if he does, you really might want to put in the effort to convince him otherwise.
Could perhaps use a few more details. I can imagine factors that might make this less serious, largely depending on the girl’s behavior/response, the setting, etc. For example - if it was “wear pajamas to school day,” kids were horsing around, and she was wearing boxers under her PJ pants. IMO that would be a completely different situation than if she was normaly attired, just standing by her locker there and he pulled down her pants to reveal her underwear.
Hell, I think a suspension might be merited just n the basis of stupidity! 18 is certainly old enough to know to keep your hands to yourself!
A 3 day suspension or week of detention is about the max this warrants.
I agree with calling the police. I think a suspension for the rest of the year would also be in order. People get suspended for a lot less. And if he did that in any job he had, they would fire him for that so fast his head would spin. He can argue for leniency based on his character in a court of law.
Not at all what I was getting at.
What I was thinking was if the girl part of a group who were all in on some horseplay, neither the girl nor any other students were really wasn’t upset about what happened, but faculty caught wind of it and decided to react. In such a situation I would be less supportive of the administration initiating legal action.
Of course if she was a very private person, and the school bully decided to embarrass her - completely different situation IMO.