Using Me!

In the news today Dec 12th, part 2

A school in England has suspended three pupils for buying a legal drug that gives a high.

This made me think about the line between good parenting/guidance and someone’s human rights. It also made me wonder about the right of institutions to change the boundaries of the law within their own walls, or even upon their members outside their walls (as is the case with a school). The two are rather bound up together in this one story.

Firstly if I were the parent of one of these children I would actually be angry with the school for suspending them. Albeit for a short time. What the pupils did was not illegal and excluding them is only going to harm their education. If I, as the parent, wanted them punished then it should be for me to do so. Remember, not so long ago, the legal age to buy cigarettes was only 16. While it would be fair for the school to ban smoking on the grounds it should be illegal for them to ban pupils from smoking. That is exactly the same argument – and yet cigarettes are vastly more damaging than these legal-high drugs. Are they going to try and make it an offense against the school rules for the 18-year-old 6th formers to have a drink outside of school grounds?

So to what extent can institutions make rules that reduce a person’s rights or discriminate? Certainly there’s nothing wrong with rules like no running in the corridors, no shouting in libraries, no smoking in offices. Most such rules are for safety or the comfort of the majority. In recent times discriminatory rules have been forced out, such as no women in men’s clubs. I find it hard to come up with any reason to object to these changes.

However you can still discriminate based on religion/culture/creed – as long as you’re perceived as oppressed or a minority. At university I was pretty annoyed that you can have a Muslim society, an Arabic society, a Syrian society, a Carribean society etc but you could not even broach the idea of an English society, or, heaven forbid (!), a White Middle Class English society!

And lastly what about rules that ban you from doing something outside of the group that enforces it? When I was at school you were expected to be in school uniform, dressed smartly, on your way to and from school, because you were ‘representing’ the school in public. That seems reasonable. I’m sure there would have been rules against 18 year-olds drinking at lunch time, but what about in the evenings or weekends? There’s no difference between that and buying a legal high, kept and used outside of the school grounds and school time. Do these rules have any legal validity? If someone went to the European court of human rights would they stand up?