Suspended for the Year Over Lunchbox Mix-up

29 Dec, 2010 by Dave Blount

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The latest zero tolerance educratic insanity reaches us from Sanford, North Carolina:

An athletic and academic standout in Lee County said a lunchbox mix-up has cut short her senior year of high school and might hurt her college opportunities.

Ashley Smithwick, 17, of Sanford, was suspended from Southern Lee High School in October after school personnel found a small paring knife in her lunchbox.

Smithwick said personnel found the knife while searching the belongings of several students, possibly looking for drugs. …

The lunchbox really belonged to Joe Smithwick, who packs a paring knife to slice his apple. He and his daughter have matching lunchboxes.

For the crime of having been found by the Gestapo to be in accidental possession of a paring knife, Ashley — a stellar student who has never been in trouble and who has been taking college level courses — was suspended for the rest of the school year, and is not allowed to set foot on campus. She has been charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds, possibly sabotaging her college prospects.

Lee County Superintendent Jeff Moss explains why they had to go to such absurd extremes over a paring knife:

“Bottom line is we want to ensure every child feels safe on our campus.”

Only under the thumb of capricious totalitarian moonbats are the people truly safe.

The actual purpose of lowering the boom on someone as totally innocent as Ashley Smithwick? Maybe it’s educational: to prepare her and her follow students for life in a country that has traded liberty for liberalism. More likely it’s yet another pernicious consequence of political correctness. If a white girl from a nice family gets let off after having been caught with a knife, how can they punish the next sociopathic punk with six inches of underpants showing when they catch him brandishing a switchblade? After all, we’re required to believe that everyone is exactly the same.