Zero Tolerance, Zero Discretion, Zero Brains; Part Duh

An Eagle Scout was suspended for 20 days for having a 2" pocketknife locked in his car:

Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.

But Lansingburgh High has a zero-tolerance policy, and when school officials discovered that Whalen kept his knife locked in his car, he says, they suspended him for five days — and then tacked on an additional 15 after a hearing.

I do not understand why we don't just program a bunch of old Commodore 64s and set them up in the school administrative offices to make these decisions. You could even do it with a series of flow-charts and save over a hundred grand per school by shit-canning the principals.

Zero tolerance policies exist only to protect lazy-ass bureaucrats (like school administrators), who are afraid of having to make a decision and then defend it. Any third-grader can tell the difference between a gang-banger carrying a switchblade into class and a scout ho has a knife in his car as part of an emergency kit and that 3rd grader would be able to coherently explain the difference.

But school administrators are not smarter than third graders. I'm by no means confident that the average principal could outwit a bag of hammers.

(H/T)