Student Suspended for Casting A Curse

[James Maule]

Unless the assistant principal is totally disconnected from reality, something was said in the meeting that led to the summary dismissal. Perhaps the interest in Wicca brought her to the assistant principal's attention, but what if the meeting went like this:

AP: So you are into Wicca?

Student: Yeah, so what?

AP: Did you use Wicca to make teacher whomever ill?

Student (silence)

AP: What do you know about teacher whomever being ill?

Student (sarcastically): I put witches' poison into her morning coffee.

AP: You're out.

Then again, perhaps it didn't go that way. Who knows? It's all speculation. There may or may not be an issue worthy of discussion within the boundaries Eugene has noted.



Jim Maule
Professor of Law
Villanova University School of Law
Villanova PA 19085
maule at law.villanova.edu
http://vls.law.vill.edu/prof/maule


>>> mcconnellm at LAW.UTAH.EDU 11/02/00 04:39PM >>>
Evidently, we have not heard the whole story about this curse episode. The
following appeared in overlawyered.com (my favorite web site). Note what the
school official says about what actually happened:

In Broken Arrow, Oklahoma,the Union Intermediate School District is said to
have suspended student Brandi Blackbear on
suspicion of casting a spell.  According to the American Civil Liberties
Union, assistant principal                                Charlie Bushyhead
called Blackbear to his office after a teacher fell unexplainedly ill,
questioned
her about her passing interest in Wicca, and summarily suspended her.  "I,
for one, would like to
see the so-called evidence this school has that a 15-year-old girl made a
grown man sick by
casting a magic spell," said the ACLU's Joann Bell.  However, the school
attorney, Doug Mann,
called the account into question, saying privacy laws protecting juvenile
records prevented him
and the district from commenting on the case: "It's totally unfair that we
are gagged by federal
and state law and they can say anything they want," he said. "If the parents
will sign a release for
what's in the girl's files, we will talk about the true facts." (Ben
Fenwick, Reuters/Excite, Oct.
30).


Michael McConnell
University of Utah College of Law
332 South 1400 East Rm. 101
Salt Lake City, UT 84112

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