Or a negative.

See, there is no confirmable answer, so fertile ground for opinions based on prejudices and conspiracy theories, though everyone feels their opinion is based on reason and logic.

... and they very well may be, probably are. Still doesn't mean either one is correct.
There are no guarantees.

OTOH, HM is right also - were it a negative, they've dropped those pretty quickly as well.

Clock kid's family sues the school district for $5M, the city of Irving for $10M

Now where are we?

That'll be a cold day in hell. Besides, why should this family feel safe in Texas when nobody else does.

And they feel safer in Qatar? :eyebrow:

I hope they win. It's a lawsuit, so of course they'll play up the harm, but the school and the mayor acted shamefully, and it should be expensive to do that.

Expensive to the kids still at the school, since they are the only ones who will actually suffer from any loss of funds.

I didn't go to the link, but there was a short article in the paper this morning. It's not a lawsuit. Not yet. It's a threatening shakedown letter from the attorney.

And it's bullshit. The cop and the principal behaved poorly, but not $15M worth of poorly. If it became a lawsuit and I was on the jury, I'd rule in favor of the child and give him $5K from the city for the false arrest, which sounds like a lot, even to me, but is one 3 thousandth of what his attorney is asking for. I'd give him nothing from the school district. I think he deserved a detention for the class disruption, and he got a suspension instead, but that's a principal's prerogative.

I'm liking this kid and his family less and less, but that doesn't mean the cop and the principal behaved well.

And eventually the taxpayers who voted in one of the most islamophobic mayors in the country.

Some teachers and staff will be laid off if the school district has a $5M shortfall. Librarians, art teachers, music teachers, aides. Those types of jobs.

Who will not, in any way, associate their punishment with their own actions. They will in fact associate it with the aforementioned Islamic people, and vote in an even more reactionary mayor.

For someone who understands very well how overly punitive actions backfire in both the prison system and with foreign affairs, you have always been surprisingly idealistic and blind to the way schools work (an opinion based on more than just this conversation, for what it's worth.)

If there were a better way to deter this behavior, that would be great.

I'm happy to be considered idealistic, but financial punishment like this seems to be just about the least idealistic approach possible. I'd even consider my opinion of the school board and the town to be fairly cynical, in that fear of financial penalties is more likely to work than moral or ethical arguments.

The "better way" is to get rid of zero-tolerance policies in schools, to train teachers to use common sense instead of forcing them to take teenage hoaxes seriously.

For the family's part, the "better way" is to stay in town and prove you are a valued part of the community, instead of uprooting and moving to a country that enforces Sharia Law and doesn't educate girls. Also, to acknowledge that your embarrassment and inconvenience, while both embarrassing and inconvenient, are not worth $15 million dollars.


Shortly post-9/11, the comedian Dave Attell got removed from an airplane because someone thought he looked too Arabic (he's Jewish.) You know what he did? Nothing. He was embarrassed, inconvenienced, and he didn't try to get $15 million dollars out of it.

Recently a white police officer (in Detroit, I believe,) was faced with an increasingly hostile situation with a group of teens on a street corner. Rather than escalate, she engaged in a dancing contest with one of the teens and defused the situation.

There are a million other examples. All hot-button situations are better when they are defused, not escalated. Prove that you are better than the Other Guy's opinion of you, and he will start to believe it. Retaliate, and you've made it worse.