-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a prelude to war! Source: Rocky Mountain News http://insidedenver.com/ Honor student's 3-day suspension boggles mind http://insidedenver.com/johnson/1124billj.shtml By Bill Johnson There is no way Sonya Golden deserves three days of suspension from school. No way, no how. School officials who meted this out, I'd bet, believe this, too. Somewhere deep inside. She was no more a threat to the Mitchell High School student body than, well, Felix the Cat. The kid is an honor student, one of the Mayor's 100 Teens, an honor that recognizes her ability to lead other kids. Yep, a straight-arrow. An achiever. The kind of 17-year-old you pray your toddler one day will become. And where was Sonya Golden last Friday when the school's security cops came for her? In advanced English class. See, she'd brought a pocket knife to school. One with a blade about as long as your pinkie. Nevermind she never brought it into school. It was in a first-aid kit in her 1990 Acura Legend, a kit she and her mother put together -- the knife added only because they thought it'd be useful for camping or in an emergency. It was big and bad enough, though, for Colorado Springs School District 11 with its zero-tolerance, no-weapons-at-school policy. So Sonya Golden received a five-day suspension. After further review, they cut it to three. I'm guessing -- maybe praying -- it was that conscience thing. The rules are, well, you know, the district said. And it would be, they added, discrimination to forget about it, to let good kids off while dropping the hammer on the problem ones. This next thing, though, is why I fear greatly for Sonya Golden and children like her, including my own. "Sometimes," she said of her suspension, "innocent people have to be punished so something like Columbine doesn't happen again." What a sad statement! It is even more so when you know how the school even found out about the knife. The school cops had no reason to suspect Sonya Golden, yet they asked if they could search her car. They search everybody. It's what they do in high schools now. The post-Columbine effect. The 17-year-old girl, being the good kid that she is, of course said OK. If this is my kid, I imagine I'm dumping tea in a harbor somewhere and screaming to the heavens and to the ACLU about search-and-seizure violations. Not Sonya Golden's mom. "What the school did was right," Tamara Golden, the girl's mother, said. "I would rather have her be suspended for three days than have her go to school and get shot in the face because they did not check anyone." Did we not see this coming? Do you, too, want to scream? Little kids making idle school yard threats are now being led off in handcuffs and arrested. A Georgia boy, who writes a horror story in which his teacher gets killed, spends a week in jail. Terrorism, the school called it. Nevermind the endangered teacher had given him an A-plus on the paper. We are now asking -- in some cases, demanding -- kids to turn in their friends and classmates whenever they hear even the most idle threat. Maybe George Orwell got it right, after all. What are we teaching our children? Search-and-seizure principles, protected speech -- forget that stuff. No, rat out your buddies and protect your backside. That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson rolling over. Indeed, Sonya Golden, smart kid that she is, might very well one day grow up to be president, too. Think about it. Bill Johnson's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. [EMAIL PROTECTED] or (303) 892-2763. November 24, 1999 **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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