Sorry, but its not the schools job to do this. The school's job is to deal with the inappropriate behaviour. It's up to the individual colleges he's applying to or would like to try to get into to evaluate the behaviour and act accordingly.

Claiming the school is ruining the student's college career is like saying a math teacher who gives a football player a deserving failed grade that keeps him from graduating is ruining that player's college career.

I assume you have seen the video. I was interested in what punishment, if any, you would enforce upon the student?

Pierce Morgan gave the youngster an interview

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/18/us/geo...ent-suspended/

I would imagine they would be as the case has a media following now.

Like it was said previously, if the teacher tells you stop and you keep going with it there needs to be strict disciplinary action. This is a slippery slope.

I'm also on the side to be harsher because this kid is older. I don't know exactly how old he is but he is a senior so I would guess 17 or 18.

At that age your morals and sexual boundaries should be pretty apparent to you. I would be more inclined to be lenient if the kid is 13 or 14 as stuff tends to still be a little fuzzy with regards to what is ok and not ok.

This kid is old enough to realize what he is doing was wildly inappropriate to what is someone who is in an authoritative position. Couple that with the fact that the kid was told previously to stop doing this stuff and you have a serious problem here.

If this kid doesn't respect the will of an authority figure in a public setting what is to say he is going to respect the will of some random girl in a private setting?

Obviously I am not saying the kid needs to be jailed for rape but this is something pretty serious and needs to be dealt with harshly. I don't know if not graduating is the answer as this seems to help no one by stunting this kids education but this is certainly something serious.

I feel terrible for the teacher as well. It must be pretty demeaning to be in a position where horny teenage boys are willing to disrespect your wishes to not be groped and kissed even though you are supposedly in charge in a school setting.

+1 to the kid just walking away like he doesn't give a **** after being pushed off by the teacher. Intention was not a friendly hug.

Agree 100% if I saw that video with no article/context I would assume it was some girl he was trying to hit on that rejected him.

(obviously I added the numbers)
(1) this is true. And its possible the school was negligent here. But note: This has no bearing on whether the kid was out of line. IF the kid was told that she found his hugs inappropriate even one time, whether or not they reviewed the sexual harrassment policy, the kid is wrong. Period. (that doesn't mean it deserves a year suspension)

(2) The kid doesn't have to have kissed her. If he's giving her inappropriate attention after he's been warned then no kissing is required. Hugging is enough.

(3) If he has been told his contact was inappropriate in the past then you're wrong. And we know he has a history of problems but it has not been disclosed what they are.

I'll state again that at the moment I'm against the year suspension. But the posting of much of the people defending the kid is also bad. Since we only have a he said/she said regarding the kids past, we can only speculate. But I tend to side with teacher in these cases especially since it seems unlikely to me that the teacher would have made a case of this if this was an isolated incident. She has no obvious motive to lie.

What's sad is my first instinct is to assume you're mocking others. But then we see people like Silver Man on this site and I know this attitude exists.

If this is for real may I beg of you to never be on a jury.

I'm not questioning whether or not schools should deal with inappropriate behaviour. I'm suggesting that the punishment is too harsh and may cause more problems then that which they are trying to correct.

The second example I don't like at all. Giving a student a failing grade for academics is precisely the point of what school should be doing - that is, measuring academics.

If a kid inappropriately hugged someone does not measure their ability to succeed academically. And again, barring unknown information about the kids past, doesn't seem to merit that kind of punishment.

Again- failing a kid from going to higher education because he can't cut it academically is exactly what you would hope the system would accomplish.

punishing a kid for possibly minor disciplinary infractions who would otherwise be a success in college is ass backwards.

The school should certainly evaluate the punishment against the crime and make sure it is fitting.

School prepares kids for the real world.

I will note it has been disclosed(in the Piers Morgan interview) that Mcnair previously received suspensions in 7th and 9th grade respectively. In 7th grade Mcnair was accused of bringing a BB gun into class. The 9th grade incident had something to do with the sports team. Youngsters do get into trouble

McNair acknowledged he had also been suspended for lengthy periods in the seventh and ninth grades, but said the first incident was from a BB gun that another student placed in his bag, and the second stemmed from medicine a teammate gave him for an injury. He had a bad reaction and it caused a "big school disruption," he said.

As for how much weight the bb gun incident carries, I would assume Mcnair was 11 or 12 when the incident occurred.

i have seen the video, and the two most important things are clear.

1.) Without prompting he hugs her. (not that big a deal in the sense that sometimes you dont know people dont want to be touched until you already are holding them)
2.) She clearly pushes him off.
3.) He doesnt seem to apologize or stand there to humble himself he is not even fazed by it and just keeps it moving.

Based on the video, the kid has way less credibility than the teacher.

I think there's a bigger picture of school also making our communities/society better. That is - on average, kids that go on to higher education statistically are more employable, less likely to commit crimes, less likely to require public assistance, etc.

The child and the community are better served if he goes on to higher education.

I've never suggested that he not be disciplined. I merely stated that jeopardizing the kids future for this incident seems not only overly harsh but ignores the big picture above.

I know. We're generally in agreement on this.

I think the only disagreement I have is that how this impacts the kids future college career isn't really relevant to me. His actions deserve a punishment that makes sense in the school setting (and its quite possible a one year suspension is too harsh). But I don't think its reasonable for a school to mitigate what they think is the appropriate punishment just because this guy is good at sports and the appropriate punishment might hurt his future college plans.

Edit: I also look at this thing from other people's perspectives. I don't think teachers (or anybody) should have to put up with crap like this, and I have no problem with schools being strict about it. Let's be honest, a 17 year old knows enough that hugging a female teacher is inappropriate without being told. This isn't a 6 year old kid hugging his teacher.

I also know that the college that doesn't give this guy a scholarship is probably going to give it to someone else who they believe is more deserving. Seems like a fair system to me.

You're saying that you are offended by what I say but not saying why other than comparing my attitude to that of silver man who is known as a racist. Yet I am defending the woman here, taking the decided liberal and woman's rights view on the situation.

And Kurto, how would you feel if that was your mother being treated that way?

And in both of these incidents the kid blames someone else for his hardships - "a BB gun that another student placed in his bag" and "stemmed from medicine a teammate gave him". Cry me a river.

Of course now it's the teacher who is lying in her claim that she felt his lips on her neck and the school is lying when they state he was warned on previous occasions about his behaviour. This kid doesn't hold himself accountable or accept ownership for anything. He's always the victim.

"I have five months left in my senior year. I don't see why they would take that away from me"

Whatever. Enjoy your year off, dummy.

Wrt the previous suspensions, the bb gun incident occurred when Mcnair was 11 or 12 y/o. As for the other incident,when Mcnair was a freshmen, we don't know what happened other then a "disruption".

As for the hugging incident, would a better decision not be a one or two day suspension? In which would allow Mcnair to graduate this summer along with having improved college options. I think a year long suspension in this case is the wrong choice, having the kid suspended this long almost always leads toward more immediate consequences w/o prolonged benefits.

that ain't "just a hug."

I'm tilted piers doesn't dig deeper into that medicine thing, makes no sense to me.

According to the kid-

I took some medicine.

Had a bad reaction.

Got suspended for a year.

Ummmm... What?

Oh so he wanted break him off a little something and get some grub, so what? It's like if a man tries to kiss a woman in a club and is subsequently rejected; it's not sexual harassment, he just got shot down.

Yes, he could have chosen a better location but he's a teenager and was thinking with his dick, no need to escalate the problem by jeopardising his future. Both parties should move on with their lives, her rejection was punishing enough for him.

Right? It will be horrible for his ego!

I wonder if that hot blonde teacher is still with that 12 year old she let bang her, and then started dating him when he was old enough after she got out of prison.

Kurto,

How, exactly, is The Huggler's college career ruined? Can he not start college a year later?

Some suggestions off the top of my head that would be a good punishment and still preserve the big picture (which in my opinion is that we're all better off if children who can go on to higher education do so):

(1) long term after school detention... which if its something where they actually have to do their schoolwork or something like that would also be helping him academically while he 'feels' punished.
(2) community service. Or a monetary fine that he can work off through service to the school - he can help clean the cafeteria after school
(3) mandatory harassment counseling
(4) suspended from extra-curricular activities that he may be a part of (dances or other such things)
(5) how about some public contrition - he has to speak before the school about what he did and explain why its wrong. I'm betting at high school age public apologies before the school is pretty difficult for most students and would be a challenging punishment.

We're in complete agreement. I find the people who are saying "its just a hug" to be pretty annoying. Unwanted attention is unwanted attention. Also, with all the news lately of improper teacher/student relationships, I'm all for a delineation between student and teacher. The students should be aware of boundaries.

Did the kid have a scholarship? I've forgotten all the details at this point. I thought it was jeopardizing his ability to go to college regardless of any scholarship considerations?

I'm being hypothetical here but it still strikes me that if the kid was an academic genius and would likely go places but he was hampered by a minor behavioral issue that he would likely grow out of, I'd hate to see that destroyed because of what may be an over reaction.

I have a lot of curiosities about this story that would color my reaction to the punishment. I could see a kid knowing he's not supposed to hug, he knows the teacher doesn't like it and does it out of a twisted form of aggression. In which case I would think good riddance because I could actually see that person being a future sociopath. That is of course worst case scenario.

I can also imagine someone who genuinely just hugs everyone. For whatever reason, he's hugging everyone, forgot she didn't like it and walked away embarrassed when she pushed him off. In this case... yes, he violated her personal space but he could have just been absent-minded. In a case like this, it would seem to be an over-reaction to punish him harshly.

In either case, he should learn he did something wrong. But motive (and history) matters to me.

I acknowledge that we'll likely never be able to glean enough details to ever figure it out.

That's what one of the articles said - that he was looking at a full athletic scholarship.

But if that's the case, this almost certainly doesn't destroy his chances of getting into college. At worst it puts his graduation back a year. Any other consequences (he decides to drop out, colleges don't want to accept him, etc.) aren't in the schools control.

I think its offensive that you see a 5 second video of a student hugging a teacher and drawing all sorts of conclusion that aren't there.

The liberal point of view is likely that the woman (or a man) shouldn't have to receive unwanted attention from another person.

It is not "liberal" to assume that a kid that gives someone an unwanted hug is necessarily remotely like a "date rapist" or an embodiment of "jock culture."

I find your assumptions about the kid offensive. He MAY be a future date rapist, and he may just be a kid whose overly free with hugs and forgot that hugging this particular teacher was a no-no.