A Stitch in Haste

"The knowledge that loved ones are safe and whole is the deepest wellspring of emotional welfare ... No loss is greater than the loss of a loved one, and no tragedy is more wrenching than the helpless apprehension of the death or serious injury of one whose very existence is a precious treasure. The law should find more than pity for one who is stricken by seeing that a loved one has been critically injured or killed."
--Portee v. Jaffee, 417 A.2d 521 (N.J., 1980) (landmark emotional distress case)

When we invoke the famous judicial quote that "children do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate," we generally mean their constitutional rights — freedom of speech, freedom of and from religion, freedom from unreasonable searches, etc.

But we should also step back every so often and recall that there are other rights, more basic rights, that schoolchildren, like adults, maintain besides "higher" constitutional rights. The right not to be physically assaulted by a teacher, for example, or the right not be sexually molested by a principal.

Surely that must extend to the right not to be maliciously traumatized:

On a Monday morning last month, [California] highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.

Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.

A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax, a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.
...
"They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor Lori Tauber, who helped organize the shocking exercise and got dozens of students to participate.

Could you imagine if, instead of the students, this "exercise" were performed on their parents — with the highway patrol ringing doorbells at 3am to "inform" them that their children had been killed in DUI accidents, only to disclose later that no, it was all just a hoax meant to inform them of the importance of talking to their children about drinking and driving?

From a legal standpoint, there is no legitimate difference.

I can't speak to the specifics of California law, but under the common law even negligently misinforming someone that a loved one has died can be an actionable "emotional distress" tort. Intentionally doing so would unarguably also warrant liability — including punitive damages. See generally, Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 46.

And let's keep in mind that "I meant well" is never a defense to anything. The single best "good deed" a moron can perform is to accept the fact that he is indeed a moron, and restrict his "urge to act" accordingly.

Stepping back from tort law: How do hopeless reprobates like this disturbed, masochistic guidance counselor and her co-conspirator teachers: (a) get on public school faculties in the first place, and (b) get free rein to psychologically experiment on students without (presumably — the article is unclear) any authorization or supervision from senior administrators (or, for that matter, the parents — who probably could not give valid consent anyway)?

And, as I often ask whenever local hack politicians and bureaucrats go off-leash: aren't there any lawyers on the public payroll, who could be consulted as to the potential blow-back (in terms of liability or unconstitutionality) from "innovative" programs that, golly gee, seemed like such a smart idea at the time?

In any event, it's quite — well, "distressing" — to see the schoolhouse gate turned into the asylum cell.

(Via Freespace.)