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Troublemaking 12-year-old #1
Dwayne Tournier, a vice-principal in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, failed to have a lawsuit against him quashed by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal. In May 2010, a teacher confiscated a cellphone from a 12-year-old boy, who was using it in class, which is a violation of school rules. She gave it to Tournier, who read a text message on it about a vehicle theft and alerted the police, who interviewed the boy and recovered the stolen truck. The boy’s guardians sued Tournier and the school division, alleging that the boy had to move out of the city because he feared reprisal from the boy who stole the truck.
Troublemaking 12-year-old #2
Officials at Dover Middle School, in New Hampshire, confiscated a rod with a small American flag attached, deeming it a dangerous weapon. The flag belonged to 12-year-old Shawn Stevens, a student at the school, who brought it to class to show his friends. He was given the flag by a family friend whose son is in Afghanistan. The school’s coprincipal, Kimberly Lyndes, defended the school’s action, saying: “A student came to school yesterday with a flag that was rather large and didn’t fit inside the backpack. A staff member felt that it could potentially be dangerous because of the pointy end and took the item and let the student know and the parent know that they took the item and could pick it up.” Theresa Stevens, Shawn’s mother, believes otherwise: “When somebody shows up with an American flag on American soil at an American school, that’s his First Amendment right. Just because he’s 12 doesn’t mean he doesn’t have constitutional rights.”
