What Were They Thinking?

A fifteen-year-old from New Mexico was kicked out of school for becoming pregnant.  Surprise, the school was quickly reminded that the law doesn't allow for that.  The school insisted that she would be a "bad example" for students and requested she attend school elsewhere.  Again, they were reminded of those pesky laws.

So what did they do?  Well, they started with making her go into a school assembly and announce her condition.  Faster than you can say "holy lawsuit, Batman!" the ACLU has jumped on board and will help her fight this.  In other words, when the law wouldn't support what they wanted, they tried to shame  her, make her so miserable she would do what they wanted anyway.

How was this done without her mother's permission?  Who decided this was the way to handle it?  I almost  feel sorry for that person, except they are clearly an asshole with no ability to understand a young woman's situation.

I also notice the father wasn't forced to stand before an entire school and submit himself to judgment.  One has to wonder if he's a student at the school, it would be a logical question to ask.

Teen pregnancy is difficult enough.  This is beyond cruel and unusual, and you bet it was a violation of her rights.  To be forced to discuss anything medical, to stand before a crowd at fifteen, to have one's peers sit and look in judgment on a girl who is still processing the news is just despicable.  To force a minor to do anything whatsoever without the parent's knowledge and consent should be enough to win the case.

Asking her to leave that school was shameful.  Even if one did buy the bad example argument, putting her out to be someone else's bad example shows just how this school handles problems.  Making her switch and pretending it never happened isn't much of a solution, but then neither is publicly shaming her and encouraging fellow students to either pity or judge is even worse.  They played every student in the school to obtain a result that was (rightfully) prohibited by law, and should be ashamed.