Open Letter to Nottingham High School

By Mark David Blum, Esq.

It is among the few treats I get being in my profession that I get a chance to sit with kids and talk to them both about the profession of lawyering as well as to experience it in action. Fewer are the times I am invited to speak at career day as I am invited to speak before classes of what are deemed “at risk” kids. Students who are borderline dropping out but who have the potential to stick it out and achieve something. My history tends to mirror these young ones the most and I can relate to them on a level even their own teachers cannot.

One of my favorite vices and games to play is to survey the class as to what they think are their “rights”. Everything from the right to ‘vote’ to the right to possess ‘guns’ to the right to free ‘speech’ are thrown in my face. Once even a teacher raised the issue of the “right” to be at the carousel mall after hours. After the list is culled, I use modern day examples to show how none of these rights exist or do so in very limited circumstances. I try and impress upon them that my life is over and how they, as the next generation, will determine how much of their freedom and liberty they are willing to sacrifice to government.

Yesterday, the subject of the right to urinate came up. Just as I finished lecturing on how there is no constitutional right to privacy and how there is no constitutional right to life, somebody asked me about the constitutional right to pee.

At Notthingham High School, all the bathrooms in the entire complex are closed and locked … except for one bathroom … and any student wishing to use MUST have an escort. I am unaware of how many thousands of students attend Nottingham nor can I accurately state the distance in feet or miles from one end of the school complex to the nearest bathroom. Nevertheless, no matter where you are on campus or how bad is the emergency, only one bathroom at the end of the hall is open and a user must be escorted by a teacher or school employee.

When I heard this, I was in a class comprising of 90% Black students and I asked a very serious question … “Have any of you ever heard of Martin Luther King? Mathamas Ghandi?” Does the concept of peaceful passive protest mean anything?

This went to the very core of the lesson I was hoping to leave. Namely, that the uniqueness of the American experiment that was never before seen nor replicated since, was that all political power emanates from the individual and can only be compelled to sacrifice those liberties necessary for the greater good.

Is there stated a constitutional right to pee? Of course not; just as there is no stated constitutional right to “life”. It all boils down to this: The right to life, the right to pee, the right to be left alone all belong to the individual. If you do not fight to protect and challenge government attempts to take this away from you, the right will be gone forever.

We also discussed the new-age phenomena of legislating “might”s. Whether it was 9/11 that bred fear into their hearts, or whether today’s school leaders are former nerds who got beaten up for their lunch money, Administrators and teachers of every ilk have gone completely loco parentis and instilled a policy of collective punishment.

Whether it be bandanas or cell phones, t-shirts that say Bong Hits for Jesus, or dance styles, the fad in schools today is to ban all because of the sins of a few. In the United States, collective punishment offends our most basic principles. For these lazy teachers and administrators, uniformity and collective consistency make their jobs easier. Perhaps this is why Syracuse City Schools have such a high drop out rate; we are not all the same.

I also spoke of the policy at Fayetteville Manlius High School and the banning of School Dances because students were doing the Grind. Apparently nobody in that school district is willing to get dust on their designer jeans and stage a sit in or other protest to take back what is rightfully theirs.

But it is a long hop from banning after school dances to preventing students from having access to basic sanitary needs. From what I heard, the ban is in place because some students were hiding in bathrooms to evade going to class and others were using bathrooms to engage in illicit activities. Gee, there is something new and unheard of.

Locking all the bathrooms is twelve steps too far. Students at Nottingham should not suffer this selfish barbaric behavior by administrators. Where are the sit-ins? Why is nobody writing letters to the editor? If it was my kid, I would be a screaming mad parent – where are the other parents?

Ask yourself this; what is the lesson you are teaching your children? What kind of example are you setting for them as to how to be good and honorable Americans. We do not collectively punish.

I call upon every Nottingham student, parent, and supporter to meet up in front of the Administration office every day at 2:30 p.m. and sit down on the floor and do not get up until the bathrooms are opened. You may face suspension, you risk a mark on your permanent record, and you face ridicule. But together and collectively, if the Main Office is blocked so people cannot enter or leave, and police are finished doing their “thing”, the bathrooms will be unlocked.

Of course, the alternative is start peeing in the hallways. But I would wait until all peaceful nonviolent means are exhausted.

Back to the MarkBlum Report

It is always a far better thing
to have peace than to be right.
But, when it is not,
or when all else fails

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MARK DAVID BLUM
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Manlius, New York 13104
Telephone: 315.420.9989
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E-mail: mdb@markblum.com

Always, at your service.