Eighteen students were punished by the school district, while only one girl was actually suspended. The other 17 students opted for the “alternative” punishment: paddling. Violation of school rules should merit punishment. Details of the exact infraction are irrelevant; 18 students were found to be in violation of the school prom dress code, and I believe they should be disciplined accordingly. But paddling — physically grabbing a paddle and taking it to a student’s rump — is an unbelievably insulting, barbaric and a medieval method of punishment, a method that should not be allowed in any school district, even if the students may elect it as opposed to suspension.

Ironically, this “adult” behavior — showing too much skin and appearing too adult-like among a room full of minors and their peers — elicits the same punishment as for a child in the 1960s. The role and rights of state employees never extend to giving students a good ol’ whoopin’. I remember hearing tales from my dad about the paddle, but never would expect to hear it in this decade. Despite how shocking the punishment may seem, the United States has maintained a strange fascination with corporal punishment.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, a U.N. resolution to define the rights of children and effectively ban child abuse — something that the United States helped to draft — has remained unratified by the United States due to fears the convention would interfere on a parent’s right to rear his or her children. The United States’ failure to ratify the convention recently has been called “embarrassing” by President Barack Obama.

However, the United States is not the only nation to refuse to ratify the convention. According to the U.N. Treaty Collection, the other nation that still refuses to ratify the treaty is Somalia, which is barely even a viable state. The refusal to ratify the treaty might be the only thing that we have in common with Somalia. Those who cast a suspicious eye toward the U.N. surely will state that the treaty would change little to nothing. Those pessimists probably are right, but signing the treaty acts as a symbol. And while it may not dramatically change our legal system, it does show that the United States does not approve of child abuse and that our nation doesn’t mind putting its name next to this promise.
I’m all for following the rules. I believe rules provide the necessary foundations that maintain order in society, and without them, chaos would reign. If the school establishes guidelines on prom attire, students should have to follow them. If they don’t, then punishment should follow, within reason. But this punishment should be fair and within the legal means of the school to administer.

Physically abusing a student never should be allowed — ever. If a school wants to make an example of a student, then a myriad of much more creative methods to discourage bad behavior exists. Back in my day, when students wore inappropriate clothing to high school, they were forced to wear a size extra large shirt that said “I Heart My Principal.” No one really wanted to wear their cool beer shirts to school when they knew they would be made to change. I don’t really care what punishment the school thinks up. Give them a potato sack to wear for prom, or if the school ever produced “The Crucible,” borrow some old Puritan uniforms from the theater department and give them to students. But paddling is not the solution to a disciplinary dispute. The issue is not one of censorship but of Draconian punishment for transgressions. Quite frankly, I don’t care if students believe their dresses were appropriate or not, but the idea of mandating children to go to school only to later enable that same entity to physically punish these same children sends a literal shiver down my spine, a shiver I can’t seem to escape.

Matt Manning is a State News guest columnist and international relations junior. Reach him at mannin84@msu.edu.