Recently, five members of the Southern Mississippi University pep band were kicked off the squad and had scholarships revoked for chanting a racial slur at a Kansas State University basketball player during the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. Now, if people think the sanction fits the offense, they should be reminded just how expensive a four-year college education is these days.
What happened to these students was tantamount to committing professional suicide.
This nation applauds good behavior and frowns upon crude, boorish behavior. As it well should. But when manners become institutionalized, then, the end result is more off the mark than a Shaquille O’Neal 3-point shot attempt.
In Washington, there’s zero tolerance on just about everything. We live under a secular, intolerant, and unforgiving government that locks people up for life without the possibility of parole, despite the fact that after a decade or more in prison, the convicted individual may be completely rehabilitated.
As an inmate in a Washington state correctional facility, I find such zero-tolerance policies shameful and unconscionable on their face.
