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Music Cues: Jesse Jackson
November 20, 1999
Jesse Jackson was in handcuffs again this week, although he had to get out of his chauffered Lincoln to get arrested in Decatur, Illinois.
He was charged with mob action for trying to lead three expelled students into school and released on his own recognizance. No one doubts that the Reverend Jackson will show up for trial -- even if Illinois is a state that still does not permit cameras in the courtroom.
A number of editorialists have questioned why a man who has become a world figure would spend any of his popularity defending seven high school students who have been expelled from Eisenhower High School in Decatur. The high school has a well-known policy of "zero-tolerance" for violence. When these students sparked a frightening brawl in the stands of a high school football game, school officials didn't tolerate it: hey expelled the students for two years.
After all these weeks, the cause of the brawl -- if there was any -- still seems to be unknown.
Mr. Jackson came down to try to convince the school to take back the students, perhaps after a suspension and special education.
"When you expel, you throw young people away," he said, and pointed out that the brawl involved no guns, knives, injuries or drugs. Decatur school officials say their policy is clear; a few have derided Mr. Jackson as, "the big wind from Chicago."
It is tempting to regard Mr. Jackson as some sort of publicity heat-seeking meddler. But probably a week does not go by in which the Reverend Jackson doesn't speak at some school assembly, urging students to "get dope out of your veins, and hope into your brains." School officials find him inspiring and believeable to their students, in a way few other public figures are.
I have seen Mr. Jackson give impassioned speeches to tens of thousands of students in a sports arena--and equally compelling orations in small town classrooms with no more than half a dozen youngsters. If school officials are going to invite him to dispense inspiration, it is hard not to think he has also earned the right to offer them a little instruction about young people.
Not all the students who have been expelled are inspiring symbols. Several are what are delicately called "three year freshmen" who have never passed a year in high school. The videotape of their brawl is ugly -- you can understand why the parents of more responsible students would not feel safe about these seven walking the halls with their youngsters.
But: does throwing these young brawlers out of school and into the street make anyone safer? Does the policy of zero-tolerance that more American schools are adopting treat a problem--or try to sweep it out the door? If our schools don't try to turn these youngsters around now, when they haven't hardened into adults -- who will? And when?
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