Now they're suspending students for writing a list of names!

According to the Boston Globe:

High schoolers investigated
By Martin Finucane
Globe Staff / May 23, 2008

Two students at Silver Lake Regional High School are being kept out of school while police investigate whether lists the two students made of fellow students constitute a threat to the school community, the school district's superintendent said yesterday.

A teacher became concerned when she saw a male student throw away a piece of paper last Friday. She retrieved it and saw a list of four names. On Monday, a female student was found to be writing a list containing two names.

"At this point in time, we're taking it very seriously. . . . Frankly, we take any threat as a serious threat until it's sort of proved otherwise," said Superintendent John Tuffy, who would not describe what raised school officials' suspicions about the lists.

Tuffy said it was not clear if the two students were linked.

"That's being looked into right now. There are a number of questions that we all would like answers to," he said.

Kingston Police Chief Joseph Rebello did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

Read it online here.

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After attending "School Discipline, Juvenile Justice and the Realities of Race" sponsored by The Boston Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the Juvenile Justice Center at Suffolk University Law School and the Criminal Law Section of the Boston Bar Association at The Boston Public Library Tuesday night and being reminded of the School to Prison Pipeline, I couldn't help but be astounded at the evidence of overuse of zero tolerance policies that seems to be exhibited by the above article.

It amazes me what we criminalize these days and what our "authorities" want to "take seriously".