A Tahoma (Wash.) High School administrator stopped a recent basketball game and sent every student in attendance home early, sparking controversy.
As reported by KTTH in Seattle, the decision came after a student shouted a loud, profane insult at a referee. When school officials paused the game and asked the crowd of hundreds to identify who was responsible, they were met with total silence.
"Rather than pointing out the individual, the students chose to keep silent leading the school to issue a collective consequence. The fallout from the incident created controversy on social media with many parents and students venting their frustrations," KTTH's Jasneet Gill reported. "People argued that 'collective punishment' is inherently unfair, punishing hundreds of well-behaved kids for the actions of a student they might not even know. To many families, it felt like a teacher keeping an entire class in from recess because of one student’s mistake."
"The administrator made a choice. If you want to stand together as a mob and protect the behavior, you can all leave together," said Charlie Harger, host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO news radio.
"The school had already warned them," Harger continued. "They put out video announcements two weeks ago about sportsmanship. The students knew the line. One of them crossed it. The rest of them decided that the no snitching “code of silence” was more important than the game.
"They made a choice. They dealt with the consequence.
"This is a tough lesson. But it is a necessary one. The shock these students felt wasn’t because the punishment was cruel. It was because the consequences were actually real."
