Home About Us Media Kit Subscriptions Links Forum
APPEARED IN


View All Articles

Download PDF

FAMOUS INTERVIEWS

Directories:

SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS

HELP WANTED

Tutors

Workshops

Events

Sections:

Books

Camps & Sports

Careers

Children’s Corner

Collected Features

Colleges

Cover Stories

Distance Learning

Editorials

Famous Interviews

Homeschooling

Medical Update

Metro Beat

Movies & Theater

Museums

Music, Art & Dance

Special Education

Spotlight On Schools

Teachers of the Month

Technology

Archives:

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

1995-2000


JUNE 2005

Guest Editorial
Is Corporal Punishment Alive and Legal?

By Martha McCarthy, Ph.D.

The use of corporal punishment in public schools attracts strong supporters and even stronger critics—few people are neutral. Surprisingly, the United States stands almost alone among industrialized nations in allowing corporal punishment in public education. Canada finally joined the mainstream by banning this disciplinary technique in 2004.

Although we have no national prohibition on corporal punishment in schools, an increasing number of states and local school districts have adopted laws or regulations prohibiting its use. Since 1970, 28 states and the District of Columbia have barred corporal punishment, and in 10 additional states, more than half of the students are enrolled in school districts that ban this form of discipline. States still permitting corporal punishment are disproportionately in the southern region of the U.S.

The Supreme Court has rendered only one decision on this topic, Ingraham v. Wright (1977), holding that the use of corporal punishment in public schools does not violate Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process guarantees or the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual governmental punishment. Recognizing that state remedies are available, the Court reasoned that challenges to excessive corporal punishment should be handled under state law.

But the Ingraham decision did not foreclose a successful challenge to corporal punishment under the U.S. Constitution.  Several federal appellate courts have recognized that excessive corporal punishment can impair public school students’ Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process protections against arbitrary and unreasonable government action if the punishment shocks the conscience. This standard was met where a coach knocked a student’s eye out of its socket with a metal lock and where a teacher restrained a student until he lost consciousness and fell to the floor. Yet, students must satisfy a very high standard to substantiate that corporal punishment violates the Fourteenth Amendment, and most claims have not been successful.

Students who are injured by teachers can always bring criminal or civil assault and battery suits, which might result in fines and/or imprisonment for the teachers or monetary awards for the victims. Where corporal punishment is banned by state law, school board policy, or even action of a local school council, teachers can be dismissed for insubordination if they repeatedly disregard such prohibitions. And in schools that allow corporal punishment, educators are not required to use it. Teachers who elect to corporally punish students should be certain their actions are reasonable and preferably witnessed by another adult.
There is mounting criticism of corporal punishment, and more than 40 organizations, including the American Bar Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Education Association, have gone on record opposing the use of corporal punishment in schools. Although this discipline strategy is still widely used in American schools, there has been a steady decline in incidents of corporal punishment since the mid-1970s. If its use continues to decline, perhaps the U.S. will move more in line with the policies and practices of other countries.#

Martha McCarthy is the Chancellor’s Professor at Indiana University.

COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE

Name:

Email:
Show email
City:
State:

 


 

 

Education Update, Inc.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2009.