posted by Mike Madison at 5:27 PM /
It's barely news at this point, but the Mt. Lebanon School District seems to have done the bare minimum in suspending a single student for his role (and I assume that it's a "he") in the affair of The List.
I still hope that no one makes this a court case, but both the tone and the content of the District's message leave a lot to be desired. Not to mention its timing, but the "too little, too late" angle is a bit played out at this point. The District sits on the situation for a month, waiting out a Superintendent's vacation and a police investigation that everyone has to know will go nowhere, and all the Superintendent can write is "No one can begin to understand the hurt, embarrassment and humiliation that these young women have had to endure as a result of the publication and reckless dissemination of this material."
I won't take the time to deconstruct the whole letter, but there's plenty to criticize in this one sentence.
First, the "publication and reckless dissemination of this material" is certainly grotesque, but the source of the harm in the first place is that letter was assembled at all.
Second, "no one can begin to understand"? I thought that the whole point here was that thousands if not millions of women around this country know exactly what kind of pain this -- and worse -- causes every day. The folks who have the power to do so should put a stop to it not because the pain of Mt. Lebanon women is unique, but because their pain is the same. If the angry parents of Mt. Lebanon really want to do something effective here, they shouldn't go to court. They should organize a protest march and encourage the women of Pittsburgh to turn out.
Post-Gazette coverage
Tribune-Review coverage
Mt. Lebanon School District official notice [pdf]
I still hope that no one makes this a court case, but both the tone and the content of the District's message leave a lot to be desired. Not to mention its timing, but the "too little, too late" angle is a bit played out at this point. The District sits on the situation for a month, waiting out a Superintendent's vacation and a police investigation that everyone has to know will go nowhere, and all the Superintendent can write is "No one can begin to understand the hurt, embarrassment and humiliation that these young women have had to endure as a result of the publication and reckless dissemination of this material."
I won't take the time to deconstruct the whole letter, but there's plenty to criticize in this one sentence.
First, the "publication and reckless dissemination of this material" is certainly grotesque, but the source of the harm in the first place is that letter was assembled at all.
Second, "no one can begin to understand"? I thought that the whole point here was that thousands if not millions of women around this country know exactly what kind of pain this -- and worse -- causes every day. The folks who have the power to do so should put a stop to it not because the pain of Mt. Lebanon women is unique, but because their pain is the same. If the angry parents of Mt. Lebanon really want to do something effective here, they shouldn't go to court. They should organize a protest march and encourage the women of Pittsburgh to turn out.
Post-Gazette coverage
Tribune-Review coverage
Mt. Lebanon School District official notice [pdf]
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