It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of any kind of zero-tolerance policy because often they’re designed to simply make every punishment equal without taking into account the situation. A high school student, for example, with a 2 inch buck knife locked in their car in the parking lot of the school shouldn’t be subjected to the same penalty as someone who walks into school with it and threatens another student, yet in the zero-tolerance world, that’s exactly what happens. Because “possession” is the crime, both are treated equally by a school system afraid to let the people running the school make actual decisions.
In Chester, Pennsylvania, a different kind of zero-tolerance policy is now coming under scrutiny.
Chester, Pa., firefighter James Krapf wants to know what’s wrong with Old Glory. The 11-year veteran was suspended without pay Thursday after he refused to peel a sticker of the American flag from his locker.
“It’s pride…it’s a matter of pride,” Krapf said.
A new department rule mandates that all stickers and statements — union, cartoon and political — be stripped from lockers after several offensive and racist images showed up in the firehouse. But Krapf figured the red, white and blue was safe.
It seems he was wrong.
He was wrong. You see, we can’t have individual chiefs decide what isn’t and is offensive any more. We must just assume that everything is offensive to someone and remove it all, including an American flag. After all, an American flag is totally the same thing as a racist sticker or offensive bumper sticker.
This is the same kind of mentality in schools that says that in order to keep offensive shirts out of schools, we have to ban all shirts that aren’t solid colors without writing. Or in order to protect the school from gang colors, students can only wear black, white, or gray.
The problem with zero-tolerance policies is that they often sidestep, overstep, or outwardly step on common sense. Telling a firefighter he can’t have an American flag on his locker because of an anti-sticker policy is absolutely ludicrous.
On September 11, 2001, 334 firefighters lost their lives saving others in the World Trade Center. Essentially, Chester is telling firefighters it’s okay if they die for our country, but it’s not okay to fly its flag.
Another success story for zero-tolerance.
