Published: November 19, 2008 10:45 am      

Student actions in relation to president cause punishment

PICAYUNE — Two recent incidents in the Pearl River County School District involved students and actions in relation to president-elect Barack Obama, but both punishments were handed down due to the students’ failure to adhere to school policies, not because they dealt with Obama.

Superintendent Dennis Penton said a student was suspended from school, but not for uttering Barack Obama’s name, rather for writing threatening comments about him.

Penton said the comments were inappropriate regardless of whom they were about and the same punishment would have been handed down no matter which president-elect, or president, the comments were about. He said the comments written by the student had no racial overtones.

“The comments by the student were not racially motivated, but were inappropriate for the student to be saying about any president of the United States,” Penton said.

A story ran in Tuesday’s edition of the Picayune Item by The Associated Press that may have caused readers to believe the student was suspended for uttering the president’s name. Penton said that is not what happened.

“A mountain has been made out of a mole hill,” Penton said.

Penton said he is unaware of the race of the student who wrote the comments, or the exact terminology used in the comments.

“I don’t know if that would be relevant,” Penton said.

Another incident where a student was punished due to his actions involving the president-elect had to do with a student wearing a shirt that did not meet the dress code and just happened to have Obama on it. The only reason a punishment was handed down was because the student was out of dress code, Penton said. The student’s punishment would have been the same no matter what kind of shirt the student wore that was out of compliance with the district’s dress code, be it with any elected official or famous person on it.

“If it was out of dress code, it was out of dress code,” Penton said.