Criminal offense?

The Circuit Court of the County of Spotsylvania refused last week to repeal the suspension and three counts of misdemeanor assault of student Andrew Mikel II for shooting "plastic spitwads" at classmates.

In December, Mikel, a high-school freshman, used a pen casing to shoot small, hollow, plastic pellets at other students during his lunch period. He hit three students who "flinched and looked annoyed," Mikel told The Washington Post. After calling a deputy sheriff to the scene, school officials expelled him for possession of a weapon.

School officials saw Mikel's use of the make-shift blowgun as a violation of the federal Gun-Free School Act, classifying it as a weapon because it was used to "intimidate, threaten or harm others."

The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil-rights group, is defending Mikel in the case. John Whitehead, founder and president, strongly disagrees with the court's decision.

"We're greatly disappointed by this ruling, which does not in any way see justice served," said Whitehead. "Andrew Mikel is merely the latest in a long line of victims of school zero tolerance policies whose educations have been senselessly derailed by school administrators lacking in both common sense and compassion."

They will appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia, where Whitehead holds out hope for Mikel's case.

In order to overturn the school board's ruling, the Spotsylvania judge needed to find the decision "arbitrary and capricious." Whitehead said that while the judge "personally found it stupid," he could not overturn the decision under state law.

Whitehead sees zero-tolerance policies as freedom-restricting. Other examples of zero-tolerance cases that the Institute has taken up include: a 4th grade student who was suspended for using the mouthwash, Scope, which contains a miniscule amount of alcohol, and a high-school student who was charged with possession of an imitation controlled substance, a bag of oregano that other students used to prank him.

"They're teaching kids a bad political science lesson and that is you don't have any freedom in the United States anymore," Whitehead told Fredericksburg's Free-Lance Star.

Mikel was suspended for three days last year for bringing a comb that looked like a switchblade to school, but since then has been "representing the school well," according to his father, Andrew Mikel Sr. Mikel is an honors student and is active in his church.

Because the misdemeanors stay on his record, Mikel could be ineligible to attend the Naval Academy.

"His dad's a war-hero, and he wanted to follow in his steps," Whitehead said. Mikel's father was a Navy Seabee and Marine officer who earned a meritorious award for his service.

School officials have given Mikel the option of joining a community service program to avoid prosecution.

"There's still plenty of flexibility at the local level," Amanda Blalock, a member of Spotsylvania's education board, but not the disciplinary committee, told The Washington Post. "Sometimes we're just dealing with a stupid mistake a kid makes, not a criminal action."

"Common sense, compassion and moral strength-not fear and anxiety-should shape our policies and guide our reactions to threats of violence and chaos," Whitehead wrote in an essay on the Institute's website. "School administrators devoid of a common-sense understanding of the difference between child's play and truly threatening behavior should stop acting like prison wardens in a totalitarian state and start acting like role models of a democratic society."

Since the suspension, Mikel has been homeschooled.

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