Excerpt: A Tennessee 10-year-old was expelled from school for a full year after he pointed his finger in the shape of a gun and made mock "machine gun" noises, according to a ProPublica investigation.
The boy was expelled as part of a "zero tolerance" law in Tennessee that mandates any student who makes a threat of "mass violence" be expelled for at least one year. While the law, originally signed in 2023—following a shooting by a former student at a private school in Nashville—was recently amended to direct schools to expel students only for "valid" threats, the provisions of the law are still vague, and schools have considerable enforcement leeway.
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.