Now, wait just a minute. Your editorial titled “Punishment overkill” left out a few important facts.

These were not model students who just had a little scuffle at a football game. The superintendent has revealed publicly that out of the seven students, three were third-year freshmen, and between all of them, there were 350 combined school absences.

These students – if you’d even call them that – weren’t there to learn in the first place. The school board even set a date for them to come in and defend themselves concerning the football brawl, but not surprisingly, none of them showed up.

Even then, all the school board did was expel them and suggest they be sent to a different school with more discipline because their current school wasn’t doing the trick.

And far be it from Jesse Jackson to go charging into a situation he has no understanding of, screaming discrimination. But loe and behold, as soon as he heard of the terrible oppression these students were facing, he gathered his Rainbow gang and rushed off to Decatur.

Only to back off a couple days later once he stopped shouting long enough to find out what the facts were!

Even the profound Reverend Jesse Jackson has since realized that these students deserved the punishment they received and backed down, saying he will NOT try to have the students re-enrolled, and that alternative education IS acceptable.

Maybe Jackson and the editorial board can both learn from this. Look at the facts before you cry discrimination/ oppression/ overkill/ etc. A little research goes a long way.

Tim Jarvis

Freshman

Computer science