School daze

Judge Mike Jones has thrown out the lawsuit against McLean County schools for its role in the Jon Andrew White case. As everyone knows by now, Jon White was the Urbana school teacher who committed statutory rape with the blessing and knowledge of UI faculty members.*

We support the courage the families have in appealing the ruling.

Jones' said, as the N-G reports, that the lawsuits suggested that Normal officials passed off pedophiles to save face. Why? IFT backed-monies perhaps? This is ILL after all...

In fairness to Jones, at least he cannot be accused as a judicial activist. It would seem that he interpreted the letter of the law. However it begs the question: was this letter of the law equally invoked when/if Jones or any other county judge in ILL over saw a lawsuit that resulted from the Catholic priest scandals?

Further troubling is what business a Champaign County Judge has business doing ruling over events occurred in McClean County. The obvious answer: the lawsuits were filed in Champaign County. However, to use jurisdiction as a justification for dismissal in this case comes off as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Jones writes in his ruling, "The public duty rule applies to schools. It essentially says municipalities don't owe a duty to protect individual citizens."

This is rather silly, since Jones' role of the municipality seems to directly contradict the definition of it's existence. As public education is coercive and mandatory, why in the world would it not be liable to protect individual citizens? On a larger scale, would not the municipality by its very nature be required to? If not the role of the municipality, then what is the role?

It seems the answer is to molest its citizens.

Posted by Hound No. 4


*In an act of cowardice and/or tacit guilt, the UI College of Education faculty directory no longer lists Gene Amberg. Does this mean that he is no longer teaching at the university? Or is it because it wants to hide the fact that they continued to employ an enabler to child molestation?