Excerpt: "In a Louisiana public school, female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out."
Delhi Charter School, in Delhi, Louisiana, a school of 600 students does not believe its female students have a right to education free from discrimination. (photo: Rosmarie Gearhart)
School Forces Pregnancy Tests
07 August 12
n a Louisiana public school, female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out and forced to undergo home schooling.
Welcome to Delhi Charter School, in Delhi, Louisiana, a school of 600 students that does not believe its female students have a right to education free from discrimination. According to its Student Pregnancy Policy, the school has a right to not only force testing upon girls, but to send them to a physician of the school administration's choice. A positive test result, or failure to take the test at all, means administrators can forbid a girl from taking classes and force her to pursue a course of home study if she wishes to continue her education with the school.
This is in blatant violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
Today, the ACLU of Louisiana and the ACLU Women's Rights Project asked Delhi Charter School to immediately suspend this discriminatory and illegal policy.
The policy's complete disregard for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities, is astonishing. Title IX and its regulations explicitly mandate that schools cannot exclude any student from an education program or activity, "including any class or extracurricular activity, on the basis of such student's pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom."
Besides violating Title IX, the policy is also in violation of the Constitution's due process right to procreate, and equal protection: it treats female students differently from male students and relies on archaic stereotypes linked to sex and pregnancy.
Approximately 70 percent of teen girls who give birth leave school, due in part to illegal discrimination. Schools should be supporting pregnant and parenting teens that face numerous barriers to completing their education, not illegally excluding them from school. The ACLU's Women's Rights Project protects the rights of pregnant and parenting teens through advocacy, education, and litigation, working to combat the push-out of pregnant and parenting teens from school.
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Why have we not clearly labelled and targeted for ridicule the ANTI-SEX REPUBLICANS? Their objections to Choice, obstruction of women's health care services, demands for Abstinence Education, campaign against Planned Parenthood, and attempts to restrict access to contraception are all on one thread. It is ANTI-SEX-ISM and if we clearly identify it as such, the public will reject it because...peopl e like to have sex!
Time to unravel it and expose this entire anti-sex campaign for what it is, PURITANISM. And to link it with all that other nonsense, the science denial and free-market myths, out there in the Alternate Reality of the Far Right.
So YES our CONSTITUTION DOES PROTECT us FROM RELIGION (despite what some right-wingers would like to profess!)
Well, this assumes that the purpose of school is "education"... unfortunately it's not: the purpose of school is to enforce conformity and obedience to the ruling elite and -- if kids stay in school -- to get the minimum amount of education needed for their minimum wage jobs...
Remember "the tallest blade of grass [in this case, perhaps, "the roundest"] is the first one cut down."
Repeat after me students: "I pledge allegiance to the lords of the Wall Streets of America, and to the fascists with whom they stand, neglecting reason under god with slavery and injustice for all."
Until societies train their boys, as well as girls, to be responsible rather than indifferent, this humiliation will continue, and girls will always carry the burden of not only raising the child but also attempting to rid herself and her conscience of that humiliation.
We are speaking about minors here, so why aren't the parents involved other than mentioning home schooling? Certainly, not all these girls have good parents, but surely most would be notified according to law.
Some serious education should be called for, but yes, religious folks would rather humiliate a girl than assist in her learning to take care of herself.
Not true. I'm sure the school policy applies to any boys who get pregnant as well. That IS equal protection!
(P.S.: This IS humor, see my legal comments, above)
Guys getting pregnant would be great for a real lesson, however. Some schools issue robot babies that cry to be fed at various times during the day and night or cry to have the diaper changed. My school was one of them. It is a true test of infant care. The crying stopped only when the bottle was applied or diaper changed. BUT only girls were given the babies. Never the boys. Typical.
Yeah, yeah, I know - pregnant cheerleaders are easy to replace. But now you get yourself a big ol' corn fed line backer (or 6) and it'll be 'well heck, they was just a sowin' their wild oats - and your daughter is a ho'.
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