City Protects Kids From Themselves, And Their Phones
A lawsuit filed by a group of parents in an attempt to overturn Mayor Michael [Bloombergs ban on cell phones] in city schools was [thrown out yesterday](http://www.nypost.com/seven/05082007/news/regionalnews/class_cell_ban_stands_regionalnews_david_andreatta.htm). But the parents, who seem moodier than their adolescent kids, may well appeal the state Supreme Court judges ruling.
The [ban is nothing new], but until last spring when the city began conducting random security checks, many students carried them covertly. Kids are slick that way. Parents objected when authorities confiscated the phones, which they discovered while looking for weapons.
One of the eight plaintiffs in the case, [Ellen Bilofsky], responded to the judges decision by saying, Its still an unfair and unenforceable rule, and we intend to keep fighting against it. Apparently, Bilofsky joined the suit after 9/11, when her daughter, then a 14-year-old freshman at Stuyvesant High School, wandered around for hours unable to contact her parents because she didnt have a cell phone. Oooh, so thats what those dinosaur pay phones are for!
The plaintiffs argue that banning cell phones from the premises violates students constitutional rights, but that a ban on using phones in schools is justified. Now that sounds unenforceable.
Apparently, some rebels carry their cells anyway. The New York Sun reports that those not so defiant kids pay delis and other shops near their schools to hold on to their phones until classes let out. Under a use ban, cell phones will be carried by teenagers and tweens (and maybe even younger children) whose self control may not be perfectly formed, the judge, Lewis Bart Stone, wrote. Thats ridiculous; of course their self-control isnt perfectly formed. Still, a proposal to build lockers outside schools where students could pay a fee to store their phones during the day is even more ridiculous. Pretty soon, cell phones are going to have nicer digs than most New Yorkers.
Photo courtesy of [Phil Scoville on Flickr]