Keeping Schools Safe: Why Schools Should Have an Affirmative Duty to Protect Students from Harm by Other Students

[Excerpt] Federal statutes have attempted to make schools safer by providing grants to assist schools in becoming violence-free. Similarly, some states have passed “bullying laws,” which mandate procedures for school officials to follow when dealing with bullying. These statutes, however, do not provide adequate remedies for students who are harmed by their peers during the school day. The majority of courts that have addressed student- on-student violence have declined to hold that compulsory education creates the type of special relationship needed to impose an affirmative duty on schools to protect students from harm by other students. While I agree that compulsory education laws do not restrain students’ freedom in the same manner as, for example, a jailor restrains a prisoner, compulsory education laws do restrict students’ freedom by requiring students to attend school, under the care of their teachers. When teachers or school officials reasonably believe that students are being harmed by their peers, they should be required to inform their superiors who in turn should inform the parents. Teachers who know that one student is harming another student should have a duty to protect that student from harm. Requiring school officials to protect students from actual harm would, at the very least, make schools feel safer to students, thereby creating school environments more conducive to learning. This article argues that federal law should impose on school officials an affirmative, albeit limited, duty to protect students from harm by other students when school officials know, or reasonably should know, that students are harming other students. Part II of the article contains a brief historical overview of the official liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as the current theories for holding state officials liable for harm caused by private actors. Part III discusses some recent cases where parents of children injured at school by other students have sued a school or school official( s) under section 1983. The decisions in these cases represent the majority view that schools do not have an affirmative duty under the Due Process Clause to protect students from harm by other students. Part IV discusses the minority view, which imposes a duty under certain circumstances. Part V describes other remedies available to students who are harmed by other students, and discusses some state responses to school violence. Part VI argues that courts should adopt the minority view and impose a limited duty on schools, thus requiring school officials to protect students when they are aware or have a reasonable belief that students are being harmed by other students. The article concludes with the policy reasons that support a limited duty, and the implications of imposing such a duty on schools

The literary kiss: gestures of subterfuge

A complex, polyvalent phenomenon, the kiss, once embedded in a literary text, is first and foremost a cipher to be decoded. Texts effectively expose its many-sidedness: not merely its potentially seductive power or ostensible expression of affection, but, no less compellingly, its risky demeanors, its capacity to establish dominance, to terrorize, to subdue, to belittle, to ingratiate, even to infuriate. Variously bestowed, retracted, avowed, disavowed, meaningful, meaningless, the kiss can become, as it does in the work so named by Kate Chopin, a multi-layered form of contrivance, the incarnation of tempting, albeit ultimately invidious, non-realities. Though, perhaps, not manifest at first blush, a careful reading reveals that each occasion marked by the “joining of lips” yields an odd sequence of awkward and oft deleterious, consequences: motion is superseded by motive, candor by disingenuousness—all in an unending slew of backward and forward slippages. Thus is engendered the metaphorization of an altered reality—structured all but exclusively upon the relentless deceits it proffers. Jubilation and despair come and go, as though wholly inter-changeable; acceptance and rejection, promulgation and rescission are converted into mere variants of the same gestures of ambivalence, if not of travesty. One might thus conclude that the kiss adopts significance worthy of note only as a metonym for and of factitiousness, vacuity and thinly-veiled distortion. Chopin’s script adeptly explores the multifarious comportments and consequences of the kiss: an act fashioned as a “weapon” of dubious value, as a tactical strategy, as a play-act borne of ulterior objectives and, which, as such, deftly prostitutes itself, willingly, nefariously. In the given context, the kiss-act lays bare the heroine’s ostensible “liberation” to be more imagined than real. Her would-be triumph over gendered subjugation exists, if at all, as but an ill-conceived romantic daydream—destined to slake gradually into a woeful destiny of loneliness and imprisonment. Chopin’s brief narration center-stages betrayal, challenges authenticity and valorizes consummate illegitimacy

Similarities between explicit and implicit motor imagery in mental rotation of hands: an EEG study

Chronometric and imaging studies have shown that motor imagery is used implicitly during mental rotation tasks in which subjects for example judge the laterality of human hand pictures at various orientations. Since explicit motor imagery is known to activate the sensorimotor areas of the cortex, mental rotation is expected to do similar if it involves a form of motor imagery. So far, functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography have been used to study mental rotation and less attention has been paid to electroencephalogram (EEG) which offers a high time-frequency resolution. The time-frequency analysis is an established method for studying explicit motor imagery. Although hand mental rotation is claimed to involve motor imagery, the time-frequency characteristics of mental rotation have never been compared with those of explicit motor imagery. In this study, time-frequency responses of EEG recorded during explicit motor imagery and during a mental rotation task, inducing implicit motor imagery, were compared. Fifteen right-handed healthy volunteers performed motor imagery of hands in one condition and hand laterality judgement tasks in another while EEG of the whole head was recorded. The hand laterality judgement was the mental rotation task used to induce implicit motor imagery. The time-frequency analysis and sLORETA localisation of the EEG showed that the activities in the sensorimotor areas had similar spatial and time-frequency characteristics in explicit motor imagery and implicit motor imagery conditions. Furthermore this sensorimotor activity was different for the left and for the right hand in both explicit and implicit motor imagery. This result supports that motor imagery is used during mental rotation and that it can be detected and studied with EEG technology. This result should encourage the use of mental rotation of body parts in rehabilitation programmes in a similar manner as motor imagery

Influence of motor imagination on cortical activation during functional electrical stimulation

<b>Objective</b> Motor Imagination (MI) and Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) can activate the sensory-motor cortexthrough efferent and afferent pathways respectively. Motor Imagination can be used as a control strategy to activate FES through a Brain-computer interface as the part of a rehabilitation therapy. It is believed that precise timing between the onset of MI and FES is important for strengthening the cortico-spinal pathways but it is not known whether prolonged MI during FES influences cortical response.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> Electroencephalogram was measured in ten able-bodied participants using MI strategy to control FES through a BCI system. Event related synchronisation/desynchronisation (ERS/ERD) over the sensory-motor cortex was analysed and compared in three paradigms: MI before FES, MI before and during FES and FES alone activated automatically.<p></p> <b>Results</b> MI practiced both before and during FES produced strongest ERD. When MI only preceded FES it resulted in a weaker beta ERD during FES than when FES was activated automatically. Following termination of FES, beta ERD returns to the baseline level within 0.5 s while alpha ERD took longer than 1 s.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> When MI and FES are combined for rehabilitation purposes it is recommended that MI is practiced throughout FES activation period.<p></p> <b>Significance</b> The study is relevant for neurorehabilitation of movement.<p></p&gt

Is implicit motor imagery a reliable strategy for a brain computer interface?

Explicit motor imagery (eMI) is a widely used brain computer interface (BCI) paradigm, but not everybody can accomplish this task. Here we propose a BCI based on implicit motor imagery (iMI). We compared classification accuracy between eMI and iMI of hands. Fifteen able bodied people were asked to judge the laterality of hand images presented on a computer screen in a lateral or medial orientation. This judgement task is known to require mental rotation of a person’s own hands which in turn is thought to involve iMI. The subjects were also asked to perform eMI of the hands. Their electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Linear classifiers were designed based on common spatial patterns. For discrimination between left and right hand the classifier achieved maximum of 81 ± 8% accuracy for eMI and 83 ± 3% for iMI. These results show that iMI can be used to achieve similar classification accuracy as eMI. Additional classification was performed between iMI in medial and lateral orientations of a single hand; the classifier achieved 81 ± 7% for the left and 78 ± 7% for the right hand which indicate distinctive spatial patterns of cortical activity for iMI of a single hand in different directions. These results suggest that a special brain computer interface based on iMI may be constructed, for people who cannot perform explicit imagination, for rehabilitation of movement or for treatment of bodily spatial neglect