Asshole of the Week

While it would be easy to call out the family who flipped because their local grocery store wouldn't customize a birthday cake for their son, Adolf Hitler Campbell, we've already had our fun with them this week.

So instead, we'll turn our attention another news story that piqued our interest, this one just today. A few weeks ago, two teenagers (eighth graders) decided to engage in a little tryst in the stairwell of the Francis Pastorius Elementary School school before an after-school program. We remember this kind of thing from when we were in high school, or at least rumors of it. Either no one really did it, or they just didn't get caught. But in any event, these kids did it, and they did get caught. Oops!

Unsurprisingly, the school is "actively investigating an incident involving inappropriate sexual contact between students at an after-school program at the school." If it turns out that the students did in fact engage in, ahem, the "conduct," then they'll both face disciplinary action. Or will they? You see, only the boy has been suspended as a result of the incident—and his mother is not happy about it. And frankly, we don't blame her. If there's no evidence that the encounter was anything other than consensual, then why is this kid being suspended, but his female companion not? If there's evidence that it wasn't consensual, then the boy's mother at least has a right to know that, because her son's suspension from school would become the least of her worries.

What the boy did was unacceptable, and just plain dumb. But then, either what the girl did was equally unacceptable and dumb—in which case she should have been suspended during this "investigation"—or what happened in that stairwell went beyond unacceptable and into illegal—in which case, don't you think the boy's mother has a right to know that? Maybe this Phillyist is biased in this regard because I'm male, but I think the concept that women—and, these days (to sound like an old fart) even teenage girls—aren't capable of making their own bad decisions as far as what they do with their bodies, and that these kind of things must be wholly the male's fault, is absolutely ridiculous.

But even more ridiculous than that is the school's messed-up handling of this situation by not doling out equal punishment (if it was consensual), or by communicating with the boy's family (if it wasn't, and there's a more serious investigation going on). And for that, the Pastorius school administrators are our Assholes of the Week.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Justin S. Campbell