Judge: School Was Right To Suspend LHS Player Half-Season For Vape Pen

"Each day is a gift, an opportunity to restore honor, and to earn trust from his parents, school, classmates, coaches, teammates, and community," the judge wrote.

Neary Memorial Field at Dick Meador Stadium at Lawrenceburg High School. File photo.

(Lawrenceburg, Ind.) – A Dearborn County judge has sided with Lawrenceburg Community School Corporation after a student and his friends sued the corporation for the length of his suspension from playing high school football.

The lawsuit was filed earlier this month, with attorneys for the Lawrenceburg High School student claiming the school’s discipline policy did not allow for him to be suspended from games.

The senior student had been caught with a vape pen on school property last May, when he was a junior. However, the student did not fail a subsequent drug test.

Nevertheless, discovery of the vape pen led to the school administrators’ decision to suspend him from playing in five games this season. He was also placed on a 365-day probation period.

On Friday, Dearborn Superior Court I Judge Jonathan Cleary ruled in favor of the school corporation, finding that its handbook allows for suspension from athletic facilities for conduct detrimental to the athletic program.

“The Lawrenceburg High School Student Handbook permits suspension from athletics for conduct that is detrimental to the school,” Cleary wrote in the decision. “The Court looks at the totality of the Handbook and not one particular word or sentence. The Lawrenceburg High School Student Handbook further imposes a specific 50% suspension for a positive drug test. The fact that the Lawrenceburg High School Student Handbook does not specifically provide for a specific % suspension for a vapor pen, does not prohibit a suspension at all pursuant to the remainder of the Handbook.”

Cleary determined that the student was provided “exemplary” due process and that the punishment was not an abuse of discretion, unconstitutional, or unsupported by the evidence. Other students at Lawrenceburg High School and Greendale Middle School had receive half-season athletic suspensions – something the judge found the student was aware of.

While determining that the student handbook should be considered in its totality, Cleary wrote that the school corporation should carefully review and amend the handbook for clarity.

The judge said the young man at the center of the lawsuit will learn a hard lesson for his decision to bring a vape pen to school – which he hoped will serve the student well.

“Nevertheless, if the health dangers of vaping, discipline, and the importance of following rules/law are learned at the age of seventeen (17), at the cost of five (5) high school football games, it could be one of the best life lessons to ever happen to this young man. The term ‘criminal thinking’ is sometimes shown in court by criminal defendants who either do not think they will get caught, do not care if they get caught, or think the law does not apply to them. Some form of criminal thinking appears to have been present when the decision was made to bring a vapor pen into a school restroom. It is vitally important that this type of thinking is interrupted before more poor decisions are made,” Judge Cleary stated in his order.

“This community has a rightful expectation that no student is smoking or vaping anything inside school buildings. The Court encourages (the student) to learn from his mistake, but to move forward, and to live in the current moment. Each day is a gift, an opportunity to restore honor, and to earn trust from his parents, school, classmates, coaches, teammates, and community.”

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