Ealasaid A. Haas
January 24, 2001
Opinion Writing

A Canadian author jailed for writing a dramatic monologue full of violence was released on $10,000 bail last week after 34 days behind bars. Outrageous, you say? An assault on the sanctity of free speech?

The author was a fifteen year old high school student. The narrative was from the point of view of a student planning to blow up his school during lunch hour with blocks of C-4.

That changes the perspective a little.

In the wake of Littleton and other high school terrors, it seems natural to react immediately to things like this. Parents and school administrators are scared, and when a student, even one like this Canadian boy with no history of violence, describes in detail a method for killing large numbers of his classmates, it’s clear that something has to be done.

But forcing the boy, whose name has not been released, to spend his sixteenth birthday behind bars seems excessive. In Canada, there are convicted felons who spend less time in prison than he did.

Writers across North America, including the boy’s idol, Stephen King, have spoken out in his support. Their repeated opinion is that imagination has long been punished, but that doesn’t make it right; his imprisonment is an assault on free speech. The consistent lack of proof that the monologue was anything other than fiction lends heavy credence to that.

There is a huge middle ground between incarceration and pure apathy. Freedom of speech and a student’s rights have to be balanced with the safety of the rest of the school. Order an investigation of the boy, search his locker and room, talk to him and his parents, even order him psychologically evaluated, but to lock him up for more than a month is inexcusable.

Life is complicated, and it is always difficult to draw the line. Littleton was the result at least in part of apathy on the part of administrators who did nothing to halt the abuse of a group of misfits by the jocks and popular kids and didn’t see the warning signs that trouble was coming. That happens across the nation every day, but in that case, it had tragic consequences.

But in trying to keep that from happening again, it is possible to go to far. That anonymous boy in Ontario is testimony to that.