Just like Philly: Enforce the rules, get punished

The Philadelphia School District has just pulled a Krasner, excusing the rule-breakers and punishing the enforcers. It is a bad message to send to a society that seems to be unraveling at the seams.

Sounds like an old man yelling at clouds. I am old, old enough to know better, and I know we are all better off when there are rules, nowadays often called guard rails.

The issue: At the esteemed Girl’s High commencement a few weeks ago, principal Lisa Mesi withheld the diplomas of two students who broke the long-standing tradition that graduates solemnly walk across the stage and receive their diplomas in silence.

They did receive their diplomas later.

However, outrage was stirred up on social media, with the principal reportedly receiving death threats.

The school’s Alumnae Association supported Mesi, according to reporting in the Inquirer.  

“She is a compassionate leader and outspoken advocate for our little sisters,” the alumnae group said in a statement. 

The group criticized misleading national reporting on the incident, then continued:

“At the onset — and previously shared with all students, families, and other attendees — Principal Mesi clearly communicated the guidelines and regulations for the ceremony with an added dose of warmth and humor,” the alumnae group said.

The message was: No nonsense.

Despite the warning, Hafsah Abdul-Rahman did a griddy dance and an audience member laughed, and Saleemah Burch flipped her hair and made a gesture, and someone clapped.

Mesi enforced the rules — and now has been relieved as principal by the district, which did not say if the change was permanent.

Let me say at this point, I don’t agree with the tradition. Commencement is a time of joy and exuberance. At my granddaughter’s recent college commencement, you could tell who were the most popular students — or who had the largest families — by the cheers, hooping, and hollering. (Granddaughter was summa cum laude, since you asked.)

My own college graduating class was so large we didn’t walk across the stage. There were 4,000 of us, it would have taken all day. We were told to stand if, say, we were candidates for a BS. We stood, were told to move our tassels to the left, and sit down. We had to return later in the week to retrieve our diplomas from a college office. Kind of grim.

Girl’s High had about 200 graduates and two — 1% — just could not honor the tradition.

And the School District criticized the tradition, as if this were the first time it learned of it. Are they asleep at 440 N. Broad?

I read some remarkable defenses of the two narcissists who broke the rules and then bleated about how much it hurt them to get their diplomas late.

They are Gen Z and won’t follow foolish rules, said one woman.

The 198 other graduates are also Gen Z and seemed to have no problems with the tradition. These two were self-involved egotists.

If you don’t like the tradition, go to the student government and get them to talk to the principal about changing it. That’s how smart young ladies would handle it.

Instead, the 1%  chose to break the rules — and the principal gets put on the dunce stool.

I liken the behavior of the 1% to the plague of retail shoplifting we are experiencing, because District Attorney Larry Krasner, in the throes of “restorative justice,” won’t prosecute thefts under $500. So — d’uh — we get more thefts. 

Bad behavior unpunished produces more bad behavior. Every parent knows that.

I also liken the girls’ behavior to those millions of student debtors who have their hands out to the government to wipe away transfer the money they owe to taxpayers. What it has in common with the 1% is no consequences. 

Another online kvetch — this had to come — called it racist, squelching “Black culture.” Girl’s High is 67% Black. 

A quick glance shows these earlier Girl’s High Black graduates — singer Jill Scott, Episcopal Bishop Barbara Clementine Harris, actress Erika Alexander, former Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, and Common Pleas Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson. 

I knew some of them. Never heard them complain about Girl’s High.

I don’t want to slam the two students too hard, they’re just kids. Their bad behavior and “punishment” could have been a valuable learning experience about following the rules. 

A learning experience the school district stupidly reversed.