Should Los Al Student Body Have Its Head Examined?

I’ve spent my entire life fighting for the underdog.

(Editor’s note: Nothing could be further from the truth, but it’s his column and he can say whatever he wants.)

So, naturally, my attention is drawn to the dispute at Los Alamitos High School between the administration and senior Albert Nguyen, who thought he was going to be student body president and instead is just another student suing a school district.

How can that be a good outcome for anybody?

The Los Al district has a sterling reputation, so being student body president smacks of a certain nobility. It’s not like being an Orange County supervisor. Not surprisingly, Nguyen is a little upset that, although duly elected, he is being impeached, or whatever you call stripping a high school kid of his impending presidency.

The administration’s point is that Nguyen’s grades weren’t up to snuff last semester, which automatically disqualifies him from holding the highest office in the land of high school government.

Nguyen’s lawyer (perhaps “Counsel to the President” is more appropriate) says Nguyen’s overall grade average still meets the standard but concedes that in the immediate past semester the boy’s grades went south.

All of which led the parties to Orange County Superior Court this week, where Nguyen is suing to assume his presidency, and the administration is probably wondering why every day must bring a new headache.

It’s amazing to me that students have the nerve to sue schools. Some kids at my high school circulated a petition in 1967 to permit guys to have facial hair, and we thought that was the bravest thing since Bunker Hill. Bear in mind this was at a high school where, if you wore trousers without a belt, you could be sent home to get one or were required to keep your pants up with a rope that was kept in the principal’s office for just such occasions.

That kind of rights-infringement today is probably a settlement of at least six figures.

This isn’t to suggest that I’m not hip to changing attitudes. My niece visited me a few years ago when she was 14 and wore something to a local coffee shop that looked like it might have been ordered from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. She mentioned she had worn it to school recently, and I spit my oatmeal back into the bowl.

Both her teacher and principal objected to it, she said, noting, however, that she planned to wear it again. If they hassled her, she said, she’d just sue them.

That, of course, has nothing to do with Nguyen. I’m sure he dresses modestly and respects authority. In fact, it strikes me that he must be a pretty solid citizen if he was 1) elected president in the first place, and 2) values the position enough to fight for it.

Nowadays, we usually hear school officials decrying the students who ditch school and shirk responsibility. So, here we have young Mr. Nguyen saying, in effect, “Let me be your president,” and he winds up in court with the district.

As for his grades, well, I’m no apologist for anyone who can’t maintain a 3.0 grade-point-average. I did it, dammit, and there’s no reason why Nguyen can’t too.

I’ll concede, however, that I see a problem with the civics of all this. I thought elections were about people voting for someone they liked and respected. Apparently, the Los Al student body presidency is not a test of character or leadership but scholarship.

Our country has a long tradition of supporting ordinariness.

I’m reminded of one of Richard Nixon’s nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court who was criticized for being a “mediocre” jurist. That prompted a U.S. senator to defend the nominee by saying that mediocre people need representation too.

Who knows? Maybe Los Alamitos students need Albert Nguyen at this moment in their history, plummeting GPA and all.

I refuse to take a stand. I’m not a registered voter in Los Alamitos High School and won’t pretend to understand the issues. All I know is that we’ve had presidents, council members and, dare I say, county supervisors in the past who have shown some human frailty and who, having been elected, disappointed.

The way to handle that, though, has been to let the voters speak.

Los Al students, in their wisdom, gave the presidency to Albert Nguyen. If the power of the ballot box is to mean anything, shouldn’t they be the ones to turn him out?

Los Alamitos has too much reputation at stake to go down in history as just another banana republic where a ruling junta overthrew a president.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.