Zeal to Rein In Teens Grows, as Does Backlash

If you’re a teenager in Tennessee and have the urge to get, say, your navel pierced this weekend, you’ll need to bring along your mom or dad. In Indiana, if you’re planning to punch a hole in anything other than your ears, you’ll need a note from your parents.

You’ll need a letter from the parents too if you want to cruise out with your friends in any one of hundreds of American communities after dark this evening.

And in Oklahoma, if you’re younger than 18, your parents now can deliver a “spanking, paddling or switching” without fear of state intrusion, in the wake of legislation drafted in response to the April school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., that claimed 15 lives.

In statehouses and town meetings across the country, parents are rising up to protect, defend and extend their dominion over their children. And they are finding plenty of willing allies among state lawmakers and school administrators.

But the zeal to stem teen violence and general waywardness also is sparking objections from kids and civil libertarians.

“There is definitely, post-Columbine, a real push on getting youth away from high-risk activities as these politicians see it,” said Galen Price, a 16-year-old student from Lewisville, N.C., who is president of the International Students’ Activism Alliance, a group that promotes high school students’ rights. “I see a lot of angry kids who are saying: ‘They think they’re gonna make us any better by taking away our rights?’ It’s just making us angrier. It’s not helping anyone.’ ”

Hundreds of state laws passed in the wake of the Littleton shootings took effect Thursday, and many of them will put some pretty unwelcome ties on teens. Among them are Indiana’s and Tennessee’s body-piercing measures and Oklahoma’s paddling law, whose author declared that teens are out of control because they lack discipline from their parents.

But already there are rumblings of teen backlash against the rising tide of restrictions. In Internet chat rooms frequented by teenagers, for instance, there is growing talk of a “National Break-the-Curfew Day,” a night when kids subject to town or city curfews pour into the streets to signal their opposition to the limits.

“A lot of people fear kids, and there’s a really bad mentality out there that kids are dangerous and that everyone needs to do something to prevent another shooting,” said Ben Smilowitz, a youth in West Hartford, Conn., who recently turned 18 and has crusaded against curfews.

“Curfews are just plain-old stupid. They make kids criminals, and that makes them feel isolated and criminalized. That’s how the [Columbine] school shooters felt. What exactly are we trying to prevent here?” he said.

Some of the proposals irking teens and their allies were in the works before the Littleton shootings. But virtually all gained momentum in the wake of the shootings, as politicians scrambled to respond to a public clamor for action.

Vincent Schiraldi of the Washington-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice said that the number of communities embracing youth curfews has picked up significantly since the Littleton shootings. And school-based drug-testing proposals have become common, according to attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The House of Representatives weighed in as well, voting this week to close a loophole in 42 states’ laws that would allow many minors, by crossing state lines, to get abortions without their parents’ permission.

“The parents’ claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their child is basic to the structure of our society,” Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.) thundered Wednesday on the floor of the House. Noting that a recent national poll found 85% in support of the parental-consent measure, Canady warned opponents that they “should listen to the voice of the American people on this subject [and] reject the arguments that come forth from those who want to deprive the parents of any right to involvement.”

Not all of the proposed restrictions on teenagers have made it into law, to be sure. In Oklahoma, a state bill introduced before the Littleton shootings that would have blocked minors from getting tattoos languished and died. In Massachusetts, state Rep. Thomas Kennedy in May pressed for passage of a bill to bar the sale of “exotic hair dyes” to minors. Kennedy filed the bill after a constituent complained that there was nothing to stop her 10-year-old sister from buying hair dye and using it to turn her tresses hot-pink.

Kennedy withdrew the bill after it kicked up a storm of ridicule around the state--most of it from young people. One teen, responding to an Internet poll, told the Massachusetts lawmaker: “Get real here. You are worried about coloring when students are getting killed in public schools. . . ? Your views are somewhat Victorian, as well as moronic.”

Around the same time that Kennedy withdrew his bill, a Virginia school district suspended 16-year-old Kent McNew for his blue hair. In a policy statement that a judge later ruled unenforceable, Surrey County school officials said that they would suspend students with “unusual or unique” colored hair until such time as the student’s hair color is accepted as “normal” by the school board.

Ann Beeson, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s national legal department, said that she thinks politicians and school boards are misreading parents’ intentions in pressing for new restrictions on teens. Many parents, she acknowledged, are perplexed and troubled by teen culture. But few want their own children’s rights to be curtailed in the effort to address the problems of youth today.

“It’s about parents’ rights until your kid gets into trouble,” said Beeson. “When your kid gets into trouble for something as mild as dying his hair blue, you’re up in arms. The schools are getting the vibes from parents that there should be a crackdown--and some parents do want that, yes. But we’re getting flooded by calls from students--and their parents--who can’t believe the things that are happening.”