If you aren’t outraged now, you may be by the end of this post.
In early October, Massachusetts high school honor student Erin Cox received a message from a friend who had been drinking, asking for a ride home from a party. According to the Boston Herald, Cox arrived to pick up her friend just as law enforcement showed up to arrest students for underage drinking.
Cox didn’t attend the party and hadn’t taken a sip of alcohol. She’d just gotten off of work at the Andover Inn and had met some friends at a yogurt shop when she received the message asking for a ride. Police cleared her in writing during her court appearance last Friday. But her school prohibits students from attending parties where there is alcohol, and it punished the student athlete in what most are calling a blind application of a “zero tolerance” policy. Cox was stripped of her title as captain of the volleyball team and suspended from five games.
North Andover High School just handed every teen a ready-made excuse NOT to do the right thing in order to avoid getting into trouble. The school could have used the incident to drive more awareness of the risks of underage drinking and to emphasize the lifetime importance of a safe ride home. Instead, district officials seem to have set drunk-driving messaging back by decades.
In June we reported on an Arizona case, where some college students, afraid of getting in trouble as Minors in Possession, left an unconscious friend at a local ER with a note to alert staff that he had been drinking heavily and needed help. He had a 0.47 BAC. Cases like this have prompted a dozen states to pass “Alcohol Amnesty” laws that establish limited immunity from prosecution for minors who seek medical help.
So do underage designated drivers fall through the cracks?
It would seem laws are moving light years ahead of schools, an irony to be sure. So what about underage designated drivers? And what of the prevalence of these Zero Tolerance policies? Do these extend to having dinner with your parents in a business with a bar? Thanksgiving with the neighbors who serve wine? Christmas at Aunt Martha’s?
The district is standing firmly behind its policy. According to attorney Geoffrey Bok, who represented the school in court on Friday, they “had little choice” once police became involved.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other organizations who advocate against underage drinking have yet to respond to the topic, but the story has gone viral, including a change.org petition supporting Cox.
I, for one, am grateful Cox took at least one drunk driver off the street that night.
Zero tolerance from the folks with Zero I.Q.!
Would they feel better if that was their child and they had died in a car wreck or of alcohol poisoning? No I’m sure they wouldn’t but why put other children at risk?
At least they called a friend, rather than killing themselves or someone else. Have some common sense, the girl should be congratulated for not being at the party drinking but trying to help a friend. The issue is she was there to help avoid a tragic incident and was not drinking. Give the girl a hand she deserves one. Shame on that school.
I applaud the young lady for responding to her friends and being a designated driver. There are not too many things that are “black or white”. I hate to say this but if I was the parent of the designated driver and she was treated this way by the school I would be lawyering up immediately to ensure there was ZERO PUNISHMENT!
This young lady did the RIGHT THING and should not be punished for doing the RIGHT THING. Every honor the school took from her should be restored, and she should be rewarded for doing the RIGHT THING! I work with drunk drivers and I tell them if you drink have a D.D. If more kids would call and more kids did the RIGHT THING we would reduce the deaths from drunk driving. This is just one more reason this country is going down the drain.
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers has posted a response to the story. http://www.madd.org/blog/ Though they applaud Erin’s actions, MADD also encourages teens to turn first to adults for a safe ride home. While I respect MADD’s stance against underage drinking, it’s problematic to focus on the ideal rather than the real, especially when it comes to teens and drunk driving. Some teens don’t feel they can call a parent to pick them up after a night of drinking, and many will turn first to their friends for help in bad situations. Because of this it is so important to recognize teens who make safe, responsible decisions for themselves and their friends. Underage drinking is a huge problem, and punishing teens like Erin only makes it worse.
Thanks to everyone who has weighed in on this topic via the blog and our Facebook page. Our friends at The Century Council have also posted a response in support of Erin at their blog: http://www.centurycouncil.org/blog/2013/teens-erin-cox-should-not-be-punished.
It’s so important that we adopt a zero tolerance to drink driving and well done to the young designated driver.