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Pot-holding student reinstated By Chris Bristol Saying his hands were tied by state law, a Jackson County judge reluctantly reinstated Phoenix High student body president Keanon Ferguson, who was stripped of his title for bringing pot to school. In a ruling issued Thursday afternoon, Judge Phil Arnold said the school�s rules do not address wrongdoing by elected student leaders, and therefore administrators had no authority to punish Ferguson beyond the standard five-day suspension for a first-time drug offense. "To craft a punishment which is outside the rules, after the infraction has been committed, is not a fair and consistent enforcement of the rules as required by Oregon Law," the judge wrote. The ruling came with a court-ordered injunction, forcing the school district to reinstate Ferguson�s title. The school board voted unanimously Thursday night to appeal. In the meantime, Ferguson�s title will be restored. "We believe this ruling makes a horrible statement about what is and what is not acceptable behavior for any student in a leadership position," according to a statement released by the board. "We feel that a school has broad authority to discipline students provided that discipline is reasonable and not arbitrary or capricious." Retired attorney Bill Ferguson said he sued the school district on his son�s behalf not necessarily because he disagreed with the punishment, but because he felt it was illegal. "What the kid did was wrong," he said. "By the same token, he�s required to obey the rules and so is the school. It�s a two-way street." Ferguson sued the school district after his son (then the student body president-elect) was caught in the school parking lot June 12 with a small amount of marijuana and a glass pipe in his pants pocket. A campus security officer also smelled the odor of marijuana smoke coming from Ferguson�s car, which contained a roach and roach clip. School officials initially suspended Ferguson for five days, the standard punishment prescribed by the school�s drug policy. He also was suspended from the football team for several weeks and had to miss a game, and was forced to submit to random drug testing. But over the summer, administrators decided Ferguson�s behavior set a poor example for a student body president. They stripped him of his title, a decision later affirmed by the school board. In a hearing before Arnold last week, Ashland attorney Tom Howser argued that his client was punished more severely than allowed by school rules and that Oregon law requires consistent enforcement of written rules. Howser argued that, under the Phoenix High constitution, only students may recall an elected class officer. Arnold�s ruling did not address the subject, and it remains to be seen whether a recall effort is mounted, given the realities of peer pressure and Ferguson�s popularity. Medford attorney Tim Gerking, representing the school district, countered that administrators have broad discretion to enforce discipline and that the student conduct code would resemble a telephone book if they were required to predict every form of misbehavior and make a rule against it in writing. In his ruling, Arnold made it painstakingly clear what he personally thought about Ferguson�s behavior and his fitness as a supposed role model. "In committing this act, he brought dishonor to those who were looking to him for leadership as the student body president, to his school and to himself," Arnold wrote. But rules are rules, Arnold reasoned, and neither school officials nor judges are free to make it up as they go along. "Just as the district school board must follow the legislative mandate, so must this Court," the judge ruled, adding, "the imposition of the additional, unwritten punishment ... violates the legislative mandate." The case recalled an incident two years ago involving a party at the Fergusons home off Pioneer Road in which 31 Phoenix High students faced suspension from athletics for violating the school�s drug policy. A freshman boy nearly drank himself to death at the party, but school officials were forced to reduce the suspensions to community service under pressure from angry parents. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.