Thanks for Homeland Security

From The Opinion Journal

Arms are for hugging? Not at Greenmeadow Elementary School in Maynard, Mass., where a family "is outraged after their 5-year-old daughter was forced to write a letter denouncing hugging after a classmate embraced her," according to Boston's WCVB-TV:

Brenda Brier and Michael Marino pulled their daughter, Savannah, out of school early Wednesday. The couple was angry after a meeting with officials at the Greenmeadow Elementary School in Maynard, where Savannah is in kindergarten.

At issue is a hug Savannah said she got on the playground from a friend named Sophie. Savannah hugged Sophie back. The hugs resulted in Savannah having to write a letter, complete with teacher corrections, that read, "I touch Sophie because she touch me and I didn't like it because she was hugging me. I didn't like when she hugged me."

"She said, 'I'm really sad that I got in trouble for hugging,'" Brier said.

"I can understand if boys are playing rough or kids are pulling each other around--that's one thing. But when kids are being affectionate, I mean hugging, hey, they shouldn't be disciplined over it and they shouldn't be lying in letters making the kid say the opposite that they don't like to hug," Marino said.

The school superintendent says there was a "dispute of the facts between a hug and a lifting of a child off the floor. . . . One girl bear hugged another girl and lifted her off the ground. The aide who was monitoring told the teacher. The teacher asked several students to write a note to their parents and describe what happened."

Zero Tolerance for Crime