Pat,
If you publish this, I'd ask that you remove my name and email from it. I'd rather this be anonymous.
Regular Reader
You're right. Our society has inflicted so much legal influence on our schools that it is the courts that are defining the rules as to how our children are educated, not the educators. And they are also defining limits by which they protect our children.
When I was in high school, I was a school bus driver (at that time, the students drove the buses in the state I lived in and there were a number of other states that then practiced this, too). While I was the driver of a school bus, I was attacked by three students on my bus. There were enormous bruises all over my body and my father went ballistic when he saw them.
My father went down to the school and told the principal and the vice principals that he'd swear out a warrant for the arrest of those students if they laid another hand on me. All they did was warn the students that my father would have them arrested if they touched me again. They told both of us that they wouldn't take any action against those boys because they were afraid of the Civil Liberties Union (they actually told us that the ACLU would intervene if they even took those boys off the bus route).
Fortunately, my father's warning scared those students enough that they never caused me another problem. And it so frightened them that they all apologized to me, like their apology made things all right for them). But, I didn't drive that route any more because the school was afraid for my safety (but I continued to ride that bus daily because it was the only one going to where I needed to go). I was allowed to drive all other routes, however, and I did so regurlarly. And those boys never even served detention.
Maybe our courts need to think about this a little bit before they intervene in school actions.