Given the nation's sad history of racial segregation, intimidation, and violence, nooses, like burning crosses and pointed hoods, are frightening and offensive symbols of racial discrimination and bigotry. Nooses certainly have no place on college and university campuses. That context makes the Inside Higher Ed story of another noose found on Stanford University's campus all the more concerning. Schools rightly vigorously condemn the use of any such symbols to discriminate, intimidate, offend, or harass students on or about campus.

Avoid Jumping to Conclusions

Past public events involving nooses should give college and university disciplinary officials reasons for careful investigation before jumping to conclusions and issuing hasty disciplinary charges. Many will remember, for instance, the Jussie Smollett matter ending in the actor's conviction and jail sentence for a false police report involving a faked racial attack including a rope the actor placed around his own neck. Or NASCAR's embarrassment over a garage pull rope mistaken for a noose allegedly meant to intimidate driver Bubba Wallace.

Schools have made similar mistakes. Maryland's Salisbury University, for example, had to quickly tamp down and address false and exaggerated social media reports of a noose on campus. The suspicious item, enlarged and distorted photographs of which circulated on social media, turned out to be a tiny remnant of a bird feeder hanger, no larger in real life than a student ID card. These and other incidents, whether deliberately inflamed to pursue agendas or innocently mistaken before earnestly corrected and addressed, should give college and university disciplinary officials every good reason for proceeding only with due care and caution during investigation.

The Role of School Discipline Defense

Schools still make mistakes, no matter the caution they should take when investigating inflamed allegations of notorious racial intimidation, sexual harassment, or other infamous misbehavior. Schools sometimes rush to judgment at the expense of due process and student rights. The Duke University lacrosse team scandal, resulting in the prosecutor's criminal conviction and disbarment, is another notorious example. A highly qualified school discipline defense attorney's aggressive defense of false disciplinary charges is the answer when schools rush to satisfy public pressure to find, blame, convict, and punish someone for exaggerated or misunderstood incidents. A skilled and experienced school discipline defense attorney can invoke the school's protective disciplinary procedures that federal law mandates. Students have due process rights. They just need the qualified, committed, and experienced advocate to enforce those rights.

National school discipline defense attorney Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team are available nationwide for your aggressive defense of false disciplinary charges. Don't let school political or ideological agendas railroad you into suffering unjust discipline. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain a premier school discipline defense attorney for a winning defense of false or exaggerated disciplinary charges.