Abstract:
This article will discuss the state of the legal regime operating to sanction the dehumanizing violence Indiana public schools may exact upon children. Part II examines the statutes and policies that enable schools to wield this violence. Part III shows how courts base their sanctioning of this violence on a callous view of “reasonableness” and outdated opinions from the 19th century. Part IV looks at recent reform efforts encouraging Indiana to join the thirty-one other states and more than 100 countries that no longer strike children. This final Part proposes an educational campaign to demonstrate the problems of physical punishment and a recalcitrant state that has shown no intention to change its stance without pressure from an engaged public.