Here's An Interesting Question

This is part of Goldie's comment on Joe's post about Mr. White:

"There are many, many people who would condemn strangers to long prison sentences but when it's their friends or someone they know, they don't think these harsh penalties are justified. I'm sure that's just human nature, but still, I think the hypocrisy needs to be addressed."

My question, then, is which is the appropriate response? We can give remorse to people we know because we know there are more facets to them than just whatever heinous act they committed. When all we know of a person is that they committed a heinous act, then we are more prone to offer harsh penalties.

So is the act alone worthy of the harsh punishment, outside of what we know of them, or should we take into account the other facets of one's personality? It seems like Goldie, who is surprised at the lightness of the upcoming sentence, would argue the former, while clearly many others would argue the latter.

In this case, Mr. White's punishment seems about right to me. Given that he's no longer in a position to abuse his power over students and that he's going to register as a sex offender, it would seem like no more children are in the way of being mistreated. I guess that may be a leap, however, given the repeated nature of his actions.

Also worth mentioning is that I agree with Goldie in having sympathy for the kid(s) who were the victims here. I guess it is human nature, but these types of situations seem to lead to one choosing a side and looking down on the ones who are on the opposite side. Whether we we choose to loathe the alleged perpetrator who may have been falsely accused, or to loathe the accuser who is subject to scorn if we don't believe their story.

A Sad Day

So yesterday Joe White, former principal of Teaneck High School, and vice principal at the time of our tenure at Teaneck High (3 of the 4 of us, anyhow), pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual conversations with a student and to downloading child pornography.

This ordeal has been going on in some form or another since 2002, when Mr. White was first arrested on charges that he fondled a boy who was living in his home. He was acquitted on those charges, on what now seems like a lack of evidence rather than innocence, though I probably shouldn't speculate, but was then arrested again in 2006 on these current charges.

Given that this has been in the air for 5 years now, I guess I can't say that I'm shocked by Mr. White's admission of guilt, though I am still somewhat shocked by his actions. Mr. White's demeanor was literally the opposite of someone who you would think would partake in these types of behaviors. It leads one to wonder if that was a Primal Fear kind of smoke screen, or if he really just has two enormously disparate parts of his personality. The person I know and the acts that he has admitted to really don't match at all.

So I'm saddened by this turn of events. Someone who I had a lot of respect for has done something that, by any account, was enormously inappropriate and irresponsible, and in addition is just highly illogical. At what point does one decide to act on the feelings that one knows to be inappropriate? I mean, I suppose we are all capable of having "sins of the mind" as Jimmy Carter might say, but choosing to act on them is a huge leap from that. And after already having gotten through essentially unscathed the first time, choosing to continue that behavior, separate of the inappropriateness, is just highly irrational. At what point does one count his blessings and seek some sort of help?

Incidentally, Joe is quoted in the article and I think his thoughts kind of sum it up in an apporpriate way:

"It's like someone telling you the world is flat...He was the most strait-laced, ethical man on the planet. Not in a million years would I ever guess something like this. There has got to be some kind of explanation."