[UA] http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/studentmagic001028.html

[James McGraw]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/studentmagic001028.html 

Not-So-Practical Magic
                 High School Expels Student for Casting a Sickening Spell 

                 O K L A H O M A  C I T Y, Oct. 28 ― An Oklahoma
                 high school suspended a 15-year-old student
                 after accusing her of casting a magic spell that
                 caused a teacher to become sick, lawyers for the
                 student said on Friday.
                      The American Civil Liberties Union said it had filed a
                 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on
                 behalf of student Brandi Blackbear, charging that the
                 assistant principal of Union Intermediate High School in
                 Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, suspended her for 15 days
                 last December for supposedly casting a spell.
                      The suit also charged the Tulsa-area Union Public
                 Schools with repeatedly violating Blackbear's civil rights
                 by seizing notebooks she used to write horror stories and
                 barring her from drawing or wearing signs of the pagan
                 religion Wicca.
                      "It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am
                 walking into court to defend my daughter against charges
                 of witchcraft brought by her own school," said Timothy
                 Blackbear, Brandi's father.

                 'Outlandish Accusations'
                 Joann Bell, executive director of the ACLU's Oklahoma
                 chapter, said the "outlandish accusations" had made
                 Blackbear's life at school unbearable.
                      "I, for one, would like to see the so-called evidence
                 this school has that a 15-year-old girl made a grown man
                 sick by casting a magic spell," Bell said.
                      A lawyer for the school district declined to comment.
                      The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, alleges that Blackbear
                 was summoned to the office of assistant principal Charlie
                 Bushyhead last December after a teacher fell ill, and was
                 questioned about her interest in Wicca.
                      According to the lawsuit, Brandi Blackbear had read a
                 library book about Wicca beliefs and, under aggressive
                 interrogation by Bushyhead, said she might be a Wiccan.
                 In fact, Blackbear is a Roman Catholic, according to the
                 newspaper Tulsa World.
                      "The interview culminated with Defendant Bushyhead
                 accusing Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, of casting spells
                 causing (a teacher at the school) ... to be sick and to be
                 hospitalized," the lawsuit said.
                      The lawsuit stated that because of the "unknown
                 cause" of the teacher's illness, Bushyhead advised the
                 15-year-old girl "that she was an immediate threat to the
                 school and summarily suspended her for what he
                 arbitrarily determined to be a disruption of the education
                 process." 

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james
"I'm inuspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctious 
to have caused you such pericumbobulations"
     Blackadder the Third


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