The July 1, 2004, article in The Malibu Times concerning Malibu High School and the Board of Education’s mandatory transfer policy for students found to be in possession of alcohol or drugs contains a glaring inaccuracy.
The article reported that a Breathalyzer was employed at the prom. There was, in fact, no Breathalyzer machine used at the Malibu High School prom.
This example of shoddy journalism is appalling and apparently is the result of purposeful lies or the failure to verify the facts of the event reported in the article.
The employment of an actual Breathalyzer instrument, which is an accurate scientific device commonly used at most high school proms, would have been welcome as an effective deterrent to drug and alcohol use at the prom.
Rather than making use of a Breathalyzer, as the article falsely reported, Malibu High School administrators, including then principal Mike Matthews and assistant principal Gloria Martinez, chose instead to simply smell the breath of certain students in an effort to decide who would be excluded from the prom event. Consequently, students so “tested” were shamed, made subject to ridicule, had their reputations sullied and found their educational career at Malibu High school curtailed and destroyed.
Medical evidence accounting for symptoms of one student’s condition as presented by a local physician on behalf of said student was dismissed by administrators during a meeting to appeal the wrongful accusation, so as to allow the student to finish the last month of the senior year at Malibu High and participate in graduation. Apparently these so-called administrators believe that they have more knowledge than the student’s own physician.
The administrators at Malibu High School should be ashamed for denying fundamental due process to certain students who were subjected to harsh punitive measures at the whims of said administrators, when the simple employment of an actual Breathalyzer, a commonly used scientific device, would have fairly and accurately determined those who were actually in violation of school policy. The most salient points students learned from the “prom experience” is that, despite what learns in social studies/civics classes, one is guilty until proven innocent, and in a dictatorship there are no rights to prove one’s innocence.
Finally, The Malibu Times believes in one-sided reporting.
Steve Campbell