George Will on Philip Howard's new book
January 12, 2009
The book is titled, Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans From Too Much Law. Howard has a great eye for arresting examples. Will mentions, among others, these:
Called to a Florida school that could not cope, police led the disorderly student away in handcuffs, all 40 pounds of her 5-year-old self. . . .
No official at the Florida school would put a restraining arm around the misbehaving child lest he or she be sued, as a young member of Teach for America was, for $20 million (the school settled for $90,000), because the teacher put a hand on the back of a turbulent seventh-grader to direct him to leave the classroom. Another teacher's career was ruined by accusations arising from her having positioned a child's fingers on a flute.