School Ban on Hugs Bugs Some Students

FULLERTON —  Hugging, kissing, back patting, “high fives” and all other public displays of affection are prohibited at Nicolas Junior High School, and students are up in arms.

“It’s wrong and unfair,” said Alicia Galvan, 15, who had to attend Saturday school last week as punishment for hugging a friend.

Galvan and 14-year-old schoolmate Katrina Weed are so angry about the prohibition that they went to the school board this week to ask officials to ease up.

“Hugs are banned, even friendly hugs,” Weed told a room full of administrators, teachers and parents at a Fullerton school board meeting. “I’ve often been told that a simple hug can ease a troubled mind. In junior high, when troubles are blown way out of proportion, it’s amazing what a hug can do.”

The girls say they want to be able to hug their friends without fear of being punished.

In response, board President Robert C. Fisler, a former Nicolas teacher, said he feels that children have the right to express themselves, and he appreciated hearing their point of view. But the issue is in the hands of the school’s interim principal, Tammy A. Brown, he said.

Brown, who took over in January, said the school’s anti-hugging rule has been in place for years but largely unenforced. It states: “Keep your hands and feet to yourself.”

She said the staff on campus noticed a gradual increase in hugs since the beginning of the school year and became concerned that the behavior was disruptive to the learning environment. In addition, some parents had complained.

So when Principal Steven Keller left at year’s end for a higher-paying job at another district, Brown said, she began enforcing the rules in an effort to curb “inappropriate behavior.”

Brown said no student has been suspended or expelled for breaking the “no public display of affection” rule. Some kissers and huggers have been told to stop such behavior or go to Saturday school, she said, and each incident is handled on an individual basis.

Other schools have similar rules, officials said, and they are enforced to varying degrees. Such policies have become an issue recently, administrators and some parents say, because hugging seems to be the latest fad, especially at junior highs.

A 13-year-old student at Dwyer Middle School in Huntington Beach was recently reprimanded--with her mother’s approval--by the assistant principal for hugging on campus.

The student’s mother, who asked that she and her daughter not be identified for fear of facing ridicule, said: “It seems to be a phenomenon. . . . This hugging stuff is nonsense in my opinion. I think it’s out of control.”

Dwyer’s assistant principal, Gayle Schenck, said that although hugging is better than fighting, “we prefer that kids keep their hands to themselves. . . . It just makes for a safer environment.”

Many students disagree strongly, but they are not certain whether they have legal grounds to protest.

“We have to look at this as whether or not the school has a valid educational objective against non-disruptive expressive conduct,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

“We have to be careful that we don’t go so far in limiting what students can do that we put curbs on normal behavior that is an indication of fondness or appreciation for someone,” Schroeder said. “Holding hands in the hall or giving a quick hug to a fellow student is a nice gesture and could be given if someone learned that a family member were ill or that the other child was going through a personal crisis, or it could simply mean, ‘I really like you.’ ”

But nobody has yet asserted a student’s constitutional right to give hugs, she said.

At Nicolas Junior High, Principal Brown said she spoke Wednesday morning with Galvan and Weed and will hold an open forum today where students can express concerns about the hugging ban and the school’s dress code, which also has drawn complaints.

“I applaud that the students feel strongly,” but public displays of affection are not appropriate on campus, she said, adding that forbidding all such behavior is simply “fair and consistent.”

Times correspondent Cathy Werblin contributed to this story.