Mom claims son was cruelly paddled by dean after participating in high school walkout
The mother of an Arkansas high school student is speaking out after she says her son was subjected to corporal punishment for participating in last week's National School Walkout.
Jerusalem Greer told Cosmopolitan that her son, 17-year-old Wylie Greer, walked out of his class at Greenbrier High School last Wednesday along with two other students to join the nationwide protest for stricter gun control laws.
Greer said that the trio of students was approached by the dean during their protest and told to return to class, a demand which was refused. The students were then given the option of receiving two days of in-school suspension or two smacks with a wooden paddle. All three chose the latter.
Greer took to Twitter on March 14 to express her shock with the unusually harsh punishment.
"My kid and two other students walked out of their rural, very conservative, public school for 17 minutes today," she wrote. "They were given two punishment options. They chose corporal punishment. This generation is not playing around. #walkout"
My kid and two other students walked out of their rural, very conservative, public school for 17 minutes today. They were given two punishment options. They chose corporal punishment. This generation is not playing around. #walkout
— Jerusalem is just here to retweet Greer (@JerusalemGreer) March 14, 2018
Wylie told Cosmopolitan that although he was initially scared about the punishment, he said he "understood what had to happen, and was prepared for that."
However, the teenager still said that he disagrees with his school's disciplinary methods, stating that "violence should be used to intimidate children and young adults into silence disgusts me."
"It is barbaric and cruel," he added.
Still, Wylie told CNN that being paddled "was the noble and right thing to do in this scenario."
"In my mind, the in-school suspension was essentially conceding to sitting down and shutting up, which is what the admin and school wanted to happen, to keep it quiet almost," Greer told the outlet. "I felt if I stood up and took the punishment in an honorable way, that it was better than doing what they wanted me to do which is shut up and go on with our lives."
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