Yesterday, alleged neck grabber and Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser handed down a narrow 4-3 decision holding that a school district can completely strip a student of his right to an education because the student committed a minor marijuana offense:

After a 15-year old Madison East High School student was expelled for bringing marijuana to school in 2009, the Dane County Circuit Court adjudged the student delinquent and ordered the Madison Metropolitan School District (District) to provide him with alternative educational services during his expulsion period, up to three semesters. [...]

The majority concluded that while school districts may be encouraged to provide alternative education to expelled students, certain provisions of the Juvenile Justice Code do not override the District’s explicit authority to expel students and refuse further educational services.

In essence, the case turned on the tension between two state statutes, one allowing school districts to expel students and the other permitting judges to require juvenile delinquents to attend some form of schooling. Prosser and his fellow conservatives held that the first statute controls, while the three more progressive justices believed the second controlled.

Wisconsin’s constitution provides that public schools “shall be free and without charge for tuition to all children between the ages of 4 and 20 years,” but the practical effect of this decision is that a child will have no access to education for as much as a year and a half. The mind baffles at how anyone could think that depriving him of public schooling for this long will do anything other than doom him to a lifetime of the very delinquency that led to his expulsion in the first place.

Nearly half of all Americans will try marijuana by their senior year in high school. It is simply not practical to impose draconian sanctions on each of these children, even if it were a good idea. Nor would it be anything other than disastrous if they were all subject to criminal sanctions if they used marijuana again after they became adults.

So, of course, we don’t arrest or expel every single person who smokes a joint. Most casual marijuana users — including the last three presidents of the United States — go their entire lives without ever suffering consequences. Meanwhile, a handful of disproportionately poor Americans lose a terrible lottery and obtain a career-destroying criminal record as a result.

Prosser’s decision will likely leave doom one Wisconsin student to a lifetime of hopelessness, but it is only a symptom of much larger problem with American drug policy. If nearly half the nation will use marijuana by the time they graduate from high school, maybe that’s a good sign that we shouldn’t threaten every one of those children to a potentially life-destroying expulsion or arrest.

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed the first openly gay man to be nominated for a federal judgeship — newly minted federal District Judge Paul Oetken. By even receiving a confirmation vote, Oetken joined an exceptionally elite club. Senate Republicans have waged such a successful war of obstruction against President Obama’s nominees that the body is currently confirming judges at just over half the rate under Obama’s two predecessors.

Two other openly gay nominees, however, have yet to win the confirmation lottery.:

• Alison Nathan: Nathan, a nominee to a federal judgeship in New York City, is a former law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens who received the near unanimous endorsement of her fellow clerks from her year on the Court, including “all of the Thomas, Scalia, Rehnquist and Kennedy clerks that Term who are not presently in government service.” Nevertheless, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) made two cases against Nathan. He repeated the right’s increasingly tiresome case against judges citing to any international legal sources, and he criticized Nathan for filing a brief arguing that death sentences should be carried out more humanely. Nathan did not argue against the death penalty itself — she just argued that maybe states could inflict a little less pain when they kill people. Apparently, that bothered Grassley.
• Edward DuMont: DuMont is the first openly gay nominee to a United States Court of Appeals, and President Obama originally nominated him more than a year ago. Nevertheless, he has yet to receive a judiciary committee hearing. These delays are particularly odd because DuMont is nominated to the Federal Circuit, a specialized court which deals mostly with patent law. Intellectual property questions are certainly important, but they are hardly the kind of hyper-controversial issues that justify these kinds of delays.

There are simply no good reasons why these nominees should not receive a swift and overwhelmingly favorable confirmation vote. Sadly, however, Senate Republicans are better than anyone at coming up with bad reasons.

On September 21, 2001, a 41-year old white supremacist from Dallas walked into a gas station and opened fire on people he believed to be Arabs. Enraged by the 9/11 attacks, the shooter, Mark Anthony Stroman, killed an Indian man who was Hindu and a Pakistani man who was Muslim.
Rais Bhuiyan, a 37-year old Muslim Air Force pilot from Bangladesh, was Stroman’s third victim. Shot in the face at close range with a double-barrel gun, Bhuiyan survived the attack, suffering now from partial blindness. After admitting to the attacks, Stroman is scheduled to be executed tomorrow in Texas.

Bhuiyan, the lone survivor of Stroman’s attack, is now trying to save his life. After the attack, Bhuiyan told the New York Times that he spent his time “simply struggling to survive in this country.” But pulling on his profound capacity for forgiveness, he has spent the last several months petitioning Texas to spare Stroman’s life. When asked why, Bhuiyan said his Islamic faith taught him not to seek vengeance and that what Stroman “did was out of ignorance” about Islam:

Q Mr. Stroman has admitted trying to kill you. Why are you trying to save his life?

A I was raised very well by my parents and teachers. They raised me with good morals and strong faith. They taught me to put yourself in others’ shoes. Even if they hurt you, don’t take revenge. Forgive them. Move on. It will bring something good to you and them. My Islamic faith teaches me this too. He said he did this as an act of war and a lot of Americans wanted to do it but he had the courage to do it — to shoot Muslims. After it happened I was just simply struggling to survive in this country. I decided that forgiveness was not enough. That what he did was out of ignorance. I decided I had to do something to save this person’s life. That killing someone in Dallas is not an answer for what happened on Sept. 11.

Q If you had the chance to meet Mr. Stroman, what would you say to him?

A I requested a meeting with Mr. Stroman. I’m eagerly awaiting to see him in person and exchange ideas. I would talk about love and compassion. We all make mistakes. He’s another human being, like me. Hate the sin, not the sinner. It’s very important that I meet him to tell him I feel for him and I strongly believe he should get a second chance. That I never hated the U.S. He could educate a lot of people.

In response to Bhuiyan’s efforts, Stroman had this to say:

Q What do you think of Rais Bhuiyan’s efforts to keep you from being executed?

A “Yes, Mr Rais Bhuiyan, what an inspiring soul…for him to come forward after what ive done speaks Volume’s…and has really Touched My heart and the heart of Many others World Wide…Especially since for the last 10 years all we have heard about is How Evil the Islamic faith Can be…its proof that all are Not bad nor Evil.”

Stroman’s realization stands in stark contrast — and as a strong rebuke — of the nation’s continuing descent into an Islamophobic age. Americans are living through a time when the existence of Islam in the U.S. is seen as an insidious infiltration of homegrown terror and the sight of anything or anyone Islamic sparks visceral paranoia and outrage. Instead of fighting this reactionary tide, conservative politicians are exploiting the right-wing hatred as a way to raise their profile. Be it through congressional hearings or campaign platforms, the marginalization of Americans because of their faith threatens our core values and cultivates the very attitudes that stoke those like Stroman to violence.

Bhuiyan’s “deep Islamic Beliefs Have gave him the strength to Forgive the Un-forgiveable…that is truly Inspiring to me, and should be an Example for us all. The Hate, has to stop, we are all in this world together,” said Stroman. “Its almost been 10 years since The world stopped Turning, and we as a nation will never be able to forget what we felt that day, I surely wont, but I can tell you what im feeling Today, and that’s very grateful for Rais Bhuiyan’s Efforts to save my life after I tried to end His.”