The only time I’d ever been in serious trouble with the principal’s office was in 8th grade. It was the Monday after my Bar Mitzvah weekend. So I was tired and now a “man”, ironically.

I was never the type to make fun of other kids or even friends with that implied justification that “boys will be boys”. I had very little tolerance for people who did or who used that excuse—ignorant parents included.

So when a friend of mine who’d been made fun of one too many times about his weight and his average basketball skills by another student whose mother the principal had on speed dial, I lost my shit. It wasn’t the fight that my hormonal, wanna-be tough guy imagination had fantasized about but the crowd was satisfied. And I think the teachers were too, but obviously they couldn’t express that openly. Now that I’m a bit older, I realize these things.

A three day suspension.

Later that year, I was able to have it removed from my record because I wrote a heartfelt letter about why violence is not the answer. That should have been telling as to what future I might have as a writer: it was an amazing letter. But I didn’t mean a word of it.

About four years later, I’m sitting in one of the computer labs in my high school that was designated for the newspaper. It was senior year and I was Co-editor in Chief. We put a lot of work into that thing every two weeks for not much appreciation, but we didn’t care. We knew we were getting something out of it. As such, I often spent my lunch periods in the lab working on the layout or editing copy.

On one particular day, the bell rang, I arrived in the empty classroom, began working, said hello to a friend who came and left and continued to work. I did so by myself until two administrators and an ROTC instructor came running into the room, walkie talkies in hand, looking for what they were told was an altercation.

The mystery: someone had called the office and said, “This is Mr. Scott. There’s a fight happening in room 112.” Conveniently that was the room I was editing in. The three of them came running in, flustered only to look down and see yours truly eating plain spinach leaves and editing, the Gazette.

They were pretty confused.

They asked me a few questions and then I was taken down to the office to write a statement and be interrogated, which for the assistant principal entailed assuming that I was guilty. And in retrospect, aside from the fact that he knew I was the editor of the paper and that I had a squeaky clean record, I didn’t blame him. The office received a call, the secretary checked which room it was from and there I was.

There’s that feeling you get when someone accuses you of something that you know you didn’t do or had no part in. And it’s not always anger, it’s usually excitement, an elated sense of confidence. You have the power of truth in your favor and no reason to be nervous.

That feeling for me was mixed as they were not letting up.

I was taken into another room where a guidance counselor casually tried to convince me in that buddy to buddy sort of way that I did in fact do it by nonchalantly talking about the ten day suspension that was awaiting me. That confidence and excitement quickly turned to slight laughter, distress and a feeling of insult.

It didn’t help that all I knew about this counselor was that his position was targeting the crowd that could usually be found scheming up new ways to get away with smoking “fugs” behind the gym.

I started asking them to bring in my teachers to vouch for me.

“I have to get my internship. Does that signify anything to you?”

Apparently it didn’t.

The head principal who I had spoken to that morning in his office walked by and upon seeing me remarked that he was disappointed. I was surprised that my meeting with him that morning about excusing my absensces so I could attend a lobbying conference in DC apparently didn’t signify anything to him either.

Eventually they allowed me to leave.

I returned the next morning with my parents, upon request, to settle the thing. The assistant principal made his point of how my guilt was undeniable based on the cold hard facts. The only flaw in their story, though, was that the board which signified which room was placing the call was located across the room from the secretary at the top of a wall.

My father vouched for me and my mom sat there looking confused but comfortable knowing I was innocent. We had gone to Dunkin’ Donuts before the meeting. My parents love me.

The assistant principal was basically saying in a convoluted way the following as he gently readjusted the picture of him with his wife and kids at the front of his desk: “Look, I have a very strong reputation here. So…someone has to be blamed for this.”

Eventually the head principal walked in and said, basically, “Jake’s a good kid. This is done now.”

That was one instance that I could walk away from with a sense of pride. That was a story that I could brag about.

Not that lacking respect for your school administrators was a totally new thing. But I had a legitimate reason to. I knew that in the majority of cases they handled, they were dealing with some really assholeish kids. But I still lost a lot of respect for the office that day.

The only lesson I gleaned from that encounter was that adults, specifically school administrators, can be quick to judge.

I’m—and I assume the school is too—still not sure who placed that call which is kind of creepy.

Fast forward about a year and a half and I’m once again questioning the integrity of an important social institution. More specifically, one of its members.

This past semester, former CNN anchor Soledad O’ Brien came to my university to discuss her documentary series “Black in America”. I would go to these events and speaker series regardless of their subject matter, instinctually. I was passionate about pursuing journalism and I was bored. I was surrounded by plenty of kids who knew more about getting into bars than their own majors.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that the audience was predominantly African American. I think what really surprised was the lack of very many other races in the audience.

Not that O’ Brien was singling out white people as the cause of the different problems facing the black community, but it felt like she was exploiting certain disparities between the two communities in order to establish context for these problems. And she wasn’t incorrect. But by showing clips of stupid white people saying stupid things on television and different statistics that had everyone in the audience whispering to person next to them, I felt uncomfortable. To me, it was an unproductive conversation and panel.

I felt as if I had no place in that conversation and as if people saw my presence there as pseudo-interest.

As I walked out of the stadium to head back to my dorm with a friend, an African American university police officer asked us as we crossed the street, “So did you guys learn something about being black in America tonight?”

My friend and I looked at each other.

He then asked, “No really, what would two white guys be interested in going to event like that for?”

I responded sternly, saying, “Because I’m a fucking human being.” A cascade of other reasons came out of my mouth. I was shocked. I think shortly after he realized what he’d said and toned down his questioning by adding: “No, I’m just genuinely curious.”

The conversation toned down further and ended after I mentioned that I was a journalism major in response to him asking and that I write a weekly column for the school’s paper. As we finally walked away, the officer yelled back “Yeah, they need more juicy stuff in there!”

I walked back to my room fuming, emailed my editor for approval and started typing.

In the column, I vented my frustrations but gave them context by starting with the conversation between the officer and I. The event was on a Wednesday night. The column was published the next Monday. I did not mention the officer by name.

http://www.thetowerlight.com/2014/02/tu-global-soledad-obrien-event-raises-questions/

My headshot was printed next to each of my columns but very rarely did people come up to me to discuss my writing. A few times, though, I was flattered by other students who would introduce themselves and say that they read it every week. But after an entire two semesters of writing the column, that only happened about five times. I got much more of a response online.

This was one of those columns where I’d go about my day on campus the day of print assuming that everyone who saw me knew what I had written and was moved by it, positively or negatively. But nobody approached me, at least in person.

At around 5 pm, I had just finished my shift at the movie rental store in the student union and sat down to check my email. Someone from the university’s police department had contacted me in reference to the piece and said they wanted to speak to me in person so I could help identify the officer.

I waited to call. I started texting an old mentor of mine about what had happened since he’d read the piece and he referred me to a mutual friend who was a journalist in Annapolis along with his wife. I got their advice, my father’s and my editor’s.

So at the end of that week I went to speak with the police captain of the university precinct with planned talking points:

“My plan wasn’t to get this guy fired.”

“We both know I’m not that kind of kid looking for attention. I could have made this a much bigger deal if I wanted to and that wasn’t my intention.”

“His ignorant questioning only added to my frustration that I felt regarding racial progress.”

I walked into a room with the captain, my chocolate milk in hand. I felt confident. I wasn’t sure if he was intending to do some sort of damage control or just tell me to watch what I write from then on with a wink and a nod.

Neither.

I identified the officer and he assured me that he would be talked to, sternly but not fired. He was concerned, attentive and responsive to what I was explaining. I made my points and then he began telling me about his time as commissioner in Baltimore City.

He told me stories of press-police interactions gone wrong and gone right but with an overall tone of high regard for the press.

As he finished a story about a false claim regarding his former police department being reported, he pulled a scanned copy of my column out from a manila folder with select phrases highlighted in yellow.

“But no, you did absolutely nothing wrong here.”

I had thought for a second before the meeting that libelous accusations would be made against me. I was wrong. It was just another textbook learning experience in journalistic ethics.

The lesson I learned? Well for one thing, always call whoever you’re about to make look bad for a comment. I just got lucky with this department that they were nice about it.

But also, don’t ever assume that nobody’s reading your columns.