Columbia, SC — The two young men whom a Dreher teacher allegedly or admittedly engaged in sexual intercourse were above the age of consent. There are no allegations of coercion, intimidation, payments or rewards offered or given in return for sex.

Had the teacher been a neighbor or a family friend, a Mrs. Robinson if you will, there would be no crime.

I believe it is unconstitutional to have one law for teachers and another one for everyone else. An act should either be a crime if anyone does it or it should not be a crime.

The teacher will probably be advised to cry and apologize and will be given probation. No one will challenge the constitutionality of the law, and perhaps the next teacher who grades a student’s paper strictly will find herself behind bars because that student pretended she had sex with him.

Of course the teacher should be decertified, fired and counseled. But she never should have been arrested, she should not face prosecution, and she should fight for the right of teachers to not be made criminals for what other women can do without a threat of prosecution.

South Carolina has too many laws that deny equal protection. For example, you have to be a lawyer to run for family court judge, unless you had served in the General Assembly. The law allows a former legislator to become a judge with just a high school diploma, as long as his former colleagues in the Legislature vote for him. Another example is that the harassment and stalking statutes do not apply to private detectives. Private detectives can follow people, survey them and even harass them with impunity; anyone else gets arrested.

Now there’s talk of arming teachers and placing armed security guards around schools. But the good-guy/bad-guy dichotomy is deceptive and dangerous. Only God knows with certainty who is good and who is bad.

With teachers having sex with students, police officers driving squad cars drunk and colliding with people and baggage screeners stealing passenger items, do we want guns willy-nilly in the hands of people who have a badge or a professional title?

Arming teachers would be the worst hysterical reaction to recent tragedies.

Marie Faltas

Columbia