Chapter 14

December arrived, cold and wet. On the first Monday, sleet had begun falling in the early afternoon, as Kevin and Denise returned home to prepare for their evening meeting with the governors and National Program Committee officials. When the teens arrived home later, Jeremy told Kevin that he had arranged for the embassy driver to bring them to the school later.

Kevin was packing his laptop as the teens came in.

“Hi, Kevin, Denise,” the two echoed, then chuckled. Jeremy looked at Amelia. “We do that a lot. Say the same thing at the same time.”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

“Hey Kevin, any changes?” Jeremy asked.

“Yeah, Hanford emailed this morning. He asked me to make my part shorter. Less video, he asked.”

“You’re gonna skip the video then?” Amelia asked.

“No, sweetie,” he answered. “I made excerpts from the Avery University DVD set—the parts which show the Avery-Denison program in use in an Atlanta high school. I took out the Program parts, you know, the video clips that show kids in humiliating classroom demos. I figured there’d be no point since that crap happened in the U.S. and not here, although I’m sure the committee people are well aware of the abuses in their schools. No point in fueling excess hostilities, I think.”

“Any changes for Denise?” Jeremy asked.

Denise came out of the bedroom. “No, Jeremy. I’m still covering the social issues—mostly taken from the Georgia Polytech report that covered the social burden of Program activity in the U.S. But I decided to present it like you guys. That was a good idea you had, to show them slides of copies of the laws that have been violated in Program schools with key phrases highlighted.”

“Yeah, I think we have it covered,” Kevin said as he finished packing. “We’re gonna challenge all of the elements of the Program that caused problems in your schools, Jeremy,” he ticked them off on his fingers, “educational, moral, social-cultural, psychological, legal, ethical, and health and safety. Now let’s eat. We took in Chinese.”

The meeting was held in the school’s media room since it had several large tables which had been pushed together to make one large conference table, and a digital projector system.

The four arrived early to set up their computer to use the projection system and were testing it when Hanford came in.

“Hello, Mr Coris, Miss Roberts—oh, is Amelia here too?—and Jeremy,” he greeted them.

“Hello, Head Teacher,” Jeremy said. “Amelia actually developed a significant part of the presentation so we drafted her to speak too.”

“Is that so, Amelia?” he asked her. “Doing a presentation won’t get you nervous? At first I wasn’t sure about how Jeremy would do, but Mr Coris assured me that he’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be okay, sir,” Amelia replied. “Remember about my acting experience? Although I’ll admit to a bit of stage fright,” she finished, smiling at him.

“Okay then. I heard from the committee. The under-secretary of state for the Children and Families division of the Department for Education couldn’t come. He’s the committee head of the National Program Committee. Since he’s an MP, he’s elected and was appointed to head the committee. The deputy chair, he’s the executive director of the Curriculum Office of the Department for Education, will chair their group.”

Within a few minutes, the governors began arriving and greeted the group and several began asking Kevin a number of questions. Hanford came over to rescue him, explaining to the governors that his presentation should provide their answers; if it didn’t, they could ask afterwards.

Finally, Dr Byron Abberle, the governor’s chair, entered leading a group of somber-looking officials in grey or brown tweed suits and carrying briefcases. They were given seats at one side of the table and the governors sat around the opposite side, leaving Kevin, Denise, and the teens at the head—the side facing the screen.

Abberle opened the meeting, introduced Kevin’s group, then the governors, and then Henrietta Markson, the school’s solicitor, and then asked the Education officials to introduce themselves.

A distinguished-looking grey-haired gentleman raised his hand. “I’ll start, as I’m taking the Under Secretary’s place as the committee head this evening. I’m Dr Winston Granville, deputy chairman of the National Program Committee and the executive director of curriculum at Education.”

He nodded to the woman at his left.

“I’m Dr Marjory Seetis, a psychologist in the employ of the Department for Education. And a committee member.”

“Mr Wilson Eldridge. The committee’s legal advocate.”

“Dr David Dunton. Professor of education at Surry University and committee member.”

“Mrs Charlene Stokeston, head teacher at Whimforshire School; committee member also.”

“Mr Simon Luft. Deputy Director, Academies and Maintained Schools of the Education Funding Agency. I’m a committee ex officio member.”

Granville nodded when they had finished their introductions. “Besides the Under Secretary, two other committee members couldn’t attend. And we have four MPs with us who have asked to attend; gentlemen, could you please introduce yourselves?”

They did and briefly mentioned that the press uproar over the Program had been noted by Parliament, their own constituents were contacting their offices, and they wanted to get details about the problems with the Program which appeared to be plaguing schools lately.

Abberle welcomed the group again and turned the meeting over to Hanford.

“Ladies and gentlemen, members of Parliament and committee, I appreciate that we finally have the opportunity to meet face to face,” Hanford began. “As you well know, through numerous letters and phone calls, our school attempted to begin the Program...”

He was interrupted by Granville. “Excuse, sir, but please, we need to get to the heart of the problem, so an introduction isn’t needed. The problem is that your school was to begin participating in the Program yet you haven’t. Please explain the reason. Also, the people I see at the head of the table who were introduced as the presenters for the meeting appear very young. Two even appear to be of secondary school age.”

“Yes, Dr Granville. You might however be surprised to learn that they are all very well-versed in the topics they will cover so I ask your patience. To your question now. Simply put, the Program can’t operate here because no pupil will consent to participate. The sending of a squad of thugs to our school for the Program’s inception assembly was met with a virtual riot in which some pupils were injured and the responsible men had to be arrested.”

Granville steepled his fingers. “We’re aware of the incident.” He looked at Eldridge. “Mr Eldridge. What’s the status of those cases?”

“Their defense barristers asked the Department for Education to petition the court to have the charges dropped and that was done. The court wouldn’t accept the petition, however. It appears that the cases will be going to trial eventually,” Eldridge replied. “I can’t give any further details. Our committee has been asked not to comment on the matter and to stay neutral.”

Hanford acknowledged Granville and Eldridge and then continued, “The Program representative who came to the meeting had demanded that we use force to compel the selected pupils to participate if they refused to do so. But our solicitor had determined that according to current law, it’s a felony offense to use force to compel a child to undress; that’s a sexual battery apparently. Our solicitor also advised us that it might even be a sexual assault to use coercion—threats of punishment—to try to make the children comply. The pupils and their parents are quite familiar with the sanction of the pupil not graduating, yet that threat has continued to be an ineffective motivator.

“Every day at the beginning of classes, the teachers announce the names of pupils in their classes who were chosen to participate. The pupils did follow, at first, the order to come to my office in an orderly, well-behaved way. They did come to my office the following Monday and listened to my request for them to participate. But when I commanded them to disrobe, they politely ignored it. I repeated doing this call to my office on the next several mornings with the same result. Doing that little charade each day quickly became disruptive to our school’s order, so then just the pupil’s names were read off and they were asked if they would participate. They refused and the class then continued. We finally had to stop doing that, too. Mrs Markson, please tell the committee members what you’ve advised the governors.”

“Yes, Head Teacher,” she replied. “Our school records show proof that we are complying with the exact terms of the Human Sexuality Act as a school. We have been randomly selecting students to take part and then overseeing any of the activities that the participants engage in. Therefore, we maintain that Norwich Academy is meeting the requirements of the Act.”

“That’s preposterous!” exclaimed Granville... “There’s no one participating.”

“We concur with your objection that no one’s participating,” Hanford said agreeably. “I know that the claim that the school is complying is disingenuous, but the Act speaks of what the school officials are to do to conduct the Program and it lists how pupils are expected to be treated and how the Program is to be run. But nowhere in the Act does it instruct school officials how they are to get pupils naked to participate. It obviously assumes that when told to obey, the pupils would obey. But that’s not happening. And our civil and criminal laws don’t permit using physical force or even coercion. We can legally only make the request to disrobe and pupil compliance is voluntary. We could get pupils to participate if Parliament revised the assault and battery laws and other associated laws to allow force to be used and...”

One of the MPs interrupted. “Head Teacher, that won’t ever happen. Imagine the public reaction if the assault laws were changed to allow adults to assault children—even in this limited school case.”

The other MPs chorused in agreement.

Hanford nodded. “Thank you, gentlemen. Dr Granville, we’ve asked your committee to suggest how we are to compel participation but we haven’t received any viable suggestions. So, Dr Granville, we have an impasse. We’re complying to our best ability but it doesn’t meet your compliance standard. Do you have any ideas about where we go next?”

Granville looked at his committee members. “Mr Eldridge, is there a way around the ‘no force’ impediment?”

“The legal staff doesn’t see one, sir,” he replied.

“Anyone else? Your thoughts?” Granville prompted.

No one spoke.

Hanford nodded. “I see. Well then, I believe at this point it might be appropriate to let some people who actually have experience in the Program to speak. Mr Coris, who’s first in your group?”

Kevin answered, “Jeremy, sir. Will you give our backgrounds or shall I?”

Hanford smiled. “Perhaps I’d better. Your modesty will do you a disservice. Ladies and gents, these four young people have remarkable backgrounds. I perhaps know Jeremy Porter best, we’ve butted heads for the entire three months I’ve been at Norwich Academy and find him to be insightful and analytical and an absolute bulldog in his zeal for promoting human rights. He seems to have a legal encyclopedia in his head and can cite chapter and verse of the laws and regulations which guarantee individual rights. And he experienced the Program in his former school, first as an observer and then as an objecting participant. He was highly disturbed with what he saw there.

“His classmate is Amelia Hadad. Now I was surprised to learn that Miss Hadad would be addressing us—Mr Coris, it’s not about that incident?” Kevin shook his head. “Can I mention it, and her role, however?”

Amelia spoke, “Yes, it’s okay.”

Hanford smiled at her. “Miss Hadad doesn’t know that I’m aware of this, but she and a number of her classmates began an extremely impressive research project, totally on their own initiative, that is trying to disseminate information to the public about that awful women’s health issue known as female genital mutilation. She began the project and seems to be its leader too. And Miss Hadad was one of the pupils who was assaulted and injured by Program officials last month. She was grabbed at random, stripped, and assaulted even though she had had a medical exemption for pelvic surgery the previous week.”

There were gasps from the committee members.

“So I’m sure with her unusual research abilities, Miss Hadad will have found information you will appreciate learning. Next is Miss Denise Roberts and Mr Kevin Coris. They’re really a team...”

Granville interrupted. “Wait. Denise Roberts. Yes, I know that name. Don’t tell me, you’re the Miss Roberts from the London School of Liberal Arts and Education?” Denise nodded. “Bloo ... Indeed. Panel, do you recall that incident? The demise of the university Program teacher familiarization?”

There were nods of agreement from the committee members but the MPs looked blank. Granville turned to them.

“She—well, Mr Coris was peripherally involved—she scotched the Program familiarization training in the teacher’s colleges. Caused a real ruckus in Education, I should say, too. Okay, Mr Hanford, what are we in for with your secret weapons there and how did you recruit them?”

Hanford tried not to smile. “Sir, they’re Miss Hadad’s guardians, actually, and came forward when they learned that Norwich Academy was to begin the Program. They both were in the Naked in School Program in the U.S. when they were in high school. And both became involved in it in two different schools in two different states. You should know that both of them were decorated by the U.S. president for outstanding civilian service, work related to the U.S. Program, with Mr Coris being awarded their Medal of Freedom, their highest civilian honor. And they were instrumental in getting the Program ended there.”

Granville scowled. “Very impressive, I’m sure. So they came to the U.K. next to try to stop the Program here,” he stated flatly.

“Not at all, sir,” Kevin said. “We came to London to take classes, Denise in education and me in international relations, and the school here is the best in the world for that subject. The Program got suddenly pushed into our faces; we had no idea you were doing it. When we were forced into it—first Denise and then Amelia—we reacted just as we did back home—in self-protection. None of our involvement was planned in advance, I assure you. Okay, thanks for the intro, Mr Hanford. Jeremy, you’re up.”

Jeremy stood and pulled his laptop closer. “Hello, everyone. As you requested for the head teacher, I’ll skip the polite frills and just get to the issues. As the head mentioned, I saw the Program in action in my last school and what I saw disgusted me. Putting the issue of nudity aside, and also the basic premise of the Program, which I’m not qualified to comment on, I am qualified to comment on the rights of children not to be harmed. Adults are supposed to protect us. I’m gonna show some slides which list the problems I saw and read about in the newspapers about how you people are violating the basic human rights of children with the Program. Here’s the first slide.

“First item: training of school officials. There is none. This results in the same mistakes being made repeatedly within a single school and amongst all of the schools running the Program.

“Second: poor rule interpretation. Lack of training results in, amongst other problems, allowing the rules to be interpreted or enforced improperly. Teachers make the rules say whatever they want them to say or what they think they should say, even when that interpretation conflicts with the actual wording.

“Third item: poor supervision. Many problems have occurred because there’s poor or no supervision of pupils and teachers which allows pupils and teachers to abuse participants.

“Fourth: illegal actions by schools. We’ve already mentioned the violation of laws like allowing the use of force and ignoring illegal abuse of the participants.

“Number five: ignoring cultural and religious customs. The press is full of stories of the Program clashing with the customs of minority groups. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the stories—examples of how each one of the problems I’ve mentioned have injured or in a few cases, killed a child. I’m sorry to say this, but you people have blood on your hands.”

“I say...” Granville began.

“No, sir, please let me continue,” Jeremy went on. “In every case that resulted in an injury or death, it could have been predicted. We’ll show you how we came to that conclusion soon, but before we do, I need to cover the issues of fairness and the universality of the effect of applying the Program’s objectives to all pupils in Britain. First, it’s supposed to be part of the standard curriculum in the country. But not all pupils get to participate; a lot will leave school after their GCSEs at 16 years old and won’t ever be in the Program.

“Also, pupils who attend independent schools don’t have to participate; that’s maybe 10 percent of the whole country’s pupils. Next, have you ever thought of the pupils at all of England’s single-sex schools? There are more than 400 of them. How could the objectives of the Program apply to them? Are you actually going to try to encourage or even force those children into homosexual contact? ... No, please, don’t interrupt.”

Granville was red-faced but held his indignation while a few of the group, including all of the MPs, smiled weakly.

“Then, in a lot of cases, many schools will never get to have every pupil participate. A lot of pupils could be missed. But pupils who never get called to participate will still get their diplomas; this is a fundamental unfairness. If someone is selected and refuses, he gets no diploma while if someone never gets called, they get their diploma anyway. How does that meet the objectives of the Program? Okay, I’m going to ask Amelia to discuss some issues which you apparently never considered in designing the Program, and then I’ll be back to go over human rights laws as applied to the Program. Amelia?”

Granville spoke now. “Mr Porter. Please. Before we leave your topics, I have to take issue with your implication that we’re responsible for children’s deaths or promoting homosexuality. That isn’t...”

Kevin rose. “Dr Granville, the record speaks for itself. You may not think you’re responsible, but anyone with a shred of common sense, in reading the news reports, can connect the dots. You didn’t intend that events would unfold as they did, but they did, and the public places the blame as they will.”

“But how can you say that the public is holding the Program responsible for those terrible incidents? It was never proven...” Granville began, but an MP, face flushed, interrupted.

“It’s bloody happening, Mr Granville, and blokes in my constituency are ringing my office about it every day! They want Parliament to stop the kids’ deaths!”

Granville dropped his head. “We do hear about that, sir,” he said. “Mr Porter. Returning to your other assertion. The Program definitely does not promote homosexuality. In fact it’s not operating in any single-sex school as of now. We did attempt to require boys’ and girls’ schools to pair up and merge some of their classes, possibly a day or two a week, to allow the Program to function but legal problems prevent doing that.” He looked at Eldridge. “Explain the legal problem, please.”

Eldridge nodded. “In virtually every single-sex school, combining classes of boys and girls even temporarily violates the schools’ charters. None of the schools’ governors have been inclined to change their charters, even if it were a simple thing to do. So far we haven’t been able to design a version of the Program so it can be implemented properly in a boys’ or girls’ school. Mr Porter is correct. Program participation will miss a sizeable pupil population.”

Jeremy stood again. “Thank you for that info. It proves some of the points I was trying to make. When this law was written, little thought was given to how it would work in real life, and the rules given to the schools are even worse than the law itself in how they are applied.”

“But...” Granville began.

Kevin rose again and motioned Jeremy to sit. “Dr Granville, please, we need to move on with our presentation; we can’t let this meeting become a debate or we’ll get nothing done tonight. Please, may Miss Hadad proceed?”

Granville clenched his fists and nodded jerkily.

Amelia stood up and looked at the group, then clasped her hands. “I won’t try to be as nice to you people as Jeremy was, since you allowed some absolutely terrible things to be done to girls in the name of social engineering, ‘cuz that’s what you’ve been trying to do—to treat children like robots and turn them into little building blocks who’ll conform to a uniform idea of sexual morality, to try to make a perfectly uniform and immoral society,” she smiled at them sweetly.

“But people and cultures are different and shouldn’t—no, can’t—all be forced to conform to a single moral standard!” she spat. “You ran the Program for two years on a pilot basis in some small schools to test it out. Probably you were trying to see how much resistance you would get from the kids and parents. Well, the pilot schools were all rural and suburban. The population in those schools was as homogeneous as it’s possible to get in the U.K.

“Why is that a significant oversight? Well, how many minorities were in those schools? You’re aware that Muslims, the observant ones, wear head coverings and that’s not a fashion statement. Their faiths require modesty; it’s a fundamental tenet of their religion and culture, and the Program tries to strip their faith and community away along with their clothes. A Muslim girl who is humiliated like that can lose the right to marry respectably; she can become an outcast; she can even lose her life, and you certainly must know that some have—as a result of being stripped naked in school.