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As stated in the petition, which is backed up by reports from CBS:

An Arizona kindergartner, 5-year-old Eric Lopez, was disciplined for ‘sexual misconduct’ for pulling his pants down on a school playground at his elementary school after another student told him to do so.

Back in April, another student told Eric to pull down his pants or he would do it for him. With a number of other students watching, Eric pulled down his pants and underwear. Teachers took him to the principal’s office, where — without knowing that he could have a parent present – Eric was forced to sign a document that labeled his actions ‘sexual misconduct.’

As Eric’s mother, Erica Martinez, says in AZFamily.com, ‘He’s a 5-year-old. He does not know right from wrong yet.’

Lower education administrators are often required to act in loco parentis (Latin for “in the place of a parent”) when it comes to disciplining kids. This is one of those many cases where they choose instead to simply act loco. Simply put, prepubescent children are incapable of having sexual urges or intentions. It is a biological impossibility, and any assumption otherwise flies in the face of science.

The sycophants that infest our education system would “counter” saying “but ah, sexual misconduct has less to do with how the actor intends it and more to do with how other people perceive it.”

To them I say: yes, and that is exactly the problem. When actions are left entirely up to how others “perceive” them (or perhaps more accurately, how they say they perceive them), it opens the door for rampant abuse.

For example, sometimes when I look at a painting of a tree it’s just a tree. Not a subtle metaphor of a penis that’s going to rape everyone. Sometimes, when I look at a painting of The Great Flood, it’s just a painting of The Great Flood. Not a metaphor of phallocentric rapacity that is drowning everyone in a huge deluge of splooge.

And sometimes a 5 year-old kid pulling his pants down on the playground (while being provoked – if not bullied into doing it no less) is just a kid being a silly kid rather than a sexual predator that’s about to jump out of a bush and rape everyone in sight.

If I were to walk through an art gallery and twist every painting I saw into a metaphor about sex and rape, it would not be the artists who would be perverted but I myself for deliberately twisting everything into something about sex. Similarly, I seriously question the maturity and psychological balance of adults who consistently impute sexuality onto the actions of prepubescent children.

Think of laws surrounding statutory rape. The reasons why those laws exist is because when children engage in sexual activity they don’t know what they are doing. For that reason we understand that it’s rather asinine to hold a 5-year old who engages in sex responsible.

Just as it should be in all sexual scenarios.

Here is what the high and mighty superintendent Jim Dean, who stood by the school’s decision, has to say:

Our school district uses consistent language for disciplinary infractions in order to provide clarity and track discipline data accurately…the discussion the administrator has about a situation and consequences are age appropriate.

Jim Dean, I don’t give a damn what your policies say. If the system is messed up (and it is), saying “I’m just following the system” doesn’t make you yourself any less messed up.

Here’s another thing to keep in mind. Every now and then education administrators try to act like there actually is a human being that sits behind their desk. That we shouldn’t be so critical of them because they are people too.

But whenever it comes to taking responsibility for insane bureaucratic actions that lack any semblance of discretion, all of a sudden they shed every ounce of humanity they have by saying “it’s not my fault, “I’m just a part of the machine.” Well, which is it? Are you a human being or a cog in a machine?

Don’t be a cog in a machine like Jim Dean. Sign the petition and let’s stop this nonsense.