A knee-jerk reaction to 'Tebowing'

Of all the boneheaded stunts teenagers are capable of, why crack down on "Tebowing"?

If you don't know the term, you should by now. From Facebook and YouTube to random campuses across America, young people are striking the same prayerful one-knee pose that Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow has made famous on the football field. Pictures of the insta-trend are popping up everywhere, picking up where the planking craze left off.

Last week, about 40 students "Tebowed" in the hallway at Riverhead High. Principal David Wicks' swift response? One-day suspension for two of them.

The principal said he wasn't being anti-religion -- or even being anti-latest-goofy-trend. The between-classes Tebowing, he contended, was a serious breach of building safety. The offending students knelt down in the hallway in between periods and made it impossible to pass, he said. "If you have 40 kids kneeling down in the middle of a hallway, and God forbid a fire alarm goes off, they could potentially stop someone from getting to safety."

And why did a simple admonition not suffice? "Hey, kids! Get up from here! People want to pass!" Shouldn't the principal count himself lucky if unauthorized kneeling is Riverhead High's most urgent safety concern?

Compared to gang fighting, crack smoking, rifle toting, drunken driving and the other real-life threats on some campuses today -- even compared to bad cafeteria food! -- this burst of youthful exuberance is mighty small potatoes. It doesn't even run afoul of Supreme Court decisions on the First Amendment, which forbids COMPULSORY prayer in public school. Clearly, this wasn't that.

Avoiding these suspensions would have saved the principal -- and Superintendent Nancy Carney -- a whole lot of ridicule from parents, bloggers and TV talking heads. It might even have taught the students' classmates a valuable lesson on setting priorities.

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