Word: reformer
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It’s not often that a six-year-old can claim to be a spokesperson for education reform, but spokesperson is exactly what Zachary Christie of Newark, Del., has become. Over the past month, Christie has harshly criticized the unfairness of his school’s zero-tolerance policies, and for good reason—Christie himself was recently suspended from school for bringing in a Cub Scout tool that can be used as a knife, fork, or spoon. This seemingly innocuous item violated the district’s no-tolerance policy on weapons; Christie may now have...
...express outrage at the facts of the case. Christie is only six years old, and he brought the knife in because he wanted to show off his new Cub Scout tool at lunch. The rationale behind suspending him and potentially sentencing him to a month and a half in reform school seems highly questionable: Christie is not a student with violent or disruptive tendencies, so the question remains as to which aspects of his behavior need to be “reformed...
...contrast, NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and a leading proponent of legalization, called the move a "major victory" for those seeking drug-law reforms. Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the libertarian Cato Institute, says the new policy announcement was a significant step that was "long overdue...
Change, and Its Limits Saudi Arabia's western allies have been pushing it to reform its social and political arrangements since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a conservative version of Islam, high unemployment, limited democratic rights and archaic attitudes to women fed a mood of unchecked radicalism among some young men. Last February, Abdullah announced a sweeping reshuffle of posts in government to remove some of the more old-style figures, including a top judge who once ruled it would be legal to kill the owners...
Some democracy activists argue that Saudi rulers could do more, but use religion as an excuse for the slow pace of reform. "The idea is to delay the reforms based on the idea that society wouldn't accept drastic changes," says Mohammad al-Qahtani, a reform advocate and professor at the Saudi Foreign Ministry's diplomatic training institute. Awadh al-Badi, a political scientist at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, says the reason that King Abdullah and the royal family are still cautious on women's rights is that they themselves are products of Saudi culture...