The First Amendment Extends to High Fives

In fact, I think the original text was "The necessity of demonstrating through physical means the awesomeness of a given event, the right to High Five your bros shall not be infringed". Damn John Adams had to stand in the way, yet again.
A school in Vienna, Virginia has a strict "no touching" policy, which makes sense when you consider that most touching between adolescents is inappropriate, whether it's the awkward groping of the first "for reals" girlfriend, the homoerotic ass slapping of "straight" athletes, or the numerous physical tortures perpetrated on the whole of the chess team/av club. So really, on the surface it seems normal. But this policy is so strict in fact that a student got in trouble for putting his arm on his girlfriend's shoulder when he leaned down to say something to her at her lunch table. Surely, you would think that even in this hyper-sensitive, overly-cautious, dateline-myspace-predator obsessed day and age we could distinguish and allow for consensual, non-sexual, non-violent touching. Of course, you'd be wrong.

On CNN, they spoke to the head of the PTA (because the school was at least smart enough not to try and defend such a crazy policy). This woman then espoused the dangers of even the "high-five" (as the kids are calling it these days). Her reasoning is this: when you and your buddy are high-fiving in the hallway, of course other people are gonna wanna get in on that action. Soon a third person is high-fiving you, then four, then five people are high-fiving in a virtual orgy of celebratory hand-slapping. In such a situation, traffic in the hallway would come to a complete standstill as, almost contagiously, all of the students break into spontaneous high-fives. Elbows would fly, legs would kick, and people would be bound to get hit in the head. Despite my exaggerations, that last sentence was literally what she said would happen. I mean, I know just what she's saying. When you and your friends are high-fiving, you get so caught up that you can't help but kick your heels and flail your arms wildly. Sure, someone always gets hit in the eye, and more than once I've had a friend end up in the hospital, but it's so worth it for an awesome, full-power high-five.

The other argument for the policy, suggested by the school, is that some handshakes are actually secret gang signs. Luckily though, if you don't allow people to do those handshakes in school, the entire gang network breaks down. In fact, the only reason I ever joined a gang was for the cool handshakes. If I couldn't high-five my gangmates (that's what they call them, right?) in school the next day after a sweet drive-by shooting, I don't think I would have joined. "Hardly worth it," I would have said.

The only thing possibly more absurd was the father of the boy who was at the center of the news story that first sent me on this rant. Just as he was proclaiming that high-fives are constitutionally guaranteed as free speech (though not in as concise terms or complete sentences for that matter) he also stated that people of other cultural heritages who attend the school who might not be so into physical contact in the classroom should adapt to be more American when they come here...you know, since the things we do make so much sense.

It's so much harder when you disagree with everyone on every side of an issue.