Maryland Law Bans Corporal Punishment at Private Schools and Nurseries

Maryland put an end recently to the last legal authority for corporal punishment in schools with a new law that bans physical disciplinary tactics in private institutions.

Corporal punishment has been forbidden in Maryland’s public schools since 1993.

A law that took effect last month extends the prohibition to private and parochial schools as well as child-care homes and centers.

Child psychologists have been calling for an end to corporal punishment for years, saying it teaches children that violence is acceptable to resolve disputes. In March, the Biden administration joined pleas for the punishments to end.

Nevertheless, 15 states still allow paddling of disobedient children.

“Corporal punishment not only fails as a behavioral mechanism, but also causes significant physical and mental harm to children,” Christian Gobel of the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in written testimony to the Maryland General Assembly.

In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ingraham v. Wright that school corporal punishment is constitutional, leaving states to decide whether to allow it. The plaintiffs had challenged it as "cruel and unusual punishment" that violates the Eighth Amendment.

The new Maryland law makes it only the third state, including Iowa and New Jersey, to ban corporal punishment in private schools. There are more than 800 religious and private schools and over 400 nursery schools in Maryland, according to state records.

The District of Columbia bans all corporal punishment of public school students. Virginia allows it only in extreme cases when it is necessary to control dangerous students.

During testimony to the Maryland General Assembly in February, Tara Ebersole told lawmakers that she sometimes was expected to hit students at her former public school in Tennessee with a paddle if they arrived late to class.

“If a board of this size were used to strike someone in any other situation, it would constitute assault,” she said.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.