By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Feb. 19, 2016
E-mail: [email protected]
First, there was the ham-fisted decision to either suspend or expel some three students alleged to have been caught indulging in homosexual intercourse on campus (See “Gay Students Would Have Polluted Others – OWASS Headmaster” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/20/16). Now, Dr. Alexis Frimpong-Nimoh is reported to have “de-boardinized” some 30 final-year students from the Opoku-Ware Senior High School (OWASS), formerly called Opoku-Ware Secondary School or Opoku-Ware School. In both cases, the Headmaster or Principal of this renowned all-male junior academy does not seem to have acted without prejudice (See “OWASS De-Boardinzes 30 Final-Year Students” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 2/18/16).
In the case of the three students who were either expelled or suspended for being caught red-handedly in the act of homosexuality, the news report used both the verbs “expelled” and “suspended,” and so it was not clear precisely what punitive measure had been exacted against them. But it was quite clear that the students were being suspended or expelled primarily because they had been caught having homosexual intercourse on campus, rather than the mere act of sexual intercourse.
Put more poignantly, it well appears that if these students had been caught by either their classmates or their schoolmates, for the news report used the patently erroneous term of “colleagues,” engaged in heterosexual intercourse on campus, they very likely would not have been summarily expelled. We know this because according to the news report, Dr. Frimpong-Nimoh had categorically stated that the three students were being expelled because they were highly likely to “pollute” the rest of the student body with their homosexuality, and not because other students may also resort to engaging in the illegal act of sexual intercourse on campus.
Now, if it is true that the three unnamed students were expelled primarily because they had been accused of having homosexual intercourse on campus, and not because of the very criminal act of having sex on campus, then those human rights activists who have reportedly accused Dr. Frimpong-Nimoh of indulging in punitive cherry-picking or selective justice are justified in criticizing the Opoku-Ware headmaster or principal.
They could even handily win a test case against Dr. Frimpong-Nimoh in court, if it could also be forensically demonstrated in court that there have been a remarkable number of heterosexual students who had been caught in the act of coition/coitus but were not either suspended or expelled because Dr. Frimpong-Nimoh and his instructional and/or administrative staff consider the act of heterosexual intercourse to be kosher or perfectly normal.
In our kind of Fourth Republican democratic political and civic culture, there is equality of citizenship before the law. This means that the decision of whether having sex on a college or high school campus is punishable is the especial preserve or prerogative of the Opoku-Ware Senior High School headmaster or principal. However, the decision of whether the act of campus sexual intercourse is deemed to be legal or illegal ought not to be predicated on the sexual orientation or preferences of the culprits involved.
In the case of the 30 de-boardinized final-year students, Dr. Frimpong-Nimoh clearly erred because he had earlier on determined that it was virtually each and every one of the Opoku-Ware final-year students who had either been caught or observed to have made a habit of the proscribed act of cutting classes or refusing to attend evening study hours, popularly called PREP. Consequently, his decision to suspend only 30 out of the entire class of final-year students, on grounds that they are too many to be suspended en-masse, is tantamount to scapegoating or, once again, selective justice.
The Opoku-Ware Headmaster ought to be invited in by the Minister of Education, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman, to prove the objective basis upon which his decision to de-boardinize the 30 students was based. In both cases, failure to prove that his decisions were based on a dispassionate administration of justice ought to result in the immediate rescission of both decisions. Needless to say, being gloriously armed with a doctorate does not necessarily make Dr. Frimpong-Nimoh the best fit for the job of Headmaster or Principal of the Opoku-Ware School.
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