It was not that their daughters got swats - one for cheating, one for mouthing off - and it was not so much the resultant bruises: it was that they paddling was carried out by a male that got them hot under the collar. Not as hot as the butts under the skirt of their daughters, but hot enough to get them some TV time on ABC.
Texas is one of 19 US states that permit students to be given corporal punishment: in Texas, there is an added rare proviso that parents have to opt in to allow teachers to swat their kids. Our two moms had given signed permits for their daughters to get paddled if their conduct deserved it.
But the school district does have a policy that punishment is to be meted out by a person of the same sex as the offender. Problem is that the district does not have enough female teachers to take care of so many female students, and are in the process of changing the rule to take out the same sex clause.
And their opposition to that amendment is how our two moms were able to protest so vocally that they got air time on local TV.
Here is a link to the news story, but there is no photographic evidence to support the mother's claims that their girls got bruised in the process of being academically corrected. Sorry about that.