215. Clear Backpack
Confronted with the horror of a school shooting, parents and school districts will clutch at any straw, like clear backpacks. Theoretically, kids can’t hide weapons in them. But in the words of Idaho lower-school principal Katie Rutan, the backpacks are “all about making adults feel better. They don’t make anything better for kids.”
After the Parkland shooting, students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas were required to use the bags. They protested the loss of privacy—Cameron Kasky filled his backpack with tampons in solidarity with girls whose sanitary products were now on display. Senior Carmen Lo attached a $1.05 price tag to her bag—the value of NRA donations to Marco Rubio divided by the number of students in Florida. Many students said the backpacks made school feel like prison.
Clear backpacks not only humiliate students; they’re also ineffective. One safety consultant showed school officials as many as 26 weapons hidden in a single bag. The backpacks are relatively rare—only about 4% of public schools mandate them, and those schools skew poor and urban. At rich schools like Stoneman Douglas, the policy is a temporary reaction to tragedy; there, the backpack requirement was dropped after five months. But in some poor schools, it’s simply how school is. Like prison.
It happened again last month: children and their teacher were gunned down in their school in Bend, Oregon. The victims included a 5-year-old, the youngest child ever killed in a U.S. school shooting. A clear backpack wouldn’t have saved him.
Special thanks to Robert Boyd for suggesting the clear backpack, and to Katie Rutan for her assistance.
Links:
Moms Demand Action - official website
Parkland students mock new security measure: clear backpacks – Tim Stelloh and Kiara Alfonseca, NBC News, April 2, 2018
Schools Are Spending Billions on Safety Measures to Stop Mass Shootings. It's Not Clear They Work - Katie Reilly, TIME, December 11, 2023
Dallas joins Texas school districts requiring clear backpacks after Uvalde shooting. Experts call it 'security theater.' - Christine Fernando, USA TODAY, July 20, 2022
Do clear backpacks make schools safer? What to know and which Houston-area districts require them - Elizabeth Sander, Houston Chronicle, August 7, 2024 (unlocked paywall)
This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.
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