Fourteen-year-old Elyse Meredith is on a mission, fighting for liberty, the Constitution - and backpacks.
The eighth-grader says she has been inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and writer Henry David Thoreau in her court battle to end her school's ban on the packs.The William Annin Middle School in Bernards Township banned them from hallways, classrooms and the cafeteria on Jan. 2, calling them a fire and safety hazard. Pupils are only allowed to carry the packs to their lockers.
One teacher was hurt tripping over an overstuffed pack that didn't fit under a desk, and another teacher got hit in the face when a pack-wearing pupil turned quickly in the hall, administrators said.
Elyse, however, sees the ban as a violation of her rights. She has logged 10 days of in-school suspensions for wearing her maroon backpack to class.
"I believe it's a constitutional right when it does not materially and substantially interfere with the educational process," she testified Wednesday on the last day of a two-hearing hearing before Administrative Law Judge Solomon A. Metzger.
Other pupils were also angered by the rule, saying it makes it difficult for them to lug books and personal items around school.
"Because of all the books, everybody keeps dropping them and tripping over them," said Sheila Maddali, a 13-year-old seventh-grader, who was not at the hearing.
Elyse's father, Charles Meredith, a food product salesman, represented his daughter, encountering difficulty both days during the testimony of teachers, the principal and others.
Les Aron, the school board's lawyer, repeatedly requested that Meredith question witnesses, not make comments. The judge agreed.
"I know he's struggling a little bit in there," Meredith's wife, Lynda, a high school math teacher, said during a break. "But it costs so much money for a lawyer."
During Aron's brief but heated cross-examination of Elyse, the lawyer questioned her about the time a guidance counselor tripped on her backpack at the school, about 20 miles from Newark.
"But she didn't fall, she stumbled," said Elyse, who wore navy-and-green kilt and sandals on the stand.
Metzger's ruling, expected in about two weeks, amounts to a recommendation, which can be accepted or rejected by state Education Commissioner Leo Klagholz.
Klagholz's decision can be appealed to the state appellate courts, and the family has vowed to appeal if the ban is upheld.