[guest post by Dana]

This is really good news. However, given that the horse is already out of the barn, enforcement may prove difficult:

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education on Tuesday voted to ban cellphone use during the school day.

The new rule will take effect in January 2025, though the Los Angeles Times notes the details still need to be “approved in a future meeting by the Board of Education.”

The prohibition for using cellphones includes during breaks and lunchtime.

Still to be worked out is how the policy will be enforced. Additionally, there will be exceptions: “use the devices for homework or translating English as non-native speakers”.

Several years ago, Patterico and I had the privilege of attending a lecture by psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He is a brilliant observer of youth today, their addiction to cell phones, and the incredible distraction from real life they provide, for better or worse. And it’s mostly worse. About young people and their phones, he made this observation:

Haidt blames the spike in teen-age depression and anxiety on the rise of smartphones and social media, and he offers a set of prescriptions: no smartphones before high school, no social media before age sixteen.

And about the problems resulting from students using their phones during the school day, Haidt wrote this last year:

I was invited to give a talk at Scarsdale Middle School. There, too, I met with the principal and her top administrators, and I heard the same thing: Mental- health problems had recently gotten much worse. Even when students arrived for sixth grade, coming out of elementary school, many of them were already anxious and depressed. And many, already, were addicted to their phones.

To the teachers and administrators I spoke with, this wasn’t merely a coincidence. They saw clear links between rising phone addiction and declining mental health, to say nothing of declining academic performance. A common theme in my conversations with them was: We all hate the phones. Keeping students off of them during class was a constant struggle. Getting students’ attention was harder because they seemed permanently distracted and congenitally distractible. Drama, conflict, bullying, and scandal played out continually during the school day on platforms to which the staff had no access. I asked why they couldn’t just ban phones during school hours. They said too many parents would be upset if they could not reach their children during the school day.

Haidt points out that these days school districts are much more open to the possibility of banning phones in schools. Of course, given the downward turn with the mental health of young people and their addiction to cell phones, this makes sense.

Ultimately, he hits the nail on the head:

All children deserve schools that will help them learn, cultivate deep friendships, and develop into mentally healthy young adults. All children deserve phone-free schools.

Good for LAUSD. I hope other school districts follow suit.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

I have a lot to say about this and the evangelical church at large, but for now I’ll just address the audacity of this lying jackal:

Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, which attracts an estimated 100,000 worshipers weekly, has confessed to “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” more than 35 years ago while he was a young pastor after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her over multiple years beginning when she was 12.

“When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years,” Morris said in a statement to The Christian Post after Gateway Church was asked about the allegations.

From Morris’s accuser:

Morris’ accuser, Cindy Clemishire, first told The Wartburg Watch that he began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, and continued with the abuse for four-and-a-half years after that. When contacted by CP (Christian Post). . . the 54-year-old grandmother confirmed the details in the report but insisted she was no “young lady” when Morris began abusing her.

“I’m, of course, just appalled,” Clemishire told CP. . .about his description of her as a “young lady.”

“I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, and trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult,” she said.

“It went on for many years. He says there was no sexual intercourse, but he did touch every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me, which I understand now is considered a form of rape by instrumentation. I was an innocent 12-year-old little girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior.

Can we be straight about this? A girl 12 years old is a child. Period. Referring to her as a “young lady” though gives the appearance that it was another adult involved in inappropriate but not illegal sexual acts. It hides the fact that a child was sexually preyed upon by an adult and that the “inappropriate sexual behavior” was actually the sexual molestation of a child, which is a criminal act.

It’s reprehensible and yet all too common that a pastor who commits sexual sin, and in this case involving a child, believes he has a right to return to the pulpit, or foolishly believes that God needs him to lead. Just because Morris took time off from the pulpit for restoration does not mean that he belongs back in a place of leadership in the church. Quite clearly, God doesn’t *need* for anything or anyone. If there is true repentance (not for show), that’s good. It’s scriptural. But God doesn’t need Morris back in the pulpit to get His message out. The very presence of Morris back in the pulpit, and others like him, makes a mockery of God and becomes a stumbling block for the church body (if they have even been made aware of the situation).

And don’t get me started on the “elders” who participated in this alleged “come to Jesus” restoration period while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the *crime* that took place. It’s a vile poison that flows through the modern church when the playbook demands a circling of the wagons to support, at all costs, the one in the pulpit who draws in the masses that fill the seats and in turn, fill the coffers as well.

As Clemishire put it:

“I don’t think he ever should have been allowed to be in the ministry. We would never allow someone to go teach in a school … work in a daycare or be a doctor if anybody had done these things. And I have a very difficult time believing I’m the only one,” Clemishire said.

On top of everything horrible about this, Clemishire was later blamed for the abuse by Morris’s wife, who said she “forgave” Clemishire for what happened. And in 2005, when Clemishire secured an attorney to file a civil suit against Morris, his attorney’s response implied that they believed it was her fault because she was “flirtatious.”

Wolves in sheep’s clothing, one must be vigilant.

Note: “Pastor” Morris has resigned:

Just days after allegations surfaced that he molested a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s, Pastor Robert Morris has resigned from his Dallas megachurch, Gateway Church.

In a statement released to media today, Gateway claimed it did not know the age of Morris’ victim and the length of her abuse.

But in a statement just released to The Roys Report (TRR), the victim, Cindy Clemishire, said she confronted Morris about the abuse in an email sent in 2005. Clemishire added that former Gateway Elder Tom Lane responded to Clemishire’s email, “acknowledging that the sexual abuse began on December 25, 1982, when I was 12 years old.”

In its statement, Gateway’s board of elders said: “The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’s extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with ‘a young lady’ and not abuse of a 12-year-old child.”

The elders added that they did not know the victim’s age or the length of the alleged abuse.

Circle the wagons and protect the institution, no matter what. Don’t pay attention to the victim, don’t give the victim support by believing her claims (which others knew about). Ignore her, shame her, just make her go away while protecting the cash cow in the pulpit.

You can read Clemishire’s full response here.