Elementary School Girl Injured While Avoiding Boy's Attempted Kiss... Court Rules it School Violence

"He Must Have Been Aware That His Actions Could Cause Discomfort"

Lawsuit to Overturn Written Apology for School Violence Dismissed

The court has ruled that an incident where an elementary school boy attempted to playfully kiss a female classmate, resulting in her getting injured while trying to avoid him, constitutes school violence.

Elementary school students going to school. This photo is not directly related to the content of the article.

According to judicial sources on October 4, the First Administrative Division of the Cheongju District Court, presided over by Chief Judge Kim Seong-Ryul, ruled in favor of the defendant in a lawsuit filed by the parents of student A against the Superintendent of Eumseong Education Support Office, seeking to overturn measures imposed for school violence.

On March 17 of last year, student A approached a female classmate with his lips puckered at an elementary school in Eumseong, Chungbuk. In the process of trying to avoid him, student B injured her lips after hitting a nearby metal pillar. The School Violence Countermeasures Committee determined that the act qualified as school violence. The committee imposed a written apology as a disciplinary action for student A. Under the School Violence Prevention Act, a written apology is the lightest of the nine disciplinary measures that can be imposed on a perpetrating student. A written apology, which involves the offending student submitting a personal letter of apology to the school, is deleted from the student record upon graduation.

The parents of student A filed a lawsuit to cancel the disciplinary action, arguing that it is difficult to fully trust elementary school students’ statements and that no objective evidence supported the findings. However, the court did not accept this argument.

The court explained its sentencing as follows: “It appears that the plaintiff acted with the intention of teasing the victim. The plaintiff is presumed to have received at least a basic level of sex education and to have achieved a certain degree of cognitive development regarding social relationships and their significance. Therefore, the plaintiff must have had at least a vague awareness that his actions, which differ from ordinary physical contact, could be unpleasant for the other party. This conclusion is also supported by the students’ consistent and specific statements about the incident, and the fact that the plaintiff’s parents acknowledged the incident during the school violence investigation committee.”

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