From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 9:34 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Lie detectors used to ferret out (gasp!)
beer-drinking football players

(There is a reason why Lie detectors are no longer used in court cases, and
its because they are unreliable and thier results dependant on a subjective
assertation of the data acquired.  In fact, Lie detectors are easily
defeatable consistently with minimal training, and people trained in picking
up subconcious cues that a subject is lying consistently score as accurately
as Lie Detector machines do, with no equipement.  Essentialy, they are an
elaborate form a psuedoscience on par with scientologys' 'engrams'...From
Skepticnews.com...- Mike)

The twenty-first century equivalent of a witchhunt took place in a
pseudo-scientific attempt to ferret out (gasp!) beer-drinking football
players in Dunlap Illinois.

I tried to get more information, but the superintendant of the school
district was unavailable for comment, having
taken the morning off to go price out Ouija boards.

"Mid terms are coming soon," explained the receptionist, "and our Tarot
cards clearly indicate some kids are gonna cheat. We've got to catch them
somehow..."

from -
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20011106/us/football_polygraphs_2.html

---------------------------------------------------

Illinois School Uses Lie Detectors

By JAY HUGHES, Associated Press Writer

DUNLAP, Ill. (AP) - One by one, the subjects were led into a room and hooked
up to a polygraph machine.

The purpose: to determine whether the teen-agers violated Dunlap High
School's code of conduct by attending a party where alcohol was consumed.

Seven of the 10 students who submitted to the lie detector exams - all of
them football players - flunked the questioning last month and were barred
from competing in the first round of the state playoffs. Some of their
parents wept when they learned their children had lied to them.

Dunlap High went to extraordinary lengths to get to the bottom of what was
otherwise a routine case of teen-agers getting into trouble.

School Superintendent Bill Collier said it was the right thing to do to sort
the guilty from the innocent: ``It may look bad, it may sound bad, but it's
the fairest way.''

The investigation began after police broke up a party Oct. 6. Nobody was
arrested, but officers took down the names of everyone present and traced
the registration of all cars parked there. Their list of 15 athletes was
turned over to school officials.

Three students admitted guilt when confronted. But many others claimed that
they had left the party as soon as they realized alcohol was present. So
school officials proposed the polygraphs.

Two students were suspended from the team after refusing to take the test,
and seven more were suspended after flunking. Collier pointed out that three
students were cleared who might otherwise have been punished.

``For these three kids, this worked exactly the way it is supposed to
work,'' he said.

Dunlap High went on to lose the Oct. 27 playoff game 28-7.

Mike Griffith, a policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States
in Denver, said he has never heard of a school using polygraphs in such a
way, and he called it an extreme measure.

``But in the end,'' he said, ``if the parents don't file a complaint and the
school district is satisfied, it's a done deal.''

Matt Jones, an attorney who represented the students who took the polygraphs
and their parents, said a lawsuit is unlikely, but parents may try to
pressure the school board into changing its policy regarding parties. The
students' names were not released by the school or Jones.

Jones said the suspended players - most of them starters - had greater
concerns than the outcome of the game.

``Part of the disappointment is the public scrutiny and having their parents
disappointed in them,'' the lawyer said. ``With most of them, it's not about
their participation but because they let down their team.''

Some in this central Illinois town of about 1,000 people 12 miles north
Peoria have been openly critical of school officials.

``You would think they have better things to do,'' said Mark Wade, a 1979
Dunlap High graduate. Wade said the drinking policy existed when he was in
high school, and athletes and others were sometimes questioned about their
weekend activities. He said students sometimes lied, and their answers were
accepted; nobody gave them a polygraph.

``That wouldn't have washed. The parents wouldn't have stood for it,'' he
said.

Collier and Jones said that before each polygraph session, held at the
school board's offices, the students and their parents were taken aside. The
students were asked to describe their actions that night. Before the
examinations began, the parents were asked to leave to eliminate
distractions.

Afterward, the polygraph examiner went over results with the students and
their parents. Collier described the scene as sad, with some parents
shedding tears as they realized their children had lied to them and the
school.

The superintendent said getting the truth was more important than a football
playoff game.

``I do know kids and adults can't continue to tell lies,'' he said.
``Parents need to do more communicating with their kids on real-life issues
and find out what they're doing on weekends.''

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