Upper Arlington Practices Exclusion Again

A Columbus suburb, Upper Arlington, is known for the value it places on control over its citizens in composition and conduct. Parents who feel their children aren’t getting enough Jesus in their high-school classes pull them out, march them up the street, and teach them a pro-Christian version of English and History classes. Although residents of Upper Arlington are increasingly involved in domestic violence against one another, they report feeling very safe in surveys, perhaps because Upper Arlington High School is only 1% Black and 1% Hispanic. Every June, local businesses plant little flags in the front yards of all the houses of all the streets with names like Buckingham and Hampshire and Swarthmore, so as you drive on them there’s a sea of little flags to guide you on your way. What, are you going to take yours down? What does that make you? Get with the program! Then on the morning of the fourth of July there’s the truck with the megaphone that drives up and down the streets, blaring the message to get out of bed and get down to the parade, over and over and over again.

Now the Upper Arlington City Council has become the first body in the state of Ohio to pass an ordinance prohibiting convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, and libraries. But that’s not all: under the new Upper Arlington Code, if you are a convicted sex offender you can’t work within 1,000 feet of these places either. There are so many of these buildings that in effect, if you have been convicted as a sex offender, you can’t be in Upper Arlington.

Sexual offenses are bad, no doubt. But we’re talking about people who have served their time in prison and paid any fines. And forbidding sex offenders from living or working in Upper Arlington doesn’t rid the world of sex offenders — it shoves sex offenders disproportionately into other communities, like neighboring Hilliard, Grandview or Columbus. The Upper Arlington City Council in its unanimous vote is essentially saying to its neighbors, “Here, you take the sex offenders. We’re too good for them. You’re not.”

I’m also worried about the precedent set here. What is the next class of citizens who are restricted from living or working in a place? And with this precedent set, how could they contest these restrictions?

Christy Michael spoke before the City Council, “We need to do everything we can for our kids. If it saves one kid, it’s worth it.” If it saves one kid, it’s worth it? That’s good to know, but this ordinance isn’t “saving one kid” — if it is doing anything, it is sacrificing one Columbus kid to save one Upper Arlington kid. But that’s alright, because we know those Upper Arlington kids are worth more.

Beyond that, I’m looking forward to the principle of “If it saves one kid, it’s worth it” being applied elsewhere in the tooty-frooty community. I’m looking forward to the foam-padded street corners Upper Arlington erects, and to the elevated walkways above each intersection. These will save large numbers of Upper Arlington kids, and if it saves one kid, it’s worth it. Also, the numerous city pools in Upper Arlington will have to go: if it saves one kid, it’s worth it. No more playgrounds: if it saves one kid, it’s worth it. Let’s pass a law to mandate air filters over kids’ mouths in this affluent suburb: If it saves one kid, it’s worth it. And really, now that I think about it, what are those negligent Upper Arlington parents doing letting their kids leave their homes into the dangerous, dangerous world? They will have to be padlocked in their hermetically-sealed rooms until they are eighteen. After all, if it saves one kid, it’s worth it, isn’t it?

Utter hogwash.