UrbanSwirl.com - Lifestyles of Color

Yes you did read that headline correctly.  File this one under "only in Texas".  Dallas high school officials are accused of allowing feuding students to settle their differences in impromtu bare knuckle steel cage matches in a metal sports equipment cage.

The Dallas school system was rocked by allegations Thursday that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare-knuckle brawls inside a steel cage. The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators...

The allegations came to light during a grade-fixing investigation that eventually cost the high school its 2005 and 2006 state basketball titles. School officials were suspected of altering students' grades so that they could remain eligible to play for South Oak Cliff, a perennial basketball powerhouse in one of the poorer sections of the city....

In the report, a teacher was quoted as saying Moten told security personnel to put two fighting students "in the cage and let `em duke it out."

The report said a hall monitor, Gary King, told investigators he witnessed the head of campus security and an assistant basketball coach place two students in the cage to fight.

Another hall monitor, Reno Savala, told investigators he came upon two students fighting in the cage "bare-fisted with no head or eye protection." Savala said the assistant coach was watching the fight and broke it up when Savala told him to.

"It was gladiator-style entertainment for the staff," Frank Hammond, a fired counselor who has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the district, told the newspaper. "They were taking these boys downstairs to fight. And it was sanctioned by the principal and security."

Sigh. Grade fixing and cage fighting.  This is why students in inner city schools are at a disadvantage when it comes to education.  No one cares if they learn, if they are able to succeed in life...they are just forms of entertainment, whether that entertainment is basketball, football, or now cage fighting.

I wonder what the school's response would have been if one of the students' had been seriously injured? I wonder if any of the staff were betting on the fights? And the big question of the day, where are these kids parents?  I want to see some protesting and calls for people to be fired.  I don't want this one to be just another one of those "Texas stories".