Court Blocks Suspension of Student over Tracking Chip Refusal

Didn't want to wear tag informing school of her whereabouts

Readers may want to break out the civil liberties pitchforks in response to a new court case against a Texas high school that suspended a student for refusing to wear an ID badge implanted with a location tracking microchip. A court has temporarily blocked The Northside Independent School District from suspending high school sophomore, Andrea Hernandez, for her noncompliance with a neck badge that monitors student movement throughout the campus via a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) chip.

According to the Rutherford Institute, the student's legal civil liberties defense organization, tracking students is about raking in sweet, sweet government cash, since school funding is closely tied to attendance. "School administrators are hoping that if the school district is able to increase attendance by tracking the students' whereabouts, they will be rewarded with up to $1.7 million from the state government," the institute said in a statement, referring to the amount of money lost due to unaccounted attendance rates.