Election (1999)

I was sitting in a restaurant years ago, alone, reading a newspaper. It was the Portland paper, not the local news. A high school teacher had written a letter to the editor. She defended her school's decision to kick a kid out for publishing an underground newspaper because the paper revealed that one of the teachers was sleeping with a student.

The woman's letter didn't make sense. She argued that the teacher would be denied a fair trial if high school kids knew about his crimes, like they were potential jurors. 

But the point here is that teachers will often defend any act of depravity as long as it's committed by another teacher against a student.

Election (1999) stars Matthew Broderick as a conniving high school teacher who blames student body presidential candidate Reese Witherspoon for another teacher getting fired for molesting her.

Come to think of it, I was slightly acquainted with a guy in high school. I don't remember who he was. But he said he once ran for student council. I didn't witness this, but he said there was an event where all the candidates had a few minutes to address the school. He stepped up to the microphone and mumbled some jokes. My impression was that he didn't say anything coherent. He said that after the event, he laughed when the principal told him he might have to suspend him. That sort of thing happened in the movie, too.

And, by the way, when I started high school, the student body president spoke to the in-coming students. He started with a joke. He said how happy he was that all of his friends were there to support him-- "I see both of you are here."

That got a laugh. I laughed. Then I remembered that I only had two actual friends myself. Was I really so unpopular?