When I was in school, fights never lasted too long. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen — instead, a fight usually concluded as soon as the larger student managed to slam the other onto the ground, or a teacher showed up to ask what the hell was going on.


This New Mexico school is now coming under fire for handling things a bit differently. According to a new lawsuit reported on by the New York Post, a 16-year-old student was left permanently injured after her teacher encouraged her to get into a sword fight with another student.


Per reporting about the complaint, ex-Volcano Vista High School chemistry teacher Loviata Mitchell “provided both teenagers katana and rapier-style swords” and told other students to get into a circle. From there, a timer was set, and the pair were told to go at it for two minutes.



If these were some Legoland-style foam swords, I could understand this being allowed to happen. It’s a shitty idea and definitely not in line with what I would consider, uh, “school,” but it’s not likely to seriously injure anyone. Unfortunately, this isn’t what the teacher opted for. Instead, her swords had significant weight to them — enough so that, when a student was struck with one of them, she “suffered a large and deep laceration across her right hand and wrist that is inconsistent with a ‘prop’ sword.”



“It quickly became apparent the teen girl was in agony, leading the teacher to allegedly shout, ‘I’m in trouble’ as she demanded that students dump any videos they shot of the duels, the lawsuit states,” reads the Post piece.


Despite this, more fights occurred, and 911 was only called 30 minutes after the incident in which the student was injured. As a result of these injuries, the student allegedly required “surgeries, physical therapy” and “mental health help.” Damn — usually to rack up that injury count, you need to play on the football team!


The teacher has since been fired, though it’s uncertain if it was in response to this incident. I think it’s safe to say that the kids have a pretty strong case — and if you’re a teacher reading this and are trying to plan a “fun” lesson, leave the swords at home and just throw on a movie.