Go around to the front and ensure the person wants that type of greeting. I think the school is right in this case.

He can say he's sorry and someone could explain to her - this is why he did it. I'm huge on personal space and boundaries - and don't like men I don't know lunging at me or touching me -

But this one falls in the category of the guy with Aspergers when I was at college who woud touch my mixed chick hair. He was harmless.

I'm really pissed about this because there was a 19 year old Autistic female neighbor that used to do the same thing to me nearly every time I saw her. I didn't make a big deal of it (in my head) and just accepted it as one of life's little bumps.

Strangers need to learn that is not acceptable. Hopefully this adult will get the message.

and kiss is never. . .another adult man. Why is that, hmmm?

I may be completely off-base, but if this 6'5" 20-yr-old man also grabs and hugs his male friends, we can revisit his punishment.

We really don't know enough about his daily behavior to make many judgements, but we also know that school administrators can be totally unable to come up with nuanced solutions to anything.

I don't blame the girl who complained -- no one should be grabbed by a 6'5" complete stranger and be expected to think that's OK. Maybe now his parents will teach him to stop grabbing people, even if he thinks he knows them, and wait for an offered hug from his friends. His parents know how big he is and certainly should have thought ahead about the appropriateness of their large son grabbing others in any way.

to honor boundaries better. But maybe their plate was already full of other things to work on with him. Maybe they are the same way and that's why he didn't know better.

Personally, I think it's an overreaction by the school.

have learned this; but, as I said in my original post, the school could have handled it much better, perhaps by talking to the young woman who was hugged and explaining why he did it. Maybe they have talked to her, I don't know -- the news story, like so many news stories not done by real journalists, lacks gobs of information that could allow us to make up our minds. As a cynical person, I wonder if that's not the object with most of these no-info, full-outrage stories.

He may just like women. I happen to like women, but I know better than to grab them and kiss them without their permission. On the other hand I have always found it offensive when female relatives of mine grabbed and kiss me, I did not like it as a pre-teen or as a teenager and I like it even less today, but I accepted it as part of their upbring thus I never brought up charges on them (Please stand away from me and I may shake your hands).

Autism is a mental disorder and like most mental disorders it is more a guideline on how to treat someone as oppose to what is exactly wrong with him.

didn't treat him like he was a large man with a sex drive when they didn't teach him to generally keep his hands to himself. The parents come off as pretty naive, really.

And no, I do not think he should have been expelled unless there is much more to this story than we know. I would feel better if the stranger he grabbed came forward and said she understood what happened and was OK with the explanation, but the story doesn't report on that.

Many children and adults don't like being hugged and kissed by relatives, so you, especially, should be able to imagine how that college girl felt when she was grabbed by a large, strong, strange man. She would be doubly alarmed and upset, don't you think?

our culture associates with physical contact. We are a sex obsessed species. And so we will apply a sexual motive to any kind of closeness even when it might not be there as in the case of this autistic man. If sex (and violence) wasn't such a preoccupation of our species, who's to say strangers couldn't greet each other this way without worrying about motives?

To me this is harsh beyond reason. There is this thing that some of us have called Face-Blindness. I had it myself as a kid. It was hard sometimes to distinguish between classmates when they had similar features like same hair color and same eye color.

I used to hug people all the time as kid, even in my late teens. It helped serve as a coping mechanism when it came to school as the medication I took amplified my sensory problems. Now I'm not saying that he shouldn't be more careful as to who he hugs. But did any you wonder why does it. Maybe as a way of expressing gratitude for a person's friendship ?


Lastly calling this sexual assault is fucking bullshit. Okay call it inappropriate or call it unintended harassment if you want and tell him to be more careful. But don't expel the kid for chrissakes.

Oh no wait I forgot, Asperger's=Tard= Eventual Criminal Deviant. Cause, ya'know, every single person with a Neurological, Developmental, Cognitive, or Intellectual Disability is just a Rape or homicide waiting to happen, right ?

I wonder what would have happened if this was a Neurotypical guy who accidentally mistook the girl for his girlfriend because of similar sense of style, hair, and perfume. Would he have gotten expelled ? A part of me doubts it.