A court decision upholding the expulsion of an 11-year-old student who brought a knife to his Toronto school is being called a victory for education authorities. But it has sent a chill through critics of the province's tough school-discipline policies, who say the ruling signals a hands-off approach by the courts and fails to take into account the boy's special educational needs. The decision comes less than a month after a provincial task force on Ontario's controversial Safe Schools Act urged boards to cut their expulsion and suspension rates and look at alternative ways of disciplining children. There have been numerous complaints from parents of minority and special-needs students that their children are unfairly targeted by Ontario's so-called zero-tolerance school discipline. The mother of the Grade 6 student went to court after a Toronto Catholic District School Board committee rejected her appeal of his one-year expulsion from his school. The boy had been diagnosed with a communication and language impairment, and had a history of bullying, fighting and inappropriate behaviour, when he reportedly threatened two girls with a knife at Sacred Heart Catholic School in April 2002. Principal Joseph Comper investigated the allegation, determined that the boy was in control of his behaviour and expelled him from Sacred Heart for a year. The boy was offered and eventually accepted a spot in another school with a class for language-impaired students. His mother claimed her son's rights were violated and his self-esteem injured by not being able to attend the school of his choice. She also argued through her lawyers that the school board's appeals committee was biased against her son. In its decision released July 17, Ontario's Superior Court of Justice ruled that the board's two-day appeal hearing was fair and that "a pupil has no right to attend a school in a particular area or school district." Lawyers for the school board and the family did not return calls for comment this week. Thomas McRae, Comper's lawyer, called the decision "significant in the sense that it settles a lot of issues that have been raised by people in recent months, concerning legal issues around safe schools." McRae said allegations that school officials unfairly target some students for discipline "cause me conniptions." "I don't know any principal that has done that," he said. But a lawyer representing a student in another court case involving discipline at Toronto's Emery Collegiate Institute called the decision worrisome. "The court is basically saying that unless the decision by the school board trustees is clearly problematic on its face, the court will not interfere with the decision made," said Lora Patton, who is also an adjunct professor of law and psychiatry at York University. "The other big problem in the decision is that ... we have no indication they considered accommodation and other means of discipline as being more appropriate."