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118. Severity of a punishment is not sufficient basis for holding it unconstitutional. The enquiry into the constitutionality of a punishment, will examine the relationship between the punishment and its purpose, and whether the penalty can achieve the purpose. The enquiry will also determine whether the punishment degrades the human person, and whether it devalues human dignity against established norms of decency, or has a dehumanizing effect.

119. Degree of injuries to self esteem, extent of degradation of human worth, depth of humiliation caused by the punishment, are facts to be probed in an enquiry into the validity of the punishment.

123. Another aspect of the punishment which needs consideration, is the consequence exclusion from higher education.

124. Education is a most credible and effective mode of restoring self esteem and enhancing self worth. By denying opportunities of education to a delinquent student, without looking at the possibility of reform, the power to redeem one's errors and enhance self worth is taken away from an individual. In these cases, closure of avenues of education, extinguishes the hope for a better tomorrow. Loss of hope and its sequitor perpetual condemnation are fatal blows to the human spirit and self esteem.

130. By denying further education, and neglecting to create an institutional system of reform, self development and rehabilitation, the university in effect tells the delinquent student, that it does not recognize the student's need to re-establish his self esteem. In other words, the student is not only impervious to reform, but incapable of enhancing his self esteem.

131. Dignity of an individual/student is injured, when it is found that the punishment precludes reform by rehabilitative measures, and prevents self enhancement by further education.

"Under the therapeutic method, however, an individual's happiness depends on his or her self-esteem, and self-esteem is a by-product of public recognition. Governments are readily able to give away public recognition in the way that they talk about and treat their citizens, so modern liberal societies naturally and perhaps inevitably began to take on the responsibility for raising the self-esteem of each and every one of their citizens".

"Therapeutic services came to be deeply embedded in social policy, not just in California but throughout the United States and in other liberal democracies. States began to offer psychological counseling and other mental health services, and schools began to incorporate therapeutic insights into the way that they taught children."