Schools are the extreme of wanting to be seen to enforce the rules equally on everybody. Reasons include: 1. They're government or other not-for-profit organiz

Schools are the extreme of wanting to be seen to enforce the rules equally on everybody. Reasons include: 1. They're government or other not-for-profit organizations. 2. Unlike others, with which people interact only occasionally, they're experienced for 1000s of hours each by many, many individuals (and vicariously by those individuals' parents). Unequal treatment will be noticed. 3. Schools think it's part of their MISSION to teach adherence to rules. The result is inanity. My favorite dumb example is the girl who wanted her prom date to be her 21-year-old soldier brother, who wasn't allowed because 21-year-olds couldn't be prom dates in general (too old). The whole thing should have been settled with one phone call to his commanding officer, making sure he was under orders not to behave inappropriately. (Why that approach? Because the whole argument for letting him in was that he was a soldier, we should support our troops, etc.)