Was the paddle still legal in 1987?

The principal in this film, Robert Stack, pulled out the paddle on Arlis in his office after Arlis accidentally hit Stack. Arlis asks "Isn't that againced the law now"? Stack replies " I make the laws here". I don't know if that meant either Stack didn't care what the actual laws were and he wanted to rule domain in his own school, or, Arlis was mistaken about thinking the paddle use by principals was illegal now (he should've known since he was a cop). If Arlis had checked and found out the paddle was illegal, he could've gotten the principal in a lot of trouble for using it on him. Then again, that kind of situation could've created a messiness that would've gotten in the way of his investigation. And Arlis s investigation trying to clear his brother's name on a murder charge was his number one priority. It's probably better, under the circumstances, that Arlis was to just keep the paddle thing quiet and let it go.