He says, it seems clear that it is not helpful to a child to have a teacher beat him with a stick in Mississippi. Maybe there are 2% of outcomes that could be argued in a positive light from that treatment. So maybe we should say, No, it is not ok to let teachers perform corporal punishment in schools.
We shouldn't let fears of a nanny state keep us from fixing some obvious problems. Just because we don't want the government to outlaw having more than 2 beers at a tailgate (after all, it's much healthier not to drink 11 beers), doesn't mean we shouldn't outlaw some "religious" practices like genital mutilation.