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When Students Become Informers
The parents of a teenage girl, a high school freshmen in Lancaster, California, are facing $40,000 in legal bills because their kid did what school officials all across America have been urging kids to do for years: tell school officials if she saw or heard anything suspicous.
She did, quoting a classmate as saying: "We want to kill people; we're sick of them." (If I or anyone reading this called the police everytime we came across that comment online, a lot of teenage boys would be in jail.) She said the boy later threatened her for reporting his remarks.
He was immediately charged with making terrorist threats and intimidating a witness, and a juvenile court judge ordered him to serve six months' probation, according to the Times. But courts overturned his expulsion as unconstitutional and unjustified, and the boy and his parents then sued his accuser, her parents, school and Los Angeles county officials. The charges, said his suit, made him the object of ridicule, hatred and distrust.
A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge threw out his suit, but not before the girl's family had spent $40,000 in legal fees defending her. The school, which asked her to inform, refused to represent her after she did. So now her parents are suing them to recoup their losses.
Now, school and county officials are squabbling about whether they are obliged to pay her legal costs or not. In considering the implications of student informing, one has only to think about the fear, anger, and humiliation, the court, school and legal time expended, and the overall cost and implications of this single remark. Then multiply it by millions of kids informing on millions of other kids, as is now seemingly national educational policy.
School officials in California are arguing that it's going to be tough to get informers if schools won't defend them. You bet. But it's unclear whether insurance companies will pay such claims. The Times quotes the director of the Education Legal Alliance of the California School Board Association as saying schools do not have a responsibility to shield or indemnify students in that kind of situation. There's a legal difference between students and employees, said the official. That raises free speech issues on both sides of the student informing issue: kids who say stupid or ill-considered things are treated as terrorists, and kids who think they are doing the right thing aren't protected with they speak out either.
That suggests that neither of these high school freshmen should have landed in the position they did. Both deserve sympathy. As repugnant as informing is to many (me included), kids are told over and over that it's their job to protect themselves and their friends from dangerous peers, by turning them in. Adolescent boys have been saying offensive, profoundly stupid things -- even hateful ones -- forever, as everybody online knows. Are schools really creating safer environments, or instead institutions in which speech of all kinds is unsafe?
Turning kids into informers is viscerally anti-democratic. Student informing has been a hallmark of the worst political systems on record, whatever political labels have been attached to them, by bringing out the worst in human foibles, from fear to unchecked malice. Now it's easier than ever to turn a classmate in -- just make an anonymous call to an 800 number or, better yet, turn somebody in by e-mail. The target usually never gets to confront his accuser, unlike the student in California.
There's also the question of proportion. If a high school freshman expresses a desire to kill somebody, isn't there any educational response or remedy short of arrest for terrorism?
The story illustrates the dreadful position both of these people have been put in by the insane response to the Columbine tragedy. In a sense, the girl was doing what she's been asked to do. The boy -- there was never any evidence he planned to harm or kill anyone -- is threatened with jail for allegedly making a remark that would, in other times, be considered stupid or worthy of some suspension time.
In the months after Columbine, students all over America were asked to become informers by law enforcement authorities and educators. Companies like the Pinkerton Corp. under contract to state and local governments, even created sites like WaveAmerica.com, which urges kids to report the errant behavior of their friends and classmates, and provides toll free numbers manned round-the-clock by people who take and store reported information in a computerized system.
The chilling implications of student informing on social ties, civil liberties and free speech went largely unremarked-upon by the popular media in the national hysteria that followed the Columbine killings; by most parents, and by the people who really ought to have known better, educators themselves. Civil libertarians did sound repeated alarms, but they were ignored.
Definitions of dangerous behavior are wildly subjective and complex, and kids often had a tough time distinguishing between run-of-the-mill obnoxious and posturing behavior, and truly dangerous behavior worthy of being reported to the police. Trained psychologists disagree about symptoms and behavioral warning signs.
Lost in the Columbine mob scene was the fact that violent incidents in schools are rare in America, and getting more so by the year. Gamers, oddballs, Goths and geeks, kids who are bored, angry, alienated, or individualistic are naturally particular targets for kids-turned-informers. Anybody who's different or doesn't conform -- or who is angry -- can seem dangerous, especially given the wildly varying criteria applied in different schools.
Online, teenagers flame each other and everybody else all the time. If they do it in school, they can -- and do -- end up in jail.
But the bottom line seems as clear as it was after Columbine. It's the job of parents, educators and psychologists to watch our for and anticipate dangerous behavior. It should rarely be a legal or law enforcement issue, and it ought never to be the job of kids, students or classmates.
The message to kids isn't that schools are safer, but for everybody is to watch not only what they say, but what they hear.
It's all a matter of context.
Now, lets' say the CEO does something I don't like, and I say, off the cuff, "Geez, I'd like to take that bastard out". Probably harmless. But still, it should be investigated, or at LEAST given a cursory examination!
Apparently, if you were a student in school rather than an employee in a company, you would be taken to the principal, suspended on the spot, arrested, and questioned. AT LEAST. Quite possably, you'd do time for that 'terroristic threat'. Sound fair?
The student who blew the whistle, in this case, did precisely what she was supposed to do. She heard a threat with no context and reported it. Did the school overreact? Perhaps. Should the school have been sued? Maybe. Should she? Hell no. For one, it prevents her right to free speech as well. For two, she was providing credible, correct information about a possibly dangerous situation to someone in a position to do something about it.
An overheard comment with no context is WORTHLESS in evaluating a threat. Only the truly paranoid will treat it as anything else. Otherwise, it becomes IMPOSSABLE to safely talk about a role playing game (or any sort of tournament, especially something like assasin or paintball). How is that NOT a violation of free speech (schools are part of the government, so free speech definatly applies).
As far as the student goes, she did what she was told to do by an authority figure that she's supposed to trust. SHE (her parents) should sue the school (as they are) for telling her to do something that landed her in court. No matter how hard they try, schools are going to have to take responsability for their actions and inactions just like the rest of us.
What America needs to own up to (especially it's courts) is that sometimes bad things happen, and there's nobody to blame. In others, the person to blame dies or has no money. Neither of these conditions make it acceptable to use a lawyer like a shotgun to try collecting money from everyone within a 100 mile radius. Sometimes when someone does something,bad things happen, and nobody could have reasonably predicted the bad outcome.
In the end, what is crucial here is to remember that anything you say can be overheard and misinterpreted. If you don't mean it, don't say it. It is easier said than done, but is the best way to prevent problems like this one.
What if you DO mean it, but only figurativly? Have we lost the right to speak figurativly? Are we so (clinically) paranoid now that we can't be expected to apply context and common sense to what we overhear? How long will it be before saying "I'm going to beat you! (at checkers)" becomes a felony?
Zero-tolerence does not work -- there is no ground for common sense and specifics of the case, and in some cases, enforcement can vary depending on whom is doing the enforcement -- what's to stop a teacher saying that a flip-comb couldn't be used as a weapon? In addition, zero-tolerence does not allot for those brain-fart mistakes that result from the hecetic morning (a good example, thankfully not z-tolerence enforced, is that I need to wear safety shoes in my workplace, I did happen to forget these one day, and wore tennis shoes - forturnately, nothing bad came of it, as I stayed out of the hazardous areas).
I think with this, and with failures of the 3-strikes law for convinctions in CA (with the example of a guy getting significant number of years for stealing some candy on his 3rd conviction), is going to push away zero-tolerence policies, and go back to at least some sensable way to determine guilt before placing judgement. It can punish those that has no intent to commit a crime, and cost millions in lawsuits as seen here. If the school did have in place the informent program but took steps to make sure that students weren't tossing around random blame nor to fully investigate the effects, then none of the lawsuits would have happened, and the student that was blamed would have not had been expelled in the first place.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
The problem with "loser pays" is that it makes large companies untouchable. If your next-door neighbor screws you and you sue him and lose, it costs you a few thousand dollars. If you sue Microsoft and lose, you're instantly six digits in debt because they put a team of fifteen highly paid corporate lawyers on the job. Oh sure, maybe one of them actually did any work on it, but because he walked past the other fourteen in the hall and said hello to them, they'll bill for it. And the beauty of it is that your hometown lawyer never had a chance against a mob of the best corporate lawyers in the country. They already stall as long as possible to drive up your legal expenses; a loser-pays system just makes it harder to get justice.
In the actual case under discussion, the boy's family has every right to sue for defamation. That being said, I don't think the girl's family ought to pick up the tab because by being recruited as an informer, she was basically acting as an agent or employee of the school district.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
If anyone says "I'm going to kill people here",
should we just ignore it? Laugh it off? Pretend
it never happened? Hell no!
I agree, to a certain extent, that adolescents AND
adults say things they don't mean. Investigations
do need to take this into account.
To presume, however, that the solution to this
problem lies with students(or anyone else) ignoring
everything they hear is patently absurd! What if,
for instance, I was to say "I will kill the CEO of my
company this Thursday at four." Would it be absurd
for one of my coworkers to report me? Of course
not! This is a legitimate threat. Now, lets' say the
CEO does something I don't like, and I say, off the
cuff, "Geez, I'd like to take that bastard out".
Probably harmless. But still, it should be
investigated, or at LEAST given a cursory examination!
Threatening others, while certainly easy to do, and a
way to let off steam, is not acceptable, under any
circumstances. This is not the sort of thing that
can be argued is harmless to others. If this student
had been serious, the safety of the whole school
was at stake.
The student who blew the whistle, in this case,
did precisely what she was supposed to do. She
heard a threat with no context and reported it.
Did the school overreact? Perhaps. Should the
school have been sued? Maybe. Should she? Hell no.
For one, it prevents her right to free speech as
well. For two, she was providing credible, correct
information about a possibly dangerous situation
to someone in a position to do something about it.
In the end, what is crucial here is to remember
that anything you say can be overheard and
misinterpreted. If you don't mean it, don't say it.
It is easier said than done, but is the best way
to prevent problems like this one.
(My apologies for the odd formatting. Posting through
lynx will do that to you.)
This whole "snitch" business is yet another attempt by school boards across America to absolve themselves of any and all culpability by making students and teachers responsible for reporting any and all threats. In this way, a school board can make the claim that it is in no way responsible that little Johnny shot up the school because nobody every reported that little Johnny threatened to do so.
This is very much like "zero tolerance": Force zero tolerance policies so that school boards and other administrators never have to open them up to responsibility by doing the wrong thing. It's a no-brainer for them: Everybody is treated like the criminal they are, so nobody can sue for disparate treatment.
Parents need to take the initiative and teach their children the difference between a "real" threat ("See this AK-47? I'm gonna blow some jocks away") and a "perceived threat" ("I wish I could kill every student in this fucked-up place"). All too often, vague or unspecified threats are being taken way too seriously by school officials -- again, it all boils down to school administrators not wanting to have to shoulder any blame in the event they actually use an intelligent decision-making process to separate the wackos from the disenfranchised. It's much easier just to assume every student is a criminal, especially for intellectually-challenged school boards.
Anonymous tips should start a counseling cycle, which can be as short as one session, to determine whether a kid is serious, or is was just stupid. When possible, these early sessions should be removed from permanent records, to reduce the negative affects and allow kids to occasionally make mistakes.
Despite Columbine, it is still safer for kids to be in school than outside. Making the random comments of adolesents grounds for criminal charges is unreasonable and unforgivable. It fosters an "us against them" mentality, and further isolates borderline cases. It sounds like the ideas of politicians or insane school boards (zero-tolerance policies), rather than rational ideas from those who know kids best, who work with them every school day.