Student Web-Site Censors Stung for $62,000

Pru points to this CNET story, writing that "[Karl Beidler, a] teenager who was suspended from high school for building a Web page mocking his assistant principal has won $10,000 in damages." This was covered on politech last week as well, for the brave. Plus, the North Thurston School District (Washington state) has to pay up to the ACLU $52,000 in attorney fees, too. That's quite a disincentive for other schools to clamp down on parody sites.

Comments

In my opinion...

[TDScott]

The kid's actions were wrong. He should not have published such images to the world. The *assistant principal* (not the school) had every right to report him to a) his parents, b) his ISP or c) the law.

The school, however, had no right to expel him - it was nothing to do with them. Therefore, I believe the judgment to be correct. Just.

</soapbox>

Re:Sad.

[mwalker]

When speech causes harm, whether it be physical injuries, or mental anguish, to another person, the speaker has violated the rights of the target of the speech and therefore, not protected by the First Amendment. This is called slander or libel and is punishable by law.

Yes, slander and libel are punishable by law.
No, slander and libel are NOT punishable by your principal!
The difference is that the law punishes people through due process and the review of a jury of their peers, whereas your local principal punishes you whenever he gets his panties in a bunch.

Do NOT confuse the issue. This is about whether a school can make rules about what students can say in their own homes, to their parents. It is NOT about libel.

Friends don't let retarded friends /.

Re:Censors Rights

[MAXOMENOS]

But what about the rights of the censors. Aren't they entitled to free speech? Don't they have the right to tell some one to shut up?

Ah shut up.

:)

ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.

Re:Public Education Can Only Tolerate So Much

[ryanr]

I'm not talking about appeals. I'm talking about things like ... well, distributing pictures of the principal having sex with Marge Simpson.

Homer Simpson. (Doh! MMmmmmm. Floor Pie!)

Repeatedly talking about their penis in the classroom. Making a hobby of reducing a girl in the room to tears. Free speech, yes.


Hmm... no, sounds like disrupting class and harrasment to me, not free speech.

What's the last resort a teacher has with a recalcitrant student?

Boot them out of class if they do it in class.

Or a principal?
Recalcitrant principal? Sue them, apparantly. A number of people posting to this thread seem to have the right idea. The principal abused his power by taking an issue outside of school, and making it a school issue. He should have pursued legal recourse outside of the school.

Nothing,

Nothing if they do it outside of school.

institution. I won't ever teach in a public school unless I have an darn near unconditional right to say who gets to stay in my classroom.

Say, because you don't like something they did outside of school?

Free Speech is guaranteed to citizens in law. Free education isn't an unalienable right;

It's not in the list of inalienable rights. However, I have no choice about paying taxes to fund education, and I'm required by law to make sure my kids attend some sort of school. That's a pretty strong endorsement from the law in my mind that we're supposed to receive an education.

I have no sympathy for teachers (principal in this case) who aren't willing to give kids the rights they are entitled to, in order to make their jobs easier. I do have sympathy for what people get paid in the public school system, and I appreciate their sacrifice. Not enough to let them trample people's rights, though.

Off-campus is off-campus

[Eric Green]

I, too, have been a school teacher. I daresay that I probably taught students equally as tough as yours, given that I taught in an inner-city school in Houston and in the "worst" school in the Red River School District (that was the one where 1/3rd of my students were there because the judge had ordered them to attend school as part of juvenile probation).

Nevertheless, while disrespect and disruptful behavior cannot be tolerated on the school campus, what happens off the school campus was not my concern. Frankly, I find it ridiculous that, as overworked as teachers and administrators are, they chose to make an issue of something that happened off-campus. That's *LOOKING* for trouble, and surely there's enough trouble *ON* campus for administrators?

Now, if this kid was going around *ON CAMPUS* saying to other kids, "Look at this disrespectful page I made!", and him doing that was disrupting class and the school environment, that's a different story. But you have to make that case, complete with documentation of how his *ON CAMPUS* behavior disrupted the school environment. This is under the old principle of "free speech does not cover shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater" -- i.e., that disruptive speech on-campus is not protected speech. But the on-caompus speech has to be what's documented as the problem -- *not* the off-campus speech.

-E

A matter of jurisdiction

[DunbarTheInept]

The problem here is not that the Principal was incensed. He had every right to be. The kid was engaging in what amounts to slander. The problem is that the school overstepped its jurisdiction when it tried punishing a completely out of school offense by using its in-school athority over the kid. That's a BIG ethical no-no. If the principal wanted to pursue the matter as an ordinary individual slighted by an ordinary kid, and take whatever legal action such a situation permits (which probably isn't much because the kid is just a kid), then I'd be on his side. As it is, the Principal used his position of authority to engage in bully tactics. If this incident is indicitive of the principal's sense of ethics, I think I might understand why that kid doesn't like him.

Oh, and despite how this article in slashdot is titled, the crux of this case is more about abuse of authority than it is about censorship.