Court Finds For Student In Web FOS Case

An anonymous reader writes "A student who brought a suit against his middle school has been awarded a settlement after two years of legal battles. USAToday reports that the suit was brought after the school leveled harsh disciplinary measures against the student, based entirely on comments made to his website guestbook." From the article: "Grayson Barber, who handled the case on behalf of the ACLU, said the school presented no evidence that Dwyer's comments were threatening or disruptive of school activities. 'Our schools should encourage debate and political engagement rather than punishing students who provide a forum for free expression.'"

Comments

Re:Seems a rather obvious conclusion

[Total_Wimp]

Possibly if takedown request to the individual messages that contained threatening speach were ignored only then would there be a case against the forum owner.

Threatening speach should be handled by police. If it was truly threatening and the boy were arrested, I'm sure no one would be supporting him right now, much less the ACLU. In this case, however, the school decided that it's own more stringent rules trumped law and they metered punishement without so much as a trial.

If it weren't a state-run institution, if our young citizens weren't compelled to attend school by law and if the offense had actually occured on school grounds then these punishments may have been acceptable. But when a citizen is compelled by law to be a member of an institution and then that instutution can institute rules that extend to all other aspects of the citizen's life and then when those rule can supercede state and federal law, well, then you have a problem.

TW

Re:there's a distinction

[Namronorman]

Zero tolerance is a real bitch, and I say this from first hand experience. A school I used to go to would suspend you if you were in a fight, even if you didn't defend yourself etc. If someone jumps/mugs/etc you, you'll likely be suspended even though you yourself didn't do anything wrong.

I got so fed up with the bull shit of being jumped (I was a minority in the school and was often alienated) I just started to fight back. School is kind of like prison now, you beat someone up on the first day and they'll respect you. If you don't beat someone up on the first day, someone will beat you up and you'll be suspended regardless!

It upsets me with what's happening to what used to be a fine country. What's worse is 90% of the people don't seem to care until it's too late.