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School Power Over Student Web Speech?

Posted by Cliff on from the first-amendment-vs-private-institutions dept.

Petey_Alchemist asks: "In the wake of the Pope John XIII student weblogging ban, the online lives of students are once again being examined by their academic institutions. News outlets are covering a series of recent events--most notably the expulsion of a Fisher College sophomore (who also happened to be President of the Student Government) after he posted in a 'controversial' Facebook group. Facebook, for those of you who don't know, is an incredibly popular social networking site for American college students. The fact that you must have a college email account to join provides some modicum (re: illusion) of privacy, but doesn't keep faculty or administrative members from joining and patrolling the website. Bottom line: Facebook, Pope John XIII, and other online student speech cases are popping up all over the place yet no case defining the amount of control a school has over a student based on that student's web speech has come before the Supreme Court. When will this happen? Moreover, what will be the result when it finally does?"

5 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post!

  2. Wait a second, is this the same Pope? by ejp · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Is this the same Pope that thinks the Beatles are from hell? I'm so out of this Pope thing. Hmmm, the Pope, guy in Italy right? Ok, I have to do less computer time, and start reading things like the paper! :-)

  3. AWESOME-O SAYS: "LAAAAME." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Come on, man. Can't you think of something better than that?

  4. Links? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    How many links do you want to put in an article?

  5. Re:When asked, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Unfunny, irrelevant jokes are off topic.