Slashdot Mirror
School Power Over Student Web Speech?
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?"
The administrators just don't want students blogging about the steamy sex lives they never had. It's jealously, plain and simple.
Frantic, hot, recursive wget'd jealousy.
God was not available for comment, however.
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
A student at the school I attend was recently expelled because she posted photos on a public webpage of herself drinking. The school found out about it (I think an IT guy was surfing and searched for my school name on a free photosharing site), and the girl was expelled.
The lesson: don't be stupid about what you post on publicly viewable websites, such as blogs. You never know who's going to read it.
"Scud Storm!" -- Jeremy of PurePwnage.com
Preface: IANAL, but I played one for years in Mock Trial.
It's really quite interesting to see how much disciplinary latitude schools have. The trend that I discovered--after we actually tried a case in Mock Trial regarding an infraction of the student handbook--is that, generally speaking, a student handbook is the rule of law for a school (barring any outright infringements on students rights.)
Therefore, schools have quite a bit of latitude in terms of punishment if they have a "detrimental conduct" clause. I myself was disciplined essentially for posting critical comments of a fellow student on my own webpage, as I posted earlier.
What I find really interesting, though, is the role the Internet is going to play in our public lives from now on. I wrote an extensive post in the other thread, but to sum it up...well, if today's journalists are willing to scour through a high school yearbook of Samuel Alito in order to find hints about his political beliefs, is it so hard to believe that my generation (speaking as a college student) will find themselves hamstrung by acts of folly conducted on the Internet? It's quite easy to connect to my pyromaniac website to porn and warez websites. Never mind my blog, livejournal, slashdot and assorted forum accounts.
It's an electronic goldmine for the next generation of muck raking journalists to sort through--with ever more powerful search technology.
We'll become a generation where we have to admit--because we've seen the electronic evidence--that, for example, our next President was, as a teenager, a Green Day listening, Microsoft hating, MySpace blogging, whiny, self absorbed git.
Wait 'til that shock hits...maybe then people will really self-censor. Today, you've got expelled college students. Tomorrow...e-scandals?
--Petey
No matter what the circumstances, no matter what the fora, and no matter what, I think that Freedom of Speech is to be protected. Any attempt at stifling it with whatever justification is the first step towards a slippery slope leading to authoritarian rule and erosion of all kinds of privacy and freedoms...albeit this could take many decades to actually happen.
If the erosion of freedoms starts now, I fear that by the time I die, the world will be much, much different from the heydays of the internet when everything was open and without restrictions...I fear that we will have a very strict and monitored society where your every move will be logged and your every thought will be scrutinized for compliance with the dominant peoples' satisfaction.
Uhmm. Here, professors join the facebook and add their students as friends. They'll announce this behavior in class, and brag of their numbers. It's hardly a covert op.
Also, the facebook isn't a blog, it's a social networking service.
While we're at it, there isn't much that you could do in facebook that would be all that damaging. Naked pictures are banned... other than that, you could join a group with a controversial name, but there isn't much in that. I'm a member of "My name's Justin biotch." Lots of people are members of "I went to a public school, bitch." Not here, since most of the kids here are wealthy Ivy Leaguers, born with a silver spoon in their mouths, but, you know, whatever.
I worry more about what I say on Slashdot.
To be honest, I think this could happen very soon and I both think and hope that the Supreme Court will be on the side of free speech. Everyone in the United States has a right to free speech, but we also have consequences to bear for taking out freedom of speech too far, in public schools I imagine there will be fewer to no free speech restrictions. However, in private schools, I think they will put a harsh ban on violating their rules if they have any. I imagine that few (private) schools will actually enact AND progressively enforce these rules, but if they do, the punishment will be harsh, like suspension if the pupil does it twice, and expulsion for a third offense. Naturally, the first time will just be a nice "please take the site down NOW." This topic has me baffled, still, my personal belief is that everybody should have the right to free speech, especially when it's approiate, and bad-mouthing one's school (in many cases) is not only normal, it's almost expected for students at some schools, and if a school is so bad that more than 25% of the students express extreme dislike, I also think the school should re-evaluate its priorities.
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
There have been a lot of cases like this in the public school system in the last few years; when they go to trial the student usually wins. This was just today: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-11-07-schoo l-website-suit_x.htm
The end result of all this is that private schools will become another government agency restricted by law from abridging free speech despite their non-public nature.
Free Speech is one of those things that is widely misunderstood. It is simply the ability to speak freely and without government interference. The government is restricted from barring you from exercising your right to speak.
That does not mean that you have that right everywhere. Your rights end, goes the phrase, where mine begin. Private property is one space where you are restricted in your speech. Public property, on the other hand, is where you ought to be unrestricted. Private sector entities (individuals, companies, and organizations) have the right to bar you from activities of the entity if they do not approve of your speech. This used to be an inherent right.
If we force private institutions to accept any and all free speech, despite the fact that it may injure, slander, or be antithetical to the institutions' charter, then we are in essence forcing them to act as a government agency, i.e. statute-restricted non-discriminatory agency. The institutions do not have the right to act as they deem appropriate, but must act in accord with governmental regulation.
Constitutional Amendments like the ERA were big steps in usurping the rights of private institutions. If we follow this line of thinking through, where schools ought to be prevented from punishing students who break school rules, then we can see that the end result is that schools and government move closer to each other and the value of private schooling is diminished.
Will it go that far? Hopefully not, and the school will realize what a mistake it is making. However, the odds are more likely that the growth of government will continue unabated and it will absorb all educational institutions as time goes by, piece by piece, right by right.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Agreed. But watch out for your computer center's AUP -- some schools (like mine) have been sued and lost for censoring their students, but they still refuse to update their AUP to be more realistic. UIC refused to agree that their policies were unreasonable, and made no offer to review them*, so I told them I no longer agreed to their policy and cancelled my accounts. They have been dragging their feet on this (since it's attracted the attention of other branches of the University), so my web page is still up :) Pity I haven't had time to detail my problems with their policy and put it up there.
* The policy-makers have their heads firmly lodged in their asses -- the excuse I always get is "our lawyers said this is OK". I guess their lawyers don't understand what a court ruling against them means.
If you care about your rights online, I suggest you do what I did -- cancel your account if the policy is unreasonable. You can get free e-mail anywhere these days. If their policy interferes with your classwork, be sure to let the University's higher-ups know about it. Schools have no right to tell their students what is and is not acceptable speech, especially schools funded entirely by the government!
My other car is first.
The student in this case absolutely forgot the 11'th commandment
11. "Cover thine own ass"
He didn't. He did it all out in the open. If he had kept his little conspiracy among "friends" and at least used an anonymous website instead of broadcasting his plan and name to all-and-sundry, then maybe his scheme might have succeeded. But in this case, he's learned a lesson. Don't Get Caught. If anonymity worked for the Federalist Papers, then it should have been good enough for him. Why he didn't use even an alias (because the website _required_ him to be a verified student), is beyond me.
About his scheme: If the university cop was truly harrassing students, there were _far better_ ways to nail the guy than enticing other students to "get arrested" for fun and profit.
--
BMO
Here is an interesting article about a site called whototake.com, which was started by James, a student I know at Fullerton College, where I teach. It was a place for students to post online reviews of their professors. Of course, when students rated me highly, I considered it fair, and when they gave me bad ratings, I considered them extremely misguided :-) The sad thing is that James was forced to take down the site due to the threat of a lawsuit. I may have been unhappy with some of the things said about me, but I would never sink so low as to use the threat of a lawsuit against a young college student as a way of suppressing his right to free speech.
Find free books.
When I was young I thought USA was a really cool country. For whatever reason, probably because of pop culture export, USA seemed great and my own country (Sweden) boring. I remember a kid on my block was really into the marines, he had a US flag above his bed. He knew lots of presidents, pretty good for someone not native to the country.
Then I grew older. I realized no country is inherently cool, when you look at the society and politics and not just action movies. USA seemed reasonable though, I remember a history (or geography) lesson in elementary school when a teacher described the basic ideas of the constitution, and the emigration from Sweden->America in the previous centuries. Inspiring.
Fast forward til now. Do I awe you? No, because in my opinion (which will be modded down really freaking fast), your country is going downhill. You are teaching religion as science, I don't even think fundamentalist muslims do that. Then you sort-of ban freedom of speech by forbidding blogging, of all stupid things to ban (whatever happened to land of the free?), introduce laws like DMCA, and are actively trying to destroy the whole worlds intellectual property laws.
Think about it.
Regards,
Swedish citizen.
As another poster metioned, so far these are all private schools. That means that the parents are paying a LOT of money for little Johnnie or Suzie to attend. Surely if the parents are unhappy, they will put their child in another school. My thought is that the dollars will win out. I do wish though, that the ACLU would make itself useful and take some of the to the Supreme Court.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
The kid suggested "eliminating"(executing) a campus police officer AND solicited others to attempt what can only be termed entrapment.
Furthermore, you don't have protections of freedom of speech with ANY organization except the government. I'm really tired of people claiming that they have "Freedom of Speech" every time they get in trouble for spouting whatever they feel like at work, or school, or on private property. EVEN FURTHER, those rights do not include liable, slander, or assault (ie, "I'm going to rape you with this baseball bat!" is not constitutionally protected speech) to name a few. There are CENTURIES of precedence on this issue.
If you RTFA: "Fisher College spokesman John McLaughlin said, ''Cameron Walker was found to be in violation of the Student Guide and Code of Conduct.""
THAT, boys and girls, is why he was expelled. It's not the fact that he had a web log (I refuse to call them blogs); it's that he threatened the life of a school employee. It's pretty fucking clear-cut to me, and I'm really tired of hearing a lot of whining about "oh, poor him". The guy did something completely unjustified and COMPLETELY stupid. He knew the consequences (especially since he was class/school president) of violating the school's code of conduct; it was a private school. His speech was not protected, and furthermore, is most likely criminal in nature.
Please help metamoderate.
State institutions (at any level) are not required to allow free speech. This seems contradictory when you consider the First Amendment, and IMHO it is, but students still get punished for speaking their minds.
The most widespread example is student-run newspapers in high schools and colleges. Students are punished for taking positions in their writing that are critical of the institution, especially at the high school level. Students (and I know this from observing the situation myself at my high school) have been suspended for attempting to run editorials or stories that don't toe the party line. You could argue that they're using school funds, so why should the school print something critical of itself? Because being a state institution, the faculty (in theory) should be required to allow any speech, no matter how damaging or critical.
In practice, not so much. Courts have routinely decided in the schools' favor when these cases have gone to trial. The message this sends to the students is very disturbing (to me at least): Your rights end when you walk through the door. The (required by law) act of attending a public school (barring the home-schooled and those who attend charter schools) requires that the students surrender what IMHO is the most important civil right that American citizens enjoy.
Is it any wonder that these students have no respect for authority? Everyone acts so shocked when the students have total contempt for the school and everything it represents; they don't stop to think that they're teaching them one thing (Americans have lots of rights) but practicing another (You have no rights, shut up or you're getting suspended.)
Here's a free clue folks: Treat people with respect, and you'll get respect back. Don't treat them like second-class citizens and then wonder why nobody shows up for the pep rally.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Of course they allow non-Catholics at Catholic schools. What better way to add more sheep to the flock?
The brainwashing that goes on in those schools can be scary sometimes.
-Z
As a matter of fact, they can. In the United States, that is, and depending on what you mean by "private." The US Constitution generally bars government from violating any number of civil rights of individuals. But private individuals, or organizations of same, are generally free to discriminate any way they please, unless (and here's the catch) it can plausibly be defined as relating to interstate commerce, in which case Congress acquires the right to make law that intervenes.
Generally it would be a violation of the right to assemble for the government to put restrictions on how people can associate privately, and a violation of the right to free speech if government tried to interfere with people calling each other "spics" or any other term of opprobium they please, in a private setting.
Where you might have become confused is, first, by the fact that public organizations, e.g. public schools, transit agencies, et cetera, are bound by the same Constitutional rules as the government itself. And, furthermore, government is certainly within its rights to, as a matter of policy, deny public assistance to private organizations Congress finds objectionable, and Congress frequently does just that.
Finally, things like the Fair Housing Act prohibit discrimination in any activity that can plausibly (or even with a stretch) be defined as commercial. So it's not illegal, if you privately sell your home, to refuse to sell it to black people, but it is illegal if you are "in the business" of selling or renting -- and that is defined very broadly -- or if you use a broker, et cetera. This is all justified under the Constitution as relating to Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.
So Congress has no power to ban the Ku Klux Klan, nor can it ban its meeting in private homes in which signs with racial epithets are posted, and the KKK can completely exclude blacks from membership, and if it runs a boarding house for its members it can exclude blacks from there, too. But the KKK is not likely to be granted tax-exempt status, and is not likely to receive permission to meet on public land, e.g. in a public school, and if it applies for a public grant to promote its activies I expect the application will be turned down.
Private universities are frequently "blackmailed" by the federal government into various policies considered in the public good, from allowing both sexes and all races to enroll (although this tends not to be applied against female-only or black-only colleges) to allowing military recruiters on campus. This works mostly because even private universities receive enormous chunks of their budget (like, 40% or so) from the federal government via grants of one kind or another.