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Dental School Blogger Punishment Reduced
John McAdams writes "When a Marquette University Dental School student blogger made some nasty comments about an (unnamed) professor and (unnamed) classmates on his personal blog, the Dental School administration imposed a draconian punishment on him. He was to be suspended from school for a year, lose a prestigious scholarship, and seek counseling for supposed "behavioral problems."
The case received wide attention, starting with local talk radio, the local daily paper and reverberated through the blogsphere.
Dental School Dean William Lobb, considering the case on appeal, has now reduced the student's punishment. The student now faces probation rather than suspension, will be allowed to keep his scholarship, and will not have to seek counseling. He will have to do 100 hours of community service, and apologize for the blog posts.
While this is certainly good news for the student, it leaves open the question of how much freedom Marquette Dental School students have in posting on their personal, non-university connected blogs."
If anyone is wondering what the student wrote that got the school so pissed off. Here it is: "[He is a] cockmaster of a teacher. I don't even gratify him by calling him a professor. He is one who teaches, as in should teach infants and children." The rest of his blog was about video games, drinking and other typical stuff. His blog is now currently offline. Ironically, Marquette University encourages students to post public comments about their professors, and these comments can be very negative.
They were unnamed in the blog as well.
This isn't about civil liberties at all. Marquette is a private institution and has every right to enforce these policies.
Badass Resumes
I don't think this should have happened, but they're not destroying civil liberties... just maybe making a poor business decision.
We speakers of English beg to differ with you. We continually invent and utter new words as symbolic representations of our ideas. Other people seem to be good at learning them. Thus they become part of the language. See "Google" or more recently, "AJAX".
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Please read the above text, and tell me how this university violated it.
The university is not congress. This law specifically and exclusively controls federal laws as enacted by our congress. A private institution is not bound by the same restrictions, especially since they are not Congress.
To test this theory, walk into a biker bar, announce you are going to exercise your first amendment rights, and then start insulting them.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
There's nothing illegal about what the university did, but the reason for that is that the student has 0% freedom of speech within the university. By your definition the people of China have freedom of speech. They are free to say what they want, but then they'll be carted off to prison or killed. They have 100% freedom to say whatever they want. They just had to deal with the consequences. That's a pretty silly definition of freedom of speech.
Cow Cube
The student allegedly called the professor a "cockmaster" and posited that he would be better suited to teaching infants and children. That isn't libel. It's one disgruntled student's opinion.
If I were to publish a blog in which I wrote, "Professor John Smith has absolutely no teaching ability whatsoever" I would be expressing a personal opinion.
On the other hand, if I were to write "Professor John Smith has falsified his teaching credentials" then I am making an allegation. The difference here is that I have made a specific charge which, if true, would significantly affect the professor's standing and livelihood.
Legally speaking, libel must almost always be an allegation of fact. Opinions, however audacious or critical they may be, are not libelous and are protected speech. Calling a man a "cockmaster" does not constitute a libelous allegation.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Legal contracts can't impinge on basic rights. Let's just say, as a for example, that you sign a contract that says "I _____, hereby give ______ the right to shoot me directly in the head with the intentions of killing me." If the person then shoots you, they will go to jail for murder, despite the fact that you signed the contract saying it was alright. Fundamental rights are just that, fundamental, and cannot be given up. Now don't get me wrong, there's a point where you go beyond fundamental rights, such as if he truly did name a specific name or otherwise directly attempt to harm the school's business like telling people to absolutely not go there because the school intentionally hires bad teachers or something stupid like that, but, simply stating an insult and his opinion about one unnamed teacher is clearly not intended in this manner.
Personally, I agree most with the earlier example of the children. He stuck his tongue out and now they're punishing him for it. They got mad and immediately threw the worst they could think of at him in anger, then, when the anger cooled a bit, they realized they went too far and retracted part of it (you can still come to the party, but, I'm keeping the toys I loaned you.)
One thing I did have to admit to though, the school isn't 100% unfounded in getting angry. Mind you, they definitely went way too far, and he wasn't trying to harm them in any way so really shouldn't be punished, but, one thing to bear in mind is that the medical field is a rough place. Reputation is important, and the word "malpractice" is spoken in a quiet whisper when at all (even a malpractice suit that fails can sometimes ruin some people in the medical field.) So they can be excused in getting so upset. They can't be excused for attempting to punish someone simply for speaking an opinion out of anger though. Actually, personally, if my college tried to kick me out then told me I'd have to do 100 hours of community service just because I insulted one of my teachers to a few students, I'd be talking to a lawyer that very day.
For any other part of Marquette you would be totally correct. However, the Marquette Dental School is the only one in the State of Wisconsin, and it receives a subsidy from the state. Additionally, in-state Dental students receive a tuition subsidy. See: http://www.marquette.edu/bursar/tuition/0506tui.sh tml
As is typical with most news stories, there is quite a bit more to the story than what is published by the media.
In the US, a true opinion isn't libelous. But...an opinion can be defamatory if it conveys to the recipient a provably false assertion of fact. Whether such an interpretation was conveyed is a factual question to be determined at a trial.
Typically, slander has 3 elements:
1)Is this statement defamatory (puts the person in a false light)?
2)Was this statement made publically?
3)Was there damage to the plaintiff's reputation?
If the statement is subjective, ask the following:
1) Is the statement addressing a matter of public concern?
2) Is the statement expressed in a manner that is not provably true or false?
3) Can the statement be reasonably interpreted as intended to convey actual facts about a person?
4) How precise and specific is the statement?
5) Is the statement verifiable?
6) What is the literary and social context of the statement?
7) What is the public context of the statement?
So, whether something is an opinion is very complicated, legally speaking. Most of your examples could, in fact, be libelous. And if not libelous, could be characterized as an invasion of privacy (placing someone in a false light, which is a tort).
Furthermore, stating that someone is a pedophile is almost lible per-se since the lable of pedophile, by itself, has stigma.