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Student Faces Expulsion for Blog Post
ThPhox writes "A student in the Plainfield School District in New Jersey is facing expulsion from the school district for a post made on his personal blog during non school hours. From the article: "A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week, a local attorney said.""
A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week
Well, if he wasn't being bullied by the school district before, he sure is now. They just proved his argument for him!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
It was probably recommended by his english teacher. He was tired of the insipid, inane blather that this blogger was posting and he had the opportunity to make an example out of him.
...it's a good preparation for real life.
Hopefully the school board settles quickly and cans the people. Last thing they want to do is lose all that money they are going to in a clear-cut 1st amendment case....
Expel more people, I say. The pendulum needs to swing back the other way a little bit.
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
I'm curious. Are school districts bound by the first amendment in the United States?
we weren't using our rights anyways........ dot dot dot
This is nothing new. Most schools, even in areas that are highly "liberal," try to control their students' thoughts and actions to the point of extreme.
Illinois state law says that schools are allowed to act in the best interest of a student, as a parent when the parent is not around (ie, during school days). It does not say schools can discipline students for their thoughts and actions outside of school and not during school time. However, schools are taking it upon themselves to do this regardless.
I find depriving a student of his 1st ammendment rights or his education not in his "best interest."
This must stop. The only way it will happen is having cases like this go to court, and schools finally exposed for what they are doing.
As much as it's good to post in public, which is the whole point because sharing is natural and a relief (and fun), we must protect our identity while being able to complain louder and more specifically. Use anonymizers and forms of encryption if relevant to reveal yourself in the way you want to and don't say something stupid like the article's mention of a specific bomb threat.
What happened to free speech
What is it with Americans and expulsion? Here in Australia if someone gets expelled it is because they have done something absolutely crazy that in America probably would have them in prison or something like that, e.g. bashing up other students. Even something like swearing in front of the teacher, depending on the school, may only get you suspended.
You're expelled.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
New Jersey doesn't have a monopoly on Plainfields. There are many other Plainfields like it, but this one is mine. ;)
Clue: it's in the CHICAGO Sun-Times.
Further clue: from TFA - "Joliet Police".
I live near there - Plainfield is where the big Tornado disaster occurred about 12-13 years ago.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
I can't imagine things have changed drastically since I graduated from high school four years ago. Our staff was afflicted with the worst type of technology paranoia. They couldn't really grasp the size of the internet; they could only understand electronic media as analogous to print, which -- given the popularity of "the internet" meant that publishing something unflattering about your school on the web was (to them) tantamount to taking a full page ad in the New York Times. These people _are_ bullies! They're afraid of the internet, so they'll compensate with administrative brawn.
We likely don't know all the facts to this story, things can sound very clear cut depending on how you synopsize them, however I think blogs will eventually have to be considered as something between public and private. Various organizations will have to be banned from acting based on any information obtained from them -- perhaps even banned from actively searching them out without legal cause.
Odd how these threats to basic rights seem to come from the Left and the Right equally. Nobody in the extreme can ever stand dissenting opinion.
Letter To Iran
[mother]:"I asked, 'If this is such a serious threat, did you call the FBI?' They said, 'No, we don't have time for this.' I asked, 'Did you call the Joliet police?' and they said, 'no.'"
Don't have time? Don't have time?!
So what you are saying basically is that, rather than going thru the annoying route of reporting to the police, you are just going to expel the kid? I guess the kid's 60 years worth of future is too unimportant compared to your job huh? I mean, we wouldn't want your daily wanking^h^h^h^h^h^h administration sessions be interrupted.
I can't believe this. We are entrusting our childen to these...educators?! No wonder Columbine happened you idiots.
Remember, to a school, there are thousand of students; To a student, however, there is only one school. So please, get it right.
Ironically, one of the books I had to read for high school was "All Quiet on the Western Front". The drill sergeant in the book was a postman prior to the war so he felt the need to abuse the recruits. He knew that outside of his position in the heirarchy, no one respected him as a person so he abused his powers as a drill sergeant to make himself feel better. Reminds me of some school administrators... Sad bastards.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
The kid posted from a non-school computer not on school time. Its his legal right to be able to say what he thinks of the school. Unless the school is being threatened with physical violence they have NO say in what a student does out of school.
I'm not going to comment on the relative merits of the school taking action against the pupil for what he said on his post.
However I do object to the general sense of 'if its a blog its ok', people seem to think that if they say something in their blog they are somehow protected or that it's OK to say it there because it's their personal space...
Wrong, a blog is a tool for publishing text, no more or less than that, before the word blog was banded around people published personal websites with news pages (which is all a blog is). I would expect anything you publish on the web to be treated equally be it on the front page of Slashdot, the BBC website, a discussion forum or a blog.
In conclusion - don't hide behind your 'blog'.
I think the problem here is power. During school hours a student is of course a student has to be expected to obey school rules, conform to standards of behaviour, respect staff etc. Unfortunately, the teachers at this school appear to have got it into their heads that this includes complete control over the student's communications. I remember at my old highschool our headteacher once suspended a pupil for having a mohican haircut, despite the school's published unifrom code stating nothing about haircuts. When parents complained she didn't seem to understand why anyone objected to her making up and enforcing rules at will.
The student should be commended for what he did. If he is genuinely being "threatened" and "bullied" by his school then he not only had a right but something of a duty to inform others of that, and yes, he should be in court, but as a plaintiff, not a defendant.
This is legal. Schools are allowed to have dress codes. Schools are allowed to decide what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity to the learning environment.
...his statement (especially with a veiled threat in the name of the Columbine assholes) exudes attitude.
But schools CAN'T dictate what dress the students wear at home, and can't dictate what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity when they are sitting at their dinner tables with their families.
My reading is that the Columbine post was posted AFTER the school threatened expulsion, though the article is very unclear.
In my opinion (only) I think it's disruptive.
How so?
In what way does a post on a website that probably can't be visited on school property disrupt classroom activity?
I really wonder what the discussion was like at the school board meeting. It's like: Hey, we can't let this guy get away with calling us bullies. What should we do about it? Hmmm, lets threaten to expell him. That will teach him. The sad truth is I've seen similar things in the corporate world. Maybe this is a good lesson on how the world works (as a previous poster mentioned).
No Sigs!
The worst is that I feel you
You just got troll'd!
When a student makes statements that are (1) outside school hours, (2) off school property, (3) not associated with any school activities, then yes, the student has a great deal of liberty as to what he can say and do. Correspondingly, the administrators have very little say in what he can do in such circumstances. The notion of avoiding "disruption" is unlikely to fly here either. If they can control criticisms of the school in an environment completely outside of school authority, then they can pretty much dictate anything that students do.
A threat must be direct and immediate for it to fall outside of first amendment restrictions. His "threats" are vague, indirect, and unlikely to result in any real consequences.
In all seriousness while you might want want to think that was entirely a grim joke. It makes a LOT of difference. This might be especially enlightening for those of you from outside the USA about just how stratefied US society really is. The higher income your family is in american school pre-college (and at college at some private esp. ivy league) the better you get treated by teachers and administrative staff, and the better grades you get.
American Primary and Secondary Education are the ugly fascist underbelly of american society designed to help the rich get richer and make the poor poorer.
*Bang* *Bang*
That feels good!
This is why we can't have nice guns
Huh? What does having a blog have to do with this?
The same would be true if he sent into the local paper what he wrote on the blog, or printed it out and stapled it to telephone poles around town.
(Okay, the telephone poles might be worse because depending on the ordinances that could be seen as vandalism... taped it up to willing store windows then.)
sure, but with a business you're always welcome to quit and work somewhere else. Can't really do that with school.
And trespassers usually aren't trespassing when they're no longer on the property.
This kid posted this stuff outside of school. What's the harm, really? The school's just going to have hundreds of other rebellious teens doing the same thing now, they going to expell them all?
"If you read the quote, in legal terms there is an implicit threat..."
um, if you read the article they have quotes from the police saying the school was not being threatened and that the kid did not post anything illegal.
I'd hate to be the school if the kid can get a lawyer, could be a good pro bono case for a young lawyer trying to get a name for himself.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I read from TFA:
I thought to myself: yeeeesh, bad analogy warning.
Then I came and read your post, and suddenly I was very nervous.
barack to the future?
He's not asking for any special protection because he's blogging rather than engaging in other forms of speech. He just wants the protections granted to speech in any medium. And it looks like he's not getting these protections.
He makes an excellent point
A well-placed homemade bomb will do the job just as nicely.
I think you missed the entire point of his post. He basically said, "Look Mr. School District, it's not like I'm one of the columbine kids. I haven't threatened anyone, and you're still treating me like shit. WTF?!"
It takes a pretty drasticly slanted interpretation, diseased mind, or an obvious agenda to manipulate that into, "I'm not saying I'm one of the columbine kids, but..." The agenda here of course, is to find any excuse to expel a kid perceived as a troublemaker. Hence a whiny post becomes grounds for expulsion. It's magic!
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove
A threat must be direct and immediate for it to fall outside of first amendment restrictions. His "threats" are vague, indirect, and unlikely to result in any real consequences.
Vague threats are sufficient. Look at this page and consider the paragraph:
A vague threat often is intentionally designed to avoid legal consequences. Sometimes the attempt works, sometimes it doesn't.
This student referenced Columbine, which is vague. However it won't guarantee impunity.
I'm all for schools teaching kids good behavior but there are a few things they do that are both wrong and just plain illegal. Things schools should keep in mind:
Schools are mandatory. School attendance is not optional in the US. Kids have to go. There are a few who have the means to attend alternatives but those who don't are forced to attend public schools no matter what.
Schools are part of the government. Like police and judges our schools are government bodies. You can not give schools the ability to force the removal of fundamental rights. Judges can't. Police can't. Schools *MUST* be bound by the bill of rights including the right to free speech. They don't have the right to take that away much like they don't have the right to take your life away (forget detention.. you're going to the gas chamber.) You could argue that schools should be allowed to control speech in school creating short periods of time when their rights are suspended, although it's probably a bad idea. To say they have the ability to remove fundamental rights from people altogether is completely ludicrous. No federal, state or local government body can have that power. Granted, the bill of rights only specifically mentions federal government, the trend lately seems to be ruling that the 14'th amendment extends the bill of rights to state and local government. This would include schools.
The other thing that it's important to note is that speech restriction is essentially creating thought crimes and the effects are usually precisely the opposite of what was intended. Discouraging open exchange only worsens the problem that we are trying to ignore or make invisible. The first amendment exists for this reason and it's for this reason we should defend it absolutely without question always. Everyone has a right to be heard.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
however I think blogs will eventually have to be considered as something between public and private.
That doesn't make any sense. If you want a private blog, you use a system that has accounts and access controls. If you want something between private and public, you use an alias that's not linked to your name in any way, and don't post identifiable things. If you post things under your name on publicly accessible sites, for the express purpose of making that content available to the rest of the world, you cannot possibly have any expectation of privacy. Something you broadcast globaly, indiscriminantly, is by definition not private. Saying that people shouldn't be able to "search" public blogs without legal cause is like saying that if you stand on the street and shout that you are selling drugs, and a police officer overhears you, that constitutes an illegal search.
Not acting on personal speech is completely different, and there are already various protections relating to speech. The idea of people saying things that, e.g., their employer may disagree with (but that their employer can't legally take action against them for) is not new to blogs.
Your response makes no sense and is full of non-sequitors.
"Schools impose all kinds of restrictions on students. Places of business impose all kinds of restrictions on employees. Owners of property impose restrictions on trespassers." RTFA before posting - this has absolutely ZERO to do with the schoo. He posts on his own time with his own equipment and has made no threatening comments (per the Joliet police chief quoted in the article.) None. Of. Their. Business.
"This is legal. Schools are allowed to have dress codes. Schools are allowed to decide what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity to the learning environment." Again, if you would think and read before typing, you would see that this has NOTHING to do with the learning environment. It was done outside of school on privately owned equipment and made no criminal threats to any student, faculty, staff, or facilities.
"The unanswered question in this article is, did the student cross any line violating the school policy? If you read the quote, in legal terms there is an implicit threat -- some attorneys will argue "assault". Other attorneys will argue "free speech." If this is the case, then you go to the authorities. The district found the comments so threatening that they have contacted NOBODY about it. Not the police (local police chief says no crime has been committed - a pretty bold statement with likely pending legal action so it must be pretty cut and dried to him), not the DA's office, not the FBI. Yeah, must've been pretty serious stuff.
Should a public school be able to mete out punishment for violation of its dress code for clothing worn outside of school premises and during non-school hours? Others could see the student and it could cause a disruption.
What about giving detentions for students swearing with friends while hanging out on a Saturday afternoon? Surely this is setting a bad example and influencing the friends that are present.
What if a student gets a speeding ticket? Not only is this a bad example, it is endangering lives. (Won't somebody thing of the children?!)
Face it, the kid (who does in fact sound like an idiot) posted some comments that even the local police chief says are in no way criminal (no threats, etc.) This public school district has absolutley no business interfering with what activities the student engages on his own time using his own resources. None. Zip.
It's pretty obvious what party is causing the greatest disruption here.
Rights don't exist in schools, especially not in schools in "free" countries like America and the UK.
This just in: new findings suggest causative link between blogging and high-school shootings. Could YOUR school be the next Columbine?
A student of a school sitting at his computer at home has a right, the right to free speech as outlined in the First Amendment. This right does not come at the discretion of the school, but by the Constitution and is the supreme law of the land. The school can't come along and say, "Sorry son, we don't like what you're saying", as it occured during his own time off school property. I am too lazy to Google it, but I am certain that every school that has tried to discipline a child for speech outside of school hours and on private property has failed. There was a recent case of a teenager from Alaska that the school attempted to discipline for holding a banner during the 2002 Winter Olmypic torch relay that read, "Bong hits 4 Jesus", but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision saying:
"Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion.
The court also cleared the way for Frederick to seek damages, saying Morse was aware of relevant case law and should have known her actions violated his rights. Courtesy of MSNBC.com. (OK, I did Google for that).
The principal, Morse, was upset that the banner undermined the schools anti-drug message, among other things. The point being that a school, as a government entity, doesn't get to pick and choose what speech is permissible and what is not off of school property and not on school time.
There is a certain implication in the orginal story and the headline are that it's OK if it's a blog. My point being that I see a lot of stuff on blogs which would never have been published on a 'normal website', people appear to believe they have some form of protection because they're posting to a blog. The blog is just a publishing tool like any other. You shouldn't say or do anything in your blog that you wouldn't be happy to do in any public space or publishing medium.
What the hell was a school official doing reading random a students xanga? Do these people have no lives at all?
So any student mentioning the word "Columbine" is a threat? Use some critical reading skills befor blathering: He said that the Littleton, CO perpetrators were driven to their actions because of bullying. That's it. Find me a single study of the incident that does not attribute the attacks, at least in part, to Kliebold's and Harris' having been bullied. Plus, the district felt so incredibly threatened that they have not contacted a single law enforcement agency. Hmmm....
This is all irrelevant because the innocuous comment you reference was posted AFTER the student was suspended. You can't site subsequent behavior as the cause of the original punishment. Time travel has not been invented yet.
Use some common sense and think for yourself, don't just run screaming at the mention of the word "Columbine."
Well, you've paraphrased what he said, with your interpretation. Directly quoting the student, and with virtually complete context the student actually said (emphasis mine),
You say
I respectfully disagree. Juxtaposed, "you bullying me", and "kids at Columbine did what the (sic) did because they were bullied" don't require slanted interpretation, a diseased mind, or an obvious agenda. Your interpretation is based on your paraphrase of the quote. I'm looking at the kid's words.
I'm not endorsing rampant censorship and monitoring of students' outside activities, but I respect a school's initiative to recognize a potential problem before something happens. I'm guessing there are parents of about 13 high school students in Colorado who wished more attention had been paid to the postings of the Columbine students.
Yep. Every annoying law can be traced back to some jerk who had to ruin it for the rest of us. Nice going, jerks.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Libel not covered by free speech.
Film at 11.
If you go around publicly saying someone is threatening you then you better have some solid evidence. I guess this guy gets to present his evidence in the expulsion hearing. For his sake let's hope he was telling the truth (or maybe not; if a school district really has a conspiracy to threaten a student that would be worse than a single paranoid delusional student.)
nt
Schools impose all kinds of restrictions on students. Places of business impose all kinds of restrictions on employees. Owners of property impose restrictions on trespassers.
Schools are government bodies and attendance is mandatory. All children in this country who don't have the means to attian an alternate education are forced to be subjected to public school's rules. That makes your exmampeles irrelivant. The appropriate analogous situation would be prison. We do not allow prisons to remove inmates free speech rights, why would we let schools.
This is legal. Schools are allowed to have dress codes. Schools are allowed to decide what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity to the learning environment.
These things are pseudo-legal and only involve behavior while within the walls of the school. To extend the schools reach to everything a student does all the time is pretty obviously wrong. You wouldn't think it was right for schools impose a dress code on kids when they were at home would you?
Some people still don't get Columbine. The lesson there is trying to suppress issues and make them go away quietly is exactly the wrong thing to do. It makes things worse. The great thing is that lots of people did learn the lesson and started to listen to kids who didn't think everything was just perfect in their schools. Sadly this seems to be a school that has forgotten the lesson and is comfortable insisting students shut up and pretend everything is great.
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"The First Amendment doesn't give an individual the right to scream 'Fire' in a crowded theater and say that is protected by First Amendment rights," Harper said.
Yes it most certainly does. However, that crowded theater also has the right to kick you out for any reason it deems neccessary. Screaming "Fire!" isn't a threat directed to anyone. It's simply a disrupting comment. While I don't see any reason NOT to throw someone out of a theater who screams "Fire!", it's certainly not grounds for arrest.
Being from NJ I'm outraged about this, and I though Plainfield was one of those rich towns where the kids always got what they wanted and no one ever got more than a day detention, maybe that's South Plainfield.
What's up with schools and a fear of anything electronic these days?
Force the kids into ibooks/laptops and expel/charge with computer trespass the ones who take the time to "explore" them. During a recent multi-day "field trip" my sister's class was banned from having anything electronic, but only 15 or so years ago I remember being encouraged to bring my GameBoy, even the teacher took part in our lunch time Tetris gaming. And anyone who used a "computer" to type their report got an automatic A, A+ if you added clipart/pictures.
Yes, electronic toys are much more common now and there should some limits on their use, can't be used all the time. Those of us in our mid 20s grew up with our games and were mostly able to impose our own limits and balance how long we played(weekend) and how much time we spent on work(non-weekend). Have kids these days lost that ability?
I once heard that there are two types of people who get involved in the administration of schools(not the teachers), those who really care about the kids and and those on a power trip(who would never be taken seriously by us rational adults)
If you mess with the 1st Amendment you will lose.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
http://www.xanga.com/Heckler3672bro
Avoiding use of the name of "the student" doesn't help much when you quote excepts of a page on a site that's full indexed...
(Anonymous for your karma-whore free enjoyment.)
I don't think I would be able to take it. Heck, one of my friends was a genius creative writer, chose macabre topics (murder, dissection, etc) and would hand out his writtings at school. Today he would be expelled. And who hasn't joked around about wanting a bomb threat to be called in so you could go home early? Now just talking about it would likely get you expelled.
It would be like going to a prison camp, being afraid of what to do, how to act, and what to say for fear of suspension and expulsion.
Thankfully my school had a program where you could go to community college instead of taking high school classes, so I didn't even spend my last two years at my highschool.
NEWSFLASH:
As has now been mentioned to you 5-6 times, this comment was posted AFTER the suspension. You cannot justify a prior suspension by a subsequent action (unless the kid had been using a time machine.) And guess what? His comment is factually accurate! Find a single psych profile of the Littleton shooters that doesn't say they were bullied be both teachers and students. Repeating accepted facts is now "disruptive behavior."
You might feel threatened, but no teacher, student or administrator in this case did. RTFA, my friend. Nobody ever called the police about this comment.
Your bias and agenda is clear, but the facts simply do not support any of your suppositions. Face it, Ragu, you've had your ass handed to you!
Address of the school
Plainfield South High School
7800 Caton Farm Rd
Plainfield, IL 60586-1687
Address of local gun shop:
Gun Shop Inc.
23003 W. Lincoln Highway
Plainfield, Illinois 60544
I only hope there are no gamers reading this post...
All TA says about the start of the incident is that he wrote "in vulgar words" that he can write whatever he wants in his blog. Article does not say why he wanted to write this in the first place.
Not a good journalism.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I don't think this actually occured in New Jersey. The article mentions Plainfield and Joliet which are two cities that are very close in proximity in Illinois.
"Some people still don't get Columbine. The lesson there is trying to suppress issues and make them go away quietly is exactly the wrong thing to do. It makes things worse. The great thing is that lots of people did learn the lesson and started to listen to kids who didn't think everything was just perfect in their schools. Sadly this seems to be a school that has forgotten the lesson and is comfortable insisting students shut up and pretend everything is great."
This truly is the crux of the matter. Very, very well put. Yet we have "professional" educators and posters like yagu that want to make an example of this kid because he mentioned the word "Columbine" (after the suspension by the way) in a factually appropriate context.
Bravo. You get it.
I paraphrase, you quote out of context; to each his own, I guess.
In either case, flying off the handle and jumping directly to expulsion doesn't even address the problem of an implied threat. At best, it removes the "problem", at worst, it exacerbates the issue. Maybe some counseling to make the kid think he's at least got the school's respect? Maybe they could pull the old, "Hey, we're just following the rules... we really are sorry. I'm sure there are more constructive ways to criticize the system. Would you like to attend a PTA meeting and see how this stuff works?"
There is such a thing as basic human decency. Yeah, the Columbine kids were dicks ot the highest order. Sure, this kid made a giant mistake in invoking their names. Think about his age, though. Was he even in elementary school when Columbine happened? Does he really understand the impact? Haven't you ever gotten so frustrated you just shouted out the most shocking thing you could remember in attempt to make an impact?
Here's an anecdote. Back in college, we got some new network administrators that were being asses about running services on the network, and were continuously port scanning to find offenders. I was on the college's webteam, so I had apache running, and got flagged. They told me to shut down. I told them, "How many people have to die before you notice I make the school's damn website, so I need a development system!?" Or something to that effect, I don't remember and it was quite a while ago. This was of course after they had taken away our keys to the lab we used to make the website, and imposed many other arbitrary elements that did not apply to previous years.
Did I have any intention of hurting anyone? No. Was I pissed and just as equally an ass for reacting to their prodding? Yes. Could both of us handled the situation in a better manner? Hell yes. The point here, is that had they respected the students that they depended on, and I respected their abilities as administrators, there would have been no cause for frustration, and nobody would have felt bullied or threatened.
People have their foibles, especially teenagers. I for one, am glad the admins and I later had a discussion and came to a mutual agreement, where I also apologized for blowing-up. Could they have expelled me instead? Maybe, but only if they were trying to prove some point.
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove
I was expelled from an Illinois public school for an online speech related issue as well. I set up a web (cgi) based proxy at home, and then informed students at school that it could be used to get around the school filter's censorship of the web. You can read about what happened here:
http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/incident.txt
The public school system is used to maintain social control, not educate. No one will stand up for the free speech rights of young people, and these rights are necessary for an informed and free society. The only solution is abandon compulsory education. Kids would be better off without being forced to go. Access to public Libraries would allow them to read; (at my school "unauthorized reading material" was banned). Libraries or homes would also give us free uncensored access to the Internet. Many leaders in unions, business, and non-profits are more then willing to hold workshops and lectures for high school aged kids. Their real world experience could replace incompetent teachers. There is nothing wrong with using public resources to teach young people, but forcing kids to spend their days being coerced into memorizing minutia, and detaining or expelling anyone with the capability for independent thought, that just further perpetuates the sort of passive obedience that makes American workers and consumers so easily manipulated.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Underground History of American Education
I bet your friend had got into trouble many times before they were expelled for a Mohican haircut. The reason given was probably just something easy that they can pick on and many people will support them without thinking for themselves.
The real reason they were expelled (for being a brat, or perhaps a complete failure?) is more difficult to admit. Perhaps there was even something secret that you are not aware about. A blackmail attempt perhaps. Things are rarely as simple as 'I got banned for my haircut'.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Talk about over reaction though. Why not just bug the police to bust his ass for underage drinking? If that's what the district really wants. Or, why not just take this to its logical conclusion and expell almost every teenager for, well, being a teenager.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Hopefully the Plainfield School District will learn from the folly of the nearby Oceanport School District and end this before they, too, are forced to settle out of court with the student and his family for an exorbitant amount of money that would have been better spent on books and teachers.
I actually was a student in the Oceanport School District not all that long ago, and lived not all that far from Plainfield; let me tell you, there's nothing unusual about these towns at all. They're your average run-of-the-mill suburbs. I point out just how normal these towns are to underscore that this kind of free-speech-violating-bullshit can and will happen everywhere unless we actually shout and scream and go out of our way to stop it from happening.
Or, more properly, maskirovka? For your consideration: A student posts items in a blog his school finds objectionable: they *attempt* to bully him into submission, in a semi-clear, INCOMPETENT attempt at violation of his First Amendment Rights (note, ZERO law enforcement reporting/involvement). My prediction: The student will have a lawsuit filed on his behalf by the ACLU, they will win, and this event will be trumpeted across all of the news media for days.
ONE case of a citizen's rights being defended and upheld, here, kids, watch *this* hand with the shiny coin!
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Senior government officials are routinely breaking laws that, were a common citizen to be caught doing same, would land them in prison so deep they'd be piping in daylight on alternate Wednesdays...
Now if y'all will excuse me, I'm gonna go look into Canada's immigration policies...
One thing about the rats that manage to successfulyy desert the sinking ship: They survive longer than the ship does.
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His family might end up suing the school district or the school responsible, and they might just win. Either way, it will drain money that the school could have used for educating children and all because a small number of people think they can repress their students right to free speech.
"freedom of speech that this government is sworn to uphold?"
:P
:P.
First thought that came to mind was this kid's been listening to too much Eminem
Though his predicament does get my blood boiling a bit in his defense. My High School was very much the same way... My brother was also expelled for an off-hours Xanga post... but he's just a dumbass
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Could someone point me to the posts that kid wrote? I think it would be a great idea to read them before making any judgments... or you really believe freedom of speech means anything can be said? It's a good thing to be able to express your opinions, but at least we could expect people to forge an opinion before starting selling nonsense trolling as opinions. Not saying this is what happened here, but it might...
must be a blowhard; what guy that writes a diary isn't?
Now I'm happy that I set fire to my school oh-so-many years ago, before it became trendy.
Everyone in this case is taking themselves way too seriously, including me, for making this dumb post.
Using a key to gouge expletives on another's vehicle is a sign of trust, and friendship.
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It's sad that something like that can happen in USA. I always believed that 1st amendment means something there. USA is turning into a police state just like Soviet Union under comunism. Except that there was police watching over public not fellow citizens. And the reason for such acts of stupidity is fear. If you still thik you have democracy in USA and if you still belive in your "way of life" and 1st amendmant please don't do something so stupid. I belive there is a lot of such blogs in our coutry and nobody ever says anything. Especialy not to 17-year-old student. I agreee it is something completly different if someone writes down something like "I will place a bomb in school tommorow" or such. In our schools we have psychologist on each school taking care of such things. The action that would be taken in our country for such act if any would be a long talk with principle and psychologist.If that wouldn't work they would transfer him to other school. Court ? Yeah make some more fear and more sheeps without brains....But still fear is cheaper then doing it our way.
Our high school had a student-run newspaper, run anonymously by students who were fed up with the bias in the teacher-run one -- one of the reporters was caught and threatened with expulsion unless the school was allowed to look over the paper and approve it before publication (which was agreed to, as long as all stories were still available in full on the website (seems to be down due to web host issues. web mania suck btw.)). Then they threatened to expel unless the editors made themselves known to senior staff (which was agreed to). Then they threatened to expel unless the paper was stopped entirely, which it eventually was :-(
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
We live in a democracy. If you don't vote, you don't have any rights. Slaves, women, immigrants, childern. Its always the same thing. No vote, no power, no rights.
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there is alot of incinuations here.
First, he is saying someone is a bully. Then he is saying somthing will happen because of that. Finaly he suggest what could happen or might be likley to happen by pointing to an example of somthing that already has happened.
This is simular to a mafia guy trying to extort money from a shop keeper, saying you have a lot of expensive stuff in here that can get broke. You should pay us pretection money to ensure nothing accidently gets broke. The question is "is it likley that something will get broke. And the following question would be did that guy have anything to do with it getting broke.
You can easily read a threat in there. It is empty enough that you might need to use your imagination a little. Curriously this was posted after the suspension. I wonder what his other posts actualy said.
For some reason, teachers here think that they are gods inside schools. They consider themselves to have total authority, despite the fact that they take zero responsilibity for anything that happens inside schools. Consider bullying -- if you tried that at your workplace, you'd be lucky if you just got fired. More likely, you'd end up being sued into destitution or thrown in jail. And yet teachers do nothing to stop it, and spend their time expelling students who dare to complain about conditions in schools.
So people are not entitled to post their own opinions in a public forum? uhmmmm okay then....
Anything can be interpreted as a vague threat. When talking face-to-face, even a subtle change of voice can be sufficient.
Where to draw the line, then?
It's actually fairly offensive of you to suggest that this story got extra headlines because it was in a blog.
Recently we had a story of a local student facing suit over his posting about his teacher. I figure that if schools cannot get to students on first amendment grounds they may follow the route of defamation of character if any names are mentioned in posting. The suit was eventually dropped but the threat was made known. Post something negative about a teacher and you can expect a bunch of grief.
One other area brought up is that not only would the student have problems but as they are minors it is possible that the parents would have to bear financial responsibility.
I wonder how long before public school students are no longer allowed to post on subjects that are not life threatening but school threatening like vouchers and such?
Apparently not long...
In Chicago, Community High School District 128 voted unanimously on Monday to require that all students participating in extracurricular activities sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of "illegal or inappropriate" behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I would expect anything you publish on the web to be treated equally be it on the front page of Slashdot, the BBC website, a discussion forum or a blog.
Well that's simply ridiculous. Both a blog and the BBC website are public spaces. No one should be complaining about anyone reading what they post in a public space. But comparing a blog to the BBC website isn't accurate. Obviously the BBC website has a MUCH larger readership than your average blog. That creates a huge difference on what's acceptable to post on a blog, and what's acceptable on the BBC website. There's a big difference between how widely dispersed the information becomes. Just because a non-public persona posts on myspace about their relationship problems with their spouse doesn't make it OK for the New York Post to pick up the story and print it on page two. (An odd situation I'll admit, but the point is there's difference between people in the public eye, and a random person publishing something on a blog)
I don't know if my point really relates to the story, but I thought it was a distinction worth pointing out.
AccountKiller
Did you even read the article? The student wrote: "I feel threatened by you, I cant even have a public Web page with out you bullying me and telling me what has to be removed. Where is this freedom of speech that this government is sworn to uphold?" Clearly this student knew this wasn't private and anyone could view it. Beyond that, this is his personal space. He can write whatever he chooses. Had he decided to write it to his local newspaper it may have been published in it's opinions section.
Fact of the matter is, he wrote his feelings and was punished for it. This is a clear violation of his rights protected under the 1st Amendment.
In conclusion - don't hide behind your 'rights.'
Hmm, I'm interested by your comment, as it's actually quite relevant to the UK at the moment. Are you suggesting that people should be given the right to vote at a younger age? There was discussion a short time ago in parliament about lowering the voting age to 16. I don't remember if it ever came to anything though. Personally I think 16 is too young to vote, but you can marry, join the armed forces, fly an aircraft solo and have to pay taxes by the time you're 16.
They are here and they are monitoring us. Quick pass the tin foil around.
Tell the world he didn't bring a date to the prom?
Freespeech always seems to be onsided.
Frankly in this case I don't know what to think. I myself have once done a school project where we had to make a brochure about something. I parodied the school brochure but highlighted stuff like the fact the computer room could not be used outside class hours and other lacking facilities.
Got called into the directors office but nothing major, he just wanted to ask wich of them were true, and they were corrected. Turned out that the stuff I found stupid were never intended to be that way but had just evolved over the years.
Granted this was holland and nobody had heard of school shootings. Then again I used humor and didn't insult anyone.
As always there is probably a fine line with the case of what people are allowed to say, I just wonder if all the people defending the right of students to insult teachers feel that teachers have the same right to insult their students. Cause I am pretty sure that if teachers were allowed they have some real cursing to get off their chest.
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A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week, a local attorney said.
;-)
Hehe, his point is hence proven.
I hope there's some intervention for this though. If schools can expel students that don't share their opinions, where's society going then? They have their duty to teach their students; no more, no less. But in corporate America, I suppose the PR machinery for schools are more important anyway...
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ur welcome. glad to get some rekognishun...finally.
who took massive pay cuts in their thirties to leave the occasionally soul-destroying world of IT to become teachers - with the intention of having a rewarding career.
One lasted one term, one lasted nearly two before they quit and came back. It wasn't the children that were the problem, it was the teachers. Cliquey, paranoied and petty.
There might be some natural lower boundary to protect the innocence of the childern, lets say until they go to school. But that is as far as I would be willing to go. And honestly, I would give parents of pre-schoolers the extra vote so their interests are protected as well.
Any society that does not put its childern first is doomed to fail.
BTW I would be as radical as to deny a public office to anyone older than 50.
you make good points. unfortunately there is nothing definitive there. in fact there is so little that local law enforcement (though never contacted) isn't even interested. you also correctly poing out that this wasn't even one of the comments that brought on the whole brouhaha.
/. posts in the middle of the night to support his assertion that this is likely to happen. finally, he is correct in saying that the columbine shooter were victimized by teachers and students leading up to the shootings. pretending nothing was wrong and ignoring the issue only increased the pressure on these disturbed young men, much like the districts administration is ignoring what is spiraling out of control in this case. we can't heap on even more punishment for him speaking the truth. these are indeed the types of issueds that lead to violence. (do you consider my last sentence a threat?)
i cannot read a veiled threat in his statement because everything the kid says is spot-on accurate. he did, in fact, have a public webpage and was punished for it. i'd call that bullying. the fact that this issue has reached national media attention and he is still suspended leads me to wonder (like the kid) where are the protectors of his 1st amendment rights. as for causing a "community backlash," i offer up 200+
the problem with your flawed mafiosi analogy is that this kid is the one who has been strong-armed.
1. The school can't suspend a student for what they say in a blog, UNLESS the student was using a school computer during school time to do the blog. If he wasn't, they can't probably legally do anything unless the student's charges are disprovable, in which case they could sue him for libel, maybe.
2. It IS true that schools do NOT fully understand the Internet and they ARE afraid of it. In many cases they are overreacting to issues such as kids talking to each other on myspace. But part of the reason for that is that if a kid were to get into trouble outside of school because of something they read or did on myspace on a school computer, the parents would attempt to sue the school. Folks are really quick to point blame the schools for their kids making stupid decisions.
3. It's popular to hate schools and teachers here on slashdot, and I didn't really think too highly of my high school education either, but really most of the people I work with care about their jobs, and they're good people. I feel sorry for them, because they teach all the students - not just the bright, well behaved ones but also the obnoxious surly defiant unthankful disrespectful teens who think they know everything and don't care about anyone but themselves. They know that this stage of life is notorious for testing boundries and rebelling against authority. And they come into work each day and do the best they can, most of the folks. Most of the people here on slashdot couldn't do their job for a week without running home and crying into their huggy pillow. Blame the curriculum, or blame the bad teachers, but please don't lump all teachers into that category. Seeing posts saying all teachers suck get moderated high makes those of us here who are mature just sorta shake our heads. Slashdot readers and mods will argue for logic in one sentence and fail to apply it in the next.
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The mentally ill don't have the vote in the UK, on the grounds that they're incapable of absorbing a large amount of information and making a rational decision. The royal family are also unable to vote, I suspect for similar reasons.
the spelling and grammar in your post indicates that perhaps *you* should have paid more attention in school... here's a clue: its == possessive, while it's == contraction of 'it is'...
on_topic: the school is obviously wrong in this story, but considering the quality of today's parenting and education, i somehow doubt the student is without comparable problems...
I some how think we have said more "disruptive" things than the student. Sure we didn't use nearly as many colorful metaphores as spock would say, but the fact still remains he has the RIGHT to say it. Some say this is preperation for life, well yes and no. I were to work for a corperation, and on my home computer say bad things about them, yes I could face being fired. On the other hand this is a goverment org, and being so I can say the seattle police suck big balls. That thier average IQ is less than that of my turds and should face no issues. But yet, I have had police officers threaten to jail me because I said this fucking sucks. I had to remind them that I threatend them, the city, or anyone and therefore had a RIGHT to say it. And they have to listen to it, they are a trusted servant. If I were to make everyother word a colorful metaphore and make a scene, then yes they have the right to jail me on creating a public disturbance. More so how the hell does a kid saying he feels like some fucker at the school makes him feel bad, create a public disturbance? simple, they make a big deal out of it. We should be teaching our children, not only how to do math, but how to be a useful member of society. They should have had him see a school psych. They have them, how about showing him that instead of a blog, that there are more productive ways to say what he feels, jsut the same as we would goto a city counsle meeting if we had an issue with the city. Then again we know nothing about this student. they may have tried, they may have spent vast resources on him. He could very well be a pain in thier ass, and instead of wasting more time on him, use it on other kids that may listen. Let us not forget we see only a paragraph is slash, and not the whole story.
No way. Assuming the story is as claimed - and he's being silenced by the school - him sticking to his guns and teh 1st Amendment is the kind of thing that schools eat up. I have no idea what his grades look like, but I'd say this *increases* his chances of getting into Harvard. He'll have to leave out the vulgar bits he posted, but a little creative editing never hurt anyone.
Teaching is a very good profession. Infact there are very few professions which give the same job satisfaction as one gets in teaching. This is more so in higher education where the students are more mature and seriously want to learn.
As far as school is concerned, the kids are more unruly and some dicipline is required. I remember when I was studying in school, we had corporal punishment. At that time, if we stepped out of line like flouting any of the school rules, we were sure to get cained. Those were the times when the dictum - spare the cane and spoil the child - was the norm. We were even made to kneel down on the hard floor for hours for as simple things such as not doing the homework or not coming to school in full uniform. I think the school concerned could take up a mild form of punishment like making the student sit for extra time in class or something instead of outright expelling the student.
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Times, they have changed.
Back in the early 90s (91 I think) we had a teacher's strike. They were making all kinds of insane claims in the media (we are doing this for the kids, to give them better quality education, etc) and I had an editorial published that basically tore their argument to shreds and was also critical of the school's administration in handling the strike. There were no repercussions with the exception of a few teachers who wouldn't talk to me after that.
Now I imagine I would have been expelled for expressing my opinion outside of school. Weird.
So just for the hell of it, here is the website of Plainfield School District.
Maybee a good slashdotting will bring them back in line.
Oh, hang on, that would mean we would then become the bully.
Look away, nothing to see here.
Three of Nine.
Frankly, this kind of thing happens all the time. High Schools are becoming less an institution of learning and more an institution of mass propaganda, control, and, dare I say it? tyranny. In the country school I hail from, there are less than a thousand students, and almost ten employees at the school whose sole purpose is to keep the 200 students at a time who are at lunch under firm control. If I had a dollar for every time a "Nazi" as we call them told me to take off my presription glasses because of their tint (to reduce glare due to hours in front of a computer screen daily), I would most certainly not be pinching pennies to buy a car that fits the school parking lot specs. Recently, a pair of freshmen were suspended for two weeks for alleged homosexual promiscuity that managed to find its way to the net. As for the students being harrassed because of the closed minded opinions towards anybody who isn't straight and narrow, we more frequently get treated to disciplinary actions due to our responses in self-defense than those who harrass us (Even though there's a "Zero Tolerance" policy towards harrassment in our school manual).
Well, it seems that nothing is mine. I guess that if I tell my parents that I don't like how someone is teaching a subject, and I'm overheard, they're going to kick me out because they're more worried about their jobs than any of us. They seem to think that if I'm a student and I do ANYTHING, they can take action. For example, let's say I am mean to my younger brother and get grounded. I tell a friend at school and a teacher overhears. They could expel me for being mean to my own brother. Nothing is sacred anymore!
Not exactly the first time this has happened though. Especially not in private education where you have no rights.
If someone works for a company, then it's really no question that the person would not go unpunished if speaking derogatory or so about his company. Here we're talking about schools, schools' rights regarding controlling the children inside and outside of the school. Usually I wouldn't have anything against schools regulating children's behavior etc. when they are in school. Yet, I would not let any school or teacher interfere into my child's life outside of school, no matter what.
Children need to learn, and they need to learn that hard, that they _have_ the right to speak their minds about anything. I know of many cases (RL, not bedtime stories) when people just didn't dare to voice their opinion about something - even if they were right - in fear the commencing trouble wouldn't worth the fuss. Children need to be taught so that when they will become adults they will think about basic human rights as being so natural to use as breathing.
If a child learns that (s)he is not allowed to say anything bad about those in authority (and for a kid the teachers are such) that can become a real barrier later on in their lives.
I know I'm possibly going too far with this, still, if a child wants to tell anything (s)he wants about the school, the teachers, etc. at home, for us or on his/her personal web page, I really think nobody should stop him/her unless it conflicts with some (general, social, family, etc.) ethics, but then again, that should be the responsibility of the family and of the parents, not of the school or of the teacher.
I always thought that teachers should be "educators" and "guardians" and "signposts", and not some governesses, or self-appointed mind police officers.
If a school would sue me or my child because spoke his/her opinion about them, I just wouldn't want my kid in that school any longer, let alone fear of some expel.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Hands down, across the board school systems have always empowered the bullies. And anyone who is bullied who tries to do something about it gets victimized twice over.
Schools, the press & the public are so concerned over issues like Columbine that they still just don't get it. These poor kids keep on getting abused over & over again. The teachers won't do anything, the principal won't do anything even when you bring it to their attention.
Being at the bottom of the pecking order at school, no one ever told me it was OK to fight back (except for one gym teacher & that was later in my school career when. I was afraid I would get in trouble. Which I would have, but the end result would have been better. Back then I didn't have the perspective that a detention here or there would not have been that big of a deal. It certainly doesn't faze the bullies.
If you are young & in school & being bullied. Here is what I suggest:
1. First stop go ahead & tell a teacher & your parents.
2. If that teacher does nothing, tell another teacher. Keep on telling all the teachers you have until one listens to you.
3. If that fails, tell the principal.
4. If that fails & you go to a religious school tell the pastor, rabbi, priest or whomever is in charge of the congregation. This is essentially going up the chain of command.
5. If you are being physically assaulted in any way off of school grounds & the school does nothing call the cops. The cops might try to blow you off, but insist on filing an assault complaint. Do the same if the assault occurs on school ground and the school refuses do anything about it.
6. Keep a log of the abuse. Who you told about it & what that person did about it if anything.
7. If you have run through all these options, start fighting back against physical abuse. Yes. You will get in trouble. But bullies prefer to go after the ones who don't fight back. You will probably get pummeled. Just make sure you get in a good right hook. Try not to be a spaze. Bullies love to get a reaction out of you.
8. Don't become the bully yourself. Fight back is defense, not offense.
9. Consider some self-defense classes (For defense, don't become the aggressor). Bullies will pass you over for easier targets.
10. Do something about your social awkwardness. Get involved with some clubs. Being social is a skill to learn. Bullies prefer victims who don't have friends. Boy scouts, soccer, gaming clubs, archery, swimming, find a way to interact with more people. You'll get better at it.
11. Keep in mind that you will grow out of this. As people get older, they tend to appreciate other's differences. What made you the bottom of the gene pool in grade school will probably be really cool in college.
Maybe I am missing something but last time I heard, the Supreme Court said minors do not have freedom of speech like adults. They have few, if any legal protections to/for freedom of speech. So, what the hell is this kid doing again other than being stupid? If he gets expelled then I guess he's serving as another reminder that minors are minors and society has said, they have to follow rules like everyone else.
Public schools are just day care facilities for single parents or traditional families to allow both parents to work so they can afford all the stuff they need, like a $300,000+ home, $80,000+ worth of cars, the beach house, the big HDTV in the living room (plus a smaller home theater in the family SUV).
Many administrators don't look at is as a position of compassion & opportunity, but rather one of protection and numbers. Protect the kids from killing each other before they graduate, and make sure they all score well on the standardized tests.
I remember how bad it was when I went through, and see how much worse it has gotten. As a father of two now (three before the next school year starts) this is something I'm very concerned with. So what did I do?
* I don't live in a $300,000 house. I bought $24,000 worth of land and $76,000 worth of house. $100,000. Huge yard, modest house. I bought the land outright and the house payments will be very modest.
* I don't drive a new car. I have two running cars and one very small car payment.
* I didn't buy any bigger a TV than I felt comfortable paying cash for. In fact, almost all of my big purchases are done with cash. Makes me consider how much I really need something.
* I don't have a single credit card anymore.
* My lifestyle is so inexpensive that my wife can afford to stay home with the kids.
* My kids are homeschooled. My 4 year old could probably graduate Kindergarten right now and she's doing a great job learning to read and write. My 2 year old is learning a lot of things past what most people think a 2 year old should be learning because she watches her big sister and learns. Between the playgroups and the field trips and the playground time, she's getting socialized (if I had a nickle for every time someone raised that issue...). She's probably more socially adjusted than Kindergarten kids because while the Kindergarten kids are in school my kids are out in real society interacting with adults. When they want to buy things, they have to take the stuff they want up to the clerk and pay for it themselves, and they aren't shy about it.
Public school is an antiquated system that is destroying our children. The public schools should be closed and/or privatized. The tax burden for subsidizing public schools should be relieved. People should pay for their own kids to go to school with subsidies available on a sliding scale based on real need. The public schools now are doing less and less with more and more money, to satisfy demands from the teachers to make better salaries for their 9 months a year jobs. How a teacher who works 9 months a year should make $70,000+ befuddles me. I'm all for a combination of homeschooling or private schooling with apprenticeships/mentorships. As a homeschooling parent I'd love to be able to contract with a private school for a la carte opportunities for subject areas that my wife & I are not well equipped to instruct in (like music).
Come on, this kid will be lucky if he's only been suspended rather than just being expelled altogether. The first amendment does not allow for people to make threats.
"Various organizations will have to be banned from acting based on any information obtained from them -- perhaps even banned from actively searching them out without legal cause."
I agree that blogs may be legally construed as something betweenn public and private, but in the conext of what you are suggesting, what difference does that make?
Here in the United States, if I find organizations (e.g. the media - and I mean that in the broadest possible sense of the word) being banned for actively searching out blogs for "solutions" or anything thing else, I'll be one of the first in line with a big fat check made payable to the ALCU. Any information posted in a blog that is true or not demonstrably false (short of posting state secrets, patents, copyrighted material and the like) is protected by free speech unless curtailed by a prior agreement with the blogger (here in the US anyway). Posting knowingly false information is another matter.
Telling people they "shouldn't" visit certain sites is fine - everyone is entitled to their opinions, but actually attempting to punish them for doing so is probably censorship in most circumstances in the U.S. - and it sure seems that way with your decidedly shortsighted suggestion.
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The kid has since beat up an even littler school district
--- What?
Keep in mind that government organizations always have the "spin" disadvantage when dealing with situations like this. They are severly limited by what they can say to the press. Therefore you do not really know their side of the story until court. The article was very one-sided. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually threatened to cause harm to the school and that is why they are going after him.
I live in Plainfield Illinois (New Jersey? Why would you assume New Jersey if the story is from the Chicago Sun Times and refrences Joliet quite a bit) and just have to say to the district: Please don't waste my tax dollars on some stupid case that you are clearly not going to win. Perhaps it would be best to save it for a tornado fund for the future...
It's all about politics, saving face and legal ass covering at this point. Happens everyday!
::Yawn::
The kid will be expelled and Slashdot (and the world) will move on other monocle-dropping injustices to entertain ourselves with.
The other viewpoint is just SO wrong, and I am SO right.
By my random reading of various posts throughout this thread (and very many other threads) it seems that this "they're SO wrong" is always a prevailent situation. I don't use the word 'always' lightly. How is it that so many of us have seemingly never learned to consider the other viewpoint, to walk a mile in the others shoes?
I read very many "educators are a bunch of bullies", which is such an obviously broad an unfair generalization as to be ridiculous in my opinion. To those writers, I say that you discredit yourself when you attempt to discredit others in that broad and unfair way. Certainly there are people who abuse their power in all walks of life, always will be, and as many pointed out, perhaps this is a good lesson for the kid. But I doubt it; I think it teaches the kid that abusing your authority is acceptable, and that the real lesson will be overlooked, as it was throughout this topic and most of its threads. That lesson may be that respect is rewarded with respect, and disrespect in turn gets you the same.
Not many people wrote anything like "in the absence of real and sustained parental guidance school districts are forced to attempt to act as surrogate parents, which, without any true authority, dooms the school district to fail. The result is disrespect between the institution and the student." Game Over. Seeing some of this kind of discourse would have made me think that those writing had considered another point of view.
This lack of true discourse, this grouping of the 'other' side (republicans / democrats, big business / environmentalists, bike riders / auto drivers, teachers / students) absolutely prevents us from moving forward.
-STankyG
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances...
While I do not know the whole situation here, I really think that, in general, kids (and quite frankly adults) need to seriously consider what they are doing when they post in a blog or anywhere else online. When a person makes potentially violent remarks regarding their school (or workplace), they should be looked at with a wary eye. How do we know what a person is going to do? The kids at Columbine were not justified. They killed other kids. How is that justified?
Kids want freedom of speech, and they are given it under our Bill of Rights. The only thing that people really forget is that with freedom comes responsibility. The school district is in its full rights to protect the other students that go there. If I was a parent in that school district, I would back this decision. Expel him. The comments he made could have been construed as violent and/or potentially violent. I would be afraid of my child being in a school where someone like him was wandering the halls.
Now, these comments are based on the post that he wrote. If he had used a more responsible tone, the school may not have overreacted, I would not be agreeing with a friggin' school district, and he would not be facing possible expulsion.
The final thought is this: With freedom comes great responsibility.
He was at home, after school hours. What he does is between him and his parents. The school has no right to say a word. Schools control over the kids exists only while kids are at school or a school function.
Did anyone notice that the article, from a Chicago-area paper, said that the incident occurred in Joliet, Illinois, not in New Jersey?
....was unfiltered access to the internet a constitutional right? Wake up...it's not, however important the internet has become in our daily lives, it's not a right.
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Uh, sorry, but adults have rights, children have whatever their parents say unless the state has determined otherwise. There is no right to free speech in public schools.
With that understood, the school system has no legal case against the 17 year old kid - now for the parents of that child, they can sue for all kinds of things unless the statements made were non-fiction. You can't be sued for stating a fact (unless it is classified).
Now if the parents are idiots - or free speech zealots and want to defend their position in court, then that is fine.
...is still punishable. He wasn't just saying "here's this list of proxies", he was asking the other child to find out what sites he could get to by using his proxy, that's the difference and I can understand why as a younger person he found the distinction too subtle, but it is stil there nonetheless.
I am NaN
Over the years, I have always been an independent thinker and has many times got me in trouble with those in position of authority especially in the corporate world.
Looking back on my education, I went to a well known Jesuit H.S. in Indianapolis back in the early to mid 1980's. It was the best education I ever had especially with the good teachers I had. At least 70% of the teachers I had encouraged you to think and question what was going on including the rules. The administration took the questioning in stride. But also in that day, we didn't live in a zero tolerance mindset either.
I have been working in the corporate world for about 16 years. The people I have encountered there especially those "in charge" have not been so enlightening. These experiences are similar to those experiences when I went to public schools through 8th grade. In the job I had up until last October, I don't know how many times I have been called to my manager's office and taken to task for violating some ridiculous rule. I also got in trouble for things I have done outside the office even such as getting an out-of-state speeding ticket while on vacation or speaking against the Real ID Act.
I got fired from one job for voicing my opinion on the Internet against political correctness back in the 1990's. The company will remain unnamed but it filed a lawsuit which helped break up the AT&T monopoly and it went bankrupt back in 2002 during the corporate scandals. It was a major telecom company.
and many traditional institutions can't figure out how to flatten with it. 5 years ago, a student might have published an editorial criticizing their school or teachers. How big an audience do you really think it could possibly reach? Nowadays, a student posts a blog and suddenly they are reaching a potentially massive audience.
While I don't agree with teacher's and school's actions, I can understand the sensitivity and concern. The schools don't know how to deal with this new flat method of communication, and so in a time honored tradition of ignorance and fear, they are blindly lashing out. It is a real problem though... a blog post on the internet is a very different creature from a local newspaper editorial or any print medium.
I find it hard to believe that his expulsion will be based solely on the two Xanga posts. How did the school find his website? I'm willing to bet he WAS posting to his site from school (anybody notice the timestamp on the second post, 2:49 on a tuesday afternoon?). He was obviously looking for trouble, and he found it. I would be very surprised if he didn't say or do something in school to warrant some attention. Bottom line, he knew he was getting himself in trouble, purposely got himself in trouble, and while it may be extreme, in the long run an expulsion from school is not going to ruin his life. He'll just wind up at a different school where he'd better behave himself. So stop acting like he's being oppressed, and it's his right to be a little hellraiser.
Administration Center Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 15732 Howard Street Plainfield, IL 60544 Tel: (815) 577-4000 Fax: (815) 436-7824 Operations/Maintenance Office 914 N. Eastern Avenue Plainfield, IL 60544 Tel: (815) 436-7800 Fax: (815) 439-4830 Technology/Media Office 500 W. Fort Beggs Drive Plainfield, IL 60544 Tel: (815) 439-4567 Fax: (815) 439-3952 Email comments to: info@learningcommunity202.org Web site address: http://www.learningcommunity202.org/ Administration Center Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. John Harpers personal inbox.. (815) 577-4000 after 6 rings, the answerming machine picks up and asks you where you want to go select 1 to reach an inbox by name dial this in. 4277375646
The thing is...yes it sucks. The boy was posting his personal feelings on his own time. However, with the school system watching students post we might be able to avoid other problems. The school might be able to stop a violent attack, sexual harrassment, theift, etc. Maybe we should stop and think about the perks of such intrusion. That being said, the intrustion should not merit expulsion but intervention.
I went to Lutheran High School Westland in Michigan, and this sort of thing was going on there in the 1990's. There were some kids who were suspended for doing "something" at a party off school property.
I never officially (as in no statement was released) found out WHAT the kids did to get suspended. Apparently one of the terms of their return to school was that they wouldn't talk about it.
This being high school, there were a number of rumors that flew around. Some people said they got drunk at a party, other said that they were dressed in drag for a Halloween party.
Fortunately for the student body one of the women sleeping with one of the suspendees knew what happened and talked about it quite freely.
The girls on the suspension list were seen walking down the street in a nearby neighborhood. They were wearing their school letter jackets, and skirts that flagrantly violated the dress code.
The guys were suspended for being with them at the time.
The rationale? They were 'Damaging the school's reputation."
All that's happened is that this kind of BS has migrated from the private religious schools to the public schools, and most people just don;t care, because it's not "their kid."
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
The post they threatening to expel him for is here and the post that they apparently were threatening him to try and make him remove is here.
Oh and the school's website is here.
Enjoy. But even though the kid really shouldn't be expelled from his school, kicking him off the net till he learns how to design a page would be nice. Reminds me of geocities...
Pim Terry
Once again we seem to have somebody who can't understand that "freedom of speech" doesn't mean "freedom from consequences". There's not really anything to see here - a kid wrote an open letter to his school using profanity and threats, and the school is pushing back. It doesn't matter if it was inside or outside of school. When somebody feels threatened by somebody else, they are entitled to do something about it.
I for one am growing pretty tired of people doing stupid things and then saying "But, it was free speech!"
Posted from the wireless couch.
As a person doing tech in the public school system, I see students making reference to Columbine all the time when they feel they are being limited (especially by the web filter). The feeling I get from them is that they throw Columbine into any argument because they know it will get them noticed. Students know that adults are scared to death of a school shooting, so it's an easy way to make an impact without thinking. Much like how profanity is used.
What, me worry?
only bad news coming from America these days. I'd be worried if I were you guys. maybe throwing some stones at politicians, burning some flags and smoking pot would do the country some good. the fuckers are really doing what they want and no one raises objection.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
if that was a private high school, they have every right to do so. public schools, however, do not.
please me, have no regrets.
He need not write well. He just needs to learn to plagiarize.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Freedom of speech isn't meant to protect the things that everyone can agree with. It's there to protect the mean, cruel, offensive stuff that we'd quite frankly rather not hear.
Apparently the parents have no issue here since I got modded offtopic. They are completely blameless and I am wrong. Glad to know.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
A Student at Cumberland University in Kentucky is being expelled for coming out gay in a blog post. It's a private Christian University, and they're claiming to be expelling him for breaking their rule about students not being allowed to have premarital sex, but they wouldn't being doing it if he wasn't gay.
So, all in all, there's worse things in life.
I'd like to thank the school district for reminding me to send in my yearly donation/membership dues to the ACLU. Thanks!
http://wsulug.org
You must have had one sad, empty childhood....
Nope. He just read the mission statement for the public school system in the USA.
You see, the schools aren't there to provide an education beyond minimal skills. They really are there to teach conformity.
The goal of the school system is to provide workers who will do what their bosses tell them, and voters who will blindly tow the party line. The fact that only 39% of Americans support President Bush is going to be seen not as a failure by Bush, but as a failure of the school system to educate the other 61% into obedience.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
You've kind of left out how the teacher references the two teacher incident. If he said "This school is acting the way that triggered the two teacher incident", that wouldn't be bad at all. If he said, "You don't want another two teacher incident" he could be conveying a veiled threat. If he said "We should all be more like those two teachers" that would be bad.
One is a paid representative of the state. The other one is forced to be there. Admittedly, they're also both private citizens, but that's hardly the raison d'etre of their relationship and dealings with one another.
Which one deserves protection more?
FWIW there is a very good page on EFF's website about the ins and outs of student blogging.
And another one from Scholastic Administrator is also interesting.
Also, in case you are wondering; yes I do work at a school part time as a NetAdmin.
Good post! I wrote something similar w. regards to respect. It has the subject "You be Palestine, I'll be Israel". It is all about mutual respect.
-STankyG
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances...
I wonder just exactly what response the school district would've had if it had been a parent that put up such a blog?
What are they gonna do? Even though the activities were related directly to the school and the problems a student was having?
They couldn't do shit.
Just another case of a district trying to enforce its rules on a student when the activity was done off-campus.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
What exactly did he *do* that warranted the expulsion?
From another story, he was apparently venting about his friend being expelled:
His friend allegedly started a fire in an urinal in a bathroom at Plainfield South High School and later posted the incident on his xanga site, according to police reports. That student's case is currently in court. He was charged with reckless conduct. The school district said the student was expelled for two years.
"Kids don't realize that if there is a connection with the school or has a potential of creating a disturbance to the school, they can be disciplined for it and they don't appreciate the personal threat to them for posting information on the Internet," Harper said. "It is our responsibility to educate kids and help them work through some of these issues."
So the big question is, was he really exercising his right to free speech, or what he making threats or otherwise doing something potentially dangerous? Given his Columbine comment in TFA, he's obviously willing to make veiled threats ('The Columbine shooters were bullied, and now you're bullying us' seems potentially threatening to me)
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I recently made a post about first amendment rights, where it applies and where it does not.
This is where 1st amendment rights apply. The school is being a bully. They handeled this poorly, and it leads me to believe they actually have treated this kid bad previously.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
One factor is racism and classism. There are a lot of people who think that "some people" don't deserve an education. Because of this belief, the "disruptive" students are seen as being beneath the norm, and thus unworthy of an actual education.
The group that's seen as "disposable" varies dramatically from one school to the next. In some places it's a clear division along color lines. In others it's financial. In one school I attended the teachers enforced the student created cliques, so it was the geeks and nerds (such as myself) who always got the short end of th stick.
Regardless, many administrators set out to reduce the head count of the "disposable" group.
Then there's the issues around the point of the public school system.
The public schools weren't created to be a benign benefit for the masses. They were created to create workers for the increasingly industrialized country. Teaching obedience and conformity to society is more important than teaching how to read or write. If you have any doubt take a look at all the athletes who get moved up through the school system despite never learning to read or write beyond a first or second grade level.
When the point of the school system is to create obedient workers, anyone who is disruptive and failing to
And don't underestimate the popularity games. A lot of teachers go into it not for the love of teaching or a desire to educate the next generation, but so they can stay in High School longer. They want to stay one of the "popular kids" and still love beating up on the nerds and geeks. The only difference is now they can do it with detentions and expulsions in addition to verbal abuse.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Is Carl Buck according to the news story. If he loses the expulsion hearing, perhaps Buck would take some Slash-bucks contributions to sue the school district over First Ammendment issues. http://www.rcklawfirm.com/ is where he practices. Email Carl cbuck@rcklawfirm.com
If you think this is bad, you should check out this.
LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. - High school students are going to be held accountable for what they post on blogs and on social-networking Web sites such as MySpace.com.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Once again, we take a legitimate concern like bullying, and overreact such that anyone who feels the slightest bit offended by something someone else does screams "I'm being bullied!" Bullying is a real problem. To shout "Bully!" when someone in a position of authority exercises that authority, however, diminishes the real cases of bullying.
This kid made very public, albeit veiled threats of violence against the school administration simply because he "felt bullied." The threats were so veiled, I'm not really sure they cross the line. However, the administration has a responsibility to provide a safe environment for the staff and student body in order to facilitate the primary mission, which is to advance student learning. They must, in many cases, use their best judgment in discerning what constitutes a threat of violence against the staff and/or student body.
The principal knows this kid, and his history. We, the random readers of Slashdot, do not. The principal is in the thick of this situation, whereas all we know is what one reporter has written about it. The principal is charged with the responsibility of protecting the school. We are not.
If this kid took it further, and actually did something to which he had been alluding, the argument would now be that the administration is inept for not taking action when he had clearly made threats. To prevent action simply based on the notion that the principal is "bullying" the kid is grotesque.
Give the principal the slack his position deserves.
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
"Not only are we teaching our students math, science, literature, and music, but we're also giving them experience with them the American legal system by inducing them to sue the F%$# out of us."
Teaching students Math, Science, Literature, and Music? At a public school?
That's crazy talk, man!
Yeah, I'm sure everyone in the field of education is like that, based on your one experience.
This boy is being a distraction to other students. He has already been warned that he needs to stop with this comments. The boy continue to post comments on this web site. Word starts spreading, kids begin reading more and more, and you have a potential uproar. The overall student population isn't knowledgable to know why the school does some of the things they do. They don't understand the politics and economics of some of the schools decisions. Sometimes the schools have to make decisions based on not what they want to do, but what they have to do, given by fiscal means or by pressure from city, state, government, or even other parents. This kid can not be allowed to distract other students and deprive them of their right to education. Nevermind the right to free speech, but how about the right to education. What does a teacher do when a child is being a constant distraction, you take him out of class. What do you do when he is being a distraction to the entire school .... ? Freedom of speech has its boundaries. You cross the boundaries when you begin to deprive other people of their rights.
Now again I didn't say I agree with the school, but I will defend their side since most won't. So here is an open challenge. I challenge anyone who wants to side with the boy, but has to do so in an intellectual way, and not just -- "hehe, your stupid, your wrong."
Police enforce criminal law.
Only when they choose to. The police are very selective about who they press charges against when the criminal code is violated.
Criminal law is used to put down those with political views or agendas that upset the apple cart of capitalist exploitation.
If you have enough money and the right political views you will not be charged. I have personally observed countless cases of this.
Justice is a sham.
(Spoooky, the captcha I got for this post was "expelled"!)
Capitalism is the devil, but not without a Republic. Where is democracy? Where has it gone? This gives me more and more reason to get out of the States to live and work overseas. This time it may be permanent.
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no
...from which one can be expelled for any number of "bad" things done outside of school grounds and hours, all on the basis of being a bad influence to others. Case in point: group of seniors at the home of one of the group, drinking beer, parent present. Word got back to the school. Group suspended, then expelled - no questions asked.
I know - not the same thing, being a private school. But, it was a high school, and the school did have indirect control of actions outside of school.
--
I promise to be different...
I promise to be different...
The deputy chief of police of Joliet said there wasn't a threat. The school was asked "If you thought there was a threat, did you call the police or FBI?". The school said they didn't contact FBI or Police. How threatened did the school admins really feel? apparently not much. Comparing your current situation to a past situation where something really bad happened is not threatening. It's a comparison.
Regardless of the kid's history, the school has *no*frickin*authority* to control the behavior of kids outside of school. NONE WHATEVER, even if the kids are talking about school or using school books to do homework, or whatever.
No level of government, from school teachers to the US president, has the authority to dictate to anyone what they put on their own website outside of school.
And yes, this constitutes governmental bullying of someone with a dissenting opinion.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Actually, I would say none of those activities are grounds for expulsion. Lawsuits, maybe, by the math teacher, but not expulsion.
What's next? Kid cuts in front of their english teacher in the grocery store line and that teacher gets them expelled for it?
Schools should only have jurisdiction over students when on their grounds or in their care, such as at school functions off-campus. Otherwise, it's not their problem nor their business.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I'll surely catch some flames for this, but here goes..
Free speech <> stupid speech.
Just because you have a right to free speech in the U.S. doesn't necessarily mean you need to exercise that right without thinking about what you are freely sharing with the world (for all time) on your blog. This issue is less about civil liberties and more about using common sense.
The school system is being made out to be a "bad guy" for punishing these kids for something they've done outside of school. Sure it's stupid and the system is probably going to back down at some point. These kids have as much right to post blogs like this one as any other socially unpopular topics.
What's missing is the parents or the school system providing guidance instead of dishing out ridiculous penalties. Such as how impressed future prospective employers will find your pot smoking/underage drinking/naked pictures when they use your name in a search engine during a routine background check. Or, what are you gaining by posting this on your internet blog versus using some other method to make a point? Better yet, what are the potential consequences?
IMO this here is as dumb as the kids that videotape themselves while vandalizing property or performing some other illegal act then get convicted or punished when the tape becomes evidence.
Now kids decorate their myspace pages with 420 and pot leaves all over them, incriminating photos and words. Sort of reminds me of kids 10 years ago (and still occuring today) filming their crimes and vandalism. Go ahead, hand over every deep dark secret to your local police department and future employers. Let them use the WayBackMachine to see who you really were before graduating. Good luck on that job interview.
In fact, on such case was decided right here in Des Moines, Iowa, my home town.
The Case was "TINKER v. DES MOINES SCHOOL DIST., 393 U.S. 503 (1969)" http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=393&invol=503
Let me quote a little of the decision:
Looks to me as if the school board in this case should apologize immediately. Maybe they can avoid the law suit I see on the horizon.
For those of you too young to remember, or too lazy to read the case notes: A couple of High School students wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school suspended them. They sued. They took it to the Supreme Court which said it WAS a Free Speech Issue. The school lost, the kids won.
Maybe the school board needs a refresher course in American History?
You know, thinking about this, all this monitoring outside school time of students has to cost money. Maybe that's why our students are underserved? Maybe a law needs to be written taht school personel can only pay attention to students @ school and school functions, outside of that they don't get paid. Maybe cutting their funds 5 to 10% would get the message across? My bank account would certainly like that.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This kid deserves 40 to life in WWW maximum security.
All the elements of bad design used to present unreadable text. WTF are they teaching kids these days?
This poor kid has been denied one of the most basic rights, one that should be freely afforded every American! "The right to have a decent English teacher shall not be infringed." All of his previous ones have been dismal failures and should be fired immediately...
Oh yeah, he should have free speech too...
Otsde of skool evry1 shood hve teh rite 2 speek hw thy wnt...
DAMN THE MAN! SAVE THE EMPIRE!
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Has anyone considered that the school may WANT to fail? This would establish a precidence which would make it more difficult for ANY school to punish for blog posts. It will also undoubtedly bring more public attention to free speech issues. Perhaps this is the true intention of the administrators taking this action. Of course, they could just be overcontrolling.
How is this a solution? If anything, private schools are more extreme in matters like this.
The public school system is used to maintain social control, not educate.
My experience with school, is that it is child storage, not a learning facility. In fact, I didn't learn much after 6th grade -- some things I learned were so wrong that I would ask my teachers about it (blood cells cut themselves open on the jagged edges of broken bloodvessles to start clotting), they would say that this is what they teach, and this is what I have to learn. I found about half of my education to be wasted time.
I also found school administration geared towards the mechanized stamping-out of completed students, rather than the the whole learning process. I found that my interests and creativity were definately not helpful in my scholastic career. In fact, after learning to program in Applesoft BASIC (from a school shrink!), I started to do more and tought myself. In high school, after voicing my interests in programming to my various teachers -- they then put me in learning-disabled classes, and disallowed me to take any programming classes.
I think I learned more from my parents, and from watching Star Trek than I did in some of the years of schooling. Of course, that was about 15 years ago since I was last in high school -- I've moved well on from there. The teachers I didn't learn much from are still in the same slot.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
/* Yeah, but in the next sentence he explicity states that he is in no way threatening any kind of harm. From what I can understand, this post was in retaliation to the administration coming down on him and his family for posts prior to this one.*/
Yeah... so some guy runs into my back bumper. I tell him "The last time someone ran into my bumper and didn't have insurance, he ended up dead... Not that I'm threatening to kill you and bury in the desert. No, I'm not planning on slicing you open like a gutted fish, so don't worry. I'm just letting you know." Now what should a listener infer from that? It seems like a threat, even when I explicity tell the guy that it's not.
By making the reference to the kids at Columbine, he made the veiled threat. Even when he qualified it after the reference, it could still be construed as a threat... eg "Columbine was a result of people being bullied... Not that I'll do the same thing, but keep in mind that *Columbine was the result of being bullied*."
He was in the wrong, and he should at least accept that part of it. Besides, if anything happened after that, the school would be in a much worse position than if they did nothing. The school is just in a bad, bad position now.
blah... This sounded much more clear when I was thinking it... need more coffee...
A Haiku: my language choices/assembler pascal lisp c/old school programmer
Ah, yes, the public miseducation system in action. The government feels it should control your every action, whether or not you're actually in their clutches at the time of the "misdeed". I have yet to have anyone explain to me to my satisfaction where in the Constitution that it is explicitly said that the government is responsible for education.
All the student did was say that he was being bullied and they're going to expel him - well, looks like someone's covering something up. Typical government reaction.
Public school - the best our nation can offer.
I hope this kid and his parents sue the pants off the school district and name names. I bet the NEA is gonna go beserk about this one.
Your email has been returned due to insufficent voltage.
Second, many seem to think what was posted was not a threat. Consider the following:
That is the standard protection racket shakedown. No direct threat, barely an implied threat.
This sounds to me like the same strong arm tactics used by gangsters for decades. Mention an act of violence and then mention the similarities between the motives for that act of violence and how one feels at this time.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
From the submission: ThPhox writes "A student in the Plainfield School District in New Jersey [...]"
ThPhox apparently didn't bother to read the article and notice that it's Plainfield, Illinois, not New Jersey.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx
Is there anything wrong with a teacher or principal blogging on their own time about a specific student who he suspects is a cheater, a homosexual, and an all around bad choice for adminssion to a university?
http://www.plainfieldnjk12.org/Board/Members.htm
I think I'm going to tell the school board exactly what I think of their actions. Most of their email addresses are posted here.
I think your example is a little flawed. Invoking the Columbine name was probably the dumbest thing he did, but I infer that he was frustrated at the system, and pointing out how the system had failed so badly before. I don't think it was a threat, it was making a very bad point. :-)
I went to a private school for a year, and there was ZERO privacy. There were drug tests, they monitored our activities outside of school, and from speaking with students from other schools it was a widespread phenomenon.
Workplaces have been doing this as well, even going so far as to fire employees over their web presence, off-work activities, political and religious beliefs.
Private industry has no credibility in protecting our privacy. Why can't we fight against invasion of privacy and erosion of rights without getting sidetracked by a misguided privatization push?
Man, you really need that seminar!
Uh, or it could be the kids clear concern thant the schools actions will drive someone less stable than he is into a shooting rampage. I think he's voicing his legitimate concern that the actions of the administration may cause some unstable individual to start shooting people and that he and his friends could get caught in the crossfire.
I mean, if I see someone poking an alligator with a stick and tell them, "Hey man, you keep doing that and you're gonna lose an arm." am I threatening to rip the guys arm off?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The fact that the article is on the Chicago Sun-Times website should have been the first clue. A little research into the Joliet, IL police department backed up my suspicions. This story is actually happening in Illinois, not New Jersey.
Amen brother, amen.
This is just a case of us losing our rights yet again. RIAA, the government, school districts...everyone wants us to give up our constitutional rights for their benefit. I thought the constitution was written to protect the PEOPLE. they are going to push and push until someone pushes back. I hope this kid wins and forces the school district into a multimillion dollar settlement (i know that won't ever happen). You didn't have cases like this years ago because if someone complained about the school, who did they tell? a dozen people maybe a little more. but now with websites, his comments can be read by thousands of people and the school wants to stop it. Well it's not right and if the school doesn't back down, then hopefully the courts make the right ruling in favor of the kid.
His spit is worth more than her work
Pass the purse to the pugilists
He's a prizefighter
And he bought rings and he owns kin
And now he's swingin'
And now he's the champion
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver
A spotless domain
Hides festering hopes she's certain there's more
Pictures of fields without fences
A spotless domain
Hides festering hopes she's certain there's more
Pictures of fields without fences
Her body numbs as he approaches the door
As he approaches the door
As he approaches the door
As he approaches the door
As he approaches
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Yeah!
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Hey revolver, don't mothers make good fathers?
Revolver!
Revolver!
Revolver!
Revolver!
Revolver
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
The positions of school administration (especially in New Jersey) is political. This sounds more like the principal is worried about his job and felt threatened by the posts rather than worried about the school or students. What if some people read it and think he's doing a bad job?
Seems some schools are all to quick to just expel someone. My own school, I was expelled 2nd semester of my senior year.. for missing 5 whole days of school.. I was kicked out of my house and had to live at a friends across town. I called in and said i would not be in for a week, and spent the following week looking for an apartment and found one right next to school. When I returned, I was handed a slip saying I was expelled. When I asked for a reason I was given non. The more I thought about it the more angry I became so went back and confronted the principle. He then stated I 'dropped out'. When I asked him to show me something saying I had said I was dropping out, he refused to show me anything. This is the same principle that use to call me into his office every other week and insist I was skipping class. (when I wasn't). Actually being so arrogant as to say he didn't even need to look at the attendance records because he simply 'knew' I wasn't really going to class. (huh?) Why did all this happen? I later found it was because he got word I called him an arrogant ass for insisting he be titled "Dr." when he wasn't a doctor of anything at all, and posted it on a bbs forum at the time (outside of school).
I think Plainfield and Joliet are south of Chicago not in New Jersey.
Don't screw up, don't throw up.
Where in the world did the submitter get New Jersey from? The article is in the Chicago Sun-Times (which doesn't in and of itself mean anything). However, the Plainfield in question is in Illinois, near Joliet (mentioned in the article). New Jersey is not mentioned in the article at all.
I went to high school in the early 90's in Canada and me and and my punk friends ran a 'zine' called C.U.M. in which we openly criticized the staff and fellow students in inflammatory terms and described techniques in vandalism. We ran a campaign for student government and put posters up around the school saying shit like "**** says: Solve the parking problem, burn more cars." and a picture of the dudes face. And all our weird-ass friends with mohawks actually got voted in, lol. We stole all the doorstops in the school and put up posters advertising 'doopstop mania' and one day set up tables and arranged all the doorstops artistically. My friend put on a dress and handcuffed himself to the principal's desk. I don't think anyone getting expelled was even ever in question. I mean I think people got fed up with the shameless cries for attention, but that's really what it was. It was satire and it was fun. If there was any disciplinary action for being a little weird and outspoken, it probably would have started a shit storm that wouldn't have been worth it.
Remember, you live in a free country, you can do what you want as long as you're not hurting someone. Time to start stick up for yourself. I wouldn't be scared to.
This is where the extreme liberal and extreme skin heads meet. Liberals want communism and equal sharing of wealth, reguardless of person's value. Skin heads think it is a conspiracy, the jews, blacks etc are to blame for them being held down. Reality: Work hard, study, don't have kids until married. 15% chance of poverty. Have kids drop out 90% chance of poverty for whole life. Public schools warehouse kids for the most part. If you want to get better treatment, join the PTA. Volunteer. Public schools CAN teach better than private. They have the funds, they spend them on the few thoroughly engaged students. They give slack to the popular students. They give slack to the atheletes. They want peace and quiet from the rest.
3. It's popular to hate schools and teachers here on slashdot
I had exactly three good teachers in public school (1958-1970). THREE. Fortunately, one of them was my first grade teacher, by the 2nd grade I was reading at a 6th grade level, and didn't learn a single thing afterwards, as I'd already read it.
I had at least a half dozen teachers, mostly in Jr high and high school, who were complete and total brainless morons (and I'm being nice here). One high school teacher (I was only a freshmen) gave me an A on a paper because he couldn't understand half the vocabulary. Another flunked a paper because she thought I made up the word "heirarchy."
Things didn't change a bit when my kids reached school, either. My oldest daughter's IQ is 130, and she always loved learning. She loved school until Jr. High, when she ran across the racism (from a black assistant principal) and sexism (from the same asshat) and general bullshit.
She had been an honor roll student all her life. By her senior year she dropped out! Fortunately, I and her fiancee convinced her to finish, she graduates from adult ed next week.
Educators keep bemoaning in letters to editors that "parents won't get involved in their kids' education." BULLSHIT!!!!! They don'y want the parents involved in anything but fund raising. Every fall I would go to open house, talk to the teachers, let them know what I as a parent expected. Never once were my wishes respected in any matter whatever, even when I asked that the teacher make sure I knew when one of my kids were doing poorly!
The problem with the public education system is that it's full of witless, stupid, incompetent people with low IQs who don't have the vocabulary to read a 14 year old's paper, who don't have the intelligence to out think a child, who are yet so arrogant (I've noticed arrogance goes hand in hand with stupidity and incompetence, see "Bush" or "Brownie") that they refuse to listen to the adult who knows the student best.
We have incredibly stupid and incompetent people teaching our kids because we as a nation don't value learning. If we paid teachers better, we would attract better teachers. If we paid less in administrative costs, we could afford better teachers.
If we outlawed private school, you'd one HELL of an improvement in public schools, because the folks with money and clout would demand it.
But the reason slashdotters hate public school teachers is because generally, nerds hate morons. As you work for the school district in a geek capacity, you must be well aware of what slackjawed idiots you work with.
This Plainfield School District is in Illinois
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
And, of course, I spell New Jersey wrong...
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
It would be interesting to see if that changes if a national voucher system is ever put into play, and the federal money starts pouring in.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
I read this and it got me thinking
"You can not treat the people that run the schools as professionals because they typically are not. They shoot from the hip and make broad assumptions in order to make it a very easy day for them."
That's a dangerous thing to do. If I were in charge of someone's education, as say a parent or teacher, I agree that making broad assumptions are a very bad idea.
"Teachers typically do not give a rats ass about teaching and the administrators simply get "annoyed" when something is brought up to them for attention."
"Public schools in America = lowest quality education you can possibly get for your child."
And yet, right after hammering them, you do exactly the same thing. Have you taught your daughter what hypocrisy is, other than by modeling it?
here's a copy of the email I have sent to the district, unfortunately I didnt have Dr. Harper's direct email:
To Dr. Harper and whom it may concern:
Given the current state of affairs in our country today, it is sad to see another example of government snooping and meddling in the personal lives of citizens. Now I will admit, I do not have all the facts when it comes to the matter of the student in question, but given the fact that there is no criminal investigation, it is somewhat concerning. Your post on the subject is equally concerning. " The district respects the First Amendment rights of our students, but not all words can be categorized as protected speech." Who makes this call? Who are you, Dr. Harper and Co., to determine what is and what is not free speech? And the otherwise vague excuse "Students can be disciplined for online postings if the message creates a disruption to the school environment" does nothing to clarify what constitutes an offense. And how is it a disruption? If this was a flyer passed out during school, perhaps it would be disrupting. If it was a threat, that would be disrupting. But this was a post on a public forum, created during non-school hours on non-school property (since apparently most of the social websites are blocked on school system computers). I, like many modern Americans, would care to know where your jurisdiction is in this case? And if the post resides on a computer halfway around the world, it becomes more difficult to support your posistion. If someone had not brought your attention to this specific case it would have gone unnoticed and unheeded, just like the other millions of blogs and email exchanged by young people across the world daily. What message are we sending to them? That the government is watching them? But I guess we can't avoid that reality these days. But I ask if we really want to continue down this road, because where it might lead could be far worse than any "disruption" or harm that the original offense could ever muster.
Sincerely, A Concerned American
Did you know that you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186626&cid =15402017
I admit I didn't RTFA, but I'm wondering if we're only getting one side of the story here.
The student says he was bullied by the faculty. Now I realize some teachers have a power trip, but usually there is something that triggers it in the first place. What did this kid do, or write on his website, that got him targeted initially?
He already admits to drinking excessively, doing drugs, and who knows what else. If a staff member saw that, I would *hope* that they would try to intervene through counciling and corrective discipline. He may very well percieve that as "bullying" or "blocking his free speech".
It sounds to me like he is just trying to retailiate or call more attention to himself, or get people to feel sorry for him and his underage alcoholism.
-David
...or more specifically "face maintenance." Woo hoo, AOD120 at work!
Heybiff
Even the Sun goes down.
How exactly did the school find out about the blog?
are they monitoring the activities of their students inside and outside
of school grounds?
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Except that the desire to retain funds that can easily be removed in a private system provides protection against first amendments rights far more effectively than the federal government does. Or, put another way, if Best Buy is violating your privacy rights, you don't need to get a federal subpoena to get it to stop. You simply purchase stuff somewhere else.
If education were purchased instead of supplied by the government, education would work this way, too.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
> Well, he did admit to drinking and he did ask to be suspended.
He also said that Miller Light was delicious ?!!
Not sure how this illness is called, but it damn sure has to be a brain disease.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
BEGIN RANT:
I am SO FUCKING SICK AND TIRED of seeing schools try to control the behaviour of students outside of school or school functions.
When are these idiots going to realize they are there to EDUCATE children, not to control their lives 24/7/365?
What a bunch of idiots!
Worse, we taxpayers PAY THESE IDIOTS to be this stupid.
Geez...
END RANT
Isn't it ironic that a song entitled "Isn't it Ironic" contains no irony? But that makes it ironic, which means it does contain irony. Which means that it isn't ironic...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Don't you hate people who look back on high school as "the best years of their lives?" They are either forgetting what it was like, or they were the bastards who made life miserable for the rest of us. I'm never going to tell my kids to cherish those years. Tough it out and get through them, because it gets better, that's what I'll tell them. Even with some of the rough shit I've been through as an adult, pretty much everything after high school was better.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Probably typed this with her thumbs...on her cell (sigh).
Man, the future looks bleak.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
There is a right to receive information. In the Pico case
As a parent, a tax payer, and a voter I want to know what is happening at school. If I am unhappy about the tales that my child is bringing home from school, I would naturally ask other parents what their children are saying about what is happening at school.
In the internet age I can also look at what other children are saying in their blogs. I know what I expect to see: age-appropriate humor, whining, angst, bad poetry, etc. As an adult I know how to read between the lines of what children are writing. If the children are complaining that the teachers make them learn things, that is good. If the children are complaining that the teachers are strict and punishing them for larking about when they are supposed to be studying that is good too.
Conversely, if the children are complaining that they are bored because the lessons are too easy, that is bad. If the children are complaining that bullying is on the increase because the teachers are not strict enough that is bad too. I expect something to be done. Obviously I do not mean that the school should suppress the children's blogs in order to conceal the problem from me.
As a parent, a tax payer, and a voter, it is unacceptably for government employees to be suppressing information that is useful to be me in assessing how good a job they are doing, and the constitution forbids them from doing so.
It was Plainfield Illinois not New Jersy. The kid mentioned Columbine a hot button for ALL school administrators. In this "Zero Tolerance" age we live in they are bound to do stupid things and over react. When did we go from a society of tolerance to a over zealous mono culture. These people need to read the Constitution, especially the "Bill of Rights"
Said student shall learn now that posting crap on a blog is bad. So now when he gets a job, he'll not make teh same mistake twice.
Plainfield, Illinois not Plainfield, New Jersey. Not that it changes much...
Saw your story on Slashdot. I've looked up the school district and called them. Left a message for their public relations director, I'm not surprised she did not answer, I suppose many of us on Slashdot are doing the same thing.
I, and many others, are prepared to donate to your legal costs when you sue over the expulsion. I've told the district as much. I *politely* asked them to consider dropping the expulsion so as to avert a very well funded legal battle over it. Your first ammendment rights shall stand.
I applaud your sticking up for yourself. One by one, schools across America are waking up to the harsh reality that they are open to scrutiny, and that trying to silence it will only cost them financially. Hopefully enough to disuade schools from pulling this stunt again. If a school or two had to close, or teachers had to be laid off, to pay for your the damages you are awarded by a court, that will send a strong message. Go for millions, kid.
*Brandon Darbro
This sig intentionally left blank.
... with the American legal system, here is what I wrote as a comment on his blog entry:
Write the decision maker(s) a little love letter. Not a blog post... not an email... a real letter with an address and signature. Carbon copy the administrators, pertinent teachers, the school board, the PTA, your attorney, your parents, the newspaper, etc. etc. You must write, sign, and send this letter (via U.S. Postal Mail) after school hours to ensure the "action" stays "out of school." Here's a little text to get you started:
[your name/address]
[their name(s)/address(es)]
Dear Sir/Madam, (or "Ladies and Gentlemen" if there's more than one)
Thank you for your attention regarding my after-school blog posts on my website at http://www.xanga.com/Heckler3672bro/. I hope this letter sheds some light on the current situation regarding my recent activities on my website. The incident is now internationally known thanks to the power of the Internet. Words of support and suggestions of legal action are pouring in from around the globe on well-known websites like http://digg.com/ and http://slashdot.org/. Several individuals recently brought some very enlightening facts to my attention. Specifically, they were quick to point out that your idle threats of expulsion are baseless. Your feeble attempts to control my extra-curricular behavior are not only illegal from a civil law standpoint, but I have been instructed to investigate filing criminal charges against you for your ridiculous attempts to infringe upon my rights. As it turns out, I could wait until the school day is finished and stand across the street from the school with a big sign reading "I think principal [INSERT PRINCIPAL'S LAST NAME HERE] is a homo", and the principal's only recourse would be to paint a sign saying "I'm not a homo" and stand next to me. Any attempts to quell such activities would be in violation of my right to free speech.
Luckily, this same protection of speech currently applies to the Internet as well. The website in question is my personal site, so I will post whatever I feel like saying. If I want to call the school system "bullies", I will. If I feel like one or more of my teachers or school administrators are acting in a manner unbecoming a professional educator in the employ of the public school system, I will gladly bring this topic to the public eye. Consider me the "National Enquirer" investigative reporter of the school. Regardless of how well I research and write my articles or posts, it doesn't change the fact that this method of expression is completely protected by my rights as a citizen of the United States. This is, of course, provided I do not post during school hours or from a school computer (which I do not).
Since this situation has, until now, been controlled by you or your duly appointed representatives, I am writing to let you know that you are no longer the bully and thus no longer in control. From this point forward, I will be bullying you at a matter and time convenient to me. I will be controlling the situation from this point forward. Hopefully this will allow you more time to concentrate on what it is you're supposed to be doing at the school which is educating your students (as opposed to threatening them). I, after much deliberation and consideration, decided that I will not rest until I destroy the career and livelihood of every culprit involved in this atrocious attack upon my personal freedoms. Your actions will not go unpunished. I intend to seek competent legal counsel and instruct them to fight on my behalf until you, your family (or families), and the school system as a whole are financially destroyed and unable to support themselves. This letter is not a threat. It is simply a notice of what is to come in hopes that it will allow you ample time to prepare yourself and your conscience for the humbling you are about to receive. Please don't feel like any acti
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
My reading is that the Columbine post was posted AFTER the school threatened expulsion, though the article is very unclear.
Indeed, the article is unclear. The post which makes the Columbine remark is the reason for the expulsion, and it is in fact the case that they misread him as making a threat. This isn't about censorship. This is because they think he's going to bring a gun.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
A threat must be direct and immediate for it to fall outside of first amendment restrictions. His "threats" are vague, indirect, and unlikely to result in any real consequences.
This is both the smartest thing I've read in this discussion so far, and frustratingly short of view. You're 90% of the way there.
The court is expected to make narrow readings of the law in this fashion. The school is not expected to have this skill, and has a priority on the safety of its students. Other than that this is blatantly obviously just bad writing, the school is essentially in the right to act.
The problem is that their act is far over what it should be. The school's appropriate action would be to consult a psychologist to determine how real the threat is. (Mind you, that's what the court will do too.) Once the psychologist the school has hired has answered, if the answer is greater than or equal to maybe, the school should expel (and no sooner.)
Then, the court acts. The court gets several psychologists of high caliber, some attorneys in each direction, and a judge who's been to school on the law for about a bujillion years together. His job is to say if the answer is less than or equal to maybe, then the kid's okay.
See, the court and the school have to act differently on a maybe. Granted, the school acted prematurely; they did not seek a qualified maybe, and that was their fundamental error. If a psychologist had been involved, the answer would have been a clear "no," and the school would more likely have sent him to the school counsellor instead of gym one day to find out what's going on about the bullying.
Let me be perfectly clear about this: the error that the school made was not to act. The error that the school made was that they failed to involve an expert in determining the legitimacy of the threat.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Unfortunately, this type of scenario is becoming common in more areas of 'adulthood.' Many employers reserve the right to fire you if you so much as light a cig- even if it is off the clock, at home, in the closet, under a friggin' blanket.
A guy who has a security clearance (meaning he has passed at least 5 years worth of background investigations) can potentially have his clearance revoked if he -ever- gets a ticket speeding 20 over- thereby barring him from being able to work in the industry again, since it's on record that a clearance was revoked.
Seems like people are free to say and do what they like, but the flipside is that someone else has the freedom to ruin them for it.
if what you are saying is factually correct it is much, much harder for someone to press a defamation case.
sum.zero
The exception being when you are setting out to get publicly caught and prosecuted, and willing to accept the punishment that results as a form of protest against the misuse of authority. Cf Civil Disobedience, by Henry Thoreau. At that point, you want to operate in "a manner open, notorious, hostile and continuous" as much as possible.
There are usually alternative methods of protest more effective in most circumstances. Civil disobedience should not be the first resort of any thinking citizen. However, sometimes there's no other tune to call... so be willing to pay the piper.
As suggested by others, complaining about selected sites being blocked by the firewall might be more effective. If you insist on a cgi proxy server as civil disobedience, perhaps have one that only serves pages from sites you have approved of... and be willing to back those choices as essential free speech before the school board. (I wouldn't recommend Playboy.com, for starters.)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I don't what it is he said on the blog you linked to, but for some inexplicable reason I now have the urge to listen to some Metallica...
It looks like Chicago area to me. Get your facts straight.
Plainfield will never win in court. The kid did not state the school's name, and did not post it using school computers or during school hours. And they obviously did not feel it was a "threat" because as the kid's mother points out, they did not call either the Joliet police or the FBI. That makes it obvious they are simply trying to censor him.
Sure, I think we're all agreeing that the kid had the right to say anything outside school. However, he made the mistake of making public his negative view of the school without attempting to settle in school (or so I believe).
When I found myself on the wrong side of abusive school personel it took a few meetings in order to clear things up. What I hoped for was an end to the problems and the payment of the contract which had been broken by the school. Because I went to the school BEFORE the media (print, broadcast, or otherwise) I got six times the financial compensation, stopped the problems dead in their tracks, and avoided any and all legal fees. Now, I don't know how well that always works, but at the very least it's worth the minimal time expended to try.
-Tim Louden
....The kid says he feels bullied, and later he says Columbine happened because kids felt bullied.... The school's wrong because it thinks what this kid did was to threaten to come into school and shoot the place up.....And frankly, the kid earned it by writing what he did. Alluding to Columbine is just goddamned stupid.
Did he? Let's review Columbine for a moment.
Two students began shooting inside Columbine High School yes. But look at the bodies. One teacher and twelve students died. It's clear from this and other incidents that it is students, not teachers, who are in the most danger from high school shooting.
So was this a threat? Or a statement of personal safety concerns? Notice in the preceeding sentances the writer consistently refers to the community at large, others, not himself. He mentions a backlash, but in no way suggests that he himself will be involved. Is he angry, or afraid?
For example, if these same words had been written by a disgruntled parent, and not a student, what would you infer from their meaning? That the parent was going to start a shooting, or was concerned about one?
May the Maths Be with you!
Here's the email chain Starting off with my letter to a school board member that replied.
3 10255&from=rss
To:Logan-Leach, Lisa C.
Wow a reply. I didn't expect that kind of personal service from a FlameMail.
I'll educate you a little on the Internet, while I have your attention.
First of all your school system needs a better profanity filter if my original email even got through. Your system admin's throw away box should be getting stacked with emails like the last one by other "free speech advocates", because lets face it free speech advocates love the Internet and free speech advocates love to cuss. It should be obvious by now that your attack on one child's free speech elicited a backlash from an entire online community.
By taking away the right of a child to have a public education like his peers because of something he wrote in his blog, you threatened anyone who's ever made an Internet post or blogged a blog. So you really have to ask yourself, why in fact you are being an ass sucking fascist weenie. You have to realize that this type of language has a time and a place, and that place is on the part of the Internet that is restricted from your school system's network. I and anyone else in this country has the right to say whatever we want about any elected official, politician or government office. In fact it's the first law on the books.
I'm sorry if you don't like my opinions or how I express them, but that's cool because I don't like you either. I'll start liking you again if you find the person who suspended the kid and have him issue a public apology. He should probably have to take a class on digital rights and online sensitivity if he is going to keep his job. Either way someone needs to issue an apology. You should also work with the victim's family to have him re-instated in public school and do anything possible to insure that him or his family doesn't suffer any negative financial repercussions from the actions of a lone rouge administrator that didn't interpret school policy in accordance with the law.
On 5/25/06, Logan-Leach, Lisa C. wrote:
What is the point of using this sort of language in an email?
-----Original Message-----
From: TittyMcNippleFuck
To: Cathcart, Lenny ; Brown, Tracey ; Cox, Martin ; Campbell, Wilma ; Logan-Leach, Lisa C.
Sent: Thu May 25 11:18:20 2006
Subject: Re: Letter to the School Board
Oh yeah and fuck you, you ass sucking facist weenies.
On 5/25/06, TittyMcNippleFuck wrote:
So I recently read about the harassment and intimidation of one of your pupils by your school system.
You can find the article here http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/25/0
I must say I am a bit perturbed by the fact that your school system under the guise of education, proceeded to punish a student for posts made on an internet site that has nothing to do with you, or your school system.
It's a ridiculous trampling of first amendment rights. What were you guys thinking. I think it's safe to say that you weren't.
I hate to see state coffers emptied in a frivolous lawsuit, but if you entend to presue this....DUH!!!! that's exactly what will happen. It's 1st amendment people!
I just wanted to let you know that you can quit attempting to control the internet, go that route and the internet will controll you!
I just wanted to let you know that I posted ALL of your email addresses on a technolgy legal forum that gets thousands of visitors a day I hope the rest of the internet gives you a piece of their mind as well.
Have a good day and good luck paying your teachers next year....you'll need it.
In what way does a post on a website that probably can't be visited on school property disrupt classroom activity?
Or, as my daddy used to say, "If there was a pile of shit in the middle of the road, would you walk over and sniff it?"
No, that is a threat; your implication is clearly threatening. However, it is a bad parallel to the case at hand.
A closer one would be: some guy runs into your my back bumper. He starts screaming and ranting and raving about how you cut him off, yadda yadda yadda. You stay cool, try to calm him down; and you tell him "Look, buddy, you have to be careful how you react to these situations; letting tempers flare up after a fender-bender is dangerous. A few years ago across town, there was a similar accidient, the drivers argued, and somebody got shot. So let's just be cool about this, huh?"
No. He brought it to the school's attention that 1) students felt bullied, and 2) students feeling bullied can lead to Columbine-like situations. This is a concerned warning (though perhaps less that articulately expressed), not a threat.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I get so tired of children complaining that they say something then have to pay the piper. Freedom of Speech doesn't guarantee that you don't have any responsibility for your own actions. If you need any proof, I suggest you look into the libel/slander laws of this country.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
What advantage is there to not letting public schools have the same disciplinary standards as private schools? If you ask me, the kids from poor families who go to state-funded schools are the most disorderly and ill-behaved, and therefore need HARSHED discipline, not less.
The world's gone mad.
Did you know that teacher have to take oaths to swear to uphold the US and the president? I found out about that not too long about, by happenstance when I saw one form laying around somewhere.
Seeing that form gelled why two teachers in early 2002 cringed when I told them that if **III*** were a teacher I'd tell MY students you don't support any idiot in a position and you don't support a position for an idiot. You don't invade countries and NOT expect "blowback" or bad karma.... These teachers were immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. THEY SHUDDERED, as if I were as spy testing their "loyalty".
So, I can see how a school, somewhere (what better place than starting in "Old America"(east coast, that is) for trial results...) and just "unleash" the education system on unsuspecting or pliant parents.
Now, this is (or may be) the price non-vocal teachers, lazy parents, and a complacent country pay. It will be VERY interesting to see the 20-30 yo immigrants compare the USA of today to the lands their parents supposedly fled. Well, assuming this country is hell-bent on becoming a police state.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Seriously, sue them. Violation of rights to education, free speech, intimidation.
From my experience in US public schools, those in authority generally do not care about anything. They have good unions, so it's hard to fire them. Examples: In 4th grade, I was beaten up on the bus. Repeatedly. This was reported to the principal, who proceeded to interrogate me and dismissed the case because the other person claimed I stepped on his binder. In 5th grade, a lunch monitor claimed that I beat him up after he had declared that "tag" was illegal. In reality, one generally tends to support oneself when someone weighing 3x as much as you is leaning on you, restraining you from "tag." Because of that, I was given a year of detention. Also in 5th grade, I wrote a short essay critizing their math program (COUNT WITH BLOCKS IN 5TH GRADE), and was then given a C in math despite never getting anything below a 95% on tests/assignments.
Public schools don't care about anything, but as soon as you criticize them, your grades mysteriously drop, or in this case, you get suspended for no good reason. There is no reason to initiate disciplinary actions because you are criticized, but those in power will generally attempt to keep their reputations so that they remain in power.
Because heaven forbid a kid should learn how to use a FREAKING POETIC DEVICE.
All those who support this explusion, please report for chemical castration immediately. We don't need your kind here. (And besides, it's in our best interests according to us, so people like you must support it...)
there is no advantage, but parents whine that schools are mean to their kids (taxpayers speak loud) and teachers don't want to do more than the minimum (unions speak louder).
please me, have no regrets.
if that was a private high school, they have every right to do so
I know, after all, you're paying them.
Hey I went to DC in Dearborn. Nice to meet you.
The answer to all your problems
He has been around a while. He has a lot of power, and if you get in his way, he will screw you over.
/. posters, because they were more interested in learning than in fighting. He will probably wind up a washed-up 30 year old who thought he was going to change the world, but finds himself changing sheets at the local Holiday Inn or worse yet, a lawyer.
The point here is that in life, you will always have to take crap from someone. You can't go through life constantly "raging against a moral injustice." Even if we were somehow able to wipe "the system" from the face of the earth, we would only live in paradise for all of two seconds. Until some guy finds a way to control his buddy, and thus a new "the man" would be born.
Sounds to me like this the kind of kid who mouthed off at school, and they threatened to suspend him so he decided to take his speech off campus. The school sees it as a threat to their stability, as one complaining kid can cause a disruption in the education of others. He is purposely challenging the school, as an adolescent who taunts you just out of reach. This kid wants to spend his time in school, not learning, but being some sort of crusader for free speech. Believe it or not, no one is going to learn under a system where every child gets to express themselves. That is what art class is for. When it comes to other classes, you sit there and listen. You can't accomplish anything if people are bucking the system. Express yourself in an orderly fashion, not a disruptive fashion.
This kid needs to build some character and learn when to just keep your mouth shut. Speak up if someone's life is in real danger, but just because you don't like meat for instance, is no reason to cause a riot on sloppy joe day.
Myself, I was a crusader in my younger years. Spent more time fighting the system than anyone. Guess what? No one cares if you somehow win a moral victory over some small school in some small town in some small county out in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't change the world. All his classmates will go on to be doctors,lawyers or
Everyone has to take crap from time to time. Imagine what the world would be like if we all fought against any "injustice" we perceived.
Even when he qualified it after the reference, it could still be construed as a threat... eg "Columbine was a result of people being bullied... Not that I'll do the same thing, but keep in mind that *Columbine was the result of being bullied*."
Can you understand the difference between a threat and a warning? This is like saying "the last time someone ran into my bumper, my car exploded a minute later - you might want to run for cover". The student makes it clear that he is not making a threat, and that instead he's warning the authorities that they have created the same dangerous situation that led to the Columbine shootings.
Of course, the student was wasting his breath. The administration is clearly uninterested in any such warnings. It sounds like the administration is being pretty irrsponsible here. If there were to be a Columbine-style incedent at the school next year, the administration will find that the plantiff's laywers notice that they have ignored public warnings about the danger, always good for a tripling of the damages. Let's just hope the kid is wrong about the danger.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Common sense dictates that they can only sanction you for what you do/say in school. If they feel their image has been affected they can sue you. If they feel threatened they can notify the authorities.
However, they should not be able to unilaterally act as judge and jury of your actions outside the school.
Yes and no. An employer can sanction you for what you say or do outside of your working hours. You have a loyalty duty, by virtue of contract or the law (depending on your local legislation). You can't slur your employer and have the protection of the law. Normally an employer doesn't have to go through court to terminate you for disloyalty (but you can go to court to challenge termination if you feel it is unfair).
However, a school kid cannot enter contracts, so they cannot be held responsible for what they do in breach of a contract (real or implied).
When you post stuff like that, don't post as AC. That was hilarious!
Bookmarked!
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
The "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre" analogy was used to stop the distribution of flyers opposing the draft during World War I. The decision was that the flyers were illegal because they interfered with military operations (illegal under the Espionage Act of 1917).
r owded_theaterc ourt=us&vol=249&invol=47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_c
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?
My other first post is car post.
New Jersey can't take the fall for *this* foolishness. The Plainfield in question here is in Illinois, which is another state altogether. You could look it up...
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn...
Am I the only one who just uttered a long stream of curse words when I read about this. Even if they bribed the judge they couldn't win this case if it goes to court.
Also, does it seem strange they were reading this kids blog anyway? What do they do, google each kids name to make sure they aren't doing anything bad.
Well you great school, your decision was doubleplus good!
I'm sorry, but as a teacher, I have to call you on that last one. I totally agree that teachers' union often do not act in the best interest of the education system, but to say that teacher's don't want to do more than the minimum is as silly as saying that all software developers are happy to release buggy code.
I daresay that few, loud teachers don't want to do more than the minimum. The rest of us are arriving early, leaving late, working weekends, and investing our souls into this
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
A Haiku: my language choices/assembler pascal lisp c/old school programmer
Dude, DELETE this primitive capitalist propaganda crap from your hard drive and find something more plausible that passes basic bullshit test.
> have to pay taxes by the time you're 16
No taxation without representation!
The gradual infantilization of the American public, especially through 13 years of forced labor in the government reeducation camps, has ensured that the individual remains functionally illiterate for years after a man or woman would have been a functional adult at any other time in history. "Look-Say", "New Math" and other atrocities are just the methods for retarding the natural learning processes.
Any rational "teacher" would be overjoyed that his student was writing, and suggest different topics and help the student with his grammar and punctuation on the blog itself. I'm sure you can grasp the concept, it's called "taking an interest in the student".
Just reading the blog is enough to demonstrate the waste of time that the public schools represent. The writer writes as he speaks, and he speaks terribly. My three year old reads at a second grade level. That's not special, that's because the public school grades are designed to make learning as slow and boring as possible.
If you have any interest in improving education in America, the first thing to do is to get your kid(s) out of the clutches of the "public" schools. Then get a book that will teach them to read easily at an "accelerated" rate: http://www.righttrackreading.com/
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
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.
it sad that none realizes dat dem students shud never be pushed into sayin such things n dissin their schools.. and that dem schools should attempt to deal with it through forgiveness and persuasion than retaliation n lawsuits. dis only gonna lead ta kids pullin em triggers..
*brain.... *overload*...*can't process*...*convulsions*
Obligatory Austin Powers joke: "oh crikey... I've gone cross-eyed"
Libertas in infinitum
Apparently, those on the 'left' politically consider Nazism on the 'right', while their opposite numbers say that Socialism/Communism is on the 'left'. Therefore, a political figure perceived to be on the 'right' can be branded a Nazi, or a Hitler, while those on the left have to settle for mere Stalinhood.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
You do have a right to party, it was called "peaceably assemble". Minus the marijuana and underage alcohol though. As much as those should be legal, there's nothing in the Constitution that makes it illegal for states or the feds to ban it.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I wish getting expelled had been this easy when I was in high school 25yrs ago! Back in those days, the only way they'd expel you was if you committed a serious crime on school property.. and I wasn't up for being a criminal.
Now you can get expelled from the comfort of your own home! Cool!
My parents told me it would all get better, but it was cold comfort at the time. I wish Why Nerds are Unpopular had been around at the time; it would have made it all so much more bearable if I had know why it was bad then, and why it wouldn't be that way forever. Wouldn't have been so damned hopeless at the time.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I work at a school south on 55 and We have had issues with students, but the administration (I was not involved) forced them into counseling (which they needed, but not the point) I am sure we would all support a student against these bullies, and have a nice link http://www.learningcommunity202.org/PSHS/0506email .htm I can neither confirm nor deny that you can "go nuts" on these people, but finding the perpetrators on such a list is hampered only by crappy formatting. Remember, if you do not threaten them, you have the right and duty to let them know how you feel without fear of repercussions.
I was a fat kid, and thus I got bullied. I was a smart kid, and thus I got bullied. I was a poor kid who didn't have the 'right' clothes, and thus I got bullied. And as I became more and more bullied, I turned to food to allieviate my growing depression, which just made me fatter and fatter and more and more bullied. I faked being sick to get out of school whenever possible. I never did my homework (why should I when I could get an A on the test without it?) and so I always got poor grades, and learned a poor work ethic that has contributed to my current financial situation, because I was never challenged. What's worse, my fiercely independent parents taught me to respect only authority that deserved respect. Hence the no-doing-homework thing. I was socialized very early on fairly exclusively through intellectual discussions with intelligent adults, and so I found the stultifying lack of stimulation in school to be unacceptable right from the start of middle school. I was never excluded from 'adult' topics as a child, whether it was sex or politics or watching action movies. I learned from the first ten minutes of Alien that I didn't like horror films, and so I didn't watch them if my parents put one on. I was treated as an intellectual adult according solely to the quality of my argument my entire life.
I consider this to be a mixed blessing. Because while I could never bear to submit myself to any authority who did not clearly earn my unmitigated trust and respect, there are many who believe that one should accord respect according to one's given station in life-- a position I would gladly argue against as being patently unamerican. Nonetheless, that belief is rife within our society, and our society will more than happily enforce its unconscionable rules against you without mercy, and with a strange sort of zeal, a lesson I finally learned the first time I was systematically harrassed by the police as an adult. Unfortunately, our government is a highly effective tyranny of oppression, and that reality infects our society at every level, like a sort of malignant tumor.
So, I may have been a weird fat kid, but I also happened to be 6" taller than most of my classmates, and when pushed to the breaking point, I was a spaz. I'd start crying, and with the tears would come pure rage, against which no bully was capable of withstanding. Spazzes get picked on a fair bit, it's true. But honestly, the picking would stop for a while after beating a kid's head off the radiator a dozen times or so, until the bullies would slowly forget the very real consequences of their actions. Fighting back is not always a permanent solution, though. But what is?
As I became larger and stronger and more capable of permanently injuring my tormentors, I began to be called into the principle's office to be punished for my actions. My parents would be called in, and if the principle was unfortunate enough to have my father come, he would receive a vociferous tongue-lashing and I'd walk out shaken but vindicated. If my mother came, despite my claims of self-defense (in that I'd never lose my shit until someone physically assaulted me), it would usually transpire that there would be some sort of compromise where I'd serve a single detention or two and the bully would serve a slightly greater sentence.
Nowadays they expell kids for less. I was in high school in the mid-90s. Ten years later, a enormous amount has changed. Zero-tolerance policies likely would have found me kicked out of school before reaching high school.
Honestly I would have received a better education if I'd been kicked out-- and I went to one of the best public schools in the state.
Parents, don't kid yourselves. Schools both public and private are not appropriate places for children, not because they are in danger of being exposed to harmful influences, but because they encourage some very dangerous mindsets, those of the herd mentality, those of the blind servant of tyranny, those of the hard-working but ultimately unintelligent indentured s
Land of the free and the home of the brave? NOT.
The article is published in the Chicago Sun Times. It mentions Joliet. There is no Joliet in NJ AFAICT. There is a Plainfield, Illinois which is contiguous to Joliet, Illinois.
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens." - Schiller
There's no overall master plot involved here, so kindly leave story book entities like the "Illuminati" and random conspiracy theories out of it. You would do well to research some of the actual history of public education in the US. It's based on the formalized vocational training that started in Germany in the late 1800's.
There's no conspiracies here. The simple fact of the matter is most politicians are funded by large business entities, and it's in the best interest of those entities to have a pool of workers who have the skill necessary to be useful.
It's also in the best interest of society for there to be a thriving economy, which requires literate and skilled workers.
While the enforcement of conformity was part of the original German model the USA adopted, it has survived here in part because it's easier to teach basic skills to a group of well behaved students than to a collection of anarchist free thinkers.
But kindly leave the loopy conspiracy theories out of it. I'm talking about basic history and human nature.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I hope this kid's lawyer has read the recent "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" appellate ruling. The principal, the school board members, and everyone involved in this blatant violation of Constitutional rights can and should sued in their personal capacities. They know, or should know, that the law is crystal clear on this matter.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11767029/