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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.""
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.
An example:
From: http://www.webstreetcafe.com/news/4_1_JO23_FREESPE ECH_S1.htm
Everything he did he did outside of school. He used a computer from home. He used an account he created from home what was clear it was a personal activity," Yohnka said.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.
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
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.
Well I guess i should admit that i went looking at his x(z?)anga site before making that post. Maybe you might come to the same conclusion maybe not. Here is another by his sister? Anyways, I dont think there is anyhting worht getting expelled over. But i do dougbt he would be any worse off.
Last thing they want to do is lose all that money they are going to in a clear-cut 1st amendment case....
IMHO the school overreacted by trying to expel the kid. But I don't think the line is as clear as it might seem. The kids says, "I've been bullied by you." Then goes on to say the kids at Columbine did what they did because they were bullied by the school.
So the school is reading that as a veiled threat. I think that is an overreaction, but schools are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If this kid had gone on to actually take action, an extremely unlikely prospect, and the school had known about that post, the parents would have been screaming for the administration's heads.
I am a teacher at a school that recently had a student post a "hit list" to his MySpace page and he was expelled. The difference was the threat was explicit. In this case I would have liked to have seen the administration talk to the kid and explain how his post could have been seen as a threat and worked with him on avoiding that potentially sticky situation in the future.
Most schools do believe in free speech, and trust me, teachers take a whole lot of "free speech" from their students, but this case, at least in intent, isn't simply about free speech. It's about the administration overreacting to a possible veiled threat.
An important change for education.
Slander, liable speech, defamation of character
FWI, you can't be found guilty of any of these things unless the other party proves they were somehow harmed by the slander or liable speech. If they can't prove it, you can still say it, even though its not true.
conspiracy
I believe most conspircy laws state that you must go beyond talking; you actually have to take some step to executing your conspircy.
Same goes for the infamous desire to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire!
Search Wikipedia for this; there are some interesting facts. FWIW, it shouldn't be the act of yelling fire that should be illegal; causing panic, wasting emergency responders' time, etc. is what should be illegal. I know, I'm splitting hairs, but I think its important to make the distinction so we don't undermine the right to free speech.
Where did he threaten a Columbine-like incident?
He correctly pointed out that, if you push (bully) people too far, they will snap and fight back, but there's nothing I've read that indicates he was feeling anywhere that frustrated.
Maybe a poor analogy on his part (was the school really on his case everyday, making his life hell everyday?), but doesn't seem to be a threat to me.
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?
I got two weeks of in-school suspension when I was 16 for writing a letter to the editor of the local paper under my own name. Public school, etc, etc.
It taught me an important lesson which is: don't write under your own goddamn name!
Seriously. I don't condone what's happening here, but people put stuff out there under their own names that blows my mind. This is the freaking information age, okay? People are going to google you first thing, and they're going to read what you write, they're going to make opinions about it, and if you've not been careful, it's going to be your ass! The stuff is going to be viewed by people you're dating, people you're trying to work for, people who are trying to steal your identity...Don't put your name on it!
It's not like you can't point people to your blog/writing if you want them to read it, and it's not like you can't put things out there to be read under a different name. But putting it out there under your own name, especially if you're a minor, is a bad idea.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
http://www.xanga.com/Heckler3672bro
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.