Student Suspended Over IM Icon

Chris Reimer writes "C|Net News.com is reporting that a 15-year-old student lost a lawsuit over having an instant messenger icon that represented a death threat against an English teacher on his personal computer that another student reported to school authorities. From the article: 'His parents sued, claiming that the icon was protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, that the school district failed to train staff in proper threat assessment and that the school board violated state law in not following proper procedures. [The judge] Mordue rejected the free-speech claims.'"

Comments

what did he expect?

[conJunk]

from the court's opinion in tfa:

"Likewise, the surrounding circumstances--including the effect of the icon on Mr. VanderMolen and school officials, Aaron's awareness of the school's position that a threat was not a joke, the absence of any factor to suggest that the icon was a joke and the general increase in school violence--establish that an ordinary, reasonable recipient who is familiar with the context of the icon would interpret it as a serious threat of injury.

that's the only part of the decision i disagree with. an IM icon isn't a threat, it's an icon. "The absence of any factor to indicate the icon was a joke"? Um. How about that it's an icon, as opposed to say a note, or graffiti, or some other type of message?

that minor disagreement asside, by 15 a kid should know he can't make a picture of a gun pointed at a teacher's head, have blood splatter everywhere, write "kill teacher $name" and think nothing is going to happen.

I was in second grade when i learned you can get in trouble for drawing pictures of people you don't like lying in a hospital bed.

did the school over react by suspending him for a semster? probably. but good grief. you don't make icons of blowing a teacher's brains out and think that's totally cool.

Re:what did he expect?

[ackthpt]

that's the only part of the decision i disagree with. an IM icon isn't a threat, it's an icon.

This isn't the 1950's and the Cleaver's we're discussing here. There are in the past 20 years several accounts of perfectly normal children appearing at school one day to settle a few scores. Nobody sees these things coming, particularly parents. Parents who don't check up on who their children hang out with, don't engage in conversations to see how their day went, but are always shocked when they get a call from the police.

I worked in San Jose a few years ago and some joker took some pictures of himself with a bunch of guns and ammo and dropped them off at the local drug store for processing. An alert employee thought there was something wrong and reported the photos to the police. The guy had been driving past my office every day for months. Guns, explosives, pipe bombs, etc. Plans to kill people at his community college were found in his home. Free speech? Sometimes people have to take an interest. I'm seriously bugged Aaron's parents are defending this.

Re:what did he expect?

[posterlogo]

did the school over react by suspending him for a semster? probably. but good grief. you don't make icons of blowing a teacher's brains out and think that's totally cool.

Well, it all comes down to the definition of what is or isn't a threat, what is or isn't acceptable. Where to draw the line? I'm willing to be that although laws specifically haven't changed, this sort of icon pre-Columbine probably wouldn't have resulted in suspension. So what has changed? The bar has changed. The problem is that the bar wasn't well defined in law, or even school rules. Is the IM icon OK if he doesn't use it to communicate with any other students or teachers, and doesn't use it at school? Is it OK if he just drew it at home, never brought it to school, never communicated its existence, yet someone found it anyway and reported him? Basically, are the administrators punishing only what they can see, what they know about? And what constitutes a threat? If I'm a pissed off student after getting detention or something and I'm grumbling to myself and mumbling under my breath that I wish the teacher would just be taken out back and shot, and someone heard me? How about if I mumbled that I wish the teacher would just jump off a cliff? How about if I mumbled I wish the teached would just get abducted by aliens and blasted to oblivion with a ray gun? Clearly, not a credible threat, merely because we haven't seen it happen yet, really. The problem is that speech is infinitely variable... we do our best and we can only say we're going to protect free speech or we're not. Then we have to clarify that and say free speech is only free as long as it per se does not represent a danger (like yelling fire in a crowded theater), etc. I really don't know where to draw the line, but it certainly seems the pendulum has swung in the direction of treating all students as potential Columbinites.

Re:what did he expect?

[Alien Being]

FTA:

"As a result, the school district sent Aaron's parents a notice of a formal disciplinary hearing and also tipped off the sheriff's department (which declined to do anything, concluding that the icon was indeed a joke). Meanwhile, a psychologist concluded that Aaron did not pose a threat."

Re:what did he expect?

[packeteer]

Your taking the wrong arguement for the right cause. I think in the end you and me both agree but your slippery slope arguement is jsut wrong. I know you really want to draw a parallel between 1984 and this crime but there is not much to work with.

Planning a crime IS a crime. Discussing a crime IS a crime. Thinking about a crime is NOT a crime.

These are some important distinctions. You seem to make the claim that if someone is PLANNING a school shooting but has not done it yet there is nothing wrong. I think most reasonable people including yourself can agree that this is wrong. If someone is only fantasizing about a crime or considering a crime then its wrong but not ILLEGAL and the parents/school are right to step in but not with punishment.

Re:what did he expect?

[loraksus]

If we criminalize planning to commit a crime,

You seem to be unaware of the "conspiracy to commit..." series of crimes, which can actually be quite draconian.

If you and your friend are drinking one night and say something like, "Yo, we need to pop a cap in Mr. X's ass." and one of you goes out and purchases a deer rifle - an overzealous DA can press charges and you'll probably be convicted by the average jury .... even if the conversation wasn't serious and you bought the rifle for a deer hunt.

Re:what did he expect?

[kimvette]

Discussing crime or discussing as an academic exercise (mental masturbation, story development, or whatever) discussing how one could potentially knock over a gas station or bank is NOT a crime.

Actually conspiring to do so - that is, making real plans to actually carry it out, IS. Oh, and saying "I'm going to rob a bank tomorrow" in jest is not a crime. Sorry.

Otherwise, Tom Clancy and Jack Higgins should both be jailed for terrorism, among many, many other authors. Also, there are many movie producers, screenplay writers, and actors who ought to be in jail for portraying illegal activities.

This has been the duh statement of the year here, but obviously there are some people on here who need this kind of thing explained.

Re:what did he expect?

[hazem]

Public schools have policies that restrict the constitutional rights of students and they can therefore punish students where an adult citizen might only be investigated.

I believe that concept is called in loco parentis. It means "in place of the parent" - that the school acts in the place of the parent while the child is at school. The problem is, it should only apply when the kids "in loco" the school. The kid at home should be free to say what he wants or put whatever he wants on his IM.

It's still a dumb thing to do.

Re:what did he expect?

[SuprCzr]

I disagree...

Just because ends do not solely justify means, does not mean that ends should not be a consideration, nor that ends cannot help to justify means.

That said, I do believe that narrowminded simplifications do not justify overrated posts.

Re:what did he expect?

[pilgrim23]

GASP! a kid (and the local cops) recognize the difference between a icon as a stress relief on his computer from a delivered threat in the real world? and without a focus group? without a planning session? without a proper briefing on social, cultural, gender, life style, and species cohabitation issues that may be raised during proceedings? GET THAT KID ON MEDS NOW!

Re:what did he expect?

[DougLorenz]

A problem with this line of reasoning is that we aren't talking about whether or not the kid committed a crime. The police decided that he did not, and chose not to arrest him for any crime.

However, what the kid did was a violation of school policy, and for that he was suspended, which is a valid punishment under the school policy.

This has nothing to do with prosecution of thought crimes or anything of that nature. There are certain things that you are not allowed to do in certain circumstances, even though those actions may be legal. Criminal law is not the only collection of rules that a person must follow.

Re:what did he expect?

[TubeSteak]

But... the teacher (aka "the victim") felt threatened.

That's enough for the school to act.

From TFA:
It is well-established that lack of intention or ability to carry out a threat is not relevant.

Basically, the Judge is saying the Police could have arrested the kid & that it was a prosecutable offense.

Based on the Judge's conclusions, IMO, Mr. VanderMolen could have sued in civil court for distress & won.

What I don't get is why news.com.com is running a story from 2001. Was this case just decided recently?

Re:what did he expect?

[TubeSteak]

The kid at home should be free to say what he wants or put whatever he wants on his IM.

I agree, except when those actions effect the school environment.

The school concluded that the "his actions created disruption in the school environment" & the Judge concluded that the boy's actions "caused a substantial disturbance at the school; that it is reasonable that it should have done so; and that Aaron had reason to expect that it would do so."

What more do you want?

As an aside, I don't really think 'in loco parentis' has anything to do with this situation.

Re:what did he expect?

[contrapunctus]

What would have happened if the kid had that picture on a T-shrit and was wearing it in public?
(I'm assuming an IM icon is viewable by the "public")

Re:what did he expect?

[infaustus]

Burning effigies is a traditional method of political protest. It is essentially the same principle.

Re:what did he expect?

[Gorshkov]

If the text of the icon said something about the president instead of "Kill Mr. VanderMolen", I think the Secret Service would consider it a threat until it was investigated

It's a threat anyway - all the investigation will do is determine if it's serious or credible.

Re:what did he expect?

[quizzicus]

the icon never even left the house.

If he talked to anyone on IM while using this icon, then the icon did leave the house.

Re:what did he expect?

[TubeSteak]

The problem was that this icon was created at home, on his home computer, in his own time.

A Buddy Icon, a flipbook, at home, in the park, what you have not accepted, is that it doesn't matter.

His actions created "an environment threatening the health, safety and welfare of others, and his actions created disruption in the school environment".

That is all the school needs to bring about disciplinary action. Once that determination is made, the only thing left is to decide how much punishment the student will recieve.

Schools have a legitimate interest in student behavior outside the school. Especially in situations where threats are made. To suggest otherwise is to ignore reality.

Re:what did he expect?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

worked in San Jose a few years ago and some joker took some pictures of himself with a bunch of guns and ammo and dropped them off at the local drug store for processing. An alert employee thought there was something wrong and reported the photos to the police.

My friends and I gathered our collections of guns a few years back, massed them on my bed, and took pictures with them. There were 30-40 of them. We did this because it amused us. I would've been pissed if someone called the cops on us while developing the picture.

That aside (it was an irrelevant response to an irrelevant argument), I can't believe the parents are defending this either.

Re:what did he expect?

[MrNaz]

Children need to learn what it means to be a productive, positive influence on the world around them. Having said that, I have absolutely no idea, and cannot comment on where to draw the line between childrens' rights to be children and society's right to ensure healthy upbringing. Furthermore, I have no idea what exactly constitutes and healthy upbringing and what does not. These questions need to be investigated by those experienced in handling children with compassion. That means your professional school principles who handle 10,000 children a year but hever married and had children of their own are not up to the task.

On a similar note, I think the idea that schools could or should act in place of parents is just loco, señor. Children need parents who see them as their flesh and blood, not teachers who see them collectively as a job.

Oh, and I have no idea how that kid should have been dealt with. However, missing out on a semester is counter productive, as whatever anger and resentment now has a semester to fester. When I was a kid, pulling stunts like that got me a belting from my folks. Thats what this world needs more of. parents who aren't scared to give their kids a spanking. Long-winded psychological games don't work and just build resentment long after the child has forgotten what he or she did in the first place.

Steal cookie.
Spank.
End.

It's a much closer association with what not to do, and over time as the child grows they will learn why stealing is bad. Week-long groundings or confiscation of the X-Box don't get associated with whatever the child did to cause it. I went to a friend's house where a child had been banned from X-Box for a week due to hitting his 3yo sister with a book. After having a chat with him he said he was grounded coz his parents were stupid. I asked him why they took it away and as far as I could tell he didn't even know. It had been 3 days since the incident.

Childrens' perception of time is completely different to adults'. For an 8yo, one week is an immesurably long period of time. Remember how long it took for the weekends to arrive? How unimaginably far away the summer holidays seemed even though it was only 3 weeks away? Fast forward, and me, as a 27 year old, can blink and miss an entire month.

All this rambling really boils down to me trying to say that children need more than regimented procedure, school rule books and "politically correct" punishment. They need the love, support and firm guidance that only a real parent or honest socially aware teacher can provide. I know many loving parents, but honest, socially aware teachers are few and far between.

Re:what did he expect?

[diamondmagic]

I can assemble, manufacture and setup a bomb in international waters and there in nothing anyone can do about it. None of that is relivent when it goes kaboom within the borders of the United States or any other country with rules reguarding explosives (that is, all of them), seeing as the otherwise not-illegeal actions resulted in somthing happening within the country.

In fact, I don't even need to launch it, I could still get cited for disrupting the peace, which depending on the severity could land you in prison for life (seeing as the peace was breached within the country, not at the creation site).

Re:what did he expect?

[belmolis]

Not quite. Conspiracy requires an overt act in furtherance of the crime. If you do nothing but plan, you're safe. If, however, you take a concrete step in addition to planning, such as obtaining weapons or other equipment, then you are guilty of conspiracy. It doesn't take an awful lot, but the need for an overt act is intended to prevent prosecution for mere bs-ing and to make it worthwhile to back off from a plan even if it is serious.

Re:what did he expect?

[hazem]

Please don't yell.

I'm not saying anything about being at home and immune to the law.

What I'm saying is that the school should have no jurisdiction over what the kid does at home. That's what is parents and law enforcement are for. It may be against school rules to run in the halls with scissors. If a kid does this at home, the school should have no say in the matter - as that should be reserved for the parents. In Loco Parentis should only apply when the kid is at school or in school-related activities.

Re:what did he expect?

[blitziod]

hey I would like to get a copy of the icon...I think it would be cool if people all over the country started using it ..it would make that teacher feel like a REAL dick..he is after all...and show support for free speech

Re:what did he expect?

[jgrahn]

I can assemble, manufacture and setup a bomb in international waters and there in nothing anyone can do about it. None of that is relivent when it goes kaboom within the borders of the United States or any other country [...]

There should be something like Godwin's Law for comparing something to international terrorism and The War on Terrorism when, in fact, it has nothing to do with it. (Except, in this case, a threat to use violence.)

Re:what did he expect?

[jibjibjib]

Kill CowboyNeal!

Re:what did he expect?

[danielk1982]

This is exactly the kind of garbage that makes not only children, but parents hostile towards the schools.

Parents are already hostile towards schools when their little Johnny isn't handled like porcelain.

Just wait until the school decides that your child playing video games in your home is a disruption at school. What happens when they decide that your child reading certain books at home will create a disruption at home.

There are limits, and this situation is different. He made an explicit threat against a teacher. Now, its probably a stupid joke (not funny BTW), but the school has to act on it or a) They might have the union on their ass if the threatened teacher complains nothing was done; b) God forbid, the kid actually carries out his threat and then government and police officials will be on their ass asking why they ignored a clear message like this; c) Its a stupid joke, and its not funny at all. Its a passive aggressive way to bully the said teacher. Besides, once a student complained, they *HAD* to act.

Re:what did he expect?

[MrNaz]

You have just provided me with a perfect example of one of society's greatest problems: The celebration of apathy. I don't intend for this post to be personal, but for convenience, I will word it using "I" and "you" to represent our differing views. Please don't interpret this as a personal tirade :)

Why do children need to learn to be productive and postitive? Because if they don't you end up with an unenlightened, ignorant, unproductive bunch of sheep for citizens. Such citizens are easily herded by unscrupulous leaders for their own agenda. While I don't want our leaders to make laws against being miserable bastards, I would like our educators to strongly encourage the next generation not to be.

As part of my right to pursue happyness comes the "right" to act as negative as I want (up to breaking the law), and to drain society and those around me of as much productivity as possible (again, short of breaking the law).

Western society has is currently experiencing a "rights fetish". Everyone seems to talk about their rights to do this and that. While I agree that each person has a right to pursue their own happiness, I am dumbfounded that nobody seems to have any concept of the duties that go along with them. You want the right to free speech? Then you have the duty to protect the free speech of others. You want the right to freedom of movement, then you have a duty to not obstruct others. You want the right to social benefits such as unemployment payments? Then you have the duty to be productive, should you have the opportunity. Every right has a converse duty, and I respect nobody's rights who doesn't understand their corresponding duty. Want to be a miserable, unproductive bastard? Fine, but don't expect me to respect your right to my tax money. I don't see how people consider it to be a fundamental right to live in America as an unproductive bastard yet still have relative luxury, while people push themselves beyond breaking point in less fortunate areas of the world and still end up starving to death. Excuse my idealistic retort, but that just ain't right.

Society has no such right, whereas, as elaborated above, children (and the rest of us) do have the right to Miserable Bastardy.

See above. Children need to learn that rights come with duties, and you cannot have one without the other. This "rights fetish" has been pushed by American culture too far, IMHO. Rights can only exist if they are supported by society, and society can only support rights if people carry out their duties. Tax is not a sufficient fulfillment of that duty. Tax money makes roads, hospitals, schools and government buildings, but it does not buy your right to free speech or freedom from opression. Those rights only come into being when others execute upon their social duties.

Yeah, riiiiiight - Because some 4th-gen welfare mom with three kids and another on the way certainly has, simply by virtue of having spread her legs, the wisdom and compassion to properly raise "productive, positive influence[s] on the world around them".

I wasn't saying ALL parents are better than school teachers, only that at the moment there is a tendency to over psychologise and over medicate children. The modern education system seems to be going through some classification phase where kids are given labels and force fit into models of behavior. A kid who might have been called a "quiet achiever" in another time is now labelled with "Aspergers Syndrome" and given medication. A child who is active and curious is labelled with "ADHD" and medicated. What happened to children being individuals with different personalities ranging from quiet and content to sit alone through to active and hungry for attention. These are just different traits, not syndromes or conditions.

I'd rather Aunty Beth with the floral apron and feather duster handling my kids than some dick with a major in education and a PhD in child psychology armed with a veritable arsenal of drugs, especially considerin

not the funniest joke

[yagu]

As this student is now learning, if this really was his idea of a joke, it was not the funniest joke ever played (for more on that, see the description of Monty Python's Funniest Joke in the World).

From the article:

The icon showed a gun pointing to a head, a bullet leaving the gun, and blood splattering from the head. It included the words "Kill Mr. VanderMolen," the name of Aaron's English teacher at Weedsport Middle School.

Freedom of speech is not absolute and is frequently determined to be more "pure" when considering speech around protest, opinion, etc. Showing an icon, with an explicit reference to killing (as an active "directive") and the teacher's name falls pretty far outside the boundaries for reasonable people, and apparently for the court of law. The article says most students laughed it off as a joke... it's difficult to see what's funny in a gun pointed at someone's head, even as a thumbnail sized icon.

One defining attribute of this student's environment is his parents' reaction to all of this:

His parents sued, claiming that the icon was protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, that the school district failed to train staff in proper threat assessment and that the school board violated state law in not following proper procedures.

WTF? I'd personally rather this student's parents on the bubble for their glib interpretation of their son's behavior. Their "defense" of their child says much about a belief and value system they must have instilled in Aaron as they raised him. Bah!

Bottom line, free speech doesn't give people the freedom to say "kill XXX". Not funny... I hope this doesn't ruin the student's future, I hope he learns from this, but ultimately I wish more parents like this would wake up and show more respect for their children by defining for them reasonable civil boundaries -- i.e., it's okay, even necessary to protest, it's not okay to intimidate and assault.

Re:not the funniest joke

[LionKimbro]

I agree. This stuff isn't funny.

But you know, when I was 13, (which was pre-Columbine,) this sort of stuff was funny. Except only for kids.

Or was it?

My mom thought "Death Camp," a series of stories one of my friends wrote, in 7th grade, was pretty damn funny. She read each one, cover-to-cover. They were the story of a team of kids, who were imprisoned daily in a middle school, forced to eat terrible food, with mutant teachers trying to take over the kids minds. The kids amassed a ton of weapons (we were all playing Wasteland at the time, you see,) blew away the teachers, (who were shooting back, and conducting vile experiments on other students,) helped everyone escape, and then... ...took off in an SR-71 that happened to be parked on the 1/4-mile track?

At any rate: We had wonderful times coming up with the stories. We'd joke about them at lunch, and imagine how awesome it would be to finally get free of all that schooling. We'd egg on our star writer (my friend, who I shall not name, since he's actually around, writing on the Internet,) and he'd write out another episode in the story. It was 15 episodes total, I think, each around 4-6 pages long, typewritten out on computer.

We loved the stories. My mom thought they were cute.

And I really think there's something of value to the quest for freedom.

Now, come Junior year, Senior year in high school, we got the idea one lunch: "Oh! Let's re-read those old stories! Death Camp! Yah!" But, our friend told us, "No. I burned them."

"You burned them?!" "Yeah. I burned them." "But why?!"

"Because they were crap!"

And it's true. They were crap. But they were our crap, and we loved them. But, our friend just burned stuff after a year, generally; He was that sort of writer. "It's not good enough." (torch!)

Most of us are now well paid geeks. There's a stellar composer in our bunch. The author, despite graduating Pepperdine, and a number of other honors (including graduating Valadictorian from our high school) isn't doing so well; He's struggling with his English major, trying to figure out what to do with it.

But basically, we're all doing well, and we're all good people, and we're all contributing.

Now. Let me ask you. In the climate we see exhibited here today in this room (Slashdot.) In this room, of all places, ... Now, I ask you to consider where we would have been, if the world had been post-Columbine.

I can tell you where we'd be: Nowhere. It's quite plausible we wouldn't have graduated from High School. We might be busted for conspiracy to commit murder. Perhaps we'd be looked over for GATE. Our healthy anti-authoritarianism would likely become genuine fear, and have become an intense, focused, directed anti-authoritarianism.

Frankly, I don't think I'd be able to type this today.

Now, I'm feeling done, but I realize something's left to be addressed. I wish it were clear and obvious, and didn't need to be said. Unfortunately, apparently, it does: "No." "No, we never intended to actually kill our teachers." It was just a story. It was just fantasy.

It was a fantasy that we needed, in some ways. We knew that there were ideological battles taking place in the school, we knew that teachers were throwing ideas at us. We knew that we were being graded on whether or not we conformed with ideas that were not necessarily true. We knew that things were complicated. We did not have the language to describe the kinds of things we were intuited. But our brains knew that there was a conflict taking place, and so when our brains reified what we were seeing, it did it in the language of violence: A struggle to get out. A struggle to be free.

We could not wax poetic about "cognitive dissonance," we could not talk about "ontologies," or "paradox." But we felt it, we knew it, and so we wrote it.

May God bless today's kids: They're in a far deeper prison than we were.

Re:not the funniest joke

[Mr. Slippery]

Bottom line, free speech doesn't give people the freedom to say "kill XXX".

You have the right to say "kill XXX". You do not have the right to say "kill XXX" under circumstances which would lead a reasonable person to beleive that you actual intend to take steps toward killing XXX.

It's circumstances, not the mere content of the message, that make a communication a threat or not. There is a large difference between someone saying, "Someone ought to knock Mr. Slippery upside the head with a baseball bat" in a /. post, and someone walking toward me in a dark alley with a baseball bat saying the same thing.

Was this a stupid, rude, and tasteless communication deserving of some degree of censure? Sure.

Was it a threat? It was certainly close enough that it's reasonable to trigger an investigation into the circumstances; but from TFA, I cannot agree with the court's finding that "the words 'Kill Mr. VanderMolen' and the accompanying graphic cannot be viewed as anything but an unequivocal, unconditional, immediate threat of injury specific as to the person threatened". The communication was quite equivocal, conditional, and remote; it takes a stretch to declare this a "true threat".

Re:not the funniest joke

[qsqueeq]

Although the students apparently viewed the icon as a joke, VanderMolen did not. He later testified that he was scared, concerned and felt sick to his stomach upon reading the message. He asked to be removed from teaching the English class because he was concerned for his safety and that of his 6-month-old child. The school principal claimed that VanderMolen appeared anxious and fearful.

What a puss. Just go punch the kid in the face. He's 15. VanderWussin.

Re:not the funniest joke

[Gorshkov]

you miss one very important point.

Your death camp teachers were mutants, and the stories were *obviously* fiction.

Now - if in those stories you had come up with weird and imaginative ways to off Mrs. Futzwanger, your music teacher ....... do you still think your mother would have found things quite so amusing?

Back the Judge?

[ackthpt]

Back the Judge?

Ok, most law is based upon common sense. You don't steal my car, I don't shoot you, we all get along sort of thing. Here we have parents backing up their child's poor taste chat icon. Seriously. There's the 1st Amendment, or whatever passes for guarantees of Free Speech in other countries, but where is this a political critique of the institutions of government? That's what the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution is there to protect. This is clearly a child behaving badly and parents backing him up. There's seriously something f**ked in the head with these people.

I'm behind the judge in this one. I'd even consider remanding the child to protective services as these parents are seriously a threat when they think this is find behaviour worthy of defending in court.

Re:Back the Judge?

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I don't think it's the childs actions they are defending, but more the punishment that didn't fit the crime.

Yeah he did draw and distribute a bad picture. So did many famous artists. I'm suspecting he was angry about a poor test grade or something... took his aggression out on photoshop, and set as an IM ICON. Some friends of his thought it was cool and requested it, and so it was spread...

Yeah, the kid is stupid. Yes he should have gotten suspended. A week or two tops. Yes he better be grounded for six months. No Myspace for a year. No WOW, Q4, etc... And most importantly lets not forget the parents should be more active in their childs online activities...

However, remember that suspending a student for a sememster is dificult on the parents too. Now they have a child, who is angry he is'nt with his friends, home from school doing god knows what when mom & dad are at work. They now have to hire a tutor, or a taxi, or worse, they have to quit a job so they can shuttle him to a new school for four months. My parents would be OUTRAGED at a 6 month suspension for something I did at home.

Again though, the kid should be diciplined. Just not out of school for an entire semester.
Secondly a whole semester out of school gives the kid less of a chance to correct his behavior and move on. He'll become forever angry at the system, and will be behind the other students, possibly too far to catch up. He'll miss out on a fair portion of socializing with real people and probably end up spending more time online.

LOL INTERNET

[linvir]

It's a witch hunt, in this post-Columbine world! Where's Jon Katz when you need him in this post-Columbine world?

But seriously, saying that the icon was "on his home computer" is like saying that prank calls are okay because "what I say in the privacy of my own home is my business".

Re:LOL INTERNET

[vistic]

Where is "Don't Ruin a Kid's Life for Being a Stupid Kid" Panda when you need him?

Um... ok

[Bones3D_mac]

A death threat? It's not like the kid tied it to a rock and threw it into the teachers house though a window or something.

Children do stupid things like this all the time. What we have here is just a prime example of a post-columbine overreaction. If something is uttered by a child, it must be literally true... right?

Sounds about right

[Wind_Walker]

I'm not sure why this is even an issue. A student made an icon of a bullet to the head, with the phrase "Kill Mr. VanderMolen" on it. Whether it was intended as a joke or not, it's still a threat - just like those signs you see at the airport warning you not to joke about a bomb in your suitcase. Free speech does not include the right to threaten other people.

Sounds like the court and the school district got this one right. Not sure what the controversy is.

First Amendment?

[RandUser]

This seems pretty clear-cut: although the student _is_ free to say whatever he wants, a death threat supercedes being "protected" as far as actions from the school district. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from repercussions, and the kid/his parents are getting a pretty decent lesson in this.

Re:First Amendment?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from repercussions

What?

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Does freedom of speech mean freedom from (government) consequences? YES! If you have to worry about being imprisoned for speech, then it is not free.

Re:First Amendment?

[shiftless]

I once drew a similar picture about my stupid math teacher when I was in middle school. I got put in "alternative school" for a week, and life went on. The picture was funny as hell. I laughed, my friends laughed. We had a sense of humor, so we laughed about it and life went on. To vent my frustration, I drew a picture; would you guys have preferred it if I had brought a .357 to school and shot up the place instead? What about this kid?

People these days freak the F**K out about the stupidest crap, and to be honest it's really friggin annoying. A death threat is a note written to the teacher saying "I'M GONNA KILL YOU" or a note written to someone else saying "I'M GONNA KILL $TEACHER." A death threat is NOT a picture that someone drew out of boredom to vent some frustration.

Any other day you people would be bitching about Jack Thompson talking trash about gamers. So you guys are saying violence in a game is OK, but violence in a simple, stupid little picture is wrong? Get your story straight.

You guys know as well as I do that school systems take stuff WAY too damn seriously and blow it WAY out of proportion. These days if someone is caught doing something as trivial and harmless as bypassing the Internet filters at school, the school tries to put them in jail for being "cyber-terrorists" and "criminals". Jesus Christ, are you sure you want to defend these idiots?

Re:First Amendment?

[ChrisGilliard]

How pathetic are the teachers you know that they would seriously believe that they are seriously threatened by something like this?

The icon showed a gun pointing to a head, a bullet leaving the gun, and blood splattering from the head. It included the words "Kill Mr. VanderMolen,". You don't consider this a threat?

This is completely disrepectful. The kid needs to learn respect for his teachers. I'm not saying he needs to go to jail or anything, but there should be consequences for his actions. This is part of school and growing up in general. I would not expect a teacher to overlook this complete lack of respect. Any teacher that reacted the way you mentioned should not be allowed to teach.

Especially when the 'death threat' was not even communicated to him!

Obviously, he found out about it. So, someone communicated it to him.

I blame the parents

[The Famous Druid]

When I was a kid, if I'd done anything like that my dad would have given me a good hiding, these 'parents' (and I use the word loosly) hire a lawyer to get their kid out of trouble. WTF?

I say take the kid and his parents out behind the woodshed and give them a lesson in manners they'll never forget.

Let me get this straight....

[brendanoconnor]

So a 15 year-old kid had an icon on his home computer (not at school) that depicted a gun shooting a head with text saying, Kill Mr. Teachersname. The kid had absolutely no disciplinary action on his record before this incident. In fact, the only reason the teacher ever found out was because another kid saw this icon, presumably while visiting the offender, and reported it. I do not see how this can be made out to be a real threat. A very poor taste of a joke, certainly, but a threat? No way. Now, maybe if the offending kid had this icon at school, or maybe had a drawing of it on a paper that was being handed over to the teacher, I could understand that as a threat. But this, no way. I think the teacher and the school district definitely overreacted.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[strobe74]

You obviously have never used a chat application. ALL chat apps that I've ever seen broadcast your icon to anyone that has you on their list or talk to. It was also pointed out that the kid was spreading the icon around. The plain and simple fact is that just because the first amendment exists.. DOESN"T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO THREATEN THE SAFTY OF OTHERS, joke or no joke. You can't joke about bombs on airplanes; you can't jokingly yell FIRE in a crowded theater, AND YOU CAN"T THREATEN SOMEONE"S LIFE. The first amendment does not accord you those rights and never has. The kids parents, the kid and a few of the people here need to go read the first amendment some time so they know what they're talking about. Now if you want to argue over what constitutes a "true threat" that's fine but as the judge put it, there was no evidence of a joke which is the determining factor in deciding what speech is protected and what is not when it comes to threats. That means that it could have been interpreted as a real threat because there was nothing to show that it was anything otherwise. I remember kids at columbine being interviewed after the shootings, saying that they though it was a joke when those two kids were talking about shooting people. You just can't be sure anymore, especially when you have kids being raised by parents that think this kind of behavior is not only ok, but should be legally protected. It's ridiculous that people's general education level has gotten so low in this country that there are people actually defending this asinine kid and his parents.

Ah... good plan

[popo]

I guess, the official school policy is to treat anti-social, disenfranchised young people, to a solitary year of introspection.

Yeah... that'll work. He'll be much calmer and better adjusted after a year by himself playing video games all day -- and he'll be much happier next year with a new set of younger classmates who know he's the "crazy kid" who got suspended for weird photoshopped artwork.

Should we arrest every hip hop artist now? And the creative staff over at Take2?

Re:Ah... good plan

[fishybell]

I agree fully. I don't condone the kid's actions, I definately don't feel a suspension would help the true problem.

A friend of mine in eighth grade sent a threatening letter to president@whitehouse.gov as a joke. The same day a fellow from the FBI (or the secret service, it was a long time ago, I wasn't there at the time, and I really no longer remember) came to the school, asked who was using a certain computer at a certain time, found my friend, and gave him a good stern talking-to about threats, pranks, and such much like you would get if you prank called 911. However, the school in it's infinite wisdom banished him from lunch hour (he had to eat alone in a empty room) and computer class for the rest of the year (again, he spent the hour alone in an empty classroom). So all throughout high school (and still to this day) many people know him only as "that kid who threatened to kill Clinton."

My friend had learned his lesson just fine from the response from the feds, so why did the school have to impart such a grand, and rather debasing, punishment? Mostly for personal pride I feel. That way, if asked, they could say that they were "tough on crime" and "tough on delinquents." Believe me, my friend was no delinquent before that, only after. Coincidence? I . Think . Not.

Indeed.

[raehl]

Clearly the court prefers that you don't threaten people before you kill them.

Conditioned for Obedience

[Bones3D_mac]

What's even scarier than the alleged "death threat" (which was never delivered to the "victim" to insight "terror" in the first place), is how many posts here actually suggest the kid deserves punishment. It's an expression of opinion, not an order to carry out a murder on his behalf. Have we become so accustomed to conformity that any dissent from athority is met with zero tolerance?

Needless to say, I'd guess 9/11 accomplished it's goal exactly as it was intended to do. We're now little more than bunch of Smurfs screaming and running around erratically every time something bad might happen.

This is not protected speech

[rbanzai]

If this kid shot his teacher (or fellow students) and after the fact this story came up people wouldn't be talking about free speech. They would be amazed that such a blatant "warning sign" was ignored.

I'm glad it did not develop into actual violence but I wonder what's going on in that kid's head. I disliked teacher's when i was a kid but did not feel strongly enough to express it graphically and so bluntly.

It's not protected speech. It's a stupid, violent statement that would not be laughed off by the /. crowd if they were the target of this kid's anger. It's not funny, it's creepy.

"lost touch?" - more like untouchable

[ScentCone]

what kind of a teacher loses touch with his students to such a degree that he is afraid that they will point a gun to his head?

You're assuming that the teacher was ever in touch with that student, or that any teacher ever could be. Don't forget that this kid is the product of parents that think the kid's actions were just fine. So - who's at fault, the teacher that can't "get in touch" with a hostile kid, or the parents that think the kid's portrayal of an encouragement to kill a teacher isn't any different than speaking in the debate club?

oh come on

[geekoid]

Are you telling me that through out all of high school you never said something like:
"Another pop quiz? I wish the teacher were dead."
or say:
"I want to kill that SOB"!

Re:oh come on

[Haeleth]

However, rephrased as "I'll make sure the teacher were dead" or "I will kill that SOB" the quotes are more threatening, maybe?

Well, yes. However, given that the message that this article is about did not, in fact, contain any statement of intent, I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say.

Re:oh come on

[ShaunC]

Are you telling me that through out all of high school you never said something like:
"Another pop quiz? I wish the teacher were dead."

Sure I did, but I made damned sure that nobody but the friend(s) I was talking to would overhear me, and I sure as hell never wrote it down. I learned very early on - 4th grade, as a matter of fact; I still remember the teacher and the incident - that anything you write down can and will come back to haunt you. It's a lesson I've not forgotten. I'm glad that I actually had the ability, the freedom, and the opportunity to fuck up so young. It's saved my hide in any number of situations that I might have otherwise gotten into since then.

That said, I can understand why this kid didn't know not to "write it down." There's been a huge paradigm shift in society since those days. I was fortunate enough to live my childhood and adolescence in an age where most parents took responsibility for raising their own kids, instead of throwing up their hands in defeat and bitching that the government didn't do it for them. I grew up in a time where I actually knew what "go play outside" meant, and my parents actively encouraged me to do so, with no adult supervision, no less!

It was through those experiences that I learned how to look out for myself. I learned right from wrong. Perhaps more importantly, I learned that sometimes, doing the "right thing" is the wrong decision, and vice versa. There are times when doing something wrong, or even breaking a law, is the prudent thing to do. And there are those times when no matter how right you may feel, no matter how oppressed you might think yourself to be, and no matter how unfair life is, you simply need to shut up and take it, or at the very least, avoid flaunting your opinions until such time as you're confident that you're going to win the battle. If I could sit down with every teenager in the country and give them one piece of advice, that would be it.

Some may say it's a bad thing that I knew how to play politics by the time I was 15, or that I somehow "lost my innocence" at too young an age, but it's served me well enough ever since and I wouldn't have it any other way. I may have had similar fantasies to the kid in this article about some of my high school teachers, but I didn't communicate them to anyone. By the time I hit high school, I already was aware of what the limits were, how far I could push them (for the most part; I'm not saying I never got in trouble at all ;) and when they'd push back.

I have a hard time picking a side in this case. On the one hand, I want to say the kid is an idjit for doing what he did. On the other hand, I can sympathize with why he did it. Flip the coin again and I have a hard time comprehending that someone who's grown up "post-Columbine" wouldn't realize that this sort of thing is going to cause problems. And back to the other side yet again, he's probably just ignorant and clueless, and doesn't know that columbine is the name of a pretty purple flower, much less that of a tragic school shooting. I don't really blame the school system, but I can't blame the kid, either.

Kids these days are so sheltered by their parents that they aren't getting the chance to develop those decision making abilities. As the saying goes, "good experience comes from judgement, judgement comes from bad experience." In other words, if you aren't afforded the opportunity to make the wrong decisions now and then, you're never going to learn how to make the right decisions.

Mom and Dad hear on the news every night that a child molestor lurks on every streetcorner waiting to snap up Junior (or Juniette), and they buy into it, and suddenly "go play outside" is replaced by "go play video games." Social interaction is limited to groups of their peers, and frequently not in-person. Then Mom and Dad see one of - what is it, 8 or 10 now - episodes of Dateline NBC about !!!EVIL SEX PERVERTS ON EVERY WEBSITE ARE RAPING YOUR

"I cant put my bag overhead,my pipe bomb's there!"

[orangesquid]

He should've added a few more frames to the animation that said... "THIS IS A JOKE. (DUMBASS)"
After the whole debauchle with that girl on livejournal talking about the president and getting interrogated by the secret service, I put a disclaimer on my livejournal page saying that nothing I say is actually a threat (if it seems like a threat, it's a joke), and that if anything seems like it's defamatory (libel, slander, what-have-you), then I'm exaggerating or fabricating for literary effect or humor's sake.

Maybe I have a crappy sense of humor. So what? I think I'm entitled to make bad jokes, even if I have to provide a disclaimer. (of course, there WAS that case about the lawyers suing these guys who were making lawyer jokes in front of them... but I think it was on grounds of harassment---still over the top to sue, though, IMHO.)

It's true that you don't always know when someone's joking... and after some of the high school shootings, I guess it's understandable for the school to take it seriously, but, they should have just asked Aaron---"Is this a joke? Do you actually want to harm your teacher? Do you have plans to harm your teacher?" and perhaps requested that he make it obvious that he's joking, or stop using the icon, or something. (Anybody with a copy? Put it on freenet, please?)

Here's another thought.

[porkchop_d_clown]

The judge not only knows the Constitution, he knows the relevant laws and precedents about threats of violence.

He's not the person who needs a lesson in law.

What's the big deal??!

[necro2607]

Dude, my friends and I drew pictures of people getting killed or the school getting blown up or whatever, all the time.. Before AND after the Columbine "massacre"... it's pretty trivial and also super common for kids who are extremely frustrated with the school system, sick of being bullied or pushed around, and/or have a crappy social life etc.

Frankly, what's the big deal? The teacher is probably annoying as hell. Some teachers are painfully condescending and patronizing. I know I had a really hard time dealing with that crap all throughout high school. It was even worse because I had parents that treated me very well, and treated me like a fellow human being while they raised me, so my first reaction to teachers' condescention was anger, because it felt like a direct insult to me.

Anyway, before you go calling this kid a dumbass or whatever, consider that not everyone handles things the same way you do.

Re:Why not?

[yeolcoatl]

I would maintain that a website is fundamentally different than a buddy icon.

In the minds of people, a website is by default public. It is meant to be seen and essentially constitutes a broadcast.

On the other hand, a buddy icon (regardless of the actually security measures implemented) carries semi-private conotations. The icon is meant only for your friends -- those you talk to with your messaging client.

I'm sure the student did not want the teacher to see his buddy icon. And if there was an intent to keep it secret, I don't see how it could constitute a threat. It might still be some other sort of crime, but not a threat.

Re:Here's a thought

[taustin]

Or perhaps we could send you copies of the various Supreme Court rulings that say that A) the 1st amendment does not apply to threats of violence, and B) children do not have rights in the US anyway.

Schenck v. US

[thescottster]

As a result, the school district sent Aaron's parents a notice of a formal disciplinary hearing and also tipped off the sheriff's department (which declined to do anything, concluding that the icon was indeed a joke). Meanwhile, a psychologist concluded that Aaron did not pose a threat. With the information given, it seems more like a threat than anything else, but the people who actually investigated it seem to think otherwise. The joke must have some background, otherwise the police wouldn't have concluded it was a joke. Likewise, the surrounding circumstances--including the effect of the icon on Mr. VanderMolen and school officials, Aaron's awareness of the school's position that a threat was not a joke, the absence of any factor to suggest that the icon was a joke and the general increase in school violence--establish that an ordinary, reasonable recipient who is familiar with the context of the icon would interpret it as a serious threat of injury. It seems clear that the ordinary, reasonable recipient would have been one of his classmates, and as far as the article indicates, everyone who has become familiar with the context of the icon has concluded that it is a joke. From Schenck v. US Words which, ordinarily and in many places, would be within the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment, may become subject to prohibition when of such a nature and used in such circumstances as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils which Congress has a right to prevent. The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The circumstances in which the icon was used were in privacy. (one could argue that the aim icon was viewable by anyone, but why would a school official be chatting with a 15 year old kid?) It was obviously a joke to be understood by the kid's friends. It was by no means yelling fire in a crowded theater.

tag as helphelpimbeingrepressed

[nuzak]

my tag for this article is "helphelpimbeingrepressed". I plan on using it for every one of these lame "fight the power" type of incidents where a student properly gets an administrative action against him for being a complete dickweed. I suspect I'll have plenty of chance to use it again.

Suspending a student for wearing an anti-war t-shirt is censorship, and unacceptable. But sorry kid, this does not rise to that.

Maybe I should shorten it to "dennis", but that's probably a bit obscure.

Re:I have to disagree with this ruling

[SnarfQuest]

"Free speach" doesn't mean that you can get away with saying anything. Look up "libel", "slandor", and "yelling 'fire' in a crowded movie theater." There are many limits to "free speach" already, and a lot more if the Democrats get their way.

If you took a letter to a teacher that said "Give me all your money or I'll kill you", would you consider that be a similiar form of "free speach"? This one just leaves off the "Give me money" part. Would you take such a "give me money" to a bank, and then argue "free speach"?

Since Columbine, and the assorted copy-cat events, schools have to take threats like this seriously. There are only two possible interpretations of his "icon". If he himself wasn't planning on doing the deed, he was at least advertising for it to be done.

Welcome to the 21st century

[Billly Gates]

"I'd even consider remanding the child to protective services as these parents are seriously a threat when they think this is find behaviour worthy of defending in court."

Back when I was in school (I am only 29) I remembered what happened if I screwed up in school and the teacher called my mother.

Boy, was I scared when dad came home and heard about it. I knew what was going to happen.

Today my gf is a school teacher and rarely if ever do the parents ever discipline the kid. Almost always in this day and age the parent will always standup for the kid and attack the teacher for letting it happen. No one believes in responsibility and everything is always someone elses fault. Its like a character flaw if its your own. I wonder if this is why America is so law suit friendly? Its always someone elses fault and its liek this because we raise our kids to think that.

My gf suspended 2 students for threatening her life. One was expelled and a gang leader and came into the school with a knife with the intention of stabbing her as a way to teach her a lesson by suspending her. Meanwhile she complained to her boss who did nothing and then to the principal who got hte kid out. Meanwhile she is now unemployeed for dare defending herself because it made her boss look bad by going around him. Sigh

I do not mean to sound like a dick but teachers get paid too little and put up with too much garbage to deal with trash. She had to get her masters and 2 certifications and $100,000 in debt just to have the priviledge of putting up with gang bangers and death threats for a mere $39,000 a year.

I do find this odd it happened outside of school grounds but still.

Re:Welcome to the 21st century

[Just Some Guy]

Today my gf is a school teacher and rarely if ever do the parents ever discipline the kid. Almost always in this day and age the parent will always standup for the kid and attack the teacher for letting it happen.

In the first month of school last year, my kid was a pain in the teacher's butt. Nothing really bad, mind you - just testing her limits and the teacher's authority. That sort of thing. Well, one day her teacher met me at the fence when I went to pick up my kid up. She hesitantly, nervously told me that she'd had some minor behavior problems and thought I should know about them. I told her that I was very sorry and that it wouldn't happen again, and to please let me know if there's anything else I could ever help with.

Now, this teacher is hardly the beaten down, frazzled type. Nonetheless, she seemed so genuinely relieved and gratified that I was taken aback. To this day, she always smiles and waves whenever we meet, and the other teachers magically seem to have learned my name and greet me pleasantly.

It's kind of sad that something as simple as a parent backing up a teacher's authority is such an unexpected surprise.

Re:Welcome to the 21st century

[CherniyVolk]

I do not mean to sound like a dick but teachers get paid too little and put up with too much garbage to deal with trash. She had to get her masters and 2 certifications and $100,000 in debt just to have the priviledge of putting up with gang bangers and death threats for a mere $39,000 a year.

This is why I refuse to be entertained with the thought of teaching [in a public school]. Becuase, if a child posed a real threat, I'd protect myself regardless of the outcome; death to be included and even probable. The bad thing, is that society would not look highly or even view such a situation with wisedom should a teacher kill a student. But, sometimes they do.... Bach [ the famous composer ] is no less for the fact he attacked one of his students with a sword.

On the otherhand, Columbine could have been prevented. So much, I admit, that those "assailants" were due vengence. We want to blame the parents, the teachers and all that biz. We all saw how no matter what a jock did, he seemed to always get off without a scratch, meanwhile anyone else would get into trouble. Jocks, sad to admit, are "human", so their barbarism is no less in the long run, especially when backed by those around them to push another child to the point of retribution. If someone had treated me as harshly as those kids were treated, I would have shot them too. So, contrary to popular opinion, I do not lay blame on the assailants during Columbine, nor their parents. Instead, I place blame on the two-faced nature of most of society that presents such hypocritical standards that ultimately fuel the frustration in any other person (young or old), and societies blatant tendancy to birth such horrors then shun off their own actions and avoid responsibility (to try to "blame" or say the kids were "wrong"). One thing that will 'piss' me off to the point of pulling a trigger, is someone telling me that I'm wrong for defending myself while being attacked; of all the things I believe in, of all the things I hold dear, EVERYONE has a RIGHT to defend themselves in the face of ANY aggression. What's not really hammered, in Columbines case, is the ridiculous amount of effort the kids AND their parents did to try to do something about the growing social turmoils that were apparent in their student body. So, it's not like they immediately concluded their "defense" was to shoot people, by that time, it was the only thing they could do.

What's sad, is that society didn't see this, and now we have kids getting in trouble for the dumbest things. And, this is just one of those Dumb things that, hopefully, will be laughed at much like how we view the Mc Charthy hearings today; or the Salem Witch Trials... or all the other bullshit, throughout history, that people are chastised over for ultimately, NO SANE REASON AT ALL.

Re:Welcome to the 21st century

[Billly Gates]

Which is why I am glad her contract was not renewed because she had to defend herself and go around her boss to do so.

Its not worth it and she is hopefully going to a better school district with no gang problem next fall. Teachers need authority and respect. I have been assulted on the job before when I was a tram driver for an amusement park. I pinned him down until security hauled his ass to jail. Did I get fired? No I was defending myself. Though he did try to get me fired and sue the park until the cops found he had a blood alchohol level 1.6 if I recall and witnesses said he knocked me ot the ground and threatened me when I told him to leave the park.

Too bad at %95 of the places out there the customer is always right and would not only fire me but probably press charges too even if I am defending myself to teach me a lesson for not being beaten up for 7/hr.

So while a teacher can not hit another student unless attacked he/she must take threats seriously and have an expulsion hearing. Its a shame what happened at Columbine but everyone is entitled to a safe workplace. This is true whether parent, teacher, student, worker, or customer.

Sad.

[porkchop_d_clown]

In what sense is "KILL MR SMITH" an opinion?

Re:Double standard

[SnarfQuest]

When students express concern about the actions of a teacher, they are, more often than not, told to sit down and shut up. But when a teachers expresses completely irrational fear, the school takes action. Why the double standard?

Did the teacher scream "I'm going to shoot you in your f***g head and kill you" to your hypothetical student? If he did, do you thing your student should be concerned about it, or should he just consider it to be a funny joke? If you think the student would be bothered by such an action, why shouldn't the teacher feel the same when the reverse occurs?

Why do you believe that the teacher is the ass, and not the student? He is probably one of those students that answers every question the teacher asks with "F**k You", and frequently urinates on other students. His parents probably taught him this behaviour, and think it's extremely funny... See, I can pull "facts" out of the air to demonize the student, just like you do for the teacher. It doesn't make any of it likely, or true.

This Just In..

[Bague]

My processes are now suspending INIT for sending them the kill signal!

The kid, but what about the Parents?

[ackthpt]

Given the level of sophistication of the average teenager, I'd say that's a fairly eloquent denounciation of the school system.

What about the education system that produced these parents? I could see a kid doing something like this, but the parents failing to see they had a big part in this they missed and now are contesting in court? Man.. If I had done this when I was in school, I shudder to think what my dad would have thought. It certainly would mean some big changes in my freedoms at home. I work in a school system. I've some idea the sort of shit kids do and get away with. That these parents didn't get the message is more worrying than anything the district did.

BS idyllic past

[foreverdisillusioned]

There are in the past 20 years several accounts of perfectly normal children appearing at school one day to settle a few scores.

I know this is somewhat tangential, but I can't this one slide. This sentiment is very stupid at best and extremely offensive at worst. You need to stop bithely believing whatever the 6 o'clock news tells you and look at the world around you. Violence of all kinds--including youth violence and school violence specifically--went DOWN all through the 90's and into the 00's. The only somewhat remarkable thing about the Columbine era was the violence shifted a bit (though definitely not completely, or even mostly) from black/latino inner city kids to white suburban kids. But teen violence as a whole went down by quite a bit. Yeah, our kids are probably still more violent than they were in the 50's, but we've actually made GREAT progress in the past 20 years, and I'm sick of racist and/or ignorant asshats such as yourself perpetrating the myth that things are just so much worse in "today's world."

P.S. I wouldn't exactly call the Columbine killers "perfectly normal children." Not that I in any way believe in the gross stereotyping of goth-types as sick individuals, but from what I've heard there were plenty of warning signs about those guys.

tfa: "the general increase in school violence"

[Kaenneth]

School violence has not been increasing, it's just the media sensationalizing the death of suburban white kids (I used to be one myself)

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/Indica tors.asp?PubPageNumber=1&ShowTablePage=TablesHTML/ table_1.1.asp

Violent Deaths at School and Away From School:

Years School Away

1992-93 34 3,584
1993-94 29 3,804
1994-95 28 3,552
1995-96 32 3,305
1996-97 28 2,952
1997-98 34 2,728
1998-99 33 2,366
1999-00 14 2,126
2000-01 12 2,047
2001-02 17 2,036

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_violence

The percentage of students who reported being afraid of being attacked at school or on the way to and from school decreased from 12 % in 1995 to 6 % in 2001.

Between 1993 and 2003, the percentage of students in grades 9-12 who reported carrying a weapon such as a gun, knife, or club on school property within the previous 30 days declined--from 12 % to 6 %

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/fact_book/23_School_Viole nce.htm

Fewer than 1% of all homicides among school-age children occur on or around school grounds or on the way to and from school. ...the total number of events has decreased steadily since 1992-1993 school year...

Reality Check

[drrobin_]

I see a lot of comments about how death threats are unacceptable. I see a lot of comments about how free speech is not designed to protect this. I see a lot of people who have obviously forgotten about high school.

To all the people who question this being a joke: Of COURSE it was a joke! Please don't tell me you haven't done pretty much the same thing. I don't like being lied to. This site is a gathering place for people who screw around on computers, and this "threat" is nothing more than a kid screwing around on a computer. Talk of this post columbine world is melodramatic adult scorn for youth culture, which has been through history, and still is, as constant a human behavior pattern as youth culture's intentionally offensive behavior toward scornful adults.

If I say "fuck you" to someone, does that mean I want them to be raped?

The whole point of the first amendment is to protect the speech that is distasteful, offensive, and disgusting. No other speech needs protecting.

Re:Reality Check

[syukton]

"fuck you" has a colloquial meaning which is widely known and understood. "Kill Soandso" does not have a colloquial meaning, it only has one possible very literal interpretation.

If the teacher believes 99% that it's a joke, then the kid is still making the teacher feel threatened (even if only by 1%) and there's still cause to remove him for the safety of the teacher. That teacher needs to properly educate 20-30 other students, to ensure that they grow mentally and psychologically in healthy ways. If having the threat of death is even mildly suspected, it can infringe upon the ability of that teacher to undertake this aforementioned responsibility.

If you think that "Kill [Person's Name]" can be readily interpreted as a joke 100% of the time, then please make a T-shirt that says "Kill President Bush" and wear it down to a comedy club, and let us known if the Secret Service come by to pay you a visit. I'm 99% sure you'll be fine, do you want to take a 1% chance?

Re:Reality Check

[MikeBabcock]

I think the term has become much more coloquial than you might realize.

"I'm gonna kill you" is a joke in many cases, to laugh at. Such as "I told the waiter its your birthday" ... "I'm gonna kill you!"

Context is important.

That said, as another poster pointed out, this is a discipline issue, not a federal crime issue. As such, the school should be allowed to limit speach beyond what would be reasonable for the state to do.

Re:Strange reaction and strange ruling

[Tab is on Slashdot]

You must not have ever taken a high-school level Government class. The first ammendment does NOT protect your right to command that a specific person be killed. The K.K.K. may legally proclaim that their members should kill all blacks, but they may not say "kill that black man over there". This is textbook stuff.

Why is this even in court?

[rollingcalf]

This is a school implenting discipline, not locking up the kid in jail. The school should definitely have a right to suspend him. Otherwise they have no power to implement discipline.

Back in the day if I ever told a teacher at my high school to suck a donkey's balls, I would have been suspended immediately. A death threat (even if only displayed in own home) is worse than that.

Re:Why is this even in court?

[Dhalka226]

A death threat (even if only displayed in own home) is worse than that.

You answered your own question. It's essentially a years-old debate about how far a school's authority should extend beyond its doors. I recall once when I was in sixth grade, I believe, I called some girl a bitch as we were walking home (she hit one of my friends with her bike as we were walking along the sidewalk). We were practically home. It was about three blocks away from school at the time. The next day, of course, I was called into the principal's office. (On another sort of annoying point, I seem to have been called in because the girl happened to be black. Now come on, if it had been race related, I could have come up with a better word than "bitch" yaknow?)

Nothing ultimately happened, but I still question whether the school should have been involved at all. It's the same issue here.

Is a death-threat against a teacher bad? Yes. But it obviously was not really serious. If it had been, when he was handed over to the police, they wouldn't have concluded it was a joke--and he likely would have been expelled, as well, if they truly thought it serious and not a joke (which their own psychologist also determined). After all, if a student was seriously threatening a teacher's life, he would just be more pissed off and more likely to make good on his threats when he came back from a suspension for it. So let's be honest with ourselves: It wasn't the death threat that got him in trouble, it was the age-old "you have to be nice to your teachers" rule in the form of a "death threat."

Assuming I were a student in this school/class, if a friend and I are talking in my room about this teacher and, using your words, I suggest he should go suck donkey balls, should he be able to report me and get me suspended? At what point does their jurisdiction end? Surely they are not the police force of the Internet, are they? I think the proper reaction would be to turn it over to the police--which they did--and then butt out and let them handle it.

They essentially held this kid back because of what both the police force and their own psychologist concluded was a joke. That is well beyond excessive, even if they should have some right to suspend him for something he says on the Internet to begin with--which I don't think they should.

The First Amendment protects ideas, not words

[epaulson]

The First Amendment doesn't guarantee you the right to string any words together you want. What it does guarantee you is the right to express your thoughts and beliefs without repercussions for having those thoughts.

There are no ideas being expressed in "Kill $TEACHER". It does not get First Amendment protection. It's just a threat. The police can investigate it and see if it's credible. If it's credible, then it's a crime. If it's not, then it's just tasteless.

Words can express an idea, like "You will burn in the fires of hell for seeing this movie", or they can just be words, like "there are flames in this movie theater". The First Amendment protects the ideas, not the words. This is why "free speech" applies to paintings, photos, and mimes, even though there are no words involved.

Re:What else does?

[Gorshkov]

Saying "based on this individual kid's history, by talking to him as well as his parents and peers, and psychological evaluation by a professional (all reasonable steps taken when an adult does this), he should be suspended because the school board is convinced that he will definitely attempt to kill his teacher if he remains here" is far more acceptable.

So what you are saying is that everybody gets a free pass untill they've done something so that they HAVE a history.

It was *reasonable* for the teacher to have been worried about his safety, given what's been happening in schools the last few years.

It was *reasonable* for the school to be worried about the threat against a staff member.

And it was VERY reaonsable for the school to suspend him for a term to teach him that threatening his teachers is NOT acceptable.

I wish the hell everybody here would stop seeing every bloody court case in the world as part of some plot by some conspiracy to trample the rights of the population under the heel of (your favorite conspiracy group here).

Let's have some perspective, folks. The kid fucked up - BIG time. He threatened a teacher, and got turfed from school for it. Am I the only one here who thinks this is common sense?

Here's the Text of the Opinion

[TubeSteak]

Well put.

I pulled the text of the Judge's Opinion off Lexis-Nexis & it bears out your line of reasoning.

To summarize:
Cause of Action 1: The icon is not a threat, was protected speech & the District's action was illegal retaliation against his protected speech
Decision: The icon is not free speech & was a threat, therefore the first causes of action fails.

Cause of Action 2 & 3: The District & Superintendent "failed to train school staff in threat assessment, which failure resulted in Aaron's suspension in violation of his First Amendment rights"
Decision: The 2nd & 3rd causes of action hinge on the icon being protected speech. It isn't, therefore they also fail.

Quote: "Even if the icon did not legally constitute an unprotected threat, under all of the circumstances discussed above, Superintendent Mabbett could reasonably have concluded that it did and that his actions were reasonable. As such, he is entitled to qualified immunity."
Translation: Even if it was free speech, the first three causes of action fail.

Cause of Action 4: The Board had a duty to conduct a thorough review of all evidence & in ignoring the Sherrif & psych's conclusion, the board "knowingly, intentionally and/or negligently" suspended Aaron in violation of its duties"
Cause of Action 5: The District did not provide timely & adequate alternative education. The family wants damages + costs & attorenys fees.
Decision: Dismissed without prejudice.
Translation: Go refile these two claims in State Court.

Note: Since none of the facts were in dispute, the School District won their motion to have this all decided by summary judgement.

--Text of the opinion below--

MARTIN and ANNETTE WISNIEWSKI, on behalf of their son Aaron Wisniewski, Plaintiffs, -v- THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE WEEDSPORT CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT and RICHARD MABBETT, Superintendent of Schools, Defendants.

5:02-CV-1403

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41017

June 20, 2006, Decided

COUNSEL: O'HARA & O'CONNELL, STEPHEN CIOTOLI, Esq., of Counsel, Syracuse, New York, Attorneys for Plaintiffs.

BOND, SCHOENECK & KING, PLLC, JONATHAN B. FELLOWS, Esq., of Counsel, SUZANNE O. GALBATO, Esq., of Counsel, Syracuse, New York, Attorneys for Defendants.

JUDGES: Norman A. Mordue, Chief United States District Court Judge.

OPINIONBY: Norman A. Mordue

OPINION: MEMORANDUM-DECISION AND ORDER

INTRODUCTION

Presently before the Court is defendants' motion for summary judgment (Dkt. No. 38). Upon being charged with threatening a teacher, Aaron Wisniewski ("Aaron"), then a student at Weedsport Middle School, was afforded a Superintendent's Hearing pursuant to New York Education Law, 3214(3)(c)(1). The Hearing Officer found that Aaron had circulated through the internet a threat to kill one of his teachers and recommended suspension for a semester. Defendant Board of Education of Weedsport Central School District ("Board") accepted the Hearing Officer's findings and imposed the recommended suspension. Plaintiffs claim that defendants' actions violated Aaron's rights under the First Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 1983, and the New York Education Law.

For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismisses the federal causes of action on the merits. The Court declines to retain jurisdiction over the state law claims and dismisses them without prejudice.

BACKGROUND

Facts

Unless otherwise indicated, the facts set forth in this section are undisputed based on the complaint, defendants' Statement of Material Facts, plaintiffs' response thereto, and the record.

In spring 2001, Aaron, who was 15 years old, was an eighth grade student at Weedsport Middle School ("School"), in the Weedsport Central School District ("District").

Re:What else does?

[Gorshkov]

The concept of the "reasonable man" goes all through British common law, which you inherited in the USA.

Basically, the idea is this ... in the absence of black-letter law or precedent, when trying to interpret actions or motives of an individual, the judge would ask himself, "What would a reasonable man do?"

Little bit of free speach right here

[ZakuSage]

The kid at home should be free to say what he wants or put whatever he wants on his IM. It's the new USA; people don't have the right to say what they want, or do what they want anymore. This kid did nothing harmful, and represented no threat at all. Friends of mine draw pictures of fetuses killing themselves and hand them in art portfolios in my school system, but thank our lucky maple leaf we live in Canada, where people still have some god damn rights. Fuck the American government, fuck the USA: your county's fucking screwed.

Oh the list I carried

[popsicle67]

I graduated in 1985, long before any of this craziness started, but I had a list I carried around of people I would gladly strangle and laugh into their face as they choked their last gasp. It was two pages long in a school with 600 student and faculty so I had agood majority of them on that list with new members added daily. I learned that carrying that much anger was not healthy and revenge that left the person alive and wondering why God was so pissed at them was infinitely more satisfying. That and the top 6 a**holes on that list all got killed within 4 months of graduation in various accidents that I had nothing to do with but still shook me to the core. I found out that maybe all of this wanting to kill people was not for me, death was too final.

So we suspend him instead of giving him counseling

[fatalfury]

...which might just shake him up more than the suspension. Counseling still carries a stigma in high school (or is this middle school? it's been so long...), so if he's sitting in the guidance counselor's office once a week for the rest of the year, and all of his friends know it, he'll probably stop making those icons (or at least stop showing them to people FFS). And it might even do him some good in the process.

All wrong!

[graviton137]

You misunderstand: It was German and said "DIE TEACHER DIE".