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School Official Sues Over MySpace Page
SoCal writes, "How much legal liability do parents have for what their kids do online? A lawsuit filed in Texas by a high-school assistant principal may give some answers. Some students she had disciplined set up a fake MySpace page in her name depicting her as a lesbian (which she happens not to be). In its coverage, Ars Technica notes that 'What sets this case apart from many other lawsuits filed over the content of blogs is that it doesn't target only the teenagers who created the site. It also argues that the parents were guilty of negligence by failing to supervise their children, and that they bear some of the responsibility for the defaming site.'" The article links the Media Law Resource Center's resource tracking more than 50 cases now in the courts nationwide, in which bloggers have been sued for libel and related claims.
Only in america
So, on one hand schools teach that information from blogs and personal web pages is trivial and can't be trusted, and on the other hand the information is so important that it can ruin a person's life.
By suing someone for defamation of character over a personal web page, this person is legitimising the information on personal web sites. If she wins, MySpace and other sites like it will be even more legitimate.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Clark High School - 210-397-5150
Press 1
Press 6 for Administration
Leave Anna Draker a message detailing just how much she appears to be whining. Written from "her POV" is what I see on the myspace site, and that's known as "satire," protected under the First Amendment. We do this everyday in television shows, depicting people as something they are not, and the shows may get sued but almost always will they come out victorious.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Its about time that someone puts part of the blame on the parents.
Fine and dandy...if that is the case then IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT SOMEONE PUTS PART OF THE BLAME ON TEACHERS too. Computer access at public schools is still horribly unsupervised, and it is probably at least as likely (and probably more so) that students could use school resources, during ther breaks between classes, to do commit exactly the same libel as happened here. I haven't heard anything about schools being sued for neglecting to adequately supervise students whilst they are in the care of teachers..either it doesn't happen or it isn't reported in the news. It has happened numerous times where websites with threatening statements or plots to pull another Columbine, and these were done using school resources. The students are swiftly disciplined (suspended or expelled and even at times charged with criminal offences) but I've not heard parent of these kids trying to go after teachers or schools for the woeful lack of supervision or effective preventative actions.
I do agree tha too many parents have neglected to be properly involved in their children's lives and it has had a profoundly negative impact on our children's development. Somewhere we all lost our way and got caught up in buying nice big houses and SUVs and struggling to make the payments with two incomes and overtime--as if having large houses and SUVs would make us happy and our kids more well adjusted. HOWEVER, this is NOT the only main problem with how our children are raised.
The other problem is our education system, and the methods and practices taught to our teachers for educating our children. It is at least as important as proper parental involvement in children's lives. Besides teachers being overworked and underpaid so as to make proper supervision and discipline next to impossible, new teachers are also badly trained. Too much teacher training is spent on theroetical child psychology and educational methodology courses...and it seems the content of those courses is based on unproven ideas and shaky research. Young idealistic teachers all too often come out of college with their heads filled with phychological garbage about "child centered environments" and "preserving self esteem" at the cost of real methods to teach children how to learn, think critically, be civically responsible and so on. Thus, when a student fails to perform his or her academic responsibilities it is viewed not as a failure on the students part but a "lack of self esteem". Instead of making the student accept responsibility for the failure and learn from the mistakes these teachers try to improve the child's self esteem.
What total crap! This is the prefect recipe for creating a society of sociopaths! If there is any element in a childs like that aggravates his mental stability such conditioning helps breed serial killers. The kids who put out libelous or threatening web pages, or shoot up schools, or bully outcasts to the point of nervous breakdown are dangerously sociopathic. Parental neglect did NOT cause this to happen in isolation. Parental neglect is what allowed the education system to make these children into sociopaths.
If you are a teacher, please try not to take offence..it is not the teachers fault, and in fact I'd say 10 to 20 percent of teachers are superhumanly effective educators. Similarly 10 to 20 percent of teachers are almost criminally incompetent. The remaining 60 to 80 percent deliver mediocre results--their students may come out knowing enough to contribute to society but these teachers (through no fault of their own--they are victims of the system too) do not have the ability to correct institutional damage done to many of these kids.
So if it takes being litigious to correct the behaviour of adults responsible for our children it cannot stop with the parents...teachers (or the professors who educate teachers, or the administration that run the schools) have to be targeted as well. I think that the teacher might want to direct some of the blame to her bosses as well for fostering an intimidating environment that does not allow the opportunity to properly discipline students.
You fail in life for searching for men on the internet.
Honestly, it's like walking into a bar you've never been in before. What the hell are you thinking? Life isn't a game, for chrissakes, use some common sense!
It's been a long time.
...sues their students for making fun of them? Had this come from someone not charged with educating the child, I might be more accepting. But the teachers have more face to face contact than the parents. Who cares if it happened at home or at school, if the educator hasn't taught them this is wrong, they should share the blame. Why doesn't this woman go sue herself? Pathetic.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Good; because that cliche isn't valid, and never was.
Actually it was and always has been. Your statement seems to imply you don't understand but then you go on to explain that you do. Very odd.
The simple fact is, yelling "fire" and causing a panic is NOT protected as free speech. Period. Thusly, the cliche is completely valid. In other words, if you yell, "FIRE!", and people panic and cause damage, injury, or death to themselves or others, you can not hide behind "your right to free speech." The law is very clear on this. In other words, YOU become responsible for both the civil and criminal liabilities and can not NOT claim constitution protection to fend off civil and criminal charges resulting from your action.
You are right that yelling fire, in of its self, is not a crime, but that has never been what that cliched expression has been about...which suggests where your misunderstanding originates. To further hammer this home, it's often recommended to yell fire if one is being robbed, assaulted, or kidnapped. While you are still not protected by free speech, the circumstances surrounding the event is generally thought to mitigate both criminal and civil actions which may follow.