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Cyberbullying Laws Raise Free Speech Questions
Chad_DeVoss writes "States across the country are working on laws to rein in cyberbullying, claiming that electronic harassment has led even to the suicides of some children. But what about the First Amendment? Surely schools can't control what kids say to one another? It's an easy argument to make, but the reality is more complicated. From the article: 'The issue is further complicated by questions about whether cyberbullying takes place on school property or not. School officials do not generally have control over what students do outside of school, but, as the First Amendment Center reports, even this issue is complicated. Students who threaten or harass other students using school equipment or during school time can most likely be sanctioned, but even students who do such things from home face the possibility of school discipline under the 'substantial disruption of the educational environment' ruling from the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case from 1969.'"
When I was in high school, I was blatantly told that I didn't have the full rights of an adult until I was 18. I don't know if this is true or not. I actually still don't know if this is true. But let me relate the events that I witnessed and took part in while attending a small town high school in Minnesota.
The grade ahead of me was full of punks. I don't mean 'punks' in the derogatory term, I mean punks that accepted anybody, didn't drink much, tried to skateboard, talked about anarchy, didn't cause too much trouble but liked their music loud and fast. Now, the grade before me had access to an industrial copying machine via one of their parents. What resulted was a 'zine. A punk zine for a school that was often folded 8 1/2 x 11 pages stapled together with images, music reviews, articles & basically anything and all things punk. Including, but not limited to, taking it to the man. The zine was fifty cents to cover copying costs.
I loved these people, everyone else was a tightly knit clique of 'in' crowds where the punks didn't care if I listened to The Beatles & read Sci-Fi Fantasy & lived in the country.
The zine was considered contraband by the teachers. If they found it on your person, they gave you detention. One of the articles in an early edition criticized the entire student body of the school. Foul language was not omitted in this underground publication. First amendment right? The teachers didn't think so.
Lastly, the T-Shirts that people would try to wear were often banned. You were made to turn them inside out or go home with detention. Shirts that said "F You" or even "I hate this hick town." were grounds for detention. In the end, the punks made artwork and screened it onto shirts where it looked like a cool design but if you hooked your thumb and forefinger in it and pulled it down to cover up the inner four inches or so, it said "FUCK YOU." That way, they could choose to display the image whenever they wanted to and a teacher wasn't around. They weren't threatening people with it or harassing people, it was just their response to life and everything. The teachers found it offensive (and some of the dimmer students probably did too) so it was censored.
So to answer your question about schools censoring what the students can say to each other, I experienced that prior to being 18 quite a bit.
My work here is dung.
1st Amendment rights is one thing, but a variety of laws restrict freedom of speech if it slanders, intimidates or incites others. This is true in the real world and probably, as has already been pointed out, this applies even more in schools where you're trying to teach children to be responsible citizens.
That's the problem with trumpeting "freedom" as a great virtue. Too much freedom means that you would have to legalise a variety of evils such as child abuse and racial discrimination. Freedom to do something needs the proviso that it does not restrict the freedom of others, which is a bit more of a subtle concept.
Peter
Free speech, what a crock! Not all forms of verbal behavior are covered by the first amendment. Is sexual harassment licensed by free speech? The real issue hear is the scope of the school's powers. Clearly, they are entitled to try to stop bullying that occurs on school property. We would be outraged if they didn't, whether that bullying was physical or verbal. The real question is to what extent they have they right to take action when something occurs away from school.
I am constantly surprised by the number of Americans who have grown up and enjoyed the privileges, protections, and liberties of the wealthiest and most democratic society that humanity has ever seen, only to constantly complain about how bad they have it, how terrible their country is, and how oppressed they and their freedoms are.
To people throughout most of history, the inability to have an active voice in their government, and the strong possibility that they would be imprisoned or killed for voicing dissent with said government, was oppression.
To many Americans, seeking to discipline young people who attempt to belittle and humiliate their classmates with impunity shielded by the anonymity of the internet, is oppression.
If the one thing children learn from these laws is that freedom is not given, but must be earned (even if it was the previous generations that paid the price) and that therefore it demands a certain amount of vigilance from its benefactors to steward their freedoms in a responsible manner, instead of merely exploiting their freedoms for personal satisfaction, then all the better.