Slashdot Mirror
Student in Court Over Suspension For YouTube Video
kozmonaut writes "A model student is in court this week over 40-day suspension for posting a mocking in-class video to YouTube of 'Mongzilla', a high school english teacher. The student is arguing he had First Amendment rights to publish the video, though it was filmed without permission in the classroom. 'Kent School District lawyer Charles Lind says the suspension had nothing to do with online criticism of the teacher. Rather, it was punishment for the disruption created by the students secreting a video camera into Joyce Mong's class and dancing in a mocking, disrespectful manner while her back was turned. "It's quite clear that the district is talking about conduct in the classroom and not the videotape," Lind said.'"
What online rights is this about? Your right to post videos on the internet without being held accountable for what they contain?
the school district is desperately backpeddling to find a good reason why they should be able to sue over a youtube clip. Even IF their given reason for the suspension is legitimate (which it isn't) 40 days is utterly disproportionate. 40 days is 8 school weeks which is over half a term. Even a ONE DAY suspension for getting up and dancing behind the teacher's back is disproportionate.
FGD 135
would consider a less than B average in high school as "model student" material. from tfa [quote] Cohen said her client has "no disciplinary record at school, and he is the model student" with a 2.97 grade-point average. [/quote]
This is what happens when you socialize young people in a setting where adult presence and guidance is nearly non-existent. You can't blame the students because their elders created an environment that is a more civilized version of Lord of the Flies.
The teacher was in a public area and so has no expectation of privacy.
Isn't that what we keep getting told when the government put CCTV cameras up?
This is totally different than the students who videotaped their teacher being a complete asshole in class and posted it. They were punished for embarrassing the teacher and no other reason. If they were acting like the asshats (in class) that the article describes, then they deserved to be smacked. That said, 40 days is DAMN ridiculous. Students do not need to be bringing cameras to school in order to record themselves acting the fool, but suspending them for 8 weeks is nonsense. Stop with the knee-jerk reactions because kids are being kids. Suspend them for a day or two and hope they learn. Sheesh.
mmm...muffins
If you hold them to their stated reason (or rather, excuse) for the punishment, it's for "disrupting the class." 40 days is several orders of magnitude too extreme. It's like executing somebody for spitting out their gum on the sidewalk.
No, they're punishing him for embarrassing the teacher (and exercising his rights), and now they're just trying to cover their asses.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
All kids involved in the video taping the teacher are morons. I remember when it was common sense not to do something so blatantly stupid and self-incriminating while in school. What ever happened to being able to sit for 45 minutes without acting like a jackass?
Why is the summary making it a point to say that that student was a model student? Do these model students have more rights than nerdy students, ugly students, non-bulumic students and fluncking students?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
668: Neighbour of the Beast
We're talking about a 40-day suspension. If the student had previous 10, 20 and 30 day suspensions for selling drugs to kindergarten students or something, then maybe a 40 day suspension would be more reasonable.
But if a student has never been disciplined before, jumping straight to a 40-day suspension for a first offense that is neither illegal nor dangerous seems a tad unreasonable.
So no, model students don't have more rights than non-model students, but model students probably deserve lighter punishment for the same offense than students who are constant sources of problems and have been disciplined several times before.
paintball
"What happens if all the students produce a video of this nature? Expell all of them?"
Yes. Disruption of the classroom is a common reason for detention, and in extreme cases, expulsion. As a first offense, it might be a bit much, but if the offenders are continuously causing problems, they deserve the punishments they receive, even harsh ones. Pandering to the crowd of "save the children" and "no child left behind" is a mistake we're beginning to see the results of now. It will only get worse if we keep it up.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Couldn't the student claim it's a parody and eliminate any chance of a case against said student?
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
You're not even allowed to take pictures in schools without express permission.
The thing that really gets me about this sort of case is this idiot goes and films a bunch of other people without their permission and posts it online then says it's his right to freedom of expression. Somehow that right is violated if the people in the video or in this case the school have an objetion to the video being posted for public display. When you deal with the media or photographers, you have to sign a model release form stating that you give express permission to the person taking the video to use you in whatever they're going to use the video for. The same thing applies if some random jackass with a video camera decides to film you. They have absolutely no right whatsoever to put that video on the internet without your permission. Let alone film you.
I have nothing compelling to say
YES. There is zero excuse for this. I would suspend the child for this behaviour, and add extra time for filming it. This has nothing to do with YRO or anyone else's. It's to do with the rights of the teacher. Why are slashdotters (and society in general) so accepting of this kind of behaviour? I wouldn't expect anyone to work under those conditions. The school I went to (not long ago) would have done something similar.
-1 not first post
The school should be embarrased to have her working there. The video points out she's unhygienic, the classroom looks disgusting, nobody respects her. That's just what I got in the first 60 seconds.
The school is alleging the video disrupted class - so that's why the student was suspended. So how disrupted was the class that they had to find the video on YouTube to know about it? Did the teacher not mention how 'disrupted' her class was? Ok then fire her.
Allowing this to go on is a disgusting example of a school board as a whole.
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Bride of Mongzilla?
Ace
This kid brought a video camera in to class, videotapped his teacher posted a very degrading and insulting video on the internet. Nothing on that video shows the teacher doing anything wrong, (except possibly the lack of organisation).
But what an asshole of a child! I think 40 days suspension isn't enough for this kind of behaviour, he should have been expelled. How do you think this teacher would feel? I wonder how this video has affected her life?
If some pissy little kid made a video like this about me, I'd be after more than expolsion. Monetary compensation maybe.
Having said all that, the video was very funny. Which only makes it much much worse.
Did you seriously just say that if the teacher wasn't bothered, there wasn't a disruption in the class?
Schools don't prevent disruptions to help the teachers have a nice day. They do it to foster a learning environment for the students. If 3 or 4 of the students are doing something majorly disruptive like dancing behind the teacher's back, -nobody- is learning at the point, and probably not for a while afterwards.
The punishment may not fit the crime, but I don't remember a time in school when it -did-, so that's nothing new. I was once written up for not doing my work in class (I had finished already) and when the teacher tried to rescind, wasn't allowed. Why? The vice-principal didn't like me. He actually had the nerve to say 'I just wanted to see if you'd show up' when I got there. I still had to do clean-up duty for something I didn't even do. Oh yeah, fair.
I've always seen expulsion as a way to let the kids that didn't WANT to be in school, not be. If they want to pass after that, they're going to have to work their little butts off just to pass. They won't have time to disrupt the class any more when they get back. (Nevermind what they'll have to deal with from their parents.) Nobody I knew ever had it happen to them, though. They cared about their grades too much.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Exactly, there is no free speech issue here; he had every right to make and publish the film and no one has stopped that but there are consequences for our actions. All in all this should be a very good lesson for him.
While you are correct over your expectation of privacy in a public space
I would like to propose National Stalking Day. In honor of the Supreme Court deciding arbitrarily that people have no "expectation of privacy" in "public spaces", I call on men everywhere to select a woman and follow them around for a day (staying, of course, entirely on public land for the duration, as per Supreme Court guidance). Evening festivities will include sitting on public streets and looking into people's windows using only publicly available technology such as telescopes and binoculars. Up-skirt photos will be sold at stands for a memento of what privacy used to mean before the Supreme Court got their hands on it.
On privacy, the supreme court is full of nothing but hot air and bullshit.
We can not legislate all aspects of human behavior. It simply does not work.
American society has devolved to "if I can get away with it, I can do it" - many thanks to the prevailing governing administration for promoting this point during the final years of our society. "Required" is now only meaningful in the face of lawsuits to prevent or punish. Healthy societies have both laws AND mores that shape people's behaviors. In this case simple mores for treating people with respect and decency would have stopped this kid, had their parents had the time or understanding to raise their child correctly.
Recording other people is a very dicey issue. Typically recording people in public areas is OK without permission, although recording ocnversations when privacy is reasonably expected is not. Laws vary in different states. I have an interst in this, though I'm not an expert or a lawyer.
In this case, they are in a public institution, and although it was not a public space, there is really no expectation of privacy. Standing up in front of a class of people is exactly the kind of step that can remove the "expectation of privacy".