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School District Threatens Suit Over Parent's Blog
penguin_dance writes "A Texas School District is threatening to sue a parent over what it terms 'libelous material' or other 'legally offensive' postings on her web site and are demanding their removal. Web site owner Sandra Tetley says they're just opinions. The legal firm sending the demand cited 16 items, half posted by Tetley, the rest by anonymous commentators to her blog. The alleged libelous postings 'accuse Superintendent Lynne Cleveland, trustees and administrators of lying, manipulation, falsifying budget numbers, using their positions for "personal gain," violating the Open Meetings Act and spying on employees, among other things.' The problem for the district is that previous courts have ruled that governments can't sue for libel. So now, in a follow-up story, the lawyers say the firm 'would file a suit on behalf of administrators in their official capacities and individual board members. The suit, however, would be funded from the district's budget.' So far, Tetley hasn't backed down, although she said she'll 'consult with her attorneys before deciding what, if anything, to delete.'"
First, why not link to the blog, you dumbass editors?
Second, from just what's written in the summary, it's a pretty clear case of someone using their blog to accuse school officials of wrongdoing. It doesn't sound at all like "opinions". It sounds like accusations and innuendo. I'm not sure how responsible this person is for the comments, but the articles themselves are pretty libelous if untrue.
Since it's not linked in the op, the site in question is http://www.gisdwatch.com/
The suit, however, would be funded from the district's budget.'
Isn't truth an absolute defense to an accusation of libel ?
Just because its a blog doesnt it make any less real than posting it as leaflets on lampposts.
If the accusations are true, than they will lose.
If they arent, they have every right to defend themselves against this libel.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
They know that previous rulings prevent the district from suing so they are doing a run around. It is my belief that if this actually makes it to court and the district loses then the money MUST be repaid by everyone on the board that brought the suit.
Frankly, posting anything about government officials, other than death threats or personal information, should not be discouraged. If the public cannot voice their disagreements with local officials then we are no longer free. The fact is, the public officials don't have to like what is posted about them, thats their choice. It is not their choice to silence people who post such.
while that sites forum is a pain to read it does appear that most of the people complaining are doing so with good maturity. The problem for the district is that people are connecting the dots, adding up the numbers, and then questioning it.
That the district would use a back door method to skirt a previous court ruling about suing only lends more credit to those posting on the blog.
Whats next? Suing people who start recall drives? Perhaps the members of the blog should try that next.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't know the details of this story, whether there's any merit in the school's arguments or not, because I haven't read the original blog (and even if I did, I'd be reading a one-sided biased view), but they are being seen to have gone in heavy-handed with the lawyers, and the result is that a small local dispute has been syndicated in Slashdot, and probably plenty of places elsewhere. Effectively by calling in the lawyers, they've turned a small amount of bad publicity into a very large amount of much worse publicity. This is something I've noticed happening a lot lately (most obviously with the RIAA etc). So regardless of the merits of the case, the lesson seems to be if you're considering calling the lawyers, you'd be wise to try less drastic steps first to get your point across. And if you're on the receiving end of a nasty letter from the lawyers, blog about it in a way that focuses on how it affects your rights, and make sure Slashdot gets to hear it.
These are elected officials we are talking about. School board members are chosen by election. The rules for libel are far different for public figures than for private individuals. This might get interesting. The defendent's speech is political in nature so we're talking First Amendment issues here.
after I RTFA i didn't see where they mentioned the actual content in dispute. Could someone point out where this libel actually is on the site? I would like to read what GSID is actually trying to remove before I form an opinion on the matter.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
If they use the district's money to file the lawsuit with the individuals as plaintiff will make the statements that they use district funds for personal gain a true statement.
Shame on everyone else here. You all forgot the part about CDA immunity.
Fight Spammers!
Sorry to comment-jack, but I think you guys here on Slashdot will be interested in this, it's the first chance I've really had to discuss it, and it's extremely relevant to this thread.
:).
Sorry in advance that it's poorly written, my brains frazzled from studying and I don't have time to plan it properly.
About 6 weeks ago I was 'removed' from my school (in Victoria, Australia) for writing a blog. I'm eighteen, doing my VCE (Year 12) and two days after writing it my Mum was called and asked to bring me in (and asked to pull me out of work specifically for it.. she didn't, so they waited at the school until seven so that they could do it that night).
The blog in question was satirical, and made fun of numerous things about the school (spending so much on toilets when they're still so crap, our health teachers poor understanding of some contraception methods, the fact we put had 'annual festivities' to impress visitors from Japan, my new VET Multimedia teachers, a picture of a condom found on the floor in the Year 7-9 toilets (12 to 15)). I named some names (of the teachers, and one student who made a webpage which received an award despite coming straight out of 1995). I realise in retrospect I did a lot of things wrong, but hear me out.
I was told, in the 'meeting', that I was not to come back to school. Clear my locker out and leave. She (the principal) would 'speak to the region' and I'd probably get transferred. I had 4 weeks to go, then exams. Excluding holidays. In the first week, nothing was done, we waited to find out what was happening (heard very little). Then 2 weeks of holidays (which of course no-one works), then the next week we were told I'd be sitting my SACs at my house (with teacher supervision) and doing my exams at another school 30 km away. In the meeting, I'd offered EVERYTHING to keep myself there. I apologised, my Mum tried to get her to address the more pressing concerns in the blog (neither of my VET Multimedia teachers were qualified to teach the course), but she ignored this. I was told to take the blog down or they'd speak to their legal team (apparently some parts were defammatory).
In the end, I was able to contact my teachers - through her.. A very slow process. Now, it's exam time. I've done alright so far, but my ENTER score is seriously going to suffer from the fact I missed out on the most crucial part of the year. Does the school care? No. The Department of Education said that her actions were completely reasonable.. This is despite the fact she was also mentioned in said blog, as the handicap parking spot in the car park was removed and, ala, a spot for her showed up
So, this isn't the first case. Oh, and wish me luck with my exam tomorrow..
If you want to ask questions, just reply here and I'll answer them. Don't waste your time flaming me, I realise in retrospect to watch what you say online, but come on.. it was meant for a cheap laugh, and my serious attempts to address the issues were ignored. It was a creative outlet for me and it's seriously affected my future.. alas, I have no recourse it'd seem. Also, anyone who commented on the blog was banned from all Year 12 events - Muck up day, valedictory (graudation) dinner, etc.
Australia.. so much for a free country.
Note: I should point out.. I'm aware Australia doesn't have freedom of speech laws. Also, I was a grade A student (for most things), and my final mark will still go on my previous schools records.. so really, they haven't lost out at all.
Oh, and one of the unqualified multimedia teachers ended up not being at school the next day - she (unsurprisingly) had a Professional Development day. Apparently they were completing their Multimedia certificate to be qualified to teach, but weren't legally allowed to yet. The teachers also didn't realise they had to keep copies of assessment work - all of our work was deleted 'upon review', to 'make it easier' for the teacher (because, you know, he couldn't move it to a "Been Marked" folder) - this came up when I asked him why I'd lost marks.. he told me he didn't know because my work was deleted weeks ago.
One might almost say, it sounds like Tetley's bitter.
"falsifying budget numbers, using their positions for "personal gain," violating the Open Meetings Act and spying on employees,"
These are all very serious accusations of criminal behaviour from members of the school board. Unless Tetley has any proof of these accusations I can see why they could be considered libelous.
Whether or not it is good publicity to sue is another matter.
Timer to hire a lawyer.
I don't know much about Australian law, but I suspect that if the local press is not somehow denied access to the site, merely threatening to sue them anyway even if you don't have a case will likely garner you enough press time to embarrass them a lot more than the website.
They may allow you back in or to retake the test in simple self defense. You will likely be seeing some hardball. The accusations on your site can be enough to keep an elected official out of office or get a superintendent fired. Again consult the lawyer first, but pointing out that it will get into the local news may cause a really amazing effect.
Also don't assume that t6hey are necessarily telling you the truth about what is defamatory and what is not. A lot of that stuff is opinion and not thier opinion to boot.
You have to understand that the actions of your school against your are the result of their fear of negative publicity. Use this to your advantage. It looks like some of your criticism was legitimate. Contact your local newspaper and tell them about the issues you have. You have a right to proper education and if you are being denied that right, you have the right to tell people about the main reasons you are not getting the education you deserve.
In my opinion, there is a fine line between opinion and libel. For example, if you have "in my opinion" in what you're saying, then that makes it an opinion, in my opinion. However, I may be wrong, but I don't feel wrong, in my opinion.
If what you mentioned contained libel, then this probably won't work. But in my opinion, if it weren't for the libel, I would personally consider suing. All you need is to document the financial loss you incurred when they harassed you, assuming it is considered harassment, which I won't say whether or not they did.
# Hey Shell, you know it's kinda funny,
Texas always seemed so big
But you know you're in the largest state in the union,
When you're anchored down in Anchrage
Those aren't serious allegations. These are run of the mill things. Who doesn't fudge budgets? Who doesn't use their position to advance themselves or their relatives (ie., nepotism)? Who doesn't spy on their employees (ie., read employee email or go hunting for personal webpages)? I'm not sure what the Open Meeting Act is, but if it's anything like the Freedom of Information Act, who follows that to the letter?
The thing is, unless these administrators are angels (and they're probably human, not angel), the allegations are probably true. These are things people of average moral character do on a normal basis. People of good moral character usually don't do this, but then again, I doubt they'd make it into a management position. Management usually goes to 'yes' people, not people with strong morals.
These lawsuits have a chilling effect on others who might want to expose wrong-doing.
Pedophile is the Yank (incorrect) spelling.
Paedophile is the British (correct) spelling.
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This is why you need an independent judiciary. A judge should look at the kind of legal flim-flammery the district is attempting and smack them down hard for abuse of process. Of course this is Texas, so who knows what will happen.
Sometimes, you can get away with breaking the spirit of the law on a technicality. Sometimes. But when you can, it is because in our system, the entity whose illegal actions are the highest priority to restrain is presumptively the government. It is better for a citizen to get off on a technicality than for the government to claim an iota more power over his life than it is strictly allowed to. But this doesn't go the other way. The government can't use a technicality to claim more power of the citizens' lives than it actually has.
This is why "running government like a business" doesn't work. The government has duties that a business does not, and things that individuals can sometimes get away with the government can't, or at least shouldn't. One of the duties the government has is to respect the right of individuals to criticize it.
Even individuals aren't allowed to evade their legal duties by legal fictions. You have a legal duty to pay taxes. You can shelter income by taking advantage of quirks in the tax code, but you cannot shelter it by creating ficticious transaction that create the appearance of losses. That's fraud.
What the school committee is doing here is fraud. It is managing this lawsuit and even paying for it, under the fraudulent pretenses that it is not a government action. It makes accusation of fraud against the officials involved all the more credible. It would be one thing (still dubious) if they took legal action as individuals; perhaps it would be simply misguided. But they're playing a shell game here, using their official powers but hiding them under an unconvincing cloak.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's a career killing comment, no wonder they freaked out. If the evidence is stacking up they probably should be fired but it's still not a good idea to post something like this on the internet since he could be assaulted. If he hasn't done anything it would be solely your fault. Besides, he could just be creepy and his actions be misinterpreted. Unless you have actual proof it's irresponsible to say things like that.
Without checking your actual post I can't know what you said but from the snippets you've posted already it sounds like you were spreading chaos around with a big shovel. The internet can be read by anyone, so a good analogy would be you writing this down and nailing it on a tree somewhere. Heck, if I implied corruption and sexual deviancy in my teachers, wrote it down and hammered it on a tree in my suburb, with my name on it. The end result would be pretty much the same as in your case.
Now I live in Australia myself and I love it here. The taxes aren't too bad, crime is minimal and there's an excellent social security net. Try doing this anywhere and you'll get the same result. Especially if you were silly enough to say something like this in your final year.
My actual point is this. They were fighting words, they offended people very badly, as fighting words tend to do. So now they're on the warpath against you. Hardly surprising.
How do you kill that which has no life?
Get out of my country.
Ezekiel 23:20
I am unfamiliar with the term Pederast (this is, in fact, the first time I have heard it), and hence looked it up on wikipedia, and it doesn't seem to mean what you think it does. From the first paragraph of the article: "Pederasty or paederasty (literally 'boy-love', see Etymology below) refers to an intimate or erotic relationship between an adolescent boy and an adult male outside his immediate family. It has found expression from earliest times through a variety of customs and practices within different cultures." Considering that the children were female (teenage girls), and that the "creepy teacher" was male, Pederast is certainly not the correct word to use, unless you want to argue with wikipedia (which I would understand, as wikipedia is often ... inaccurate, I suppose one could say, or not a perfect source).
A better term to use might be Ephebophilia or Lolita Complex, as both of those refer to an attraction to adolescents, and one of those might be the term that you were thinking of -- but it is certainly not Pederast.
Everything is subjective.
I used to run a regularly updated blog that covered, among other things, a situation in the town I live in. Basically, a group of local politicians (or their cronies) hijacked the offices they were voted out of by filling the open spots of mayor and city council that were conveniently vacated by the people that won the election. Those people who had been elected (not the ones who were voted out and later appointed) left under a series of very suspicious circumstances, leaving the impression that they were bullied out of office. The ones that came back served local business interests. The locals, fed up with what was going on, decided that the best way out was to dissolve the city and be annexed into the city next door. Upon following the state law, this group of locals was successful in their efforts and were supposed to have a vote on the annexation. The town "leaders" didn't want that to happen, so they fought the election in courts-- which they lost. So they racked up a large amount of debt for the town, the town that agreed to annex pulled out because they didn't want the debt, and our town never saw an election.
The local media picked up very little of the story, so I called the town out on its actions on my blog. It got quite a bit of attention from the locals.
The town officials didn't dare come after me, but one of the local business leaders (and a friend of the council and mayor) did. He showed up on my doorstep, came inside my home, and raised his voice in front of my toddler daughter and paid no attention to the fact that he was scaring the crap out of her. While I used no names or businesses or people, and there was more that one person who could have fit the description, the business owner told me that he had the right to sue me. I spoke with no less than four lawyers who told me that he was delusional. The owner's rationale was this: If I wrote a convincing blog that affected the outcome of a local election, the town would be absorbed into another town that has building codes and zoning laws, and he'd have to spend money to get his buildings up to code. So he would sue me for the money he "lost". During the meeting, he fiddled with his pocket and asked me questions like, "What was your intent in publishing this?" Yes, I was being recorded, and I suspect he was fishing for something because someone told him he had nothing.
Nevertheless, he said that I'd incorrectly stated someone else's opinion. (This person was also never named.) While I'd talked to the person previously and published their correct opinion, that opinion changed when I spoke to them afterward-- leading me to believe that he'd had a similar visit. I had no way to back up my claims, so I went ahead and corrected the statement with an editor's note. I was also told that I'd incorrectly identified the mayor as being the owner of a particular business, but there were no defaming statements made, so it was no big deal. I've since been told that the mayor IS the owner, so I just took the sentence out altogether to avoid confusion. They even tried to say that I'd misquoted the mayor, but the quote I'd published was a quote from the local newspaper and was noted as such. Not to mention, the reporter had a taped recording of what the mayor said, regardless as to what he meant to say.
My little meeting actually DID change the way I wrote, and it made me an even bigger thorn in their side. Since they were going to play hardball, I started collecting paperwork to back up every single thing I wrote, and they could no longer tell people I was lying. I even published pictures of the "park" they claimed to have on their publicity website and turned some heads, and they had to change the wording to say that they were going to have a park in the future. (I got a couple of phone calls from state legislators about that one.) When they passed a city ordinance to discourage a peaceful demonstration at a town event, I published the ordinance and pointed out in the wording that they could still prot
This happened recently, where the anonymous blogger "orthomom" got sued by a School Board member for saying nasty things about her. The suit was thrown out of court. Some details are available here.
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