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Judge Munley is So Out of My Top 8
Apart from the politics of minors' free speech rights in general, I think there are at least three logical problems with the ruling. The first is the judge's argument that even though on-campus speech and off-campus speech are separate, if the off-campus speech is offensive enough, that elevates it to the point of giving the school jurisdiction over it. The second is the judge's comparison between a student's parody MySpace page, and the mock-threatening rap lyrics that got a student expelled in another court case -- a court ruled that the school overstepped their bounds by expelling the student for the rap song, but Judge Munley said that a MySpace page jokingly calling the principal a "sex addict" was actually more offensive than the violent rap lyrics. The third is the argument that because the student's conduct was so offensive that it could have theoretically been criminally punished if the principal took her to court, that made it acceptable for the school to take the easier route of suspending her.
All right, all together now: I'm not a lawyer, and probably neither are you. But as I've said before, if you put 10 judges in 10 separate rooms and asked them to decide this case (or any other case) independently of each other, you'd be very unlikely to get a consensus anyway. The importance of courts in a civilized society is that they provide a peaceful means of settling disputes, not because we expect that the judges will actually get the "right" answer -- that's why we don't have a crisis of faith in the system every time the Supreme Court splits 5-4. (By contrast, when physicists work on problems involving car safety and satellite trajectories, we do care about them getting the "right" answer, and so physicists are held to a higher standard than judges -- we expect that 9 physicists working on the same problem in separate rooms would all get the same result.) That goes for the rest of us too -- I have no independent confirmation that I'm right, and anyone ranting with supreme confidence that I'm wrong, has no independent confirmation that they're right, either. The best we can do is try to make arguments that are logically consistent, and check that even if they are free of internal contradicions, that they also can't be carried through to an absurd conclusion.
To wit: Judge Munley's decision cites four prior cases that involved students making offensive or disruptive speech (although still not as offensive as the MySpace page in this case calling the principal a pedophile) while on school property or at school events: Bethel School Dist v. Fraser, Hazlewood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, Morse v. Frederick, and Klein v. Smith. In those cases, the courts ruled that the discipline did not violate the students' rights because the students were at school events or on campus when they made the statements at issue. Judge Munley then cites another list of cases in which students published speech that was generally more offensive than the incidents in the first list, but did it on their own time, away from school: Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. Dist., Latour v. Riverside Beaver Sch. Dist., Killion v. Franklin Regaional Sch. Dist., and Layshock v. Hermitage Sch. Dist. In all of these cases, the courts ruled that the school districts violated the students' rights by punishing them for off-campus speech. So far, all eight of these cases cited by Munley, followed the rule: on-campus or school-affiliated speech is punishable, off-campus speech is not. (Munley cites only one case that was an exception to this rule: Fenton v. Stear, in which the court upheld the punishment of a student who was off campus when he loudly referred to a teacher as a "prick.")
But then, Judge Munley argues more or less that the speech in this case is so offensive (calling the principal a sex addict and a pedophile), that you're allowed to lift it out of the category of off-campus speech and treat it by analogy to earlier cases involving on-campus speech. Munley wrote:
In the instant case, there can be no doubt that the speech used is vulgar and lewd. The profile contains words such as "fucking," "bitch," "fagass," "dick," "tight ass," and "dick head." The speech does not make any type of political statement. It is merely an attack on the school's principal. It makes him out to be a pedophile and sex addict. This speech is not the Tinker silent political protest. It is more akin to the lewd and vulgar speech addressed in Fraser. It is also akin to the speech that promoted illegal actions in the Morse case.
The content itself is "akin" to the offensive speech in the earlier cases, but what difference does that make, if the speech didn't take place in school? Getting back to first principles: Why does the First Amendment generally grant the freedom to call people "dick" and "tight ass"? Because it doesn't hurt anyone except to the extent that it hurts their feelings, and you don't have a right to unhurt feelings. Because the remarks can be made in the context of general legitimate criticism of someone, which might motivate them to change the behavior that led someone to call them a "tight ass" in the first place. Once these premises are accepted, it doesn't matter if you ratchet up the offensiveness from calling someone a "dick" to calling them a "fucking dick." It does change the analysis if you move the speech to a different setting, e.g. standing up in class when people are trying to learn, and shouting that the principal is a "fucking dick." But that's not what this student was doing.
After all, if the regulation of off-campus speech were justified in order to prevent harm or embarrassment to the principal, carry that through to its logical conclusion: Suppose a former student, who had since graduated, created the parody MySpace page and e-mailed it to friends at the school. The school's "interest" in preserving order and protecting the principal's reputation, would be exactly the same -- and yet no court has ever suggested that the government can punish a former student for speech outside of school (unless the speech rises to the level of threats or libel, which anyone can be punished for, regardless of the former student-principal relationship). To be punished, the former student would have to bring the speech into the school, where it could cause a disruption (and where, as a non-student, they could be banned from the premises anyway).
As for the second problem, apart from the issue of whether offensiveness alone is enough to give the school the right to punish a student for off-campus speech, there is the question of what criteria Judge Munley used to determine that the MySpace page was more offensive than the student off-campus speech in previous cases. In Latour v. Riverside Beaver Sch. Dist. , the court found that a student's rap lyrics which made mock threats toward another student, identified by name, could not be treated as a true threat because they were the kind of boastful posturing that rappers are known for (apparently including the ones in junior high school these days). Similarly, the MySpace page created in this case, began with the words:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy,
expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world
with a small dick PRINCIPAL
and hopefully the principal would agree that any reasonable reader would know this was not written by him. So if the content of the speech in both cases was clearly not meant to be taken seriously, a fair apples-to-apples comparison would be to ask which is the more offensive topic: violence, or a joke about a principal listing among his "interests": "detention, being a tight ass, riding the fraintrain, spending time with my child (who looks like a gorilla), baseball, my golden pen, fucking in my office, hitting on students and their parents"?
What Judge Munley seems to be saying is that joking about murder is more acceptable than joking about a principal hitting on students. While I think this is absurd and offensive to victims of violence, I have to admit that this is at least consistent with standards of censorship in the U.S. It's a tired old complaint, but it's never been satisfactorily answered: Why can you show a character being killed on television, but a sex act is taboo? Why are the most offensive swear words derived from sex acts and sex organs, but there are no equivalent words for murder that are banned from the airwaves? What's worse?
Third, the judge seemed to adopt the position that because the student could theoretically have been prosecuted for creating the fake MySpace profile, that made it acceptable for the school to impose a milder punishment that circumvented the court system. Judge Munley wrote:
The speech at issue here could have been the basis for criminal charges against J.S. Additionally, the state police indicated to McGonigle that he could press harassment charges based upon the imposter profile. (Dep. McG, 98- 99). McGonigle indicated that he would not press charges, but asked the police officer to contact the students involved and their parents to inform them of the seriousness of the situation. (Dep. McG at 99, 163-64). The officer summoned the students and their parents to the state police station and discussed the seriousness of the profile and that McGonigle would not press charges.
It's at least debatable whether the MySpace page, which was an obvious parody, could have been the basis for criminal charges. But suppose we grant the judge that point. In that case, even if we know that someone's actions would have gotten them a more severe punishment from the courts, is it acceptable to give them a lighter punishment for something else, just because that's simpler for the school?
No. First, because it fosters disrespect for the rule of law in general: If you committed X, then you should be punished for X, according to the rules set up for punishing X. When Judge Jackie Glass began O.J. Simpson's trial this month for robbing two men at gunpoint, she told jurors: "If you think you are going to punish Mr Simpson for what happened in 1995, this is not the case for you." She, like most sentient beings, probably believed privately that O.J. committed the murders in 1994, but she knew the rule of law was more important than the outcome of any one case, even a murder trial. Second, lighter punishments (such as a suspension from school) often come with a lower standard of judicial review, so you could end up getting an undeserved punishment, in cases where a proper trial for the actual crime at issue might have found that you should not have been punished at all. (Al Capone did get put away for tax evasion, but the court found that he was in fact guilty of tax evasion -- they weren't reaching that as a compromise to avoid trying him for his crimes as a gangster.)
To come clean, however, I have to admit that I have tried to egg judges down that route occasionally. I've taken spammers to court and gotten them to say, under oath, that they never sent any spam and didn't know what I was talking about, before I revealed a tape-recording of a conversation (recorded legally) in which they offered to send 5 million pieces of spam for $500, that the spams were routed out through a server in China to help defeat spam filters, etc. The idea was that the judge would get pissed at the spammer for committing perjury, but realize that it would be too much paperwork to prosecute that, so just bang them over the head with a thousand-dollar judgment for spamming, which would go to me. Unfortunately this can backfire if the judge is so opposed to anti-spam suits that no amount of evidence will convince them anyway. But even if it had worked, it would not be strictly correct to say that justice had been done -- perjury should be punished as perjury, even if only with a slap on the wrist.
So, I'm sure that Judge Munley was trying in his own way to do the right thing by preserving order in the school system, but he probably decided in advance what conclusion to reach, and came up with the arguments after the fact. Still, it may not be a loss for student rights in the long run. The ACLU, which represented the student, has not said whether they will appeal, and anyway, virtually all other caselaw so far has said that student speech off campus is protected, as Judge Munley himself pointed out.
Better for the kid to learn now that "free speech" is (and always has been) a crock of shit in the U.S. It's just one of those terms that we throw around to make ourselves feel superior to other countries. But when you take even the most cursory look at it, you realize it's as hollow as a reed. "The right to free speech" in reality translates to "The right to conventional, relatively non-controversial speech in a setting that will not upset anyone or be particularly noticed by anyone who might be offended or threatened by said speech." The second you attempt to break out of any one of those tight boundaries, you WILL find yourself in jail/kicked out of school/fired/persecuted or in some way silenced or punished.
That kid just learned one of the most important lessons in life: That what people SAY and CLAIM has little to do with what they DO and how they actually ACT. And that goes for the government, politicians, and just about everyone else. Just because some civics class says you have "the right to free speech" does not mean that you can actually ever speak freely in any real world environment without fear of persecution.
Consider it the first of many disillusioning life lessons, kid.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The school's responsibility is to prepare you for life after you are finished school. Office politics play a huge role in that kind of development, because you cannot escape office politics -- they permiate every infrsstructure, at every level. It's a large part of the game and there is no getting around it, sorry.
Furthermore, I can guarantee that if you made fun of your boss as being a sex addict who hits on employees, you would be fired immediately. You might have a case for wrongful dismissal, but your lawyer would tell you to drop it and get another job (because even if the boss hit on you there are better options than public mockery -- judges tend to dislike that).
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Minors don't have rights.
That sounds like blatant libel.
The stupid girl should consider herself lucky for having it settled with a simple suspension rather than being taken to court.
If I did something like this my dad would have beat the crap out out me, not be a schmuck and help me sue, sue sue.
Little Johnny can do no wrong.
This isn't satire, this isn't parody, this is just abusive stuff out of the mind of a teenager, they might think its "cool" but in fact accusing a principal in this heavily sensitive times of being a paedophile is just about as low and threatening as a student can get. This isn't free speech in the same way as a John Stewart gag is satire this is just abusive rubbish out of the mind of an immature kid.
Getting kicked out is the least of this kid's problems, they are lucky that they aren't looking down the barrel of a lawsuit with lots of damages attached.
Free Speech is critical to a well functioning democracy and its worth defending, but it isn't a license to just spout off crap. Hell even Spiderman movies know that "with great power comes great responsibility".
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Obviously this is an injustice in its own right. Regardless of what "the real world" is like, this is not how it is supposed to be.
But what's especially troubling is that it can be used as precedent to shut down corporate/government whistleblowers. If an institution's rules apply even when you're outside of that institution, your employer owns you.
The basic error made by the judge seems to be that because the speech was _about_ the school, it is under the school's jurisdiction. That's his "connection between the off-campus action and on-campus effect." And the Supreme Court opened up the door to this sort of specious reasoning in "Morse v. Frederick", where they ruled that a banner visible from the school (but not on school property) was considered to be under school jurisdiction. The Supreme Court didn't rely on that fact alone, but it's enough for a judge who makes the decision first and justifies it later to hang an opinion on.
Doesn't mean freedom from consequence - its called responsibility.
Can you guys please give Haselton an author account so we can choose to block him? I simply don't understand why he needs to be proxied through our filters like this, unless the editors just don't trust him with an account. (Which seems odd, given Michael Sims and some of the others they've had.)
And if he must keep posting through Taco, can we please get an update on his lawsuit against his one-time date for not paying her share of the tab?
IANAL, but my understanding was that with respect to employee conduct, sexual harassment does not make a distinction between harassing coworkers inside the workplace and outside the workplace, so long as they are actually your coworkers. So I could certainly see the rational, if not legal, argument for this ruling.
Speaking of IANAL, since when did Slashdot publish essays on law from someone who explicitly states he's not a lawyer (although he's taken people to court under very different circumstances from the article)? What makes them qualified to get a whole Slashdot article to themselves?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
While not directly analogous I think the best counter example to this is the Supreme Court case Huster v Falwell. While that case doesn't apply directly to students, it says that lewd and offensive are not enough to disqualify something from free speech protections. In that case, Jerry Falwell sued Hustler for publishing a parody of a Campri ad where it insinuated that Jerry's first time was with his mother in an outhouse. The lower courts found that though no one could possibly believe the parody was truth, the ad was offensive enough to rule for Falwell. The Supreme Court disagreed:
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Uh huh.
Um, of course they will. You see, those are the consequences of your free speech. There has never been any real disagreement on this issue, you have free speech, and you have the responsibility to use it wisely.
Pretending like "free speech" means "say whatever the fuck I want with impunity, while simultaneously forcing others to accept my speech without exercising their own free speech (which is your primary complaint)" is bullshit.
Free speech never meant "say what you like with impunity" and anyone claiming otherwise is full of it.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
I love free speech as much as the next Yankee, BUT...
Let's ask this question: what would happen to a school kid if he/she directed the same kind of provocative language at the principal or a school teacher, IN PERSON, either in the hallway or in a classroom?
How long would it take to slap down a suspension? It would probably happen before you or I could finish saying the word "suspension".
For right or for wrong, pure "free speech" in this case is going to take a back seat to order and discipline. It's a necessity IMHO, in order to allow a school to carry out it's primary mission of teaching kids the classic "three R's".
Putting comments out on the web, whether on a blog or social site or a standalone web site, as far as I am concerned, is no different than uttering the words in person. What point does this kind of disrespectful behaior have, other than to disrupt the educational process? And don't give me this "harmless prank" nonsense - accusing a professional of criminal activity online, even if "joking" about it - there's nothing funny about it whatsoever.
I'm neither a lawyer or a teacher, not even a parent, but you can bet I would support a schools suspension of any student who pulls this kind of stunt.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Sorry I didn't read the entire rant but I think I got the actual story which is that a student made unsubstantiated allegations against the principle of her school and he then suspended her from the school.
He could and arguably should have sued her for defamation. I think he took the saner approach of suspending and that its best all-round. With rights come responsibilities. With freedom of expression comes the responsibility to not willfully destroy the reputations (and livelihoods) of innocent people.
A suspension is not an expulsion. The student needs to be thankful the principle is so understanding. If he didn't do something then his job would quickly become untenable.
Nick
Judge was dead on right. The summary tries to steer the reader into thinking this is the Man stepping on Free Speech (it's parody, right! You can do or say anything when it's parody!) when it's really some poor guy, not even a public figure, getting publicly slandered by a kid.
Not to add that the era matters: in the 50's the kid could be calling the principal a Communist. These days, if she's hinting he's a sex offender, people are hyper-sensitive to that.
Kid needs to have life explained, in detail, without dessert.
...not putting anything into print outside of school that you wouldn't say to someone's face at school?
Cowards deserve what they get.
The judge was way out of line, and will probably be overruled on appeal.
The school principal was just pissed off because he felt like she called him a pedophile.
Lesson: People get pissed off when you make fun of them, and the courts are rarely fair.
My 2 cents.
To prove libel/slander, you have to prove three basic things:
1. The accusations are false
2. She knew the accusations were false
3. She had malicious intent
All three seem pretty easy to prove in this case. The girl's lucky the principle isn't suing her. Free speech is great, but kids like this ruin it by spouting off malicious garbage.
I'm assuming the things that were on her MySpace page had no factual basis, but...
Free speech is fine and all, but I'm not really sure that's my first concern here. This is just slanderous drivel, and not only that but slanderous drivel that's being published for the entire world to see. I'm not sure if the dumb little twit realized that the things she was publishing about her principal could actually get him in a lot of trouble. Honestly, I think she deserved a suspension and then some.
To me, this isn't about free speech. It's about raising children and punishing them for behaving inappropriately, which is very much in the domain of her school. Maybe that comes from my having gone to a private Catholic school which tend to take more leeway in these matters. People need to be taught to realize that the internet isn't like gossiping to your airhead friend; it's something the entire world can see. Honestly, I think the judge did the right thing, and I'm a serious proponent of free speech.
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You tossed out the obligatory "this is an attack on free speech" karma whoring to a rabid pro free speech audience, and yet they still told you you were an idiot.
Get the hint yet?
All right, all together now: I'm not a lawyer, and probably neither are you. But as I've said before, if you put 10 judges in 10 separate rooms and asked them to decide this case (or any other case) independently of each other, you'd be very unlikely to get a consensus anyway. The importance of courts in a civilized society is that they provide a peaceful means of settling disputes, not because we expect that the judges will actually get the "right" answer -- that's why we don't have a crisis of faith in the system every time the Supreme Court splits 5-4. (By contrast, when physicists work on problems involving car safety and satellite trajectories, we do care about them getting the "right" answer, and so physicists are held to a higher standard than judges -- we expect that 9 physicists working on the same problem in separate rooms would all get the same result.) That goes for the rest of us too -- I have no independent confirmation that I'm right, and anyone ranting with supreme confidence that I'm wrong, has no independent confirmation that they're right, either. The best we can do is try to make arguments that are logically consistent, and check that even if they are free of internal contradicions, that they also can't be carried through to an absurd conclusion.
This pretty much illustrates what the law and justice system actually are. The "justice" "system" (it's really neither) is full of contradictory rulings, vague statutes, and all-around bullshit. People are conned into believing in judgments based on "legal principles" because they are given fancy names in Latin; in a relevant example to the article, in loco parentis (read the article to get a sense just how contradictory and fragmented the system really is) could probably be used to justify suspension or even expulsion of this kid, as it is often used to justify the state enforcing its standards; the state essentially can decide which type of speech or position the student expresses is allowable. I'm sure a school could get away with suspending a student based on that student's belief that, say, drugs should be legal or expressing a political opinion that could be offensive to some people. (This is one of the problems with public schooling, I think--if the state has to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable speech, then some of that unacceptable speech is going to inevitably "massively unpopular opinion or idea"). And, as an aside, and I'm sure a lot of us nerds that sludged through high school can remember, the administators were often more concerned with how students dressed than with what parents are really supposed to care about, like violence, as the violent bullies never got in trouble. Maybe school administrators see themselves in the bullies...
The Republicans are right when they speak of "activist judges", but not quite in the way they've thought of it. All judges are essentially activists for their own personal political and moral philosophies. A judge isn't going to rule against what he thinks is moral and what is just. Our law system is based on tradition, and yet, is fragmented and contradictory, so a judge can usually look back to previous caselaw and find something to justify what he thinks.
Don't believe me that the system is one big play? Look at history. Look at the many times the Supreme Court has overturned themselves (funny how the words of the constitution essentially don't change, but how the Court's rulings do...) and look at how much attention is given to Supreme Court nominees. Look at FDR trying to pack the Court with sympathizers to the New Deal. Look at the whole issue whether the nominees support Roe v. Wade or not. Look at how many goddamn 5-4 splits there are over the goddamn constitution. Look at how we can call judges "conservative" or "liberal" as if they belong to a sports team and how we describe their past cases as if they were sports games, speaking of their decisions as if they were some great playoff
I defend these kinds of cases all the time for school districts. The law is that schools may discipline students for off-campus conduct of any type, including speech, if the off-campus conduct is likely to cause disruption on campus. There have been many, many cases involving just this fact pattern: web pages created by students that criticize school officials or employees. In almost every case, especially where the student makes these kinds of scurrilous allegations, the discipline is upheld.
The discipline in this case was easily proper. Calling the principal a child molester is certain to result in disruption on campus.
Do we really want courts examining every disciplinary action that schools take? Do you really believe that students should be able to say this kind of thing about teachers or administrators?
And no, this doesn't mean that there is no "free speech." Anyone is free to say whatever they want -- and required to suffer the civil consequences of what they say.
I totally agree that a suspension is an easy break for the kid, but...
Look at the precedence. If this ruling goes unchallenged, what's to prevent a school from suspending any student they like for posting something on their my-space page? A student could post a valid, non-libel complaint about one of their instructors, and get suspended for it even though the comment was made off school grounds/times and was not in violation of the law. And what if it gets into even more heated topics. A white girl in a southern Georgia town post pictures of her date with her new black boyfriend to a social networking site and gets a 3 day suspension from School, why? Because the principal is a racist. Take it to court, and he'll site this case as precedence. Given power and time someone will abuse it.
This is a pretty significant power grab being made by the school that dramatically shifts the existing boundaries of power. As a quasi-conservative, I can't fathom why anyone would want to have such a result. I mean, I entrust the school system with my son during the day. I expect that they will keep an eye on him and make sure he performs well and integrates with society. When he leaves school, he is my responsibility, not theirs. And if he posts some crap like this on the internet, it is MY job to discipline him, not the school's. If the Principal wants to be responsible for disciplining my son for things that happen out side of the school environment, he can talk to me, or he can talk to a lawyer.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
If he slanders, is he liable for committing libel.
This post brought to you by the character "/", and the punctuation mark "."
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What we've got here is a medium (MySpace) that is not only available from on-campus locations, but of which a facsimile was made and brought on to the school campus. If (a) the school blocks MySpace from all on-campus machines and (b) a hard copy of the profile hadn't been brought on to campus, then this story might very well have a different ending.
Then we could suspend students for any reason without violating free speech. Yet another reason to use school vouchers.
It's one thing to make a sexual parody of a politician, it's another to make it of school management where the career impact can be severe. There is some magic line where free speech ends and slander begins.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Ok this rights thing for kiddies, throw it out now... The forefathers had no clue you'd be this stupid and apply rights to non taxed individuals.... If that six foot four, two hundred pound fourteen year old comes over here with that crow bar I'm whipping his ass Mmmk ? No but really, when was sanity last seen on this issue ? Rights are for responsible individuals, and most of us Adults can barely own up to that... Shut up, sit down, pay attention in class and when you hit eighteen you can die for your country and have rights. PS, I'm not a Neo con, but the Britney spears society that been wrought has to be put down.
It seems like the writer of the article assumes that "actions done outside should shouldn't have consequences/effects/jurisdiction inside school." This is bullshit. Aside from the fact that this teen should be held up on charges of liable/slander (depending on whether said statements were made solely online), the fact is that actions corresponding to the institution apply outside of the physical premises.
I seem to remember plenty of cases where kids would be beaten by classmates outside of school grounds. The argument by the bullies was that it wasn't on school properly, and thus not in the school's concern (although this is a dumb concept in itself, for as such that would make it more of a police concern and/or an assault charge... a suspension seems a lighter consequence).
This is a school matter, as well as a legal matter, and - unless the principal does turn out to be at fault (which requires actual charges, evidence, and court hearings, not just hearsay) - as such should be fully within the school's jurisdiction to discipline. There's a big difference between writing something silly online like
"Mr X is a poopoo head" (infantile and easily disregarded)
or
"Mr X sucks donkey dong" (infantile, still more likely to be disregarded, but depending on scale may warrant detention)
In this case,
"Mr X molests small children in his office" is - by the nature of the comment - damaging to the reputation of the principal, and warrants both in-school (detention/suspension) and legal (civil and/or libel charges).
The fact is, people are often by nature willing to believe the worst in somebody. Even if it seems spurious, such a claim - because of its gravity, and prior histories of such instances - can be damaging simply because of the little nagging "it seems untrue, but what if..." thoughts it tends to bring up.
To those that disagree: if somebody posts up a MySpace page claiming that you are a flaming bisexual with a penchant for buggery of small children and animals... do you think that "free speech" should allow them a pass? How about when your future or current employer finds this page when checking into you online?
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Gotta pile on the long rant about this case. You don't even have to read all of the case law examinations here, Taco. The kid accused a principal of being a sex offender. That's an extremely serious accusation, especially for someone who no doubt has to submit to background investigations in order to obtain/keep his job.
You can argue all you want that it was "obvious" that the kid was joking or being childish, but exactly how does that save the principal's skin once rumors start and googles go?
Methinks Taco has some serious authority issues. Serious.
this should score a 5 for telling the truth
When I was in High School, my teachers used to always say, "school is not a democracy." And they're right. If all the kids voted to have the pricipal expelled in a "true" democratic environment, the kids would have mob rule over the school. In otherwords, you have to have some sort of authoritarian system ruling over the unwashed masses of high schoolers.
That's not to say that students don't have any rights. Of course they do, but in this case, I think the principal has every right to expell the student and it never should have even gone to court. The principal has to maintain discipline and order on some level. He should have the right to expel any student for disruption. If the parents don't like it, demand another principal. THEY have that right.
I mean, what's the worst thing that happens here? Its not like the student is going to jail, they just get expelled and have to go to another school. And everyone learns a lesson: we're not here to accuse the principal of pediphilia, we're here to get an education, and if you don't want to play nice, go to another school.
And the other issue here is: that principal now has a tarnished reputaion he can never get rid of. Whether he's actually a pediphile or not is another story, but some kid claiming he is is a serious slander that will taint the rest of this principal's career.
The kid deserved to be expelled.
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I had a teacher in high school who slept with a 16 year old student. It was well known. I was upset because I liked the girl. Apparently, I was the only person who had any problem with it at all, and the guy is still working in the school district, and I'm still kind of damaged when it comes to relationships.
Whoever is modding these comments up (it's libel, too bad for the girl!) needs to stop.
Where did I say that her libel excuses the principle's actions? All I mentioned was that the principle had that option of recourse. I never said, or implied, the "too bad for the girl!" argument, nor do I hold that mentality.
that so many people make the argument that free speech is and should be restricted by anti-libel/slander laws. I think free speech should be absolute.
I think that if I wrote a newspaper article saying "Barack Obama is a pedophile" should be entirely acceptable within the eyes of the law. Yes, I know it's not true, but shouldn't the public be educated enough to know that completely unfounded statements, no matter the source, shouldn't be trusted?
If everyone *knows* the principal isn't a pedophile, what's wrong with saying he is? And if not everyone knows, shouldn't they understand that a fake myspace site that provides no actual evidence is not a fountain of truth?
I know the public at large doesn't seek out citations and references, but in my head I live in an ideal world where people actual care enough to inform themselves before believing everything they read.
Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice president.
I think the question that needs to be asked here is NOT whether this is decent behavior that should go unpunished or indecent behavior that should be punished. I think clearly the student's were in the wrong. However, schools are a very special place in our society given the federal funding and role they play in our children's lives. Because of this laws and court cases have shaped what is acceptable interference of the school on the students part in and out of school. It seems to me that the way the law is written and has played out that the principle should not be able to suspend the student because it wasn't done at school. If the principle wanted to take action and sue the student for slander, identity theft and/or whatever else then that would be justified and probably go in the principles favor. But if the principle can punish a student doing something outside of the school then what stops him/her from acting on any number of other things whether it be drinking/smoking or making legitimate complaints about faculty on a public website.
GParent does not seem to understand freedom of speech.
There are consequences to your actions, my friend. And calling your principal a pedophile in public should get you suspended. Thinking otherwise is absolutely crazy, even for /. Come on!
This should be a slam-dunk case for the ACLU to appeal.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The student committed libel. Libel and slanderous comments are not protected by free speech. I wouldn't consider this taking away free speech as much as I'd consider it keeping the integrity of free speech in place.
...has never protected defamation (slander, libel, etc). Children need to understand that while the Constitution protects your right to freedom of speech (or is supposed to, current administration not withstanding), that doesn't mean you can go around spouting lies about everyone just because you don't like them (unless you're running against them for President).
If all the kids voted to have the pricipal expelled in a "true" democratic environment, the kids would have mob rule over the school.
When they aren't anywhere near the school?
The kid deserved to be expelled.
You're insane.
When I was in high school, we had a power-tripping principle/vice-principle duo that no student liked. They went about treating students as if they were bound to be in class at all times, and at no time act out of the ordinary. Frequently their bounds of control reached beyond the simple school setting. I started a petition online that accused them to something of this effect (simply nothing against the law or accusing them of any crime - simply dislike for them) asking for them to be removed from their positions.
Low and behold, they found out about the petition and pulled me out of class during an *exam*. They basically told me that it was libel and that they could sue me for it. Absolutely ridiculous power tripping coercive bastards. If I knew then what I know now (5 years later) about the law, I would have taken them as far as they wanted to go!
Doesn't mean freedom from consequence - its called responsibility.
The ENTIRE point of free speech is the ability to say things that might offend someone, or it's meaningless. If the principle feels wronged by this page created off school grounds, then he can sue for libel like anyone else.
Can someone please explain to me why the school ought to have jurisdiction over activities that take place outside of school grounds, off school hours? I just cannot for the life of me understand the basis.
The school is there to provide necessary civil services, just like the fire department or infrastructure maintenance.
If my son were to slander the fire chief or the head of the department of transportation, it would be considered an abuse of power for them refuse to let my house burn down or to stop repairing the road leading to my house. Of course, if I were to threaten them with a knife while they were in the process of doing either of those things, I think they would be allowed to *stop* helping me.
If anything, there's been a strong move in this country *away* from allowing schools to punish students (the loss of their right to issue corporal punishment, for example).
This, to me, seems just like an extension of the specious assertion that schools have the right to drug-test students or prohibit them from participating in sports if they're guilty of alcohol-related offenses.
Furthermore, I very much doubt that the school would have expelled the student if they had committed similar libel against an individual not affiliated with the school.
I don't see any reason for circumventing the channels designed for dealing with libel other than the fact that they can, and it seems like a clear-cut abuse of power to exact personal revenge.
I think that being able to be suspended for something done completely outside of school is a horrible notion. At least the myspace page didn't imply that the principal supported bong hits for Jesus...
That being said, in the abstract it is an interesting situation. You are the principal and the student has done something like this. What do you do? I think that one option would be to treat it like other things that are banned on school grounds like alcohol or pornography. The school can't (or at least shouldn't) be able to control what they are doing at home but if they bring it to school then they are in trouble. So perhaps it would have been more suitable to suspend the students for looking at the website in school -- I'm sure they have some policy about looking at porn websites in school?
Then there's also the question of the parent(s). If your child had made a website like that, even if you thought that suspension was totally unwarrented, would you really defend your child and hire lawyers in this situation? Think about it, now everyone knows your kid has really really poor judgment and you are a bad parent.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Sounds like the student's claim that he was into the kiddies was right, why else would a man in his 40s or 50s be trolling around myspace.
is where why so many people think that there is no accountability - in other words, why is no one allowed to hold a person to account for their words. Free speech doesn't mean there is no repercussion for saying something wrong on purpose, especially if its slander.
The fact they discussed it at school and possibly handed out material related to it matters. Just because "its on the internet" doesn't excuse them from disrupting school. It had no other intended purpose but to malign. Whats next? Create banners and place them on highway signs with a persons picture implying child sex?
Attacking school officials becomes school business when it disrupts the school. How could this not?
This should be an education to a student that slandering people is never right.
Hell, if this were reversed I would support him suing her and her parents. Taking money from them might be more worthwhile since they are trying to act as the victim now. That last part is what really torques, go cause a bunch of trouble and then portray yourself as the victim when called to accounts.
I really think a lot of this is being fed to us out of context
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This is complete BS. The School did violate the rights of the student. It was slander however the slander was directed toward the person (who happened to be the principal) not the school itself. He abused his power as principal to suspend the student as a lesser punishment rather than suing the kid. They are both in the wrong. The principal waved his right to sue and enacted revenge via an unwarranted suspension.
As a principal he should have given the child a warning\scare as he did with the police. Not take away there right to an education (something a principal should hold in high regard). He enacted revenge in such a selfish way. Its pretty sickening to think this person is a principal.
The kid deserved to be punished but the court case at hand was not the myspace page but the suspension. The school says the reason was the Myspace page, at which point it should have been thrown out of court. Remember the case is the child vs the school and the the child vs the principal.
The MySpace page has nothing to do with the school and should not be used for suspension. The MySpace page can only be used as evidence in a slander case between the principal and student.
This student has no understanding of what free speech is. This is a failure of the school system.
As far as I can tell, this MySpace page is clearly defamation unless the principal has been proven to be sex addict or pedophile. Outright lying about someone or something is not parody, nor is it protected speech.
I see a similar problem with the SNL skit suggesting that Todd Palin had sex with his daughters. The difference there is that the skit is clearly parodying the media, not Todd Palin himself. Obviously, NBC has an arsenal of lawyers to make sure that skits are within legal boundaries. The problem is that kids are too stupid to see the difference.
A case might be made that, as the principal of a public school, he is a representative of the government. However, the accusations were of a personal nature.
Here, we have just have an idiot kid. Frankly, this kid should be removed permanently from the school. If I were the principal, I'd being taking civil action against the family for libel.
Better for the kid to learn now that "free speech" is (and always has been) a crock of shit in the U.S
I'd like to see some case law support for your ludicrous assertion. Comparatively speaking, the US has the strongest free speech protections on the planet. That doesn't mean no restrictions, as no right is absolute. But your hysterical response just does not jive with the facts.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
She was slanderous, whether or not she was attempting to parody her principal or not.
It wasn't for fun, it was for hurt.
Besides, this idiot that wrote the article decides to compare judgeship with physics? Since when did a judge rule on the laws of science? Laws that are, physical and tangible laws of science, not laws of humanity.
A simple crock. And a simple case of someone (article writer) thinking THEIR opinion means more than someone elses.
Reminds me of "bloggers" that want to be credited with being credible journalists.
--Toll_Free
(posted as Anon because Slashdot believes I have posted too much. But this topic is REDICULOUS!!!)
Yes the student is a stupid teenager venting on the internet. Yes, if she had done this in a school hallway she would deserve and receive the suspension.
The problem with this court case is that it happened outside of school, outside of the principle's jurisdiction. I can't imagine what would happen if my high school VP were to have heard the things I said about him outside of school and this sort of mentality were applied.
Now, because the student made this claim in a public forum and this was obviously a baseless personal attack (not parody) it should have been handled as libel and not a school issue. Free speech and criticism off of school grounds needs to be protected, and this case blurs that line. Libel doesn't deserve to be protected and that's why it should've been a civil case.
I'm not saying it is right, or the best outcome but, if you fuck with some one in a position of some authority, how can you not expect them to use their position against you?
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
So committing battery on people who disagree with you?
Coupled with the stupidity in the rest of your post, it's clear you're not very bright.
The correct thing to do would have been to hold the student legally liable for the results of their actions (ie LIBEL) since what they did wasn't to just say "this principal is a jerk" but made them out to be a pedophile.
That's actionable.
Then, when the stupid chick was facing criminal penalties, she could BEG the school for a compromise penalty that included suspension instead of $000's in penalties.
Kids today are so stupid, they have this 'no matter what I do, I'm always safe and protected' vibe (especially, for some stupid reason, regarding whatever they do on MySpace) that is such a pleasure to destroy when they hit the real world. The look on their face when they finally figure it out is priceless...assuming they live through it.
-Styopa
What a waste of the legal system. A kid disrupted the school environment and got suspended--big wow. Then the parents of the kid make a FEDERAL CASE out of it!
The kids were just being kids, but the litigious parents (of the one kid) are indulgent fools.
The kids waste the school's time and resources with their folly and the parents waste the time of the federal courts . . .. The apple isn't falling too far from the tree here.
School is there to help kids who want to learn.
Contrary to submitter's logic, this case wasn't decided the way it was to protect someone's feelings.
In fact, all the cases cited in opposition to Judge Munley's decision make it clear that to maintain order in a school environment, the students just can't say "fuck you" to a teacher or principal. The on-campus/off-campus distinction might have made clear sense in Tinker (1969), but now that every student has Internet access and a Myspace page makes it a lot more possible to create a serious disruption off-campus that spills into the school.
I'm big on free speech, but I also know that kids need boundaries and guidance as to how to behave in civilization. Left to their own devices, it would be Lord of the Flies.
I went to parochial school and knew I'd be thrown out if I did something off campus that disrespected the school or administrators. That students should be able to embarrass, harass, or defame school officials merely because taxpayers fund their school seems curious. The idea that the Constitution even applies to this taxpayer-funded service should be questioned. So my tax dollars should fund a very expensive service for some ungrateful, disobedient little shit who wants to disrespect said service (and taxpayer)?
Public education should be a privilege, not a right. Then maybe more so-called "students" would appreciate it, and student success rates would be better.
Just another reason my kids will go to private school.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Being put in court to answer charges of libel.
NOT being expelled.
Just as if the bloke WAS a paedo: his punishment is not "someone's dad killing him" nor is it "sacking him", it's "go to court for the charge of paedophilia".
Doofus.
Does the free speech go both ways? Would it be okay for the principal to publish in the school newspaper that the student in question gets her grades through sexual favors, that she had three abortions and has sex with her dog be allowed as free speech?
Oh dear no, that wouldn't be allowed would it. But if you truly support free speech, that is what you support.
Reality of course is that free speech does not exist other then as a fairy tale to keep the terminally stupid satisfied.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The article summary might be NSFW, for some workers.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
I think the whole argument is not whether the girl was right or wrong, she was clearly pushing the limit, but whether the school board has authority over activities outside of school, which they shouldn't. If she is guilty of libel, that should be handled in court. The school board should not be involved. What if this student was a protester for PETA, Greenpeace, or whatever and the school board found that disruptive? This sets bad president. Matters like this shouldn't be treated specially because school is involved.
When you get kids that get completely frustrated and get treated like this. And they see they get screwed by the legal system what the heck do you think they will do... Your average teenager nowadays feels the country is screwed and they can't get a break. They turn to violance to vent their frustrations. Some could say they are just exercising their 2nd amendment rights. I AM NOT promoting school shootings or teenage violance, just throwing in some thoughts from their side, from having one teenager and soon to have another. My first one got very violate verbally and sometimes physically. I blame society for saying it's wrong to spank your kids ("It's abusive" - bull$h!t!). Sometiems you need to beat your kids butt to get them to listen.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Of course, if the emo little fucker thinks he's oppressed because he can't just do anything he wants, he deserves a bitch slap anyway. I thought I was oppressed in high school, too, and if I could go back and batch slap myself into the future, I would honestly do it in a heartbeat. Freedom is a two way street with responsibility, and if you want to drive on the wrong side of that road, you're going to get into a head-on collision with reality very quickly.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's called libel. We have the right to free speech, but we don't have the right to make up stuff willy nilly about people. From what the article said the student called the teacher a sex addict. That sounds like libel pure and simple to me. In the world that lands someone in court and you can end up either being forced or settling for some god awful amount of money against you.
The student can be thankful that she just got suspended and not dragged into a court over this. Then again I'm waiting for a principal to actually sue a student over something like this. That would be funny!
There's some precedent for this. The "Bong Hits for Jesus" case (aka Morse v. Frederick) ruled that the school could curtail a student's right to free speech outside of school, at events where the school was present. The problem is not that Bong Hits for Jesus limited free speech in any way that hadn't already existed in schools, it's that it started to expand the realm into which schools could impose that limitation.
It's uncertain whether the SCOTUS would rule the same way on this case---a MySpace pace might be a step too far for some of the old justices, if they understand what a MySpace page is. But it's not totally out of line for the district judge to interpret the precedent that way.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
The school district where this occurred was apparently in Pennsylvania which is not one of the states (http://www.dba-oracle.com/oracle_news/news_states_criminal_libel_web_internet.htm/) with laws making libel a criminal act so while the student may have been subject to a civil lawsuit, criminal prosection was not an option.
So what you're saying is....students are frustrated because people don't listen to them....so let's hit them?
I agree with your first point, that we ought to start treating an 18-year-old more like an adult (and having corresponding expectations), but I think spanking them runs counter to that.
I would disagree. The whole situation has degenerated into a pissing match, which is ideally doing nothing more than wasting tax payer money. As such, I would fault the School.
There are a whole lot of bad decisions being made:
1) Student screws up out side of the school environment, should have chosen not to, but kids will be kids.
2) Principal can either follow the law or abuse his power to take action. He chose to abuse the power of his position, albeit likely with good intentions. He may have felt that a suspension instead of a lawsuit would be easier for all parties involved, but that doesn't mean it isn't an abuse of power. A civil lawsuit over liable would have been more of a PITA, but it would have been completely legal.
3) Kid and parents can choose to take their lumps and get on with life, or take the principal to court because he is abusing his power. Likely teaching the kid that if you abuse your power, you'll get called on it. I'm not sure why you think this would teach the kid 'entitlement' other then the kid being 'entitled' to the full protection under the law and the 1st amendment? His parents are teaching him/her that it is important to fight for your rights and stand up for them, even when the easy answer is to do nothing.
4) Principal/School board can choose to either drop the suspension and get the charges dropped, allowing the Principal to continue his action in civil court, or they can fight the charges, wasting tax payer resources and attempting to increase the school's scope of power. They chose to fight the charges, and are pissing your and my money down the drain.
In the end, everyone loses. Ideally, this ruling will get overturned so there is no confusion on the limits of schools' power. Costing the tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, lawyer fees, lost time from the school employees, and the time that the court could have been using on important matters. Worst case, the tax payers are still out all that money AND the government gets more money.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The essence is a school employee was slandered / libeled by a student outside of school, making the S/L a personal issue, not a case in in school discipline. The employee chose to misuse his power to suspend the student - essentially treating this as an in school matter. The legally correct thing to do would have been to issue a take down notice and send her a letter from an attorney, then, sue her personally. Of course, since she is a minor, that won't go anywhere, a fact I bet he knew, so he chose to suspend her as punishment. The girl should not have posted what she did. What she said is actionable, and could have cost her parents money. But we have a misuse of power issue, and the principal did the wrong thing, although he has a right to stop the libel. But since he used his school power, the school district is now liable for damages.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
The judge was right in this instance.
People forget that freedom of speech doesn't necessarily mean you can say anything and consider most parents will always side with the minor in the case of claims of sexual abuse, her saying such things could have a very big impact on his life. There is no reason for her to be allowed to do that. She should consider herself lucky that she was only suspended for 10 days.
This is not a free speech issue. It is defamation of character, and the principal should pursue that to the full extent the law will allow. That said, the school does not have the authority to prosecute a student for something they did on their own time. The case should have been handled between the principle, and the student. The school itself should have never involved itself in the punishment. It was not presented on school grounds, during school hours, which is none of the schools business.
If you or your kid has a running smart ass mouth do you really want to drag it through courts, collect a criminal history, become known for using vulgar, vile, demeaning language? Does this set a president for respecting others, mingling in a social group, getting a good job? Or does it set you or your child up to be mean, cruel, selfish?
Or, you could learn that certain language is not appropriate, not helpful, and not positive.
Parody's are not always appropriate.
And as stated by many others, free speech is not free, this is going to cost you. And you will be paying one way or another for years to come.
Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
It appears they can, and do, and since this is a very famous case I have to wonder why you're discussing this subject when you seem to be ignorant of a very important part of the caselaw around it.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
but Judge Munley said that a MySpace page jokingly calling the principal a "sex addict" was actually more offensive than the violent rap lyrics.
YES! It is much more offensive. Accuse me of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson or accuse me of murdering (or going to murder) whomever - even a cop. It is a fanciful ridiculous charge with zero merit. No dead body, no case. On the other hand, accuse me of violating a child or children to whom I have easy access. You don't need a dead body for that charge to have SERIOUS ramifications. These ramifications include: prison time waiting for trial (or just bail money or a hearing), having all my possessions ransacked for evidence, losing my job, have a tarnished reputation forever. Nevermind the children and their parents being traumatized. It sucks that people are so hysterical on this issue but that is not the principle's problem nor the fault of anyone so accused.
You can make a point about nudity=evil && violence=good in our culture. This is not the time or context in which to make that point. Calling your principle "a genocidal Hitler" (far worse than a gang banger) may seem worse, it is not.
The brat ought to thank their lucky stars to be judged under the school's system. Anybody else ought to be jailed and bankrupted with civil penalties.
The "consequences" argument always cracks me up. It's the first thing that thoughtless people always throw out when you point out the contradictions between principle and reality of "free speech." It's thoughtless because it renders the term "right" completely and utterly meaningless. If exercising a "right" means facing the "consequence" of persecution (particularly, but certainly not limited to, government persecution), then the term "right" is so broad as to be completely useless. Every human being in every government since the dawn of time has had the "right" to free speech (and every other civil right) under this ridiculous definition. Hell, you could stand on the street corner in the middle of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union and say whatever you wanted, provided you were willing to accept the consequence of being thrown in the gulag shortly thereafter.
Defining a civil right in such broad terms makes a mockery of the concept and is an insult to those who have faced persecution demanding such rights throughout history. It's telling Andre Sakharov that Russians had the right to free speech in the old Soviet Union (provided they were willing to accept the consequence of the gulag). It's telling Martin Luther King that blacks had the right to vote in the South in the 50's (provided they were willing to lose their jobs and have their houses burned down). It's telling people that persecution does not abridge their rights.
I will express this succinctly: If the exercise of an activity results in your persecution, most particularly by the government or one of its arms but also at the hands of the citizenry at large, then it is not a right. To qualify as a right, the user of said right must be protected from persecution in as vigorous a manner as the government is reasonably capable of.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm not going to advocate the student's suspension, because I don't know enough about the details. But I can say that the student asked for what they got. My ensuing rant isn't about the law. It's about right and wrong.
Free speech in the US allows for a lot of abusive speech. It has to in order allow all forms of more constructive speech. But what people have to realize is that freedoms don't just come with responsibilities. They ARE responsibilities. As a citizen, it is your responsibility to both ensure that free speech is allowed AND to use that right responsibly.
Part of what students in school should learn is constructive civil behavior. Calling the principal a paedophile was both uncivil and unconstructive. In saying what the student said, they had a point to make. Unfortunately, by using irresponsible means, the student got into trouble instead. Their point was not made.
The primary purpose of free speech is to allow any idea to be conveyed publicly. It's about CONTENT. While free speech laws do not and should not dictate the FORM of the speech, it is one's personal responsibilty to try to convey the content in a form that is clear and effective.
"Principal X is a dick" is vague and unhelpful. Why is principal X a dick? I just think you're being a jackass by saying it. You probably got into trouble for something you did wrong, and you're sore about it. Maybe that's not true, but your petulant attitude is consistent with my inference.
On the other hand, this would be productive to say (if true): "Principal X should be fired. He has a history of placing authoritarianism above all else, disregarding circumstances. For instance, there's a rule against running in the halls. My friend was running in the hall the other day because he was going to have diarrhea if he didn't make it to the toilet. On his way, he ran past principal X who grapped him by the arm and spent 5 minutes yelling at him about it. Meanwhile, he shit his pants, which was really embarrassing."
Notice that I have no qualms about the use of certain words like "shit" or whatever. It's not the words we should care about. It's the meaning and intent. If the content is a message, or it has artistic value, it should be encouraged. If the content and/or form are designed purely for the purpose of being offensive, the speaker is being irresponsible. I'm not saying offensive speech should be outlawed. I'm saying that purely offensive speech is WRONG.
As for the student's punishment, I think it's appropriate. It's one thing to bad-mouth your teachers at home or at a party. It's entirely another to publish lies about them in a recorded medium. This is libel pure and simple.
As for the rap song with the death threat, that should be taken seriously too. I don't give a damn about rap artist posturing. Murder is wrong, and so is threatening murder. Maybe a professional rap artist can get away with it. I think there's a case for considering it to be artistic and not a specific threat. But it's still iffy. Death threats, even when not specific, could be an indication of something more serious. All you can really do, of course, is be a careful listener.
For a teenager, one has to be even more careful. Brains aren't fully developed, social conventions are not fully learned. While I knew plenty of teenagers who could distinguish reality from fantasy, I knew far more who could not. Hell, I know far too many adults who can't either. Children are often held to higher standards and stricter rules than adults because they lack experience that tells them what the exceptions are. When my kid is 10 and says "fuck", I'm going to smack his mouth. When he's 20 and says it, I'm going to assume he's grown up enough to know when not to say it and that its use was to emphasize a point, not merely to be gratuitously offensive. That being said, I know 30-year-olds who haven't learned how to temper their language, and as a result, they're losers who can't hold a job at McDonalds.
Wh
"I find it disturbing that every time someone talks about responsibly using free speech, it is in the context of establishing NEW restrictions on what people can say."
Then I suppose it's a good thing that's not the case here.
"Question 1: What law did the student break? Just pissing off a principal is not cause enough."
What does it matter, breaking the law is not the only grounds for disciplining the student.
"Question 2: What authority did the principal have to meet out that punishment? Public schools are not lawless zones subject to only the whim of the principal."
Nor are they DMZ's with no power to deal with student behavior outside of their immediate physical confines.
"In your place, I'd be very careful with that line of argument, as it can easily be extended until there is absolutely no free speech."
Talk to the framers of the Constitution, it's their argument, not mine.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
"It's thoughtless because it renders the term "right" completely and utterly meaningless."
No guy, what's "thoughtless" is acting like it's a restriction on your "rights" when you're forced to take up the "responsibilities" that come with those "rights".
Like you continue doing.
"If exercising a "right" means facing the "consequence" of persecution (particularly, but certainly not limited to, government persecution), then the term "right" is so broad as to be completely useless."
No, it means you don't have any idea what the term "right" means, nothing more.
As to the rest of your post, well, it's kind of stupid to tell me I can't exercise my right to "persecute" someone (which is speech, UH OH!) in response to their speech.
You're saying, whether you realize it or not, that one type of speech is absolute but responses to that speech aren't. That's so wrong it doesn't merit refutation.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
If the student had been hit with a libel suit, how many of those same people bitching about the suspension would be making statements like "OMG, what an overreaction, why not just suspend the kid of something. OMG. OMFG. How gestapo is that.What a waste of court time, etc etc"
When students call in a bomb scare, even though they're not at the school, does that mean that a suspension isn't warranted (as well as possible police/legal issues)?
It affects the school. The target is part of the structure of the school. Ergo, while the clicking of a fucking "Submit" button didn't occur within the bounds of the school, the potential damage to the direct target (the principal) as well as the school itself is still apparent.
Now if you did something outside of school that had no obvious affect upon the school itself, fine. However, posting that the principal is a pedo is obviously linked to the school itself.
Something that I haven't seen commented on is the fact that the girl lied and didn't take responsibility for creating the MySpace page when first questioned about it.
That action there probably didn't help her avoid the suspension.
With the language used in the page, lying and avoidance of responsibility, no question that she should have been suspended.
What about the parents? Shouldn't they have backed up the penalties?
Yes, 'free speech' is a right guaranteed by the Constitution here in the USA.
The lesser spoken follow-up to that is taking responsibility for what you say.
That's where libel, disorderly conduct and other things come into play. Yes, you can shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. That's your right to do so. However, you're responsible for whatever happens as a result of your saying that if it isn't true.
The fine line with libel is how things are stated. "In my opinion" in front of almost any statement will prevent it from being presented as a fact. Without that you're stating something that you expect others to believe as fact. Again, it's your right to say it but you also have to take on the responsibility of saying it.
Student rights are not even something I want to address except to say that unless they're emancipated adults they have no rights beyond what is expressly given to minors. Constitutional rights apply to emancipated adults. Period.
fter all this time, I still hold a small, bitter place in my heart for that mental prison.
Agreed. This Onion piece resonated with me:
6-Year-Old Stares Down Bottomless Abyss Of Formal Schooling
As a conservative with strong libertarian leanings, I agree that compulsory education has some serious problems. But an uneducated populace is expensive as well. Promise me I won't have to pay more for those dumbass dropouts (prison, welfare, low wage redistribution, and other pathologies) than for their education, and I'd agree.
I'm not sure if increasing the current dropout rate would actually create a better society. Just as the idea of drug legalization has some merit, the actual practice in Nanny America might just lead to government-funded drug treatment, if not drug subsidies. I can see it now, Obamacare paying for medical marijuana with my tax dollars. But I digress. High school dropouts are expensive. If I could bury them with nuclear waste, great. But I doubt that would past constitutional muster either.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Boo fucking hoo. Sleeping with 16 yos may well be illegal in the USA, but if it is, it's just a retarded law. Apparently, the girl liked the teacher better than you, so what. Shit happens, be a man, get over it already.
When students call in a bomb scare, even though they're not at the school, does that mean that a suspension isn't warranted (as well as possible police/legal issues)?
The student didn't call in a bomb threat, she make a MySpace page. Get a damned sense of proportion. And if she had the first thing that would have happened is an arrest from the police, not a suspension.
It affects the school. The target is part of the structure of the school.
Even Gumby would dislocate his arm trying to reach that far. The principle had options here. He could have called the parents. He could have filed a lawsuit. Abusing his authority in the school to take retribution for comments made off school grounds is not one of those options.
You have the right to carry a gun too.
But there might be consequences if you just go around shooting people.
To paraphrase the movie "Tank," it's Taco's blog, he can do what he wants with it.
While usually I am very skeptical of non-lawyers analyzing cases for me, I think this guy's logic is pretty strong here.
Well I am a lawyer, and you should be skeptical of them too. But read the article. My point was that the main argument for school suppression (like that loaded word?) of speech is:
In court papers, the plaintiffs' team argued that the suspension ran afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court's historic 1969 decision in Tinker v. Des Moines, which held that student speech may not be punished unless it caused a "substantial and material disruption at the school."
************
No, the question is whether a government official has the right to arbitratily punish a child for saying something the official didn't like. They shouldn't have that power. There are plenty of avenues for the injured principal to take. A libel/slander suit, or calling up the parent to tell them what happened.
Not sure if punishing a kid for calling the principal a pedophile is arbitrary, but you have obviously never dealt with modern parents as a K-12 teacher. Even as a college professor, I've encountered this helicopter parent syndrome, where the kid is always right. "Not my sweet little darling!"
After all, is it not the parents who filed this suit as guardians? Sounds like those parents are really looking to teach their kid respect for teachers and authority figures.
Hope they enjoy the alcohol and drugs [at private school]. I wouldn't want my kids to spend too much time around a bunch of bored rich kids with massive senses of entitlement.
Please. My dad was a salesman and my parents sacrificed driving new cars and vacations so I could go to a good private school. Entitlement? My parents reminded me daily that if I didn't keep my grades up I'd be down at the local loser public school. And the kids I went to school with thought I was rich because my dad had a Harley (which he won in a contest). I had to wake up at 5:40 AM to catch the public bus at 6:30 and get to school 25 miles away by 8:00 AM. Not exactly a limo. Rich kids my ass. Talk back to a priest in my day, and your smart ass would get knocked flat on your back.
And as for drugs, I assure you that carried the death penalty at my school. Of course, some parents do, in fact, send their children to expensive babysitting private schools for rich kids. But isn't your whole point that parents know best how to raise their kids?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
A few years back there was a kid at Central High School in Providence, RI who got into some hot water.
He'd gotten video of the principal of the school smoking out behind the building. This in violation of school policies prohibiting smoking in school buildings and on school grounds.
The principal tried to railroad the kid but then the ACLU stepped in. That was fun to watch.
Funding public education is one of the few things that makes competition fair between both rich and poor students. You believe that poor behavior of other students shouldn't detract from your child's education, and rightly so. What I can't believe is that in the same breath you talk about the right to take away someone else's child's opportunity to be educated.
The two are related. I didn't say I wanted to take away the opportunity. I want to take away the blown opportunity for kids who want to act up, get bad grades, and be fuck-ups. Appreciate the generosity of the taxpayers, and stay in school. Be an asshole, and lose your school privileges! Right now, it is public school kids who have the sense of entitlement, "fuck you teacher, it is my right to be here!" And that is backed up by many parents, who think they are paying taxes for their schools, when they probably are not (upper middle class and the rich pay most of the taxes). I assure you I never had that attitude in private school, because my ass would be thrown out the door.
How selfish and greedy can you get?
When the government puts a gun to my head and steals my money and wastes it, pretty goddamned selfish and greedy.
The sad part is that I bet you're proud of this misguided attitude toward your fellow man. I hope your child has the wisdom to see past your bigotry.
So now not wanting my increasing taxes wasted in a failing public school system ("just give us more money and this time it will work!") constitutes "bigotry." Wow. Dude, compulsory government redistribution of wealth is not a noble act. Robin Hood was not an altruist.
Just keep in mind that it is conservatives, not liberals, who give the most money to charity. We just think that the private sector and private choice does a better job of determining what is "fair." Which is why we conservatives like school vouchers.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
1) some figures are more public than others. The principal of Little Rock High School in 1957 was probably a public figure. His name probably appeared in newspapers throughout the country several times that year. On the other hand, if I put the names of all the high school principals within 100 miles of you on a sheet of paper along with 100 other names, how many of the principals could you pick out? Not many I'd venture.
2) even public figures are allowed to sue under certain circumstances. If I called your governor a pedophile and as a result someone slashed his car and sprayed "pervert" on it, and the governor could prove I knew he was not a pedophile and called him one with the intent of hurting his reputation, he could still sue me.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The courts have long held that school is different from work, and that you do not give up your rights merely by being a student.
This raises the question of what rights a child should actually have. Given that the law shields them from the full consequences in exercising free speech (reasoning: they are only kids and cannot be expected to know fully the consequences of what they are doing) why should they enjoy the full, adult rights of free speech for exactly the same reason: they don't know how to use it responsibly? Indeed they already have restrictions on the literature and viewing material they can purchase, so why is it unreasonable to also impose restrictions on their free speech especially given a case like this where it is being abused in such a fashion?
Right up until it does harm to another person.
I hope you actually meant to say "Right up until it is not true and does harm to another person.". If the only criteria were harm, regardless of truth, there would be no sort of free speech at all and criticism of a government would be impossible.
Based on the conversations I overhear among my teenage daughters and their friends (from several different schools), there are apparently one or two adults in every school who actually do hit on the kids. While you would hope that the principal would be more scrutinized, I wouldn't count on it.
Why do you think that a court of law is a good place to administer discipline to a child? She's a kid. What she did was wrong so she needs to be punished in a reasonable way. This is what happened so why on earth do lawyers need to be involved? All they do is suck up time and money and the result will be that either she'll get of scot-free or have some huge financial bill against her (legal costs if not damages as well).....and this would somehow be better?
"Strawman"
This claim makes it clear you don't know what a strawman is.
"The persecution he's talking about..."
Was never clarified, so while we appreciate the opinion, Great Karnak, declaring it emphatically doesn't change the fact that it's your opinion.
Lastly, you claim it's not speech, then completley fail to give any argument as to why.
mostly, I suspect, because it is speech and the claim that it isn't is too stupid to merit discussion.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Maybe I'm biased as a teacher, but in this day and age, accusations like that can be very dangerous to a career.
Most kids don't realise how dangerous and so, along with being charged for the crime that she clearly committed, the school was perfectly right to suspend her.
Personally I'd want her expelled permanently for that. When kids think that the internet is a lawless, consequence free zone, that same attitude spills over into their real lives.
I think that the internet is the worst thing to happen for under 16's in the last 15 years. Complete free access to any and all information, at any age? Some here I guess would see that as a good thing but those here who are parents I suspect would fall more towards a censored internet. My youth was bad enough as it is but add to that every depravity you can find on the net being shoved at you every day by friends, and getting the impulse to seek it out yourself is not my idea of a childhood.
Bit off track there, but the school was right on. Paedophilia is not a topic that is funny in any way, shape or form and for a student to do this with her teachers in mind deserves institutional punishment as well as punishment via the law.
This so called 'Right to Free Speech' is completely overused.
The 'Right to Free Speech' is a misunderstanding by those who were educated by the government to believe that everything is going to be 'okay', no matter what they do. That their government will take care of them, protect them.
The actual protection is the assurance that Congress shall make no law against Free Speech, Religion..ect, all spelled out in the First Amendment.
What too many people seem to misunderstand is that this doesn't carry over into everything else! Technically, businesses are allowed to control the speech of their workers. Though I can't imagine many people who would want to take their business to such companies.
I also cannot figure out why adults abuse their children so by sending them to what amounts to government indoctrination centers.
I would also like to reiterate what others have said, consequences will still be there if other people disagree with what you are saying.
You didn't actually mention Canada as a bastion for free speech rights, did you? Go ask Mark Steyn, who was just tried for human rights violations by some scary Orwellian thing called the Ontario Human Rights Commission for commenting about Islam. Clearly, you cannot speak your mind freely in Canada or some "human rights" tribunal will have you in the dock.
Same thing in Finland. Don't criticize religious groups, or even offend them, and don't criticize ethnic groups, have a site linked to alleged child pr0n, try to produce scary films, or even try to criticize censorship in Finland!
None of those things could be done in the US of A. Nice try though.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Speech and student behavior have been regulated outside of school many times. I guess in this case "new" means "I'm ignorant of it so it is new".
Sorry, but I'm done wasting my time debating things with people who are too ignorant to know the basics of the subject we're discussing, and you fall squarely in that category.
"Actually, that's what they are"
Actually, NOPE. There are reams of court cases that prove you wrong, google some. In the meantime, your proof is conspicuously absent.
Lastly, the framers wrote things didn't they? Or are you really so desperate to come off as witty that you genuinely think writing of dead people don't get debated?
And the fact that the framers dare dead shouldn't be a problem for you, that means they have something in common with your brain.
In short, you're wrong about every point you made, and a dick besides, so blather to someone who doesn't mind humoring the mentally challenged because I'm out of that business.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
It appears you just learned speech has consequences... :p
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
That's irrelevant. We have a justice system to deal with these cases. If the kid committed slander or libel, prosecute him through the criminal justice system, or settle it in the civil justice system. School officials ought to have no authority over what happens outside of school grounds or school activities.
Do you honestly think that it should be government policy that school administrators are not allowed to punish students for minor civil/criminal infractions (like fighting or libelous insults) with minor punishments like suspension in favor of turning the full weight of the law on them (including thousands or dollars in fines or months of jailtime, as well as untold decades of future harm to job prospects)?
That's just not good policy. The kid needs to officially reprimanded for her actions -- you don't want kids thinking that they can get away with this kind of stuff "in the real world," and you don't want to ruin their entire futures over it (nor spend local government resources fighting these sorts of court battles). The full force of the law is heavy and should not be turned on minors when they are still learning about how to become a productive member of society.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The special damages requirement is only necessary for slander, which requires a showing of specific, economic harm due to loss of reputation. Both slander pe se (which this would've been if spoken) and libel allow general damages, including pain and suffering.
The bigger legal defense, in my mind, would be over whether or not the principal is enough of a public figure and the slandered matter one of enough public interest for NY Times v. Sullivan or Gertz v. Robert Welch to give Free Press protections to internet postings. My instincts tend towards the principal not being a public figure at the time (though accusations of pedophilia towards a school principal being one of public interest) as well as towards a fake MySpace account not being legitimately press, but I could see a court going the other way.
I think he could win, but one rarely recovers enough money in cases like these to make up for the legal costs without some form of economic harm. (In other words, the point mostly stands about it being a bad idea to sue over this.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Not getting a job because of a lie is actual damage.
It's just not as easy to prove.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It doesn't matter; if a teenager libels the principal outside the school, the principal's legitimate response would be a libel suit. NOT to take on the role of judge, jury, and executioner himself. That's corruption on the principal's part, using his official power to address a personal wrong.
I do sympathize with your POV that the principle should've recused himself in the matter. However, depending on the size of the school and it's disciplinary system, that may have not been possible in a manner that would fully separate the principal's personal influence from the decision making process.
What if this situation were a little different? What if the student was caught fighting with another student off campus? Should the student be punished as if they were on campus (with a suspension) or should they be tossed the the court system and spend time in juvenile hall?
Now what if the kid had instead swung a fist at the principal himself? Would it be best handled through the courts or would a suspension still be the more fair and balanced solution?
I have some mixed feelings on the case. When a kid commits a (minor) criminal or tortious act, I think that they should be disciplined by a school authority figure -- whether that act happens on or off campus if it affects someone within the school. Part of being a principle *is* being judge, jury, and executioner in a system that is basically a "for kids" version of the law. It's training wheels for the real world, and it has less rigid separation of decision making process because the consequences are so much less dire than those in the real world.
You could leave it up to the parents to discipline, but cases like this show why that doesn't always work. When faced with a kid that basically libeled another person online in a despicable manner, they didn't say, "Man, what a irresponsible little s--- my kid is. They should be happy that they got off with a slap on the wrist." No, instead they decided to eat up the money of the school district fighting to protect "their little angel."
My parents are both school teachers. I see this kind of "My child can do no wrong" attitude a LOT from parents nowadays. It's frankly disgusting, and it's reason numero uno why schools have to be there to provide a little discipline and moral backbone for the kids that aren't getting it at home.
On the other hand, I think the principal getting involved himself with the case smacks of a lack of professional detachment, and even the most unrealistically defensive parents don't actually *sue* unless there's some sort of breakdown in personal relations with the school administration. (It's kind of like the way that most malpractice suits arise not because of the horrible medical errors but because the patients felt insulted by the way their doctor handled their case.) I think it's highly likely that the principal may have acted unprofessionally here. (Lord knows how many principals act like little lords over a fiefdom. I've seen principals both principled and despotic as a a child of teachers and unfortunately more of the latter than the former.)
So, in summary:
- I think it's perfectly reasonable for schools to apply some discipline here.
- I am suspicious of the principal not stepping aside to avoid conflicts of interest.
- I think the parents are being jerks, but that might be a sign that the principal is one too.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I'm glad you looked it up so you can use it correctly.
Now, reread the thread and do so because you haven't yet. Had you spent more time reading for comprehension and less time cherrypicking quotes, you'd realize that on more than one occasion, he has referred to typesof persecution that are NOT government related, and are irrefutably "speech".
On one thing you are correct, I was not correct about your failure to support your argument being its inherent stupidity. It's clear you're aware of that and it isn't a problem for you.
No, it appears you simply are a disingenuos fuck who will ignore every bit of information that refutes you in order to force that information that agree with you down our throats.
So, yes, on that I was off the mark, I gave you too much credit, you were simply being disingenuous.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Why do you think that a court of law is a good place to administer discipline to a child?
Because that's the legitimate place for such discipline. We have laws, and judges to administer them, and school administrators shouldn't be able to dictate how kids act out of school.
My goodness, I learned this rookie lesson within the first year of teaching. When a student mocks you in a juvenile fashion outside of class, you simply ignore it and remain in good humor. It doesn't affect you. It's beneath you. Not every piece of bait a kid gives you deserves a response.
Somehow, this little martinet missed that lesson, and decided to go to all-out war with this student. Which makes me wonder, how much did being called a pedophile string, and how close to the target are the accusations?
Reading this story, what I really want to know is how many of the young girls in his charge are in danger?
A white girl in a southern Georgia town post pictures of her date with her new black boyfriend to a social networking site and gets a 3 day suspension from School, why? Because the principal is a racist.
You know... This kind of thing might've easily happened 40 years ago or even happened with a massive backlash 30 years ago, but most Southern racism is in the "gentile bigotry" category of words, not actions. No school administrator would even *think* of trying this or even floating the idea of this where a member of the public might hear it, even the most bigoted areas in the South in modern times.
Georgia has a long way to go to being color-blind, but the days where this sort of crap could fly without a public lynching of an entirely *different* sort are long, long gone.
(Born & raised in North Georgia, by the way.)
And if he posts some crap like this on the internet, it is MY job to discipline him, not the school's.
Unfortunately, very few parents actually do this it seems today. Someone's got to take up the slack unless we want a generation of moral and ethical cripples.
You need to do a better job choosing your vocabulary, as you're saying "you can't persecxute someone" while simultaneously saying it is ok to "yell back" which is clearly a firm of persecution, just see that Casey Anthony case and the idiots wo are camped oyt outside her parent's house and "persecuting", them.
Second, you say it's ok to yell, but not "abuse them", which seems strange as it would take a particularly novel definition of "abuse" for your statement to have any internal valididty.
Which, to be frank, pretty much sums up your ideas on the subject.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
But what's especially troubling is that it can be used as precedent to shut down corporate/government whistleblowers. If an institution's rules apply even when you're outside of that institution, your employer owns you.
No it can't.
1) The law allows some use of analogous situations, but the law governing student's rights vs. school administration's rights and the law involving worker's rights vs. the freedom to hire at will are two separate and mature areas of the law.
2) The law protecting whistleblowers at work is also quite distinct from how the law would treat a worker who libeled their manager, got fired, and tried to sue over it. (Especially considering the kid wasn't "fired," aka expelled, but just disciplined.)
You seem to think that the law and the judges applying it are blind to the differences between a kid who defames someone and an employee who does a public good. It's not. Judges aren't idiots. That's not what the mean by, "Justice is blind."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
No, these were logical deductions following from the fact that you felt that denying a child education were permissible under some circumstances, as education could be too expensive.
No, what I said was denying a child ("Oh, think of the children!!!") an education that he does not appreciate or follow the rules of is permissible. Because I don't like wasting money on ingrates or on a system that doesn't work doesn't make me selfish or greedy or bigoted when my local school district is spending $10K per pupil, with abyssal results. Liberals, OTOH, believe that good intentions are enough, regardless of results.
"Bleeding heart" is a colloquial term specifically used to add a certain connotation to an argument, an actual ad hominem fallacy.
No, your emotional, knee-jerk, hysterical reaction made me deduce you were a bleeding heart liberal. Your hypocrisy about calling names - as well as mischaracterizing what I said - only confirms my conviction that you are, in fact, a lib.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Close, but not quite:
Libel is defamation in print (/permanent) form. To prove defamation, you need to show the following:
1) That the statements were false and defamatory.
2) That the person was at least negligent to the truth of their words.
3) That the statement was an unprivileged publication to a third party.
-- You'd be surprised what cases turn on "publication."
4) Economic harm (most slander) or liability irrespective of harm (usually the case in libel).
You don't have to know that the words are false or have malicious intent necessarily, though the bar to prove defamation may be raised if (a) the subject is a public figure and/or (b) the matter is on of public interest.
For example, libel per quod happens when one publishes a statement that is libelous because of attendant circumstances and is frequently accidental. For example, if you write some fluff in an article saying that someone is a regular Joe who likes tossing back a cold brew with friends, and it comes out that that person is court-ordered after a DUI to stay sober, then you've committed libel due to the circumstances. You didn't mean any harm, and you didn't know that he didn't actually drink (but didn't bother to check up on things), but you're still on the hook for libel.
(Libel per quod is more common in the press than libel per se because newspapers are generally unwilling to publish things they *know* would be harmful to reputation without odd circumstances without making sure they're true first.)
If you're libeling a public figure on a matter of public interest in the press, then actual malice is required as well as knowing falsity. Otherwise, the standard is lower. It used to in fact be strict liability with respect to the falsity of the statement (but not to the act of publishing). However, now it's generally recognized that at least negligence on truth is required when defaming private persons.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Considering the fact that a myspace page could potentially be created and accessed with complete anonymity, i find it surprising so many school kids admit to having posting the page at all.
Wow, there's an amazing amount of confusion over this ruling, and the article summary seems to cloud things almost as much as it clarifies them. The actual text of the ruling is here: http://howappealing.law.com/JSvsBlueMountainSD.pdf, and I'd recommend everyone read that before spouting off their amateur legal or political opinions in this forum
First, the principal did not accuse the student of libel, and did not punish her on that basis. It punished her, with a suspension, for a) making false accusations against the school staff, and b) using a copyrighted photo from the school district's own website, without permission. Before we get sidetracked into a "fair use" discussion, I'll note that both (a) and (b) above were explicitly spelled out as forbidden in the district's school discipline code, and their computer use policy, respectively. Whether they were violations of a (federal, state, municipal) law is irrelevant; they were violations of school rules, and for that, the student got a suspension.
Next, a lot of people have questioned whether the student's accusations could be protected under the "parody" exception to libel, but again, this is irrelevant. She was not sued for libel. She was suspended for violating school rules. Now, whether the school district has some sort of appeal process, and whether they follow the same "parody exception" rules as actual libel laws, I have no clue. But one should not simply assume that "parody" shields one from punishment under any and all systems of rules.
Lastly, a lot is made of the fact that the student composed the MySpace page physically and chronologically outside of school. So what? If you read further into the case, you'll see that the author deliberately made the MySpace page available to her classmates, discussed the page in school, and apparently there was a hard copy which made it into the school physically. The barrier between "school" and "not school" here was, if it existed at all, extremely permeable. That's the way of the world. But, it's also a double-edged sword. While students in this day and age may on the one hand avail themselves of the ability to be connected to the outside world while in school (through cellphones, text messaging, email etc.), they also must learn to accept responsibility for data/information/content that leaks into school from the outside. The distinction is blurred.
So, in summary, in case it wasn't already obvious, as much as I like and defend Free Speech in general, I think the judge ruled correctly here. The student was punished for violating school rules, and this seems perfectly appropriate when you understand that those rules (which the student knew or should have known ahead of time) included prohibitions on making false accusations and/or snarfing copyrighted material from the district's web site. You break the rules, you get punished. This may have pushed things closer towards the slippery slope, but I don't think we're there yet.
Bennett is basically correct. There is no "en loco parentis" jurisdiction outside of school--let alone MySpace! Duh. Assuming Bennett got it right (if he got it wrong, shame on him!), the judge is hallucinating.
Two things I hope was made clear somewhere by someone in the 600+ posts:(1) a tort is not a crime, and (2) school jurisdiction of speech (via Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier) has nothing to do with civil torts OR criminal offenses.
If principal wants to sue, let 'em sue. That does NOT give the sucker the right to censor speech.
And who the hell am I? Just a civil libertarian. I once served on Affiliate Board of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. I offer the usual caveats (IANAL), but this one is really a no-brainer.
Zippy
Apparently, you've never raised a 13-year-old girl.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
have we always been at war with EastAsia?
preface... IANAL and given the nature of intelligence demonstrated I will also say this is only MY OPINION. the fact that this needs to be said is sad.
Probably because thats how they learn to use them. Secondly because all 'citizens' are created equal. We are all citizens, we all pay taxes, we all get rights. Just because someone is not an adult does not give YOU the right to take their rights away.
The fundamental problem with your flawed logic is that you lack the understanding of the ethics involved.
The bill of rights does not assign you any rights; it is not a statement of positive rights. It is a statement of negative rights. Particularly rights which the government can not infringe upon.
There is a reason they are protected by these limited rights. Similarly there is a reason they do not have access to several other important but related things. Namely the right to enter a contract, drive, vote, drink, and choose whether or not to go to school.
If you try to curb their right to expression or speech you are trying to restrict the most fundamental negative right. Why do you think its the FIRST amendment and not the 20th?
Furthermore their actions are not without consequences as you imply. The parents are generally responsible.
It is unreasonable to restrict what they can say because you are thus enslaving them. Its bad enough that they can't vote about how you censor them; now you want to take away their right complain about how you abuse them? BS
The fact that the page wont be taken down or forced to be altered in itself to me serves as proof that it is not LIBEL. If the principal is supposed to be an adult then he/she/it should grow up and stop complaining and ignore it. Just like public figures do when people say bad things about them in the media. This student had an opinion and expressed it. You dont have to like their opinion, you dont have to agree with it. You just have to deal with it.
But frankly no matter how you look at it in terms of the good or bad.. the fact is that this absolutely does not belong in the hands of the school. What a student does outside of school, on the internet is none of the schools business and beyond their jurisdiction. If the principal wants to take file libel charges with the police, have at it, I think its still bs but thats where it belongs.
Frankly I disagree with you, just because you dont like what the person says doesnt mean they are abusing their rights. Stop thinking you have the right to silence everyone you disagree with.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
CASE CLOSED.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Wrong again moron. they are just saying its not the schools place to punish. It's the governments.
And to your first point NO, because that once that message was handed in at school it entered the school's jurisdiction.
Whether or not the parents should be disciplining the child is not what this discussion or the legal question is about. Just as you have every right to say what you think that they should do, they have every right to not listen to you, and i have every right to not give a crap what you think they should do.
The reality is that you misinterpret that because the parents don't do what you want them to do to the kid that somehow transfers the responsibility to the school, as opposed to the police (government). Sorry it doesnt.
And honestly, they are verbal insults. Do as everyone allegedly tells their kids and ignore them. They are words, act like an adult. Think about why they might be saying these things, are you doing something to cause it, and whether its relevant or not.
No this is not relevant to the pupil school relationship, because it did not take place in school where that context EXISTS.
Its not a question of do they have SOME claim, its do they have THE CLAIM. Next your going to tell me that if a student gets in a fight with his brother at home (who is also a student) that regardless of whether or not the parents do anything that the school has the right to suspend them both from school. according to you thats pupil-pupil... According to me and logic and the rest of the world that's idiotic.
Do I agree with you that the parents should consider talking the child about the line between opinion and slander and consider punishment if they indeed engaged in slander / libel. yes. But whether or not they do so doesnt give us the right to say that it becomes the schools place to step in. As a matter of principle the parents should step in EVEN if they ARE punishing the child themselves; because its not the schools place.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
.
In the U.S. there is a strong historical tradition of "in loco parentis."
The American public school is generally under the control of a democratically elected school board
---if a school exercises parental discretion and authority outside the classroom it is because the community it serves has explicitly given it that power.
More prominent change came in the 1960s and 1970s in such cases as Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), when the Supreme Court decided that "conduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason - whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior - materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech." Justice Clarence Thomas argued that Tinker's ruling contradicted "the traditional understanding of the judiciary's role in relation to public schooling," and ignored the history of public education. He believed the judiciary's role to determine whether students have freedom of expression was limited by in loco parentis. He cited Lander v. Seaver (1986) which held that in loco parentis allowed schools to punish student expression that the school or teacher believed contradicted the school's interests and educational goals. In loco parentis
The fact of the matter is, you are free to say whatever you want, but not without consequences.
I'm really confused by this consequences thing popular on slashdot lately with respect to free speech. The definition above encompasses all countries.
Someone in a dictatorship can say whatever they want against the government, but you can bet they have consequences too. So they have free speech too? Or are we going to claim there is a fine line somewhere?
Expulsion for speech has historically been limited to disruptive speech (actual or reasonably anticipated disruption) that takes place on campus or during a school-sponsored event.
... and ...
And as always, I am not (yet) a lawyer, and none of the foregoing is legal advice.
Well, before you pass the bar exam, I hope you will also write an article reviewing the decision in another case.
Some years back, a teen-aged student, off school property and outside of school hours, stood across from the school, on a public thoroughfare, holding a banner commenting on drug policy. He was suspended. He went to court arguing violation of his first amendment right of free speech. The judge ruled in favor of the school, contending that the student's right to free speech did not extend to speech which "worked against the 'mission' of the school."
Do not even attempt any specious argument that, being within view of the school, his location was some kind of an "extension" of school property. That can only lead downhill to such fatuous arguments as that, if he could be in any way identified by anyone as a student of that school, he was technically "on school property."
This was clearly an activist judge legislating from the bench to further circumscribe what is protected as free speech.
These are the same kinds of judges who go along with the concept of political speech being allowed only within "free speech zones". I believe the average person of good sense and good will understands that, with only the narrowest and most thoroughly scrutinized exceptions, every square inch of America (alleged land of the free and home of the brave) is a "free speech zone".
However, when it suits the purposes of the the particularly conservative (what a laugh!) party, dispensing money (craven as it is) is elevated to the lofty position of "free speech".
First, link to the opinion here.
I'm especially impressed by the opinion's final paragraph:
Under Pennsylvania law, school districts can punish students only
"during such times as they are under the supervision of the board of school
directors and teachers, including the time necessarily spent in coming to
and returning from school." 24 PENN. STAT. Sec. 5-510. Plaintiffs cast J.S.'s
actions as occurring at home; and therefore, the school could not properly
punish her for them. We have found above, however, that the school did
not err in disciplining J.S., and her actions were not merely personal home
activities.
Of course! If something doesn't violate any court precedents, it's impossible for it to violate a state law, right? The court's reasoning is even more funny when you consider an earlier quote:
To the
extent that Killion stands for the proposition that a school can never
discipline a student for lewd and vulgar speech made off of the school
campus, we simply disagree, and Killion is not binding on this court.
Disagree all you want, it appears that the above statute does stand for that proposition.Granted, the judge may nonetheless be correct. IANAL, but I don't think US District Courts can apply state law. I wonder if the student would have a better chance in a state court.
It's also interesting that part of the school's basis for discipline was copyright infringement, since the student used the principal's photo from the school district website. While the school's authority to suspend the student for this is again open to debate (since she didn't use school computers), the student should be really thankful that the school district isn't suing her for infringement.
I think that any parent who would support his daughter in suing the school over this is absolutely insane.
As it was bearing false witness accusing the principle of career-destroying crimes - which would have been the legitimate legal basis for action, not the idiotic muddle that is reported here. Stupid judges appear to be commonplace, as California shows.
The person was a student, NOT a school district employee.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Principals, teachers, janitors, and anyone else on the payroll of a school district are government employees. Otherwise, it wouldn't be legal to collect taxes to pay them.
Tech Public Policy stuff
It is never "free speech" to accuse someone of a crime; especially, as is now the case in our society, a crime where society consistently considers the accused to be guilty until proven innocent.
The rules are different when it's parody/satire. SNL recently 'accused' Gov. Palin's husband of incest by standards that ignore the comedy aspect. As lame as SNL is, Lorne isn't going to jail.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The web page wasn't on a school server, nor was it on an offsite server whose access is contracted by the school district for the students for educational purposes. Nor has evidence been presented that the young person posted from campus using either school facilities or a smartphone. Is how a student keeps his bedroom (unless he is resident on campus) any business of a school district?
Just face it, the judge ruled for the convenience of another government agency and did so without regard or respect for the Constitution.
Tech Public Policy stuff
government agency has? Rights are vested in the people by the Constitution. An employee of a government agency acting as an agent of the state has the right to act in accordance with the entire body of law that applies to that agency.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If the principal had simply sued the student for libel, we wouldn't be discussing this matter.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Unless you are Al Franken writing for SNL.
Then it's A-OK to accuse republicans on incest.
Even though Obama as a crackhead would have been funnier.
From my German perspective, this is unbelievable. If a student insults his school's principal, that is a matter between the student and the principal. He can take the student to court, but he can not use the school's means of punishment for his personal matters.
The school can punish a student e.g. for interrupting class, destroying school property or systematically harassing/bullying other students.
A school acting as the extended arm of the principal is highly corrupt in my eyes and the principal is just abusing his power. But in today's ultra-puritan America anything seems to be allowed to prosecute those who dare act against the moral ideas of the most conservative population groups. Land of the free, heh?
a man cutting a woman's breast off - but not kissing it.
Sex is a control mechanism used by political conservatives and religion. You cannot take away their control tools.
With the Bush judges we'll see more of this - federalizing an inherently minor act that at most belongs in a parent-teacher conference.