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Students Suspended, Expelled Over Facebook Posts
An anonymous reader writes "Two students have been suspended, and one student has been expelled, over negative Facebook postings they made about a teacher. The individuals are in seventh grade at Chapel Hill Middle School, meaning they are either 12 or 13 years old, according. The children are accused of violating a portion of the school code that is a "level one" offense, the worst possible: 'Falsifying, misrepresenting, omitting, or erroneously reporting' allegations of inappropriate behavior by a school employee toward a student."
Called someone a "pedophile" in this age of crazy parents, vigilantism, and indefinite search engine indexing they deserve at least to be expelled. Such accusations could very easily result in that teacher losing their job or worse having some moron fire bombing their home. It is exactly this kind of thing which is driving male teachers out of education in droves.
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Also, this story has nothing to do with Facebook and really doesn't belong on
'Falsifying, misrepresenting, omitting, or erroneously reporting' allegations of inappropriate behavior by a school employee toward a student."
This is a SERIOUS offense. For a student doing this to a teacher, it's no wonder he's expelled. If an adult falsifies or erroneously reports serious allegations like that, it's a felony! I'd say the kids should go to juvenile detention if they lied and said a teacher did serious stuff to kids.
About her math teacher. I think that it is dumb for the very same reason that these kids got in trouble. But, in retrospect, I'm 31 and she is 13 and I certainly wouldn't have made the connection that saying my math teacher was stupid on the Internet would have major ramifications at that age either.
I run Ubuntu skinned to look like a Mac on a PC. Go figure.
Posting on the internet that someone is a paedophile can have some very serious repercussions even at the wild accusation level. Why is there shock horror at the decision to refuse to allow a pupil that falsely the staff paedophiles to attend?
Against making executive decisions based on Facebook posts. It's getting ridiculous.
What these students did was a jailable offense if only they were old enough. Doing things that would land an adult in jail is a fairly good reason to expel someone.
So irresponsible name-calling because of a low grade or something is now expressing oneself and an example of free speech? Nice.
I hate to be the one to do this but it is in fact already illegal to publish such things about a person and yes the kid should be expelled (and then sent to a boarding school).
Slander/Libel is illegal and in this case you can be sued over it.
Facebook 15 years ago would have been a Bulletin Board at the local arcade/kids hangout.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Those who sow the wind.
I hope kids these days appreciate their thirteen year mandatory sentence. This is exactly what the snot-nosed bastards deserve - one might think, if one wasn't aware that they're only snot-nosed bastards due to a complete lack of parenting.
My kingdom for genetic testing and mandatory training classes before any random jackoffs are allowed to bump uglies with intent to produce a kid.
This has direct impact not only on the reputation of the guy, but on the school , and the adminstration of the school, principal, etc... So yeah, the school had cause to act, at least check the accusation, and if wrong then at the very least suspend the student , potentially also going into libel lawsuit for the school teacher agaisnt the student.
...remember that there is no violation her if what the kid says is true.
I know, unlikely in this case, but it's something to think about. Seems like a way that "policy" could be used to cover something up since kids are usually assumed wrong at school until they are proven right (at which point the administrator starts to ignore them).
At any rate, in the U.S. we've given school admins the right to pretty much create law by creating a "policy." I am not comfortable with that. It can and has been used as CYA too many times.
Kids, much less adults, understand the repercussions of 'inking' something on the internet. This is why it's so important for their parents to step in and stop them from such things. Yes, kids need censors for some of the stupidity that they perpetrate while they are (gasp) children! That doesn't mean you suspend or expel. You take corrective action, and smack down the parents for not doing their job. Yes, their JOB. Having a child is a JOB. I get so tired of people that try to blame schools and governments for childrens stupidity. If their parents didn't allow it, it wouldn't happen.
On the flip side of this, I think that there is a majority of adults who don't understand the implications of 'inking' something on the 'net, either. The root of the problem isn't even the ink. It's the social contract tat people hold themselves to. Just saying "rape" with someones name connected to it can ruin their life, and that is crappy as hell.
Use what works.
They might have just been using it a slur... we will never know because we lack to context. I was wondering, for instance, if any of the posts called the teacher "Gay." How many times has that been said in a schoolyard without the kid knowing exactly what it meant?
"...We’ll definitely be hearing more about this one as Facebook and other social networks continue to grow in popularity."
Grow in popularity? Uh, no, I doubt it. This is yet another nail in the liability coffin that is Facebook.
Not long ago I read how Facebook is being used to decide who should be selected to sit on a jury, with potential jurors being "coherced" into befriending the court in exchange for free wi-fi service in the courtroom, allowing the court to "see all".
Also not long ago, I read how Facebook is responsible for quite an alarming number of cases of infidelity, leading to divorce, with divorce lawyers practically drooling over getting their hands in their opponents juicy Facebook tidbits.
Schools. Potential employers. Current employers. What's next, will Military background investigations be done from an office chair instead of getting out in the field and actually interviewing someone, relying on social network "profiling" instead?
As more and more people realize that social networking is a liability in their lives, they'll realize it's not worth it.
Then again, with the air of ignorance around the law these days, maybe people won't give a shit until they have to hire a lawyer to defend what they've posted. Free speech...isn't free.
Schools don't have jurisdiction over anything - they are not law-enforcing entities. However, when a crime (in this case, libel) is committed against a school or a member of the school staff they may choose to punish the student for the violation of school rules (e.g. one saying 'don't do illegal stuff') and not press charges. Beyond that, the school may punish students in any manner that the parents have agreed to for violation of school rules and may (usually) withdraw its services (i.e. suspend or expel the student) without agreement of the parent.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Even if the student had protected their profiles, the information would still have been sold to advertisers. Next time the teacher logged in, he'd get targeted ads aimed at pedophiles...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Thank you very much. We keep pointing out that there is no difference between doing something and doing something *with a computer*, and now you want to create another law that makes this useless differentiation.
If they had posted fliers with the same content, they would have gotten into trouble too.
I'm 100% on board with the seriousness of this, but not with the schools reaction. It's a matter for the courts, not the principal, unless the posts were done on school grounds with school equipment. And being "forced" to log onto the account while at school? That should be right out. When a libel case comes to court, the suspect has the opportunity to defend themselves; they MAY have reason to believe the person actually IS a pedophile, rapist or suffer from bipolar disorder. Seems unlikely, but you never know - and now we never will.
What these students did was a jailable offense
Maybe in North Korea or China. In America something like this is at most a civil tort of libel.
OMG, Really?
Maybe next time they can record audio/video of said allegations. Wouldn't be the 1st time that would show the kids were right on their claims. Then again if it's just audio they could still claim its falsifying the teachers voice or something of those lines of thought.
Furthermore, if it is more than one kid claiming bad behaviour from the teacher part, i believe the chances of being true claims are quite higher.
It's people like you who make the draconian decision by the school necessary.
People's lives have been destroyed by false accusations. Hysterical parents who should never have had children, greedy lawyers, those are worse than pedophiles, because they can cause more harm to more people.
The punishment against a false accusation should be at least as severe as the punishment against the crime itself.
In the original posting? I mean I was all ready to type up how terrible this was and a school over steping their bounds but then I actually read the article. There's a world of difference between saying things like I hate my teacher or he/she is a moron and he/she is a pedophile.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
First Amendment, blaw, blaw, blaw... These children said these things out of school, it's none of the school's business.
Did you "read" the article? No, of course not.
They made false accusations of serious criminal activity. Is that sort of thing protected by the First Amendment? I'm not a lawyer.
Please get off your soap-box and live in reality. These children's little prank could have had (and possibly still can have) serious life-changing consequences for their falsely accused teachers.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Public school teachers only work/teach half as much as they did 25 years ago.
Who will sue them for STEALING an education from students for their own personal comfort/laziness?
And you think the right punishment for being lazy is being jailed on a false accusation of pedophilia?
Tell that to your boss next times he catches you reading Slashdot at work.
This was a response to the article on zdnet, written by "stevey_d":
Lawyers make every argument adversarial. This is unethical and divides people whereas they should learn to live better with each other.
Children often talk in terms like this about teachers, it's normal. What isn't normal is for the teacher to overhear it (or, if they do, they have the nous to develop bad hearing). This is the same for management in an organization. The only thing here is that the kids didn't figure any adults would intrude on their personal conversation.
The school and the teachers have been ill advised here, someone could have quitely taken the kids to one side, explained the public nature of the chat, and helped them make it hidden or deleted. (enforce privacy).
This whole case is ridiculous. Kids are kids, they don't always know how to behave, they make mistakes. The adults in the situation were clearly not mature enough in their response. Adversarial relationship no, should very rarely have anything to do with school/kids.
Previously if you were caught writing such a message on the walls , you would have to erase it and then were suspended for 10 days for the action. Now if you do it on Facebook, apparently you get expelled, rather than having the opportunity to redact such statements and make a public apology / amends for it.
People should be allowed to be young, make mistakes, face consequences of their actions and learn from them. It's called growing up. This is not the way to go about it at all.
Well in many states it's illegal to record government employees in public places. It's possible the kids recording the teachers could result in a bunch of legal issues for the kid.
I'd hope that a school district can refuse to allow a child convicted of murder to enter the premises of a normal (not special) school.
Spreading libel about a school teacher creates a hazardous working environment for the teacher and the students.
There are some basic rules like "Don't falsely shout fire in a crowded theater" [1]. And then there's The Boy Who Called Wolf [2].
There's an article on the subject [3], but you might want to consider what the EEOC has to say [4], it basically says that the teacher's employer (the school system) has an obligation to investigate (which it seems they did) and take action.
> What will my employer do if I report harassment?
> Once your employer knows that you are being harassed, it has a responsibility to correct
> the situation and protect you from further harassment.
> Your employer should promptly and thoroughly investigate your claim.
check
> This may mean that your employer will interview you, the harasser, and any other witnesses.
check
> If your employer determines that you were harassed, it should take steps to stop the behavior
> from continuing, such as transferring the harasser to another location.
a suspension or expulsion does this, check
> Your employer also must make sure that you are not punished, treated differently, or harassed
> for reporting harassment.
this is harder. if the school has enabled you to be tarred and feathered by parents, then it's now in trouble. but it basically has an obligation to explain the law to the parents and tell them to grow up and teach their children a bit of the basics of our society ([1] + [2] would be a good start, but some Respect for others would be a nice addition).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf
[3] https://law.asu.edu/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=fsKXtzndrRo%3D&tabid=1122
[4] http://www.eeoc.gov/youth/harass2.html#Q5
Had the kids posted opinions - IE: "My teacher sucks" - No biggie, and totally protected.
Instead, they posted factual allegations.
"My teacher is a pedo/rapist" is Libel, which is not protected, and clearly actionable.
It also has consequences. Erroneous accusations like that ruin careers, and send people to jail. A few hundred years ago it was "Witch, Witch!" Today it's "Pedo, Pedo!"
If you want to see scary, look at the OP comments - "That teacher should be investigated, the cops should be all over his house!" is the meme there.
Finally, for those saying "not the school's place to get involved." Actually, it is - the school has standing to take unilateral action here in order to protect itself and its employee. Period.These posts were retaliation for official acts. Left unaddressed at the institutional level, it becomes an effective method of blackmail. Yeah, the teacher can sue too, but then you've got the boatload of issues that come with litigation that I for one would never want to entertain. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be Cost Effective. Cheap harms are best countered by cheap deterrents, otherwise students have an incentive to hedge, and kids are intuitively good at gaming incentive structures. Besides, I can just hear the whining now -
"Teacher sues for being called a pedo on the internet."
Comments:
Litigious bastard, he's probably a pedo.
Why's everybody suing all the time.
etc, etc
Public school teachers only work/teach half as much as they did 25 years ago. ,for the people. I mean, damn , it's either that or bloody revolt. Whadda you want?
Dictators and hoolums like Gadaffi, Obama, politicians and public servants can walk the straight and narrow path or have their wanderings reported by the people
I didn't know viewers of Fox News were smart enough to post on slashdot, or use a computer for that matter.
While I do agree that what these students said was wrong, I don’t believe they should be punished for what they did. They need to be disciplined, sure, but the school should not have a right to get involved. This is a very fine line we’re talking about.
So somehow discipline is not punishment? Tell that to my Mom when I did something stupid like talking back to her. Soap on the tongue sure felt like punishment to me.
Having read TFA, the issue I find most jarring is that the parents of these children are considering suing the school for their actions. Really? Now that's a grand way to teach children right and wrong. "Gee Johny, you called your teacher a pedophile and got suspended because it was a false claim? Lets sue the bastard instead.". I don't see the argument as being over whether the school had the right or not, the core issue is that kids now feel free enough to use words, to "ink" words like pedophile, rapist, bi-polar as weapons. "Ha, you can't touch me because I am protected". Instead of taking the school to task for taking action to protect their employees, how about we take to task the parents that create children with little to know awareness of basic respect to adults. I may not have liked my English teacher in high school, I certainly may have said to friends, I cannot stand that lady, but had I called her a rapist, my parents would have applauded the school and added further "discipline" to make their "punishment" seem kind.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
the parents have lots of money for good lawyers and appropriate umbrella insurance coverage...
Based on what my grandparents told me when I was growing up, 100-150 years ago, teenagers were far more capable than they are today simply because more was expected of them and they were given actual responsibilities. (and there were consequences for failing to fulfill them) If teens acted like they do today back then, they would have been looked at as being childish and feeble-minded. Even as recently as 70-80 years ago, you would have been disgraced as a parent if your kid did most of the "normal" stuff that teens do today. I'm not convinced that our modern culture of extending "childhood" until age 18 is the right thing to do... it certainly didn't happen a century or more ago and more of often than not people were better off for it.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
Business as usual, like 50 years ago, it is not done to " ... reporting' allegations of inappropriate behavior by a school employee toward a student" but now it is official.
the suspect has the opportunity to defend themselves; they MAY have reason to believe the person actually IS a pedophile, rapist or suffer from bipolar disorder
And the teacher has no opportunity to defend himself?
Do you mean that if someone accuses you of a serious crime, his right to defend himself against a libel charge comes before your own right to defend yourself against a criminal accusation?
They knew full well what they were up to; they didn't say "potty head" or "stinky pants". You're naive. The kids had already had years of indoctrination about the dangers of pedophiles and the serious badness of 'inappropriate touching', etc. Obviously you don't have kids. What is sad is that their characters are so twisted at such a young age. Scary.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Sosa is currently drafting an apology to her teacher. At the same time though, she said her school principal, Jolene Morris, violated her privacy by ordering her to log into her Facebook account at a school library computer. Morris then reportedly read the offending post and ensuing responses from friends before ordering Sosa to delete the posts.
Context is everything. The admin forced the kid to delete to posts. Are there actual copies of these posts anywhere? People are assuming its criminal without knowing the context or what was actually said. Without knowing what was written this is all assumption. If the kids said "Teacher X raped Student Y" I tend to agree, but what if they said "Teacher X acts like a rapist." Or "Teacher X leers at me like a paedophile." Is that libel? I am just saying that the administrator's actions sure give him a lot a latitude to say "the post said this."
How does the school district even have jurisdiction in this case?
Maybe it's just the school I went to, or just this country (England), but when I started high school we had to sign some sort of contract thing essentially saying that if the school is involved in any way (with "actions committed while wearing the school uniform" as the example) then the school has jurisdiction in addition to the regular authorities.
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Even as recently as 10-20 years ago, you would have been disgraced as a parent if your kid did most of the "normal" stuff that teens do today.
FTFY.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
I was about to side with the kids on this until I read TFA. They called him a pedophile... screw these kids, expel 'em!
2 things you never throw around lightly: Pedophile & Rape.
I'll assume this is a public school, in which case they don't have any choice but to follow our Constitution, namely the First Amendment.
The first protects your right to free speech, however you are still liable for any consequences of exercising that right. It does not grant you any immunity from being punished for what you said.
These children said these things out of school, it's none of the school's business. If they go snooping and find out, then they can't do anything about it.
They can - schools have the right (and responsibility) to provide a safe working environment for students and staff. If something is said or done off campus hay can certainly take action as a result of what was said.
Bottom line is kids say things about teachers they don't like. They always have and always will. Punishing them for exercising their freedom of speech will only cause further resentment towards the school and teachers which will result in more severe verbal bashing of the institution.
Maybe they'll learn that their free speech rights come with responsibilities as well.
Not surprisingly, the article doesn't mention what the teacher did that may have resulted in this type of reaction from the students.
Yea, it's probably something as horrific as giving them a bad grade because they didn't do their work or separate them in class because they were talking to each other.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Previously if you were caught writing such a message on the walls , you would have to erase it and then were suspended for 10 days for the action
You can't possibly be so obtuse as to not recognize the difference between something on a wall that a small number of people might see, and which can be removed, vs. an online posting that can take on a life of its own and become essentially permanent in a venue accessed by billions of people.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Watch the documentary Witch Hunt (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196112/ , it is on netflix streaming) to see how incredibly destructive these kinds of claims about pedophilia can be, even if the facts in the accusation are completely absurd. (In another case not covered in the movie, very young students claimed that teachers used a system of underground tunnels to get to a secret dungeon, and this was accepted as fact.) Communities can very easily enter into a kind of mass hysteria and put innocent people in prison. Given the history of things that have happened to teachers in this country, the school policy is not unreasonable.
A while ago these students would get the switch, or a spanking, or whatnot, and everyone would have agreed that it was an appropriate punishment. Now we have everyone getting their lawyer. I know on the face of it one could argue that we're teaching them to use the legal system instead of violence... sounds reasonable, but it just seems wrong to me. It all seems so much more, well... juvenile.
they would have been looked at as being childish and feeble-minded.
I'm fairly certain that they already were looked at like that no matter how they acted (or at least they definitely are now). Some people seem to view it as 'insulting' when they receive legitimate criticism or information from a child, evading it by insulting them based on their age.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Have to agree. These schools Vs student facebook postings are ridiculous.
Hurricane Island Outward Bound
OB
Calling him a rapist was not a serious problem, it was the bipolar allegation that triggered an expulsion. Surprisingly as bipolar is a perception where raping is an offense. Sounds bipolar to me.
The most important thing to teach kids is : don't leave records of what you say. I'm sure kids have done this forever and "everybody" knew they said it, same as when you post on FB; the difference is here is something someone can use as evidence.
that can ruin a reputation with mere hearsay.. Just another indication we're really not very advanced.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
lol, where have you been? Both of those are tossed around all the time and for little or no reason... Now formally saying that to say... the police, doens't happen nearly as often as people accuse others of it in public.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Where exactly is the line on this? If the students had made the statements verbally at a city park should they have been suspended after being ordered to repeat the conversation? If they'd emailed each other from home, should they have been ordered to show their emails by the principal?
What if they'd called the teacher "a very irritating person" on Facebook and the principal had ordered the child to log into her Facebook account. They probably wouldn't have been expelled or suspended, but wouldn't people have been up in arms over the invasion of the right to privacy?
On the other hand, if Sosa had "forgotten" her password at school and deleted the posts at home, would there have been any evidence of the libel? Should she have been suspended, if there was no evidence, for "forgetting" her password?
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
A while ago, this story: Teacher-Suspended-Over-Blog-About-Students.
Gosh, didn't a LOT of people claim this teacher had been wrong and been violating the privacy of the students and what not. Wonder how the responses from the same people compare with their response to their story.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A few years ago, just after I left my school, a few students ended up suspended after setting up and commenting on a facebook group called "Bring back Mr.Bla" ("Bla" not being the name of a previous principle) in protest of a newly appointed school principal. Their comments were not as slanderous as these, they mainly commented on the poor management decisions made by new principle and one person called him a "twat". It was ridiculous, especially seeing as the majority of members of staff agreed with everything that had been said on the page. But it was considered perfectly legal and correct. Crazy!
That's "only" because the students don't have their own union. :)
And everyday events make it plain that dictators, autocrats and the like dislike (and now fear) facebook et al. And are incapable of graciously accepting (or dealing with) criticism, disaproval or dissent from others (but, that was already quite plain). Their answer is power and intolerance.
That's what the children learn. Children (and adolescents) soak up what they see and experience. Intensely. Unreservedly (almost). Historically, they are being exposed to ever more arrogant use of naked intolerant deaf self-serving autocratic unmitigated unhesitant power. As a culture and everyday practice.
It is amazing how fearful and brutal "educational" authority is of childhood and sudents in general.
Merely another instance of this, in the U.S. Interesting, however. Very interesting. Specially these days.
How does the school district even have jurisdiction in this case? It might be libel, but unless the school actually has jurisdiction this suspension and expulsion is a load of crap.
This example is from Conneticut:
You asked what authority a local school board has to expel a student from school for conduct off school grounds. You were especially interested in whether a school board may expel a student for a sexual assault that occurs away from school.
Connecticut's school expulsion law provides for both mandatory and discretionary expulsions for out-of-school conduct (CGS 10-233d (a) (1) and (2)). School boards must expel students for carrying a weapon, or selling or distributing illegal drugs, whether the activity occurs on or off school grounds. For other types of conduct, including sexual assault, a school board has the discretion to expel a student from school.
In order to impose a discretionary expulsion for out-of-school conduct, the law requires a school board to show that the student's actions not only violate a publicized school policy but are also "seriously disruptive of the educational process.â In 1998, the Connecticut Supreme Court construed the latter phrase to mean that, to warrant expulsion, the out-of-school conduct must (1) have a direct connection to the school's operations and (2) "markedly interrupt or seriously impede" the school's daily operations.
Within these requirements, a school board may expel a student who has been convicted of an out-of-school sexual assault. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, a hearing officer upheld the Trumbull Board of Education's expulsion of a high school student convicted of sexually assaulting another student at an unknown location outside of school. The hearing officer found that, based on the facts of the case, allowing the convicted student to attend school would severely disrupt the educational process in the school.
EXPULSION FOR CONDUCT OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL
Calling people on their failings is fine. But if Obama decided to skip work for a day then someone reported him for being a "seal-killing lobbyist-appeasing-warmonger" then that report would still be wrong, and it would be less then half as serious as what these girls did.
What these kids did wasn't the same as calling someone a jerk or an idiot on a public forum. They accussed him of being a pedophile, probably the worst false accusation you could have leveled against you and if any inquiry were made then it wouldn't matter if he was found guilty or not this teachers career would be over right there and then. This would be like calling someone a communist 60 or 70 years ago.
You mean that's all it takes to get out of school? Some kids will do it on purpose!
What the kids did is wrong. However, The reason it is *so* wrong, is the hysteria surrounding sexual offenses.
Accusing anyone of this offense may have dire consequences even though no charges are pressed. We are so far past reasonableness when it comes to accusations of pedophilia that I had a moment of hesitation when I googled pedophilia for spelling.
When a person can be required to register as a sexual offender for "peeing in the bushes", (yes, I'm exaggerating), none of us are safe. A witch-hunt mentality seems to have taken over.
On one hand, The kids did a horrible thing, even worse than posting a sign in your front yard that so and so is a pedophile. On the other hand, it's horribleness is a direct consequence of the witch-hunt mentality. I'm so confused.
--
pass
Agreed, now get off my lawn!
2 things you never throw around lightly: Pedophile & Rape.
Cultural hysteria as a pretext to conduct witch hunts against "undesirables"
Leave the speaker alone. Kill the listeners...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Even as recently as 70-80 years ago, you would have been disgraced as a parent if your kid did most of the "normal" stuff that teens do today.
Even as recently as 20 years ago, you would have been allowed to discipline them in public. Now some busybody will call the cops if you raise your voice to your child in public or threaten to withhold some privilege.
>>>something like this is at most a civil tort of libel.
For an adult. For kids it's school expulsion, which they deserve. ----- Also free speech is unlimited but you still have to pay the consequences since most State constitutions read, "...shall be responsible for abuse thereof."
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Maybe in North Korea or China. In America something like this is at most a civil tort of libel
It is never safe to generalize about U.S. state law.
Colorado is one of 17 states with a criminal libel statute, which is different from the civil libel laws in all 50 states that allow victims of allegedly defamatory statements to seek compensation from speakers. Criminal libel laws allow the state to fine or imprison speakers of defamatory statements.
Former high school student pleads guilty to criminal libel [2006]
Facebook 15 years ago would have been a Bulletin Board at the local arcade/kids hangout.
True, but the kids back then would have been smart enough not to sign their post on the bulletin board calling the person a pedophile. It would have been an "anonymous post". These kids were stupid enough to do the equivalent of signing that post on the bulletin board.
I'm going out on a limb here because I don't exactly what was posted, but I suspect that in context it was apparent that it was simple name-calling and not an accusation of a crime. If he would've called his teacher a goat fucker, would you really take it seriously? No. Kids at that age try to pick the most hateful thing to say to elicit a reaction. And you know what? Kids of this age already have coping mechanisms in place for when someone calls them a hurtful name.
To be honest, I think this is an overreaction by a vindictive teacher and a staff looking to make an example out of someone, and these kids will suffer a punishment that stretches far into their lifetime for a moment of expressing their frustration to their peers.
This is a rare case where I do think the parents should lawyer up. Don't fuck with a kid's life because you had your feelings hurt when you saw something you were never intended to see.
Just this past week, at my girlfriend's university, someone sent a professor a letter with a white powder in it. They had to shut down the building and decontaminate 3 professors. Is an F on a test really worth going to prison(especially federal prison) over?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
they should pass a law against starting a sentence in the subject and completing it in the message. It's getting ridiculous.
Libel is not a crime, it is a tort.
You've never had my wife's pastries. They are absolutely a crime against all common sense.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
now if these children ever have to report a real event they will be less inclined to do so.
And what if the allegations are true? What's his buddy principle covering up?
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Which (and stating the obvious here), is exactly what has happened.
One of these students called their teacher a pedophile, the other called a teacher bipolar. If tossing around a statement like that isn't criminal when it isn't warranted, then I'm not sure what libel and slander are.
They deserve the full might of the disciplinary hammer in this case.
semantics are everything!
screw these kids
If you try, I suspect you will be the one labelled a pedophile.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
And 200 to 300 years ago people would have made the same comparisons with distant generations previous to that. Kids these days huh! :-)
The same deal with music.
They don't make 'em like they used to.
And so on and so forth.
you're right but I'm not sure this is the right way to deal with it.
Imagine: you're a 12 year old asshole with parents that don't properly care for you and you're presented with the following choice
A) Admit your accusations were lies and everyone is pissed off at you and your parents punish you and you get expelled.
B) keep lying your lie and you get sympathy, "free" days off school, everyone makes a big deal of you, you get 15 minutes of fame, and your hated teacher goes away.
Which would you do?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
...They called him a pedophile... screw these kids...
Haha
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
Libel is a civil tort in Georgia where the school is. You can be sued for it. You can cough up a lot of money to compensate your victim. But you can't go to jail.
Unless the actual postings were substantially different than describe in the article, they were pretty clear cut libel.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I was about to side with the kids on this until I read TFA. They called him a pedophile... screw these kids, expel 'em! 2 things you never throw around lightly: Pedophile & Rape.
If you read the other article, they not only called the teacher a pedophile, but also a rapist and bipolar.
The sort of damage that could do to a teacher's career is unbelievable. And the parents are saying "my children shouldn't be punished so harshly." And threatening to sue the school.
Maybe the parents need to do some parenting. Or get a dose of their own medicine (set up a fake facebook page accusing them of being a pedophile and rapist, and see their reaction).
And maybe a more appropriate punishment is NOT suspending kids, but making them stay LONGER in school. Wash some of the graffiti off the lockers, etc. I could never figure out how suspending a kid was a punishment.
Princpal: "You skipped school yesterday, so we're suspending you today"
Student: "So what you're saying is I have permission to skip school today too? Works for me!"
It this is starting to happen all the time, perhaps all the more reason to start being more strict.
Problem is that these accusations are often taken as truth by the public, despite it being one of the worst things you can call another human being.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
What they did isn't jailable in any case. It's libel & slander, which are civil claims. If they had filed a police report saying they had been abused by the teacher, that would have been 'filing a false report'. Depending on the district, that's usually a fine & possibly community service.
Here is my question that no one seemed to ask in that article... But how were these comments discovered by the staff members of this school?? I would certainly hope that the teachers there are not friending their students. I do have a funny feeling that someone at that school was looking up student facebook pages and that disturbs me much more to think about as a a parent myself.
The line is pretty obvious:
NOBODY who is a government employee has any business reading private facebook or emails w/o first obtaining a warrant issued by a judge, and naming the reason for the search, backed by articulatable evidence why said person is a suspect.
Get over yourself. The courts have already held that not only are facebook posts are public, but also that even deleted posts can be turned over. Besides, you agree as part of your terms of use that facebook can reveal all sorts of crap. Don't like it - don't use facebook.
And having at least a dozen other students posting comments shows the posts in question were far from a "private communication" (who knows how many other students viewed the posts w/o commenting).
You are joking right? There is NOTHING private about FaceBook! It's a damned website designed to be viewed, searched, etc. Don't post there if you don't want others to view it. I never did understand this fascination with people posting every drib and drab of their pathetic lives there... And worse, expecting it to be "private" when they have friended everyone under the sun. If you don't want something leaked, then don't post it there plain and simple.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
I think we can all thank the teachers union for keeping horrible teachers like that in the classroom.
Stop using so many 'quote marks'. It makes you look like an 'imbecile'.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
It might be libel, but unless the school actually has jurisdiction this suspension and expulsion is a load of crap.
In many jurisdictions, school officials are constrained by zero-tolerance, zero-discretion policies when faced with these sorts of accusations; they are compelled to investigate whenever these sorts of claims - however spurious or implausible - arise.
Consider the alternative-history headline to this story: "Students identify teacher as pedophile, rapist; School declines to take action--says cannot investigate reports made after hours".
~Idarubicin
Insightful? You've got to be kidding me. Since when is libel a jailable offense in the U.S.?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In today's legal and social environment, what these school kids did is sufficient grounds for the slanderred adult male to be fired, jailed, and be barred from contact with their children; all without any presumption of innocence (on the part of the justice system). In this case, the principal intervened and instead of the male teacher being persecuted the school children were punished.
Society has to make a choice: adults accused of sexual crimes against children must either be presumed innocent until proven guilty; or, those falsely accusing others of such crimes must be severely punished. At the moment, society is chosing the latter course; and so, explusion of the child is the minimum punishment one should expect.
This is not a school problem. Sure, kids who do things like this deserve to be arrested, sued, publicly flogged or whatever. But, it is not the schools responsibility to punish children for things that happen outside of school. That is a job for either their parents or the judicial system, It is their job to educate them (very large period here) Allowing schools to make decisions based on actions outside of school is a very slippery slope, for both the children and the schools. If these same allegation were made against a neighbor, is it now the schools responsibility to punish the person who made them? If they don't are they now liable in some way? School is not a punitive government entity. We already have those.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
Actually, in the eyes of the law, there is no difference. I wish there was a difference, and 25 years ago the difference you point to did exist; but, that has all been discarded in recent years.
Even were I to admit that teachers teach half as much as they did 25 years ago (which I don't), it would only be to point out that it's because they have twice as many non-teaching responsibilities as they did back then. As budgets have been cut more and more non-teaching responsibilities have been put on the shoulders of teachers. Janitorial services in many districts have been cut, making teachers responsible for cleaning their own classrooms, and sometimes even common areas. Lower level administrative services in many districts have been cut, making teachers responsible for filling out paperwork that used to be handled by school secretaries. Special education programs have been cut, making regular teachers responsible for handling special discipline problems that were previously handled by specialists so that the regular teachers could get on with teaching the regular students.
Of course, class sizes have increased, making the amount of teaching per student go down significantly, but that's not the teachers' fault, and gives the teacher a bigger workload in terms of grading and the like, without any positive return for the students.
Stop blaming teachers for the failure of our educational system and start putting the blame on those responsible: politicians and voters that set policies and refuse to allocate adequate funding.
These school kids are making false claims which could ruin someone's life.
They know their claims are false. They ( obviously ) thought they could make
such claims with impunity. Good on the school authorities for correcting that
mistaken notion.
If they were my children, they'd be on the receiving end of some discipline
they'd remember for the rest of their lives.
As for you people who are claiming this is a "free speech issue", you're clueless idiots
who have no grasp of the law or the issues at hand. There are laws against libelous
speech for good reason, and if these kids were adults they could be facing lawsuits which
might well bankrupt them.
The kid who apologized and realized the gravity of a false rape accusation was only suspended. The kid who refused to admit they were wrong was expelled. Seems simple.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Mod up insightful please.
Ocean is land, covered with water.
State constitutions cannot remove rights granted to individuals by the US constitution. We have Supreme Court rulings on this matter going back 100 years.
Deserving a school expulsion? Hardly. Kids make pedo jokes all the time, and an accusation on a limited forum like facebook, where a student must be compelled to login to provide evidence against him/herself is *hardly* the same thing as a formal or otherwise serious complaint. The overwhelming majority of content on Facebook is self-aggrandizing partial (if any) truth. Does nobody remember what a little braindead idiot they were when they were 12? Middle schoolers are stupid.
Besides, there's no issue with being a pedophile. Being a *practicing* pedophile... well...
Since children are incapable of lying and are not devious, malicious, vile, evil little bastards it must be true, think of what it means if they were lying! Our little crotchfruit wouldn't be perfect!
We're ruthless and dog eat dog for having free speech and privacy rights all these years, or for removing them over the last 20 in the name of thinking of the children?
Of course, if people would stop thinking of the children, we wouldn't have these concerns...
What the teacher did to prompt these comments? Like someone said you shouldn't throw around stuff like pedo or rapist but no one takes it seriously untill it's gone to the police. And on facebook, seriously?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
However, a claim of certain acts -- including pedophilia (and domestic abuse, etc) -- instantly initiates criminal proceedings, starting out with separation and investigation. They are engaging in acts that do have very serious immediate consequences that involve law enforcement and the courts. These procedures are increasingly mandatory in many locales, with an assertion of "I made it up" being insufficient to stop investigation and/or prosecution. For example, had they made these claims against their parents, they might well have been removed from the home by the courts (and almost certainly would have been in California, according to a child care worker I just IMed this link to; she notes that forwarded communication is a fairly common reason to start investigations, and removal is a precautionary measure).
These are serious accusations that typically *do* initiate law enforcement and both family and criminal court involvement (and that investigation and court involvement will encompass the children). Brushing it off as "at most a civil tort of libel" is not quite a complete picture.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Children do not have the same rights as adults under most legal systems. Additionally, while they are in school, the school is usually given some form of guardianship-by-proxy over the children, so that some adult is always in control of, and has responsibility for, those children. This probably explains why the school administrator felt justified in coercing the child to log in to her facebook account from school, even though the postings in question were probably not made from school grounds. Regardless from where the postings were made, the fact that these children felt entitled to make slanderous statements in response to perceived slights shows a profound lack of judgement and an obvious failure of their parents, and the educational system, to instill in them a sense of propriety, decency and common sense. As usual, I weep for the future.
State constitutions cannot remove rights granted to individuals by the US constitution. We have Supreme Court rulings on this matter going back 100 years.
Then maybe you should read the Supreme Court ruling (1968)
Wearing an armband calling for the end of the Vietnam war was held to be legitimate free speech - falsely calling someone a pedophile and a rapist isn't, and the Supremes have already ruled that the school has the right to act.
And the only thing dumber than these kids is the nature of our societal reactions aimed (theoretically) at protecting these kids. Pulling the plug on kids who may need a bit of institutionalized rearing is a ridiculous response brought on by a systematic disease.
Handing a 12 year old a remote detonator and then jailing them for pressing the button is roughly the shape of it. This whole carnival ride that we call America is packed to the brim with oversensitive morons.
1. Presumption of innocence.
2. Sticks and stones, losers. Sheesh.
And anonymously report the teacher for having child porn. When they were identified they could say the teacher took naked pictures of them at school and threatened to fail them if they did not cooperate.
Which is something I am surprised that doesn't happen more often.
It's not so much about punishment, but about removing them from the environment so their influence doesn't encourage other children. You don't want to leave those children in the school so they'll be free to make more serious accusations in the future once they have more of a firm grasp on what those words actually mean and the severe damage they can do to someone if the story sounds plausible. At least, at their current age, they can get a royal beatdown from their parents over the issue... or worst case, at least they'll be some other school's problem.
Of course, had the parents actually done some parenting, this could have been avoided.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Very, very much agreed. I can't believe the sentiment I'm seeing in the majority of comments here. Mod parent up!
Although, I do disagree with it not being normal that the teacher overhears. I know full well that my daughter calls me a buttmuch, asshat, jerk, tyrant, petty dictator, and worse when she's with her friends.
But that's quite different than if she calls me a pedophile. Were she to do that, it opens the door to a good many consequences that calling me a buttmunch does not.
It's more than a name, especially if it is your teacher or caregiver you're talking about. It doesn't take much to ruin someones career given that a lot of kids have more than 1k "friends".
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
No, not "screw these kids." More like, "screw the society that hears 'pedophile' and immediately sends in the SWAT teams."
Palm trees and 8
The sort of damage that could do to a teacher's career is...
Palm trees and 8
How does the school district even have jurisdiction in this case?
Was the offending facebook post made from a school computer? During school hours?
It might be libel, but unless the school actually has jurisdiction this suspension and expulsion is a load of crap.
They have jurisdiction because the Supreme Court says they do:
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."
The case in question was whether the school could ban the wearing of armbands demanding the end of the Vietnam war. The Supremes held that the armbands were not disruptive, and a legitimate form of expressing an opinion. Posting lies about someone being a pedophile and rapist would meet the standards of material dirruption and invasion of the rights of others. So the schools definitely are acting within the legal framework.
The parents need to go back in time and learn effective birth control so we don't get yet another generation of the clueless.
So please post your real name, address, and other contact info, along with a way to verify that it is really you, so we can put your theory to the test.
Learn the difference between "should be" and "is." My only point was that this incident highlights a broad problem in America that is not being addressed in any meaningful way.
Palm trees and 8
" It doesn't take much to ruin someones career given that a lot of kids have more than 1k "friends"."
No doubt. But where the problem is? In boys callling names to an adult, or a society so ill that it will make this adult life's a living hell without a skeptical research on those childs assertions?
This society where *just* calling someone "turrist" or "child molester", can ruin one's life, where Interpol calling on Assange is of higher level than the one over Gadaffi, remembers me of other times: "she's a witch, a whitch I say!". Surely a significant part of this society miss those old sweet days.
Well, who is more acclimated to state if someone is a pedophile, the kids who are in contact with someone on a daily basis or adults making accusations?
Here is the difference, when kids make the claim, society assumes they have some first hand knowledge as in they are the victim since the crime is about underage kids. when an adult makes the claim, there isn't really any first hand assumption outside of people already vested in their integrity believing their word. But because the child is the subject of the victimization, often an investigation is conducted on their behalf at the accusation.
It's something that is completely different when a kid makes the claim verses when an adult makes the claim.
Exactly - based off the biased summary I was thinking "Yet another instance of schools being assholes" - until I read the post. Kids are well aware that even so much as calling a teacher a pedophile or rapist without proof can not only get them fired and barred from teaching ever again, but can also lead to jail time.
These kids are getting off very, very light.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
However, a claim of certain acts -- including pedophilia (and domestic abuse, etc) -- instantly initiates criminal proceedings, starting out with separation and investigation. They are engaging in acts that do have very serious immediate consequences that involve law enforcement and the courts. These procedures are increasingly mandatory in many locales, with an assertion of "I made it up" being insufficient to stop investigation and/or prosecution. For example, had they made these claims against their parents, they might well have been removed from the home by the courts (and almost certainly would have been in California, according to a child care worker I just IMed this link to; she notes that forwarded communication is a fairly common reason to start investigations, and removal is a precautionary measure).
That is problem. We have a justice system set on a hair trigger for certain crimes. We should not throw out the constitution, or limit what school-aged people can do outside of school. Instead, we should stop going on witch hunts at the mere hint that someone may have done a certain act. Yes, child molestation is a terrible crime, but so is ruining someone's life with to a false accusation. The pendulum has swung far too far toward protecting the victims of these horrible crimes, at the cost of not protecting those falsely accused.
No, the line is pretty obvious - when a kid blatantly lies about a serious crime in order to get a teacher into trouble merely because the kid is a shit student, the kid needs to be expelled.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Look, I WORK in schools (computer support). I see and hear of all kinds of stuff, personally, like the recent and very famous "laptop webcam" scandal. My kids are out of high school; but a few years ago when they were, each got a briefing from me about dealing with school officials. Clam up. Make no statements about guilt, innocence, or involvement. Politely refuse to co-operate in, and verbally protest, computer searches, physical searches, or drug tests. Ask for witnesses. If a recording device is available, attempt to use it, even if you aren't ultimately allowed to. CALL ME. Call the police yourself, if necessary. Given the unprecedented power school officials have taken upon themselves - to damage your child's life and future prospects, with little hope of appeal, it's the only way. You must be on the defensive at all times. Isn't it wonderful that we've made this kind of attitude necessary?
Sounds like the school is kangaroo-court convicting the kids of libel. Unfortunately for the school, there's an absolute defense for libel: truth. A bit of poking around should determine whether or not the kids were telling the truth in short order.
Meanwhile, why is the school acting as the Internet Police? They have better things to spend their time and money on...for example, teaching kids.
Just my two cents' worth.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
In my school district, miss more than a certain number of days on a year, and you automatically fail a class. I believe there are some workarounds for kids with long-term illnesses, but they're pretty strict otherwise.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I think what we fail to do is convey to children just how serious a false accusation is. Chances are, the kids who did this wouldn't dream of, say, stealing computers from their school. They know that's wrong, and if they did that, we'd expect (and the child would expect) an expulsion from the school, and criminal proceedings.
A computer is just a computer, though. Such serious, false accusations could follow a teacher around for the rest of his life. So how have we arrived at a place where a child knows that stealing is wrong, but doing massive damage to a teacher's life is bad behavior, but perhaps in a grey zone of some kind. It's because too many adults (their parents included) think the same way.
If the child's parents proceed in a lawsuit against the school, it's only fair that the teacher be allowed to sue the parents. They are responsible for their children's behavior.
Aside from anything else, were I to learn that a child at my children's school was wont to make public accusations of paedophilia and rape of adults, while their parents stand behind them and support them, I wouldn't have those children in my house, and I would raise serious issues with the school governors about those children being present in any place where I had to go (for example, performance, concerts, parents' evenings). Children who behave like that are like loaded handguns, and until their parents can teach them some decent behaviour (rather than lawyering up for a payday), being around them is a serious risk to other adults.
had the parents actually done some parenting, this could have been avoided
Do enlighten us with your recipe for perfect parenting. I'm not aware of any foolproof method for making tweens never be jerks.
Well, when you have to force a student to log in, in order to view the post and the comments, that seems pretty private to me.
The article says one of them was expelled for calling her teacher bipolar. If that's all she called her (the article is really vague, though), then it is completely ridiculous for her to be punished at all - let alone expelled. IANAL but I would go as far as to say that it's a first amendment issue. Calling a teacher a rapist or pedophile is definitely more serious, though. I think an argument could be made that "locker-room talk" (facebook) is conveyed in a certain tone (similar to that you would see on a comedian like Letterman or Leno) and that a serious allegation of rape would not be posted on facebook but instead directly to the police. (and if they did post it on facebook they would not use those words - they would make it sound more serious). Nobody reading the post would even for one second interpret it as an actual allegation of rape. If David Letterman were to put that as his facebook status it would be fair game.
The conversation was restricted to friends only, which is why the teacher had to force the child to log on to see the comments. No amount of searching would pick this up if you're not on the friends list, this was for all intents and purposes, a private conversation. Perhaps you need to go to facebook.
This sentence no verb.
That might be a bit of a legal stretch. The principal doesn't appear to have gained control over the Facebook accounts in question. She merely demanded that the kids delete the content in question. That may be no more serious an offense than requiring a kid to scrub their objectionable graffiti off a building. And probably less humiliating.
Have gnu, will travel.
The parents quite clearly can't see any problem with their children's behaviour, so presumably this is another case of bad parents making bad children. Which is a shame, but there's no reason why the school should have to put up with it. And Alesjandra is quite the moron, isn't she: she thinks that if she goes to another school she might start to make bad decisions. Has she looked in a mirror recently and considered how her recent decisions have gone?
And by the way, unlike I suspect a lot of slashdotters, I've got 12 year old children. If mine behaved like this, a lot of things would happen. But lawyering up and demanding my child's first amendment rights to call named people rapists wouldn't be one of them (because, aside from anything else, it isn't protected speech, and might indeed constitute fighting words). Oh, and isn't the minimum age for Facebook 13 anyway?
I'm not sure how damaging a post that requires the principal to force a child to sign into her account in order for it to be viewed, can be.
The "punishment" side of suspension is assumed to be meted by out by the parents. Or at least that was always my understanding of the system. On the schools side of things I'm sure they're just happy to have the little bastard out of their hair for the moment.
And I'm an atheist. Is there a better way to say 'yup, i'm a fascist and in power, so fuck you.' without having gas chambers? And yes, I know I just pulled the Godwin one. Once in a while there comes a time when you CAN legitimately hit the table with the nazi card.
Agree with you for the most part except that institutionalized rearing is the CAUSE of the problem, not the solution. How many hours a week do you think these kids spend under the care of the state as opposed to the number of hours they spend under the care of their biological parents? You can bet that they are already getting more institutionalized rearing, as are most kids in America.
IANAL but I think there is a difference. From what I've read on the subject, it appears you have to prove that your reputation has actually been damaged. It's not likely that anyone who reads some kid's facebook status saying "Mr. Teachername just gave us a pop quiz - she's such a pedophile" and interpret that as an actual allegation of pedophilia. Now if the kid had said "Mr. Teachername raped me the other day and nobody believes me. Please help me." or something like that, then I think the teacher would have a case (assuming the allegation really is false). But the problem is that from the article we have no idea what the actual status was and so we clearly can't reach an educated conclusion.
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly, all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
Hesiod, circa 700 BC
I am officially gone from
This was not an accusation. This was not public. This was a private conversation between friends outside of school. The teacher had to force a student to log on to his facebook to even see them.
Do you actually know what kind of messages these were? Were they really private messages from one student directly to one other student? Or were they posted on the student's wall, and the student's privacy settings were such that only their friends (however many hundreds of people that is) could see them, and they hadn't friended their principal?
Your argument might hold up if the former were true. But if hundreds of people can see it - even if nobody outside their friends list can - you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that it's not public.
And as it turns out, one of the articles linked from TFA suggests that these were indeed wall posts and subsequent comments:
"[The students] said there were approximately two dozen posts by as many as 15 children."
Can't be absolutely sure, because Facebook does have settings for sharing comments only with certain portions of your friends list, but there's a good chance that far more than 15 people (and possibly not all of them students at that school) had access to the comments.
Fine.
Then the facebook posts should have been procured only as part of a criminal investigation by the police after justifying the reason for the search, only with articulatable evidence why said person is a suspect, after a *subpoena*... instead of a warrant... is issued, and Facebook has had an opportunity so consult with the subject and determine if they want their own lawyers to fight it.
For a public employee to abuse his position of power over someone to demand that they log into their personal... instead of private... account without proper judicial oversight is intolerable. Actually, it's also intolerable for a private party to do so as well. But it's especially abusive for a public employee to do so; and beyond the pale when said public employee is one who is placed in a position of care and authority over children.
No matter what the facebook TOS says, what this school did was entirely out of line.
If I were the parent of any of these children, I'd *already* be lining up a lawyer to sink his talons into every vermin involved... the teachers, the principal, their various supervisors, the school district as a whole... everyone. They all need to be brought down over this.
And that's not even considering that schoolkids have been griping about their teachers and calling them names amongst themselves since time eternal. And if children calling you names behind your back is going to get your panties all up in such a wad; you're in the wrong damn profession in the first place. Adding "with a computer" or "on Facebook" to these children's so-called "offenses" doesn't change that.
Imagine all the people...
Agreed.
I think it's a signal to noise ratio issue. Example - tons of my classmates used to refer to their teachers as jerks, or say they were out to get them, or that they were boring or rude... but EVERY teacher got those complaints from someone, and not every teacher could possibly be the same.
Rather than create fake facebook accounts to call the kids names (as another post said), do it to call ALL teachers in the state - every last one of them - a pedophile and rapist. If they're all labeled that way in facebook, the value of a post stating that goes down significantly and would blend into the norm.
If there is a real problem, they should report it to a responsible adult (their parents, a teacher they do trust, the police, etc) and make a formal complaint. Facebook should not be considered a formal complaint, and should not be seen as some sign that gets a teacher in trouble... so make that happen by drowning them out.
I guess you missed privacy settings, as in my profile requires me being logged in, or the person trying to view it be my friend before they can //see// it. Granted not everybody uses it, but it is becoming increasingly used.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
I was 14 20 years ago, and I don't see a whole lot of difference in what's expected of teenagers.
Also, my son's 13, and his peers seem to be a whole lot nicer than jr. high kids in 1989.
Does this mean you can't be let go from your job for doing drugs, as long as you're not doing drugs on the job site? Does this mean you can't be let go from your job for murdering someone, as long as you have the decency to murder them outside of work hours?
Engaging in offenses outside of work hours, outside of work property, certainly can (and often does) have ramifications to your current (and future) employability. The kids are learning a valuable lesson about how the world works.
Because clearly the school encouraged these kids to call their teacher a paedophile.
What a load of crap. Kids don't learn this type of anti-social behaviour in school. They learn it from bad parenting, other kids with bad parenting or celebrity role models with bad parenting.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
You're retarded. TFA specifically states the students involved are all honor roll students. Not only that, but people all over the world say things all day long that aren't true and we call them metaphors.
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."
This is with respect to the schools right and duty to act in loco parentis - in the place of the parents. What they did certainly invaded the rights of the teacher, etc. It also threatened to turn the school environment toxic for all the students.
So, when you write:
If I were the parent of any of these children, I'd *already* be lining up a lawyer to sink his talons into every vermin involved... the teachers, the principal, their various supervisors, the school district as a whole... everyone. They all need to be brought down over this.
... you're totally, TOTALLY, in the wrong. And you'd deserve to have to waste money on a lawyer to explain to you that you're acting like a jerk. These kids should all have been expelled, and the parents given a restraining order keeping them from coming within 1,000 feet of the school, or any public comment.
The case in question is antiquated, surely more modern examples of the Supreme Court's take on the issue of schools dictating what goes on in a child's private time off campus exist.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
screw these kids
Um...hello...pedophilia?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
And maybe a more appropriate punishment is NOT suspending kids, but making them stay LONGER in school. Wash some of the graffiti off the lockers, etc. I could never figure out how suspending a kid was a punishment.
Princpal: "You skipped school yesterday, so we're suspending you today" Student: "So what you're saying is I have permission to skip school today too? Works for me!"
Reminds me of the Simpsons, where Homer asked for Friday off; Mr. Burns: "If you don't come in Friday, don't bother coming in Monday." Homer, cleverly demonstrating not getting the point: "Woohoo! Four day weekend!"
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
And having at least a dozen other students posting comments shows the posts in question were far from a "private communication" (who knows how many other students viewed the posts w/o commenting).
A comment restricted to a certain group can be just as 'private' as something restricted to a certain individual. Would a payroll spreadsheet on a company's server, restricted to only certain levels of management, also be considered public to you? If so, what's the difference between that and a Facebook post?
I know not to expect privacy on Facebook because I've seen too many stories like this, but that's a quite separate issue to whether a reasonable person should have some expectation of privacy for their posts. It's also quite different if there's a subpoena involved, which there clearly wasn't in this case.
Just to be entirely clear: I think the kid calling the teacher a paedophile (assuming the accusation was indeed unfounded, as it seems to be) was, at best, dangerously flippant or, at worst, a malicious little shit. Thing is, there are two issues at hand here: the child's wrongdoing in saying things that could quite easily ruin someone's life, and the teacher's wrongdoing in invading the child's privacy.
if somehow that chat would be exposed to the public, what would happen ?
first stop the hysteria over "pedophilia" (which many don't even know what that word means - citing wikipedia, "sexual interest in prepubescent children"). somehow stories of persons in late teens exchanging their own photos being accused of creating pedophilic material doesn't show that happening.
a link to the movie "witch hunt" was posted before - i haven't seen it, but i think i'll put it on my "to see" list (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196112/)
Rich
Perhaps it's those years of indoctrination which results in them being twisted. More likely they're just cruel little brats reaching for the worst thing they can find -- which their indoctrination has taught them is "pedophile".
Anyway, for once we have a story where the students are actually being punished for something punishable (at least through a civil penalty) for adults as well. But, again, the schools went overboard and exceeded their authority: "At the same time though, she said her school principal, Jolene Morris, violated her privacy by ordering her to log into her Facebook account at a school library computer. Morris then reportedly read the offending post and ensuing responses from friends before ordering Sosa to delete the posts."
Facebook is not part of the school. The principal does not have absolute authority over the student, nor any over Facebook.
However, a claim of certain acts -- including pedophilia (and domestic abuse, etc) -- instantly initiates criminal proceedings, starting out with separation and investigation. They are engaging in acts that do have very serious immediate consequences that involve law enforcement and the courts.
I like to think that if enough kids start doing this type of thing, the hysteria will be reduced: the children are pointing out to the adults, "Hey, you've set the consequences for these actions wrong, and here's how the system can be gamed." Hopefully this will teach our authorities lessons in setting proper consequences. And, yes, I also live in a world where logic triumphs over e.g. Gadaffi...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Sadly not the first time I've heard this. A co-worker had to leave work early and go to school because his son had accused someone of being a pedophile: A fellow 10 year old classmate. She'd apparently been teasing him so he decided to get back at her by getting her in trouble, and he'd heard that got people in a LOT of trouble.
Replace Facebook with washroom stall and think about what you just said. Do you really take what you read on the washroom stall as the truth? If the kids had went to the police or filed some kind of official statement that was false, then their expulsion would be understandable.
Facebook 15 years ago would have been a Bulletin Board at the local arcade/kids hangout.
Facebook page, bulletin board, washroom stall, wikipedia article with no citations ... why would anyone believe what is written in one of those locations.
I was about to side with the kids on this until I read TFA. They called him a pedophile... screw these kids, expel 'em!
2 things you never throw around lightly: Pedophile & Rape.
The two students that were suspended used those two words, but the one who was expelled just called him "bipolar". WTF? How can calling someone bipolar be worse than calling someone a pedophile, or rapist?
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
So we actually don't know anything about what made the kids post stuff like that (pedophile, rapist, bipolar etc.) but if several honor-roll students feel the need to post stuff like this I think something is seriously wrong at that school and with that teacher.
Now, we can always discuss whether they went overboard in the content here, but there can be no doubt that students must have the right to criticize a teacher, especially if this teacher does something not right. It is very important that students have a voice and are able to question authority and especially authority abused, as it unfortunately often is when power goes to the head and megalomania ensues. This happens every day in both homes and schools, but these days the abused can fight back using social media, and while it sometimes goes too far, it's often both justified and right.
Let's give these kids the benefit of the doubt - odds are on their side.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
You can reform society about as easily as you can milk a unicorn.
Society is in need of reform? What does that even mean? You have access to alien mind altering rays?
The kind of damage that a Facebook post by a disgruntled student could do to a teacher's career should be nil.
Welcome to reality. We can make pragmatic laws that recognize it, or we can sit around waving magic wands and shouting "Societus Reformio!"
what the F#$% a 12 and 13 year old are doing with Facebook accounts? NOTHING I had to say at that age was worthy of public forum. I miss the days when you had to be in college to have a Facebook account; at least it raised the bar a modicum above middle school antics. My parents would have banned me from electronic devices entirely if I had tried to have a public page at the age of twelve (not that that's normal, but it kept me from doing stupid sh** like this, which I probably would have at 12 or 13). At least what we're seeing is a return to normalcy that childhood is not this carefree wonderland to be cherished and preserved by adults. Kids are naive, amoral, and sometimes downright cruel, and the job of parents is to teach them good, unselfish values that make them understand their actions resonate far beyond their own sheltered environments.
Really? I'd love to know what you think "pedophile" is a metaphor for.
Also, honor roll doesn't mean you're a "good" student. Most schools honor roll levels are so low that as long as you put out a mild level of effort and have an IQ over 50, you'll get on the honor roll.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
The difference is that in 6 months the Facebook terms of service will change to make the payroll spreadsheet public. Anything posted to a social network is effectively public. There are other circumstances where freedom of speech and expression are not protected when the statements are false. Take for example making statements to a police officer. You cannot claim that you accused someone of rape just because you were pissed.
One thing to consider is that the principal did not randomly sit down students and have the students display their private posts. The information was already effectively public and the source was already known. This rant was long from private. The principal simply confirmed the source and investigated the veracity of the accusation.
Think about if the situation reverse. Has an act of pedophilia occurred and the principal had knowledge of the rumor, would the principal have some level of complicity if they did not drill down to understand the source of the accusation and accuracy of the statements?
-rd
It most certainly protects you from being punished by government agencies for what you said. Without that, it's meaningless; Congress could pass a law specifying you be executed as a consequence of speaking against the government. The school is a public school, hence an arm of the government.
Hey, obviously, the student who got knocked up needed a little object lesson in biology, that's all.
The "Doing more with less" mantra has been around since the 1980's for most companies too. So stop blaming and/or expecting more from the taxpayers. Blame the parents who need to be a big part of fixing the education system in the US. And by fixing I don't mean going to school board meetings. This mean giving your kids some extra learning opportunities at home, enforcing good behavior and instilling a good work ethic. But of course every time I say this, I get the same old shit like "what about the parents who work 2 jobs". As a cold hearted SOB...my reply is, someone has to get an "F".
The reason for the contractual difficulty in firing teachers arose from the fact that, without that, if a teacher didn't give some snot-nosed lazy bastard a passing grade that he didn't earn, the school would be sued and the teacher would be fired, often without any proof that the teacher did anything wrong. At least, that's what my aunt (a teacher who just retired after 35 years in the classroom -- and, coincidentally, was my best friend's dad's sixth grade teacher) told me.
Is the policy abused? You better believe it. But lots of policies are abused. Look at the Westboro Baptist "Church". Bunch of inbred pricks hide behind free speech even when they know they're spouting hate speech and targeting people for outright harassment.
Point is, the policy is really more of a symptom of the real problem -- people thinking their precious little snowflake shouldn't get what he actually earned, or threatening the school just because a teacher is "different" or doesn't agree with their child.
However by suspending or expelling them you are sending the completely wrong signals. What these students need is either more education or (horrible thought) they may be right in their statements.
Sometimes adults fails to understand that kids do put the rules that the parents sets to a test now and then, and it's important to act the right way to mark firmly when they are exceeding their bounds. The major problem here is a parenting problem. (Parents and Teachers share a responsibility here).
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
This was not an accusation. This was not public. This was a private conversation between friends outside of school. The teacher had to force a student to log on to his facebook to even see them.
It was most definitely not a private conversation. 15 Kids involved and the average facebook user has 130 friends. A quick calculation shows this conversation was potentially in front of almost 2000 people not to mention the default Facebook settings leave profiles public.
Even back in 2007. ( Facebook Isn’t Private, and 7 Other Things You Should Know ) this was understood from the facebook TOS
[W]e cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site.
Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other items , this information may become publicly available.
And yes, the guy who wrote that is a lawyer.
You're taking that bit of dicta from Tinker v. Des Moines completely out of context. The phrase "in class" is a reference to the classroom as opposed to the larger school campus, not a reference to at the school rather than completely off the grounds of the school. Here's the whole paragraph:
Replace Facebook with washroom stall and think about what you just said. Do you really take what you read on the washroom stall as the truth? If the kids had went to the police or filed some kind of official statement that was false, then their expulsion would be understandable.
Did they write it in a washroom stall? No.
Stop trying to minimize what they did. Expelling the three of them would have been the minimum I would expect.
"Horace and Aristotle have told us of the virtues of their fathers and the vices of their own time, and authors down the centuries have done the same. If they were right, men would now be bears." -- Montesquieu
What these students did was a jailable offense
Maybe in North Korea or China. In America something like this is at most a civil tort of libel.
Though I know nothing about US law, I do know that in the UK if it is a minor or non-damaging infraction it would be seen as 'Malicious Communication' and the perpetrator likely given a first-time-harassment warning but if continued becomes a 'Pursued a Course of Conduct' offense which amounts to harassment which can give jail time. However if the initial communication is genuinely damaging or career threating then it can be immediately considered harassment and therefore jail worthy.
had the parents actually done some parenting, this could have been avoided
Do enlighten us with your recipe for perfect parenting. I'm not aware of any foolproof method for making tweens never be jerks.
You do realize that there's a difference between "could" and "would", right?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
According to the article, the three students in question called the teacher (a) pedophile, (b) rapist, and (c) bipolar. While many commentators have emphasized (a), I actually think (b) is a lot worse (asserts actual violent/sexual action, as opposed to mere predisposition).
The thing that does bother me here is how the students who did (a) and (b) are honors students and were merely suspended. The student who said (c) -- the least serious accusation -- was not an honors student, and was expelled. The article also says this: "At least two of the students’ families plan to hire attorneys." Let me guess, that would be the first two students' families, because they're more wealthy and have the support to produce honors students, right? And that latter student is from a family without wealth, expelled with no legal resources, and is shit out of luck, right? (Just a hypothesis.)
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I'm not sure how damaging a post that requires the principal to force a child to sign into her account in order for it to be viewed, can be.
There's a lot that I understand as a 40-something that I didn't not understand as a 20-something (though as a teen-something I actually did think that I understood more about "life" than my grandparents).
As much as a love my kids (who are just a year or two younger than these GA fools), if they ever pulled a stunt like this... well, there would be hell to pay.
No matter how sorry they hopefully would be, they would need some "memorable" object lesson in the destructive nature of such conduct.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The "punishment" side of suspension is assumed to be meted by out by the parents.
Except that in the bizarro country that we live in, the parents sue the school.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I think what we fail to do is convey to children just how serious a false accusation is.
I just used this as as "teaching moment" on the consequences of making false accusations...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I'm not convinced that our modern culture of extending "childhood" until age 18 is the right thing to do...
The Democrats just effectively extended childhood to 26.
My (grand) parents weren't bad or mean, but I still couldn't wait to leave after HS. The thought of going back after I graduated Uni was *completely* absurd.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Tomhudson:
You're the same kind of dick as those who said, "Yes it was appropriate for schools to send laptops home, turn on the camera, and spy on kid's bedrooms."
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
30 years ago. (Time really flies, doesn't it!!)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I had a 6th grade teacher who was a "pedophile" and said so on a public forum. He used to rub his hands over boy's chests in an erotic fashion (never did it to girls though - guess he figured that would get him in definitive trouble). The only difference is I and my friends discussed it on a Public BBS instead of facebook, and back then the government/school never monitored BBSes, so the "crime" went un-noticed.
I put crime in quotes, because if kids have suspicions of a teacher (and we did), they should be allowed to talk about it. Free speech and whatnot.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
If they'd been smart, they would have bought a pre-paid phone with a camera, took naked pictures of themselves at school and sent them to the teacher, then throw the phone away.
Wouldn't that mean that the pics are in his email folder not his "pictures" folder?
Anyway, if I got such pictures, the third thing I'd do (after panicking and saying the Litany Against Fear) would be to go straight to the police and show them what I received.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
>>>State constitutions cannot remove rights granted to individuals by the US constitution.
That's true.
Now try READING the constitution. It says CONGRESS may not limit speech (or press or religion). It says nothing to stop State Legislatures from doing so. That's why state constitutions were updated to include additional protections.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Except that (guys) locker room talk is more in the line of "he's a bastard, sucks donkey dicks, married a toad", etc, etc.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
But as the Principal was acting in her position. She was thus acting as an agent of the government, thus to require the student to login to show her the posts, a warrant is required. If the Principal could login to her own account or someone else voluntarily logged in and showed her the posts all would have been okay, but the caselaw is clear here, requiring the student to log into her own account to access the posts was a violation of the girl's right against self incrimination.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
mark firmly when they are exceeding their bounds.
What the hell do you think that suspension and expulsion are?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
But in order to obtain the evidence of the suspected crime, the school still has to follow due process, ensuring full protection of the student's rights. Your example is inapplicable because "Pulling a Columbine at the Mall" would be a publicly available incident. Whereas when the principal required the student to login to her own account in order for the Principal to read the posts, it was a blatant violation of the student's right to privacy, and right against self incrimination.
Or don't we care about the 4th and 5th amendments anymore?
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
How public facebook posts are is irrelevant. The problem is that to obtain the post the Principal required the student to login to her account, thus requiring the student to incriminate herself. The principal could have accessed that posting via any other facebook account with little or no problem, but in requiring the student to login the Principal violated the 4th and 5th amendment rights of the student. The student was forced to self-incriminate by accessing her personal papers (i.e. her login password). All without a warrant.
And what facebook MAY change the privacy settings to mean in the unknown future is also irrelevant. As it currently stands a post that is limited as to who can see it is private, especially if the suspect is to be forced to login to access it. You are correct that it really isn't all that private in that if the principal had accessed the post through any other voluntary allowed facebook login it would be fine. But by requiring the suspect to access the post, the Principal overstepped the law.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
I'd love to see this case as I usually do when postings on the net blow up...
But come on. Posting that someone is a pedophile or rapist (FTFA) is way beyond just mere "stupid" or "expressing yourself".
Being one of the kids who was bullied quite a lot in school, and had quite a lot of hate towards some of the teachers... I wouldnt do this kind of shit. Come on... it will just bite you in the ass...
10-day suspension is a bit much, 2-3 days would be plenty to send a strong signal that this is not accepted behavior. I guess the teacher in question could file on the issue too if he wants.
Here in Norway this would most likely be handled like a legal case between the teacher and student. Unless these posts were made while the kids were AT SCHOOL the school rules and regulations do not apply. The law does however which is the right way to go in my eyes.
And I say this as the child of a middle-school teacher and a kindergarden teacher... They both work they arse off and get very little other than shit for it... meh
You cant address it. If you try you get swamped with the "homg unpatriotic" or "homg americahater" (if you're foreign :p) accusations.
To a large part of the world the US is now a train speeding towards a ravine. There is a small stopper that will prevent a catastrophe but only if the train slows down enough before hitting it...
When discussing the issues of society and trying to find solutions becomes a "danger" or "unpatriotic" you have a whole lot more problems than a few kids being kicked out of school for doing something stupid :(
Thanks for supporting my point that teachers aren't the problem.
I disagree that because parents are part of the problem that it lessens the responsibility of society/taxpayers/voters, but I'm at least glad that we can acknowledge that it isn't all the teachers' fault!
I'm not disagreeing, but on the other hand 30-40 years ago if a teacher had been molesting a student they wouldn't have gotten in much trouble.
The school didn't tell them to do this, and their parents didn't tell them to do this. BUT, it is at the school that they most likely learned the kind of behavior that lead to this particular instance. Institutionalized rearing mostly involves something resembling Lord of the Flies. You didn't address who you thought was the primary care givers of these children. The biological parents or the State.
It most certainly protects you from being punished by government agencies for what you said. Without that, it's meaningless; Congress could pass a law specifying you be executed as a consequence of speaking against the government. The school is a public school, hence an arm of the government.
No it doesn't - it protects you from prior restraint; you are still responsible for what you said and it's results. As for your strawman; a court might decide such punishment is de facto prior restraint and hence unconstitutional but that does not mean that you are exempt from any consequences, whether civil or criminal, for what you say.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
But in order to obtain the evidence of the suspected crime,
Stop right there. The school doesn't have to follow "due process" any more than you do, if you're not law enforcement.
For example, a parent doesn't need a search warrant to enter their childs' room.
Or to search their backpack for drugs.
Or a trial by a judge and jury to ground them for a week.
The school is acting in loco parentis. This isn't just the school's right - it's their duty and obligation, both to the child and to the parent.
Also, the student complied when asked. If the student had refused, you might have a case.
You could try to argue that the school principal represented an "authority figure" and the student felt intimidated .... and you'd ALMOST win. Almost, because the school, in acting in loco parentis, has the authority of a parent figure.
Call me back when a parent needs a verdict in a trial by judge and jury to ground their kid for a week.
You're the same kind of dick as those who said, "Yes it was appropriate for schools to send laptops home, turn on the camera, and spy on kid's bedrooms."
[citation needed]
Which you won't be able to do, because you're lying.
The last refuge of the true scoundrel.
BTW - it was the parents rights that were violated in that case. The parents have the right to run their kids lives in the privacy of their home, without the school monitoring them or their children.
Actually, it teaches the kids one of life's important lessons that many of them seem to lack these days - namely that before taking action, make sure you've done your best to work out the likely consequences of that action first.
The one thing that separates a child from an adult is (one hopes) being able to act responsibly.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Read up on the laws on child porn. Possession is the crime. And how you came into the possession is not relevant or considerable in a court of law. Some arcane legal speak, which I can't recall at the moment, but basically if you have it, you are a criminal.
i guess the lesson here is if a teacher is acting in a manner that makes you feel like they are unstable then just put up and shut up.
I have the distinct feeling you're full of shit.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
How do we know the children weren't right? It seems now that instead of the teacher being prosecuted, the children have been persecuted without any presumption of innocence.
Additionally, as for unreasonable search and seizure (4th amendment), neither parents, nor those acting in their place, require a warrant to access the personal papers of the children in their care and custody. The school principal was acting in loco parentis, had legal care and custody of the student at the time, and facebook account posts are not private - even deleted facebook posts are discoverable.
A student caught passing a note to someone else during a test can't say "it's personal - you can't see it." Same reasoning applies to the right of schools to search students lockers, again without a warrant.
Students are not adults, and as such, do not have the same rights as adults.
Because kids are expected to know that in facebook land their privacy isn't actual private.
Hell, i have enough trouble convincing adults of this fact. my wife posted the other day "got the house to myself all night" which took far to much convincing to get her to take it down.
i doubt the student even though it was possible that this conversation was going to go outside their group of friends.
so when granny gives out all her personal information to a stranger on "facebook" because she thought it was secure "granny was just taken advantage of", yet 12 year old kids are expected to know better.
You're still taking it out of context. That whole paragraph is referring to conduct which takes place on school grounds. Conduct not taking place on school grounds was not even being considered in Tinker v. Des Moines.
Well, there was Jerry Fallwell's lawsuit against Larry Flynt; who had portrayed Fallwell as, IIRC, being in an incestous relationship with his own mother. (This in a national publication, not just a friends-only facebook thread.)
I think the reasoning was that because the "accusation" was so obviously an untrue case of mere smack-talking that there was no libel.
Imagine all the people...
For instance, in libel law, one is not eligible for more than token damages if nobody who read the statement took it seriously.
The Wikipedia makes it plain enough:
Defamation per se
All states except Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee recognize that some categories of false statements are so innately harmful that they are considered to be defamatory per se.
In the common law tradition, damages for such false statements are presumed and do not have to be proved.
"Statements are defamatory per se where they falsely impute to the plaintiff one or more of the following things":
Allegations or imputations "injurious to another in their trade, business, or profession"
Allegations or imputations "of loathsome disease" (historically leprosy and sexually transmitted disease, now also including mental illness)
Allegations or imputations of "unchastity" (usually only in unmarried people and sometimes only in women)
Allegations or imputations of criminal activity (sometimes only crimes of moral turpitude)
Defamation in the United States
To assert that the school has the power to require a student to show the principal the contents of the student's facebook account, and further to require the student to delete any offending posts, is going way too far, IMO.
To assert that the school has the power to require a student to show the principal the contents of the student's facebook account, and further to require the student to delete any offending posts, is going way too far, IMO.
There are times when a school has parental authority over a child. There are times when it can and should act quickly and decisively.
And thats the thing, we never know.
In this case however, we do know, and that changes things, like it or not.
Had it never been found out it wouldn't matter as there would never be a possibility of any damage to the teacher.
This is why you don't write shit on the Internet that you wouldn't say in public and to someones face.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
.... I could never figure out how suspending a kid was a punishment. ...
You should talk to the step mom I had growing up. One time I got suspended for 3 days she made me wheel barrow dirt around during school hours. It was pretty evil. Because it was wet, seeing as it was raining.
Be seeing you...
It doesn't say anywhere what actually inspired these children to post these comments in the first place. These allegations must have come from somewhere. Now I do admit, it is highly likely that the children were exaggerating but I hope that someone is looking into the events the transpired prior to the facebook comments being posted.
A parent is not an Agent of the US Government. A teacher is.
Teachers and other school officials are agents of the US Government.
If we go by what you are saying , why bother with Police Officers investigating anything, just have teachers look into it. Saves time a dn effert getting search warrants.
The kid who apologized and realized the gravity of a false rape accusation was only suspended. The kid who refused to admit they were wrong was expelled. Seems simple.
The kid who refused to admit they were wrong was the kid who accused his teacher of being "bipolar".
The kids who threw the words "pedophile" and "rapist" around were obviously wrong. This third child, however... the label "bipolar" is much more complicated than the label "pedophile" or the label "racist". Who is to say that they're wrong? It would require a lot more investigation first.
What if a couple years down the road, the teacher gets a psych evaluation for whatever reason and discovers he is bipolar? Is it still libel? Is it still a false accusation?
GFA/M/S d-- s: a--- C++++ UBL++$ P+ L+++ !E- W++ N+ !o K- w--- !O !M !V PS++ PE Y+ PGP+ t+++ 5- X+ R tv@ b++ DI++++ D+ G
Teachers and other school officials are agents of the US Government.
No they're not. They're hired by local school boards as teachers, not peace officers.
If we want to stretch it your way, then someone on unemployment or welfare or a government pension or in prison or a foster home is an agent of the US Government. After all, they're all supported by tax dollars.
Your argument makes absolutely zero sense. Stop trying to defend the indefensible. The Supreme Court has already laid the ground rules - kids are subject to the authority of their parents, and their teachers. The parents and teachers owe the kids protection and a safe environment, free from disruptive behavior, as well as reasonable discipline and instruction. A safe environment includes one where the other students don't have to worry that maybe those lies the students were spreading might be true.
If the kids aren't happy about being called to account for spreading lies, too bad - they should grow up. Even a 12-year-old should know the difference between right and wrong.
They are middle school students!! 90% of their generic catch-all insults are "of a sexual nature." I'm guessing that, in their minds at the time, without having thought things through completely, they thought that calling the teacher a pedophile was no more serious than calling something they don't like "gay." IMO the conclusion you jump to is completely unfounded.
Oh, I agree completely. But saying "the problem is that there are major ramifications" isn't invalidating my point that there *are* major ramifications for such charges.
Personally, I think there should be much more discretion given to individual law enforcement officers in assessing the situation, with the voting public giving a swift boot to the rear of any Sheriff or Police Chief (or their appointer) who looks the other way in cases of bad decisions by his officers. We don't need less discrimination -- we need wiser discrimination.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I like to think that if enough kids start doing this type of thing, the hysteria will be reduced:
Probably not the best mechanism, given that some of the assertions are actually true. But as I said in my other reply... the cause for the reaction is certainly hysteria. But that doesn't mean that these particular people involved today weren't doing things that have major ramifications at the current time.
Stashing cocaine on people randomly (another form of accusing the innocent) to protest the drug laws is an interesting idea[1]. It's also going to wind up sending at least some of the people to jail. I agree with the goal, but rampant accusations of the innocent is not the best mechanism for chance.
1 - I chose this example because, if you're protesting drug laws, unlike pedophilia where there would be actual abuse cases being lost, you probably don't think anybody who is either breaking the current laws or not is guilty of anything. Basically, even with eliminating the "real cases get ignored" aspect, you're still screwing over innocent people.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Well your amazing intuition is apparently wrong, because it's a 100% true story.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Never said I was the first. Just saying, this has been happening for over a decade. Nowhere did I assume I was the first, or even close.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
The kids were just doing what they see adults doing. If you don't like the president, call him a nazi or a communist. It damages his reputation and makes it difficult for him to keep his job. It turns people against him. The kids used the same strategy against their teacher. They called him the worst name they could think of.
Perhaps what we need to do is to set a better example for the kids.
There's a big difference between calling someone names and actually accusing them of something.
Are you referring to the difference between (1) slander and (2) wrongly accusing someone of a felony?
Pedo, bipolar, rapist.... All I want to know what really happened with this teacher? ...Obviously the students were upset or tweaked by something.....what was it? How can they leave such details out of TFA??!?!?
Why is a facebook post in any way more credible than grafitti? In order for harm to be done by any statement, that statement must be believable and taken as serious in intent by a reasonable man. A reasonable man does not believe what he reads on the internet. Therefore, no harm was done.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
>The sort of damage that could do to a teacher's career is unbelievable. And the parents are saying "my children shouldn't be punished so harshly." And threatening to sue the school.
Yes, but there is still nothing criminal about it at all. Libelous, sure, but not a crime.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
You keep talking about "in loco parentis," but the real problem here is that your interpretation of in loco parentis goes way too fucking far! So the Facebook post was about the teacher -- so what? The kid didn't do the posting at school; the account wasn't created at the request of the teacher or as part of some kind of school project; the account wasn't officially sanctioned or associated with the school in any way. Screw issues of due process; the principal was out of line because the act in question was never in the school's "jurisdiction" (for lack of a better word) to begin with!
There's no such thing as "in loco parentis" when the parents are there themselves!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
So, you're saying that society's insane predilection for witch hunts is the kids' fault?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I respect your opinion. You seem like a thoughtful person. However, some accusations are so severe, no amount of retraction can ever fix them in the eyes of some people. For example, a poster (xenobyte) further down has this opinion.
"So we actually don't know anything about what made the kids post stuff like that (pedophile, rapist, bipolar etc.) but if several honor-roll students feel the need to post stuff like this I think something is seriously wrong at that school and with that teacher... Let's give these kids the benefit of the doubt - odds are on their side."
Even if you are innocent, public outrage over accusations of pedophile can never be stopped.
I don't know what schools you went to, but to get on honor roll of any of the public schools I went to, you had to carry an A average AND your behavior was taken into account as well.
Also, I say metaphor because people say things on a daily basis that may not mean what they intended or don't intend it to be what it comes out as. "That's gay" is one that I hear a great deal.
They are agents of their various state and local governments. They are specifically not employed by or empowered by the federal government ("the US government"), unless they happen to work on a military base or in Guam or Washington, D.C. or something.
The school acts in loco parentis (as a substitute parent) during the school day, and as a parent, has greater rights and responsibilities than a normal person, just as your own biological parent can search your room without a warrant. These greater rights and responsibilities are not absolute; they are restricted to maintaining the welfare of the students and the continuing operation of the school (for example, preventing disruption). Most of the time (as in this article), the arguments are that the school is trying to prevent disruption of the school, while the affected children argue that their behavior did not disrupt the school. Unfortunately it's not clear-cut what constitutes "disruption", so we have these fights every so often.
BOTH parental and minors' rights were abused. Parents have a right to privacy, and minors have a right to not be spied-on by School laptops while they are undressing in their bedrooms.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
>>>The courts
Yes precisely. THE COURTS. Not random government employees demanding your facebook password, but a *judge* issuing a warrant, which lists probable cause. Not random searches performed by cops or gov't agents.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
NO. Call my parents.
It's amazing how many examples of an over-reaching school could be significantly reduced by the student steadfastly refusing whatever injustice the school is perpetrating, and getting their own adult advocate (in the form of their parents) involved.
Unfortunately, most children are afraid of the "second punishment" that will occur once their parents get involved, and so usually try to keep the discipline confined to school. However, when the school oversteps its bounds (like requiring you to log in to your facebook account) it's time to get the parents involved FIRST.
Either the principal had evidence already or was fishing. If the principal already had evidence, then punish the kids who you have evidence on. If s/he's just fishing, then once the parents get involved, they can decide how to handle it. My guess is that the principal had evidence on the primary poster, but was fishing for more names that they could punish.
That said, as a student's parent I would accept action from the school ONLY with a written covenant not to sue from the teacher. In this case where no actual damages occurred suspension may be appropriate, expulsion is not. If expulsion got me a covenant not to sue I still might take it, but it's over-reaching for just mouthing off. The moment the kid is fraudulently telling law enforcement (or even trying to convince a school administrator) that the teacher is a pedophile, throw the book at them. At this age, the most appropriate response would seem to be explaining just how bad of an accusation pedophile is, along with an appropriate punishment to make it clear that it won't be tolerated.
Now, we don't have the actual facebook post. If it was of the form: "how can I accuse Mr. D of being a pedophile so that I can get him fired?" and other students were "helping," then now you have a conspiracy to commit fraud, and the punishments start to look more appropriate. I doubt that is what is going on here, based primarily on the number of punishments doled out for multiple independent infractions.
If my child went to that school, I would make very clear to them that the administration were a bunch of jerks, and that saying anything against them would likely get you severely punished, and have potential repercussions against them in the future. I then might explain to them what are appropriate complaints, and how to express them: up to and including peaceful protest of an overbearing school administrator.
While I can't offer a citation I'll point out that Canada isn't really any better and I have my doubts about the rest of the world. Parent's are only too happy to see their crotchblossom as perfect.
If they had wanted to say "on school grounds" they could have. They didn't. Instead, they carved out a VERY broad rule - "any reason". "Any reason" means what it says - it is not just related to school grounds. They then go further to qualify "any reason", by saying it doesn't matter the time, place or type of behavior. They did not say "any reason - whether it stems from time or type of behavior, on school grounds."
A parent is not an Agent of the US Government. A teacher is.
Your tin-foil hat is on too tight :-)
Also, you're factually wrong.
Teachers are hired by the schools, funded by the individual municipality, school board, or state - not the feds.
Why is a facebook post in any way more credible than grafitti? In order for harm to be done by any statement, that statement must be believable and taken as serious in intent by a reasonable man. A reasonable man does not believe what he reads on the internet. Therefore, no harm was done.
So, if someone goes and sprays swastikas on doors, "no harm done"? If someone sprays "rapist lives here" on your door, no harm done?
False accusations of this nature are very serious, not only because of the harm they do to the person falsely accused, but because they make it harder for someone who IS a victim of a pedophile or rapist to be taken credibly.
>The sort of damage that could do to a teacher's career is unbelievable. And the parents are saying "my children shouldn't be punished so harshly." And threatening to sue the school.
Yes, but there is still nothing criminal about it at all. Libelous, sure, but not a crime.
First, some states have criminal libel laws.
Second, the school wasn't conducting a criminal investigation. They have every right to kick the kids out. I wouldn't want my kids hanging around with kids who would make such stupid false accusations, and neither would most parents.
There's no such thing as "in loco parentis" when the parents are there themselves!
Your claim that the parents were present when the kids posted the false accusations is interesting - if you have any proof, I'm sure social services would be VERY interested.
The parents were obviously NOT there themselves ...in more ways than one, unfortunately.
So what next, are you going to say that a parent or other parental authority can't search their kid's room without a warrant? Or ground them without first being found guilty by a jury? Or that a school can't expel a kid without first having a trial? Nonsense. Get over it, already. The courts are a separate issue.
You make a blanket statement that they learn this type of behaviour at school and then provide not a single example, flawed or otherwise, to support your claim. Typical right wing rhetoric, all sound bites no substance.
And by the way, Lord of the Flies was about how kids behave without adult supervision. So thanks for making by point that proper adult supervision prevents this type of behaviour.
And I didn't address who I think the primary care givers of these children are because that was not my point. My point was that the school, as you suggested, is not to blame for the behaviour of these kids.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
It is interesting how things are accelerated out of proportions. The fact that schools have the idea of pushing kids out of school, which only increases the odds that these kids becomes criminals and a menace to society, I find astonishing. Talk about dropping their hat.
Kids needs positive guidance. School is supposed to redirect their misdirected actions into something positive. Show the proper way, but oh no, instead here we hit whenever we can.
On top of it they like to suppress free speech. In fairness I've not read what they wrote, but I don't care what it was, expulsion is never the right thing to do. Kids need to complete school and have an equal chance to succeed or society will suffer.
Punishment does not work either, as our over filled prisons shows. Simple observations demonstrate that more caring is what's needed, not more force.
I had an incident when my daughter was in school, where another girl stood up in the bus and hit her from behind. The bus driver stopped the bus and called the police. Six patrol cars surrounded the bus when I arrived on the scene.
I was immediately informed by the office in charge that I can press charges. I thanked him but said that it looks like enough force has already been applied, what we need is to figure out what occurred and see how we can handle the situation without any more force.
While i performed my interviews to establish what had occurred, officers kept informing me that I can press charges, probably six times during the 30 minutes it took.
In the end the other girl had realized that her misdirected aggression was potentially a lot more damaging to her than any peer pressure of being seen as "tough" could be. The two girls had shook hands, with proper display of recognizing the errors of her ways with forgiveness from my daughter. Never mind the relief on the other girl and her grandmother who cared for her.
the whole situation was resolved with communication and care. No additional force was applied and the situation was resolved in a way that helped everyone.
You may be (and from the above posts, probably are) legally correct but I have an enormous moral issue with forcing someone to log in to their Facebook account against their will. There could be all sorts of private or personal information exposed and it is extremely abusive for someone in a position of power over children to do this. Yes they are acting in loco parentis but they are not the child's parent and have no right, IMHO, to have access to the ins and outs of the personal lives of students. What these kids did was dumb, bratty and by no means justifiable and I agree that they should be punished for their actions but the means by which the school went about collecting the evidence should not stand up in court. As someone who has worked in digital forensics I can say for certain that if we or the police collected evidence in such a way it would be thrown out immediately and rightfully so.
A free pass to drift around on the streets. For some of them that's actually not a punishment.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Replace Facebook with washroom stall and think about what you just said. Do you really take what you read on the washroom stall as the truth? If the kids had went to the police or filed some kind of official statement that was false, then their expulsion would be understandable.
Did they write it in a washroom stall? No.
Stop trying to minimize what they did. Expelling the three of them would have been the minimum I would expect.
That's an over reaction, they should be punished but destroying their lives (an expulsion on their record could severely hamper their future) is not a fitting punishment for them _almost_ destroying this teachers life. The washroom stall analogy is not applicable because you do not have to log in to a washroom using private information you are compelled to use (a password) to view the offending message and while one can be accused of writing something like "Mr Whoever is a bi-polar pedophile rapist" there is no name likely to be associated so proof is hard to come by. Could someone have logged in to this girl's account and achieved the same goal? absolutely but this still does not forgive the teacher abusing their position as a care giver (in loco parentis goes both ways) by forcing the student to log in to her account. Again, what they did was wrong and they should certainly be punished but the issue of their privacy still is a moral factor even though it may not be a legal one.
In all of your replies to this story you seem immune to one simple idea. Here it is. The internet is not a credible source of information. To conflate a kids facebook post with malicious vandalism shows you're just intent on igoring this key idea.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Which, IMHO, is one of the root causes of your problems.
I couldn't disagree more. As an immigrant to the USA from Europe it is these freedoms and the positive and negative responsibilities and consequences associated with these freedoms that attracted me. The fact that in my country of origin (the United Kingdom) I could be prosecuted for saying something the government du jour considers hate speech or libelous even though it is stated as an opinion (not the case with these kids, I know) is a key reason why the US is more advanced in cause of individual liberty than the vast majority of the rest of the world. Yes, freedom can be scary but give it a try, I am certain you'll like it!
They did. They simply said it several sentences before the part you keep quoting at me. The whole paragraph is discussing activities which take place on school grounds. The court enunciates a general rule that when a student is on the school campus "he may express his opinions, even on controversial subjects". Then it carves out an exception to that rule, which is the part you quoted. That exception does not exceed the scope of the rule for which is it an exception.
If the kids were at home -- or really, if they were anywhere except campus, the bus stop, or a sanctioned event/field trip -- then they should be assumed to be in the custody of their parents.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The school already knew - there was no "collecting evidence". It was more like "See those posts of yours? Delete them NOW." and finding out who else was involved.
Expulsion, an apology posted on youtube (so they can see just how nasty posting crap on the internet can be), and community service sounds about right to me. The punishment should fit the deed.
And while we're at it, send the bill for all the wasted time to the parents.
In all of your replies to this story you seem immune to one simple idea. Here it is. The internet is not a credible source of information. To conflate a kids facebook post with malicious vandalism shows you're just intent on igoring this key idea.
You're missing one simple idea - people tend to not check facts.
Just look at all the idiot birthers screaming Obama isn't American, global warming deniers, holocaust deniers, dopes who feel that *their* marriage is threatened by letting same-sex couples get married, or that the military will somehow fall apart if gays and lesbians serve openly, or who believed the lies that housing always goes up in value, or think Sarah Palin would be a good president.
And that's not counting the people who would give their password for chocolate (okay, I can sort of understand that, chocolate is a girl's second-best friend), or who continue to use Windows because they don't want to invest a day learning another environment, even though all they do is check email and surf the web.
Your idea isn't a "key idea" - it ignores today's social reality. Individuals might be smart, but people are DUMB!
If the kids were at home -- or really, if they were anywhere except campus, the bus stop, or a sanctioned event/field trip -- then they should be assumed to be in the custody of their parents.
[citation needed]
Stop making things up just for the sake of argument, please.
To the contrary, there is no legal assumption that they are in their parents custody, even when they're at home. Otherwise, it would be perfectly fine to leave kids alone at home instead of getting them a babysitter while the parents go to work or a night out.
Uh, the US government stashes cocaine on its citizenry daily. It's not entirely random, though, as the citizen must be carrying paper currency... But I agree with the rest, and I also understand that my world of logic will fade like Archimedes's circles when he asked the gentlemen to please not disturb them.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Peds? No one said anything about peds or their punishment.
Different subject.
Notice you did get brownie points for mentioning it though.
The publc seems ready for some new anti-pedo laws too.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Sticky comma,(click) there ya go...m(click) and n(click) seem to have gotten somthing vaguely adhesive under them as well...
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
K, I'll admit it, I caught Charlie Sheen posting on my account.
Seems to have a good head on his shoulders, whats your problem?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I think I'd investigate a bit more deeply with a lot less bias if he were accused of brownie poaching.
I remember a teacher at my old school was singled out for bullying and called a pedo, later on it proved true anyway.
Strange world, I'd be following up on that pretty carefully. Teachers, cops and other regularly corrupt scumbags tend to have a demographic of legal misbehaviour all their own.
This is not like calling someone a communist. Implications of political stupidity mean nothing compared to implications of being a child predator.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Yeah, yeah, budget whining and other superfluous" excuse me"s.
When you show me a middle school that teaches verb conjugation, sentence structure,spelling, teaches actual algebra,fractions beyond simple addition and multiplication,American History that gives DETAILs without hiding inconveniences or promoting modern agendas,Science classes that require reading,writing and rigor, and phys ed classes where sweat is produced through most of the HOUR, then we can talk about just how much kids are losing out on because of teachers personal and political agendas over the last 25 years. I suggest cutting ALL non academic money and funneling it back to education till they get their shit straight. We as Americans have the worst schools in the world. Guess why? It isn't money. Private schools operate on much less and produce much more. Evidence that whiney union public teachers are a bunch of overpaid lazyasses. When you actually earn money, you are due money. When you just put in your hours, you need a pay cut equal to the output of your effort.Just like everybody else who isn't a stupid union baby, raising the cost of goods and services for you and I by their greed.
Chew on that a while.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The lockers are school property. Would you also claim schools have a right to search a student's locked chest at home? To force the student to bring it in and unlock it so they can do that? What if there were rumors that the student's diary locked in that chest had records of accusatory conversations they had had with other students? Or even just requiring a student to bring in their diary so the principal can look at it? That's effectively what they did, forcing the student to provide access to their personal facebook account that had absolutely nothing to do with the school. It is absolutely disingenuous and total nonsense to compare searching property the student has voluntarily brought to school with this. Should they also be forced to log in to their e-mail? Bring in all of their personal letters and correspondence? Nonsense. Get over it, already.
What these kids did is criminal behavior. Their parents should be more concerned about that than anything else. So please, swallow a chill pill or do some deep breathing exercises or whatever it is you do when you need to gain some perspective, and realize what's really important here.
The principal didn't need the kids logging into their facebook account to take any action - all facebook postings are discoverable - even deleted ones. All this did was speed up the process of dealing with the issue. Now, before you go on about "cutting corners gathering evidence", the principal is not a law enforcement agent, and was not "gathering evidence" they were dealing with disciplining the students who they already knew had made the posts (otherwise, how would they have known who to single out, Sherlock?) .
The students in question were given the opportunity to delete the posts and apologize, rather than be expelled forthwith. If you have a problem with that, then you're not seeing the forest for the trees.
Personally, I would have just expelled them. Problem solved. They need to be in a school that is better equipped to handle sociopathic brats (the parents who are screaming about lawyering up) and their "oh so special" offspring.
I like the way you label all of your core political/religious beliefs as "facts", then complain that people don't check facts. "Everyone who disagrees with me is just stupid or poorly informed, and eveyone who agrees with me agrees with that!"
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I like the way you label all of your core political/religious beliefs as "facts", then complain that people don't check facts. "Everyone who disagrees with me is just stupid or poorly informed, and eveyone who agrees with me agrees with that!"
I'm glad you like it! :-p
BTW - what "core religious beliefs?" I'm a hard-line atheist. Atheism is not a religion. It is in direct contrast to theism, which is required for a "religious", aka superstitious, belief. I think Richard Dawkins is wishy-washy on the subject. There is no god, and no possibility of god, in this universe. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that other people should become atheists - they have every right to be wrong on something that's of a personal nature. They just don't have the right to tell anyone else that they must live their lives in accordance with their "god" or they're going to hell.
Since this is slashdot, time for a bad car analogy. Saying I have a religious belief because I'm an out-and-out atheist is akin to saying someone has a favorite car because they only take public transit.
Or that someone with no eyesight has a preferred color for their guide dog. Or that someone who doesn't believe in the "supernatural" believes in ghosts.
So please, swallow a chill pill or do some deep breathing exercises or whatever it is you do when you need to gain some perspective, and realize what's really important here.
Read your own multiple posts repeating the same (debunked) points over and over again and misinterpreting supreme court rulings, and then read my single (well, now 2) clear post that you conveniently ignored all the points in, and then consider taking your own advice quoted above.
Anyways, since it seems pretty clear from this post and others that you either hate kids as another poster suggested above, or are a teacher/principal who likes to abuse authority, I'm done here. Have fun stewing in your hatred of "sociopathic brats". (Also, this is clearly a situation of http://xkcd.com/386/ on both sides so no point wasting my time).
P.S. Amongst all your hate, you do have a somewhat reasonable point (though I still think it's a overreaction) if indeed it went down like you suggested and the article is lying (principal offering deletion as alternative to punishment, as opposed to principal forcing login+deletion)
Of course, that would require people to be able to not only read, but to think ... and obviously, from all the knee-jerk responses, most slashdotters aren't exactly great thinkers.
There is no way I'd want my kids in the same classes as these kids. Schools need to be prepared to take disciplinary measures, not only to protect the learning environment, but also to make sure that other students see that this sort of activity is not tolerated.
Only the utterly clueless and the irresponsible would try to portray that as "hating kids".
But that brings us back to why is it that most people read the article, and didn't question HOW the principal knew who to confront? Simple answer - too many slashdotters are into group think, whether it's from Faux Newz, or Apple/Microsoft/Linux fanboi-isms, or Neocons/fundies/terr'rists/global warming deniers ... very shallow pseudo-intellectuals.
The facts were clear from the article. The principal didn't confront the whole school, but rather, , started with the student whose facebook account had the posts. But don't trouble your head with facts and ideas and concepts such as teaching kids to be responsible for their actions, or critical reading. Just bail the kids out - after all, everyone else is getting bailed out. It's the new New NEW economy.
Atheism is a religious preference, not a religion (and that's why gov't forms should ask "religious preference").
Global Warming is a religion (it might be true, but then the Mormon belief system might be true, fucked if I know), complete with othodox gospel, high priests, condemnation of sinners, condescension towards non-believers, scorn piled on heretics: all the trappings are there (OK, the fire and brimstone is a bit tepid - surely one can do better than "a few degrees a century"). What's really needed is some good gospel warming music! But then, I haven't checked the nerd-core scene, maybe there is some.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If I had known how irrelevant school would be to my future I'd do my best to be suspended each day. Well, that tended to happen anyway.
What part of "should" do you not understand?! The statement is a goddamn opinion, so take your "citation needed" and FUCK OFF.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I can verify MoldySpore's story (since I went to school with him and witnessed the events), so please apologize. Thanks.
âoeQuestion with boldness even the existence of God.â - Thomas Jefferson