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Student Suspended For Posting On YouTube
An anonymous reader writes "A Canadian student has been suspended from school and had the police called on him due to satirical animations that he posted to YouTube. Jack Christie, a 12th-grade student at the Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, created the videos in his own time, off-campus."
Considering he's not 18 yet, he isn't out of place if he's acting as juvenile.. as he is by definition of his age.
You're getting your panties in a twist in the same way as the board is.
Schools in North America at least--if not everywhere in the West--seem to think that their disciplinary powers extend to any actions committed by students anywhere during their years of attendance.
In my opinion, the only time a school should have the ability to initiate disciplinary action for an act committed off school premises should be after trial and conviction of a crime. Free speech protections often don't apply in schools (don't get me started on that), but a school has absolutely no right to restrict a student's speech off school grounds, and this would be aptly enforced by requiring disciplinary sanctions for off ground behavior be the result of a conviction in a court of law. This school would get laughed at if they even mentioned prosecution of this student for this behavior to a DA, so there's no reason they should be allowed to do this.
I am ashamed of my country when I can read that, and it isn't followed by "The staff members were promptly fired". Believe it or not, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies even to high school kids, and no, your petty little school rules do not trump those Rights.
The question should not be if he did it in his free time, off campus, but if it was related to the school.
I can imagine a lot of things which one can do "during my free time" and "off campus" which should get you fired from school, even if there is no crime which can be persecuted.
For example: contacting or ridiculing teachers in an inappropriate way (yes, these are employees and they have rights), the same for students (nobody should be forced to sit besides somebody bullying him at facebook, and if school is the primary contact for this person suspension is the right thing to do).
All the news messages like "xzy got ... for doing ... on facebook" withou specifying what the content of ... was are as stupid as saying "he got in jail for swinging a piece of wood through the air", which may be technically correct, but could also be a baseball bat hitting the face of somebody after swinging through the air.
Please dear media: separate means, motivations, tools, and fact of crime more carefully. It really does not matter today if you write somebody an insulting letter which you put up 1000 times in you town to lampposts or post an insulting video.
He sounds very mature and level headed in his reply to the school via this youtube video, where he says "Jack Christie Addresses the Board"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnW2_i0Q_i4
He also shows talent in writing and his style is something like South Park. The guy could have a career in the animation industry if he carries on with this kind of work. Isn't that what schools should be encouraging?! ... WTF is his tyrannical school for, if its not preparing him for a career!