Slashdot Mirror
School District Sued By ACLU Over Student's Free Speech Rights
An anonymous reader writes "The ACLU is suing Minnewaska Area Schools and Pope County, according to this article in the StarTribune. At issue: school administrators and a sheriff's deputy forced a girl to hand over login information to her Facebook and email accounts, after she posted on Facebook that she 'hated' a school hall monitor who had been 'mean' to her, and cursed in a separate Facebook comment because someone reported her. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order that would restrain school officials from attempts to regulate or discipline students based on speech made outside of school hours and off school property."
I mean, what in the world are the school administrators thinking? That parents are not going to care if they force their daughter to give them their log in information to their personal accounts?
Everyone that thought it was a good idea to try and extract passwords from the girl should be fired and permanently banned from taking any tax payer money, for the rest of their lives. The people that hired them, should be fired and banned for 3 years. I bet, in a very short order, we could put an end to this foolishness.
I hate Anonymous Cowards. Also, the fucking mods are mean to me.
Tee hee.
Sometimes the ACLU's actions make me roll my eyes, but on this one, they're right. Seems to me the school's personnel took their petty authority way too far. Off school property, on a website not controlled by the school. GET 'EM, ACLU! Give 'em HELL!
Whenever I hear Americans make that claim, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
I had school teachers who thought it was their job to teach the kids how to stand up for themselves and how to stand up to authority. Including theirs.
This is disturbing not necessarily because of the password coercion, but because of the entire premise. What are the school administrators, the parents, and the entire adult community *thinking* when they make such a big friggin deal about "I hate you" comments that are clearly just juvenile emoting? Why are they getting involved in such petty hall locker politics to begin with?
Did they never mature past a high school emotional age?
Were they itching to make an example of someone?
Do they have some policy or quota that they need to demonstrate compliance with?
In other words, it's just like when my wife flips out after I leave dirty socks on the floor. The socks aren't the real problem; something else is. She's been bottling it up, and the socks were just the trigger for some other pent up stress... it may or may not be something I did, but it certainly means there's something I need to fix. In the same sense, something else is going on in Minnewaska... something else that needs fixing. And it's not middle school drama.
I can see the fnords!
They can force somebody (does not matter whether it is a child) to hand over credentials without a court order? Sounds like any totalitarian regime out there. This should get those responsible into really hot water, including criminal penalties.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The audacity. I am shocked to see not just school officials, but law enforcement entangled in abusing the 1st and 4th amendment rights to further something that they had no groundwork butting into in the first place! Having done this to the extent they have, I have no doubt they have experience having done it before and would of continued to do so until the ACLU stepped in.
Cheers for the article. I wish the girl and her family good luck and happiness after this public humiliation and obvious abuse of her constitutional and human rights.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Welcome to the New American Nanny State.
Right now, schools are under heavy pressure to reduce "bullying". The politicians and money groups have seized on an issue that is easy to win over the hearts of American voters and donors. That's why "bullying" is such a hot issue right now and gets tons of media coverage.
Kids talking about sex, something mentioned in the article as being another reason why the police and school went after this student, is another always hot issue especially with American "conservatives". We must avoid talking to children or exposing them to sex at all costs.
So we have a school where a kid is accused of bullying, and also talking about sex, on Facebook. The school knows if it does nothing they'll get blasted by moms, and the media, about how they failed to protect other children from bullies and perverts. They let a student make hate speech and promote sex talk amongst pre-teens or whatever. But if the school acts then they'll get blasted by people who think that the schools should mind their own business and let the parents handle things. And we know how well parents handle things in modern America.
Instead of finding a middle ground, the school feels the pressure from all sides and.....calls the cops. Huge overreaction in hindsight of course but they must have felt at the time that it was warranted.
But seriously? A kid can't say that they hate their teacher anymore? A kid can't talk about sex with another kid? When I was in school it didn't matter if a kid said he hated a hall monitor or a teacher. Most of the teachers had been around long enough to recognize which kids disliked them. And most of my teachers could tell which boys and girls had started puberty earlier than others because we behaved much differently around the opposite sex. Times have changed.
The school should have just called the student's mother or father and said "some kid tattled on your kid, it's not a big deal, but you should monitor your kid's facebook and just check to see if they are doing anything that is inappropriate". No cops. No teachers. No detention even. Let the parents do their jobs.
I agree that NO ONE should be able to force you to hand over your account details... I think they should have just had her Facebook account suspended for breaking the T&C's. I could of course be wrong, but don't have to agree that you are over 13 years of age (she was not) when you create a Facebook account?
Public school officials are known to power trip so much. To some people power tripping, they don't care about the law of the land, they just want to punish the person they think is doing something wrong.
God spoke to me
It's about time that school officials realize their authority ends at the end of the school zone. In my high school it was a serious offense to post anything against a teacher. An entire class of students was given multiple detentions for a group called "X Teacher's Name's Essay Suck".
Shameless.
Someday we'll end up with this. Keep in mind shit like this has happened before:
A few years after the WW-II a young teenage girl called Erika Riemann defaced the moustache on picture of Stalin at school in then soviet occupied Germany. She got ratted out and then they sent her to Sachsenhausen, a nazi concentration camp the soviets had reactivated. She spent 8 years there where she was continously brutally raped by the guards who knocked her front teeth out in one episode.
It's not ideal. The administration shouldn't ask in the first place, but it's a means you can employ to protect your privacy.
Rational adults know that just because a kid says something bad about a teacher doesn't mean the student's out to do the teacher harm. So why do most school policies nowadays attribute any attitude short of sunshine and happy unicorns to be evidence of mental problems worthy of nuke-it-from-orbit 'solutions'? The most obvious conclusion is that it's the school trying to save face when the student gets too close to the truth for their comfort, so they play out the zomg-columbine excuse. The fact is, the teachers that get the majority of the jeers from students often deserve it, and since most often the student complaints get buried under piles of bureaucratic and jingoistic fallacy (arg from authority usually) whether they're legitimate or not, students resort to other means of expression. In many ways, this is the equivalent of employers using the law (and contracts) to dictate more and more of what employees may do outside of work..
I swear, it's like every institution in this country is looking to get their hands on as much of everyone's freedom as possible, with the schools becoming the front lines for indoctrination. Too bad. I guess expression is only to be tolerated when authority has the mouthpiece most of the time and gets to set the politically correct boundaries for everyone else. It's truly a shame how hard and how fast liberty has fallen in this country. The stipulations for when and where we may exercise our rights have become more and more byzantine and the fine print is getting ever more fine as the power hungry chip away..
You know, police officers used to be looked up to back in the day. Now they are just hired thugs to be feared. How big of a man do you have to be to intimidate and coerce a little girl? What a piece of shit
Too many parents think that their child is a special snowflake. They must protect their snowflake from having any negative experiences, like having another kid dislike them. Their special snowflake is not supposed to grow up, and not excepted to actually be able to cope with such traumatic thins as having some other kid actually disliking them.
Of course, it goes without saying that no one else's kid is as special a snowflake as your own - it's absolutely fine to traumatize other kids, in order to protect your own.
The next generation of Americans will have a huge challenge to overcome their upbringing...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
. . . don't waste money on useless textbooks or facilities! Give it to needy lawyers instead!
I really would have hoped that the ACLU and the other folks involved would have found a more pleasant way to settle this, without burning cash on litigation. At the end of all this, the only happy ones, will be the lawyers involved in the case, of course.
And lawyers are very good at copying previous lawsuits. What the tech industry calls, "patent infringement," the law industry calls, "precedent." So expect to see a lot more of these. Even threatening a lawsuit against a poor school system should be enough to scare them into a cash settlement out of court.
How the involved parties allowed this to escalate into the mess that it is, is beyond me. It must be idiots . . . all the way down.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
School district totally deserves this suit, I hope they go financially bankrupt, since they are already intellectually and morally so.
Accessing computer systems with stolen passwords is a crime.
FRA: STFU GTFO
Nowhere in the article was there a complete quote; there was only single words. There have been a number of posts here that assume all she said was "I hate you". It is not clear from article that those were the word she used. maybe they were stronger like "I hate him because he was mean to me and he should have the crap beaten out of him". This is yet another article with enough detail to get the "free speech" brigade up in arms without giving enough information to make a logical conclusion about the issue.
There are many schools that "regulate and monitor" speech off school property. Those kids who use bullying speech off school grounds are the same ones who use physical bullying on campus. A target can avoid bullying off campus but when they have to be in the same hallways, change rooms and classrooms as their bullies it becomes impossible. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to threaten or bully. Would you rather the school handle it or the youth court system? Perhaps if the school did it a bully will learn before he/she get a juvenile record. The juvenile court system is burdened enough as it is without having to deal with issues that could be handled in a much simpler way.
To those who think that anti-bullying campaigns are "nanny brigade" I say you have never been bullied. Personally I got beat up by the entire soccer team I was on because a few bullies started it. Stand up for yourself does not work when it is five to one. You have never had to walk down a hall when you never know when you will be body checked into a locker, have your books slapped out of your hands, be elbowed in the head, etc. Bullies are smart they know where the teachers are and will not be seen.
Students at MIT should be punished for publicly hating their school.
While I appreciate that this situation is outright silly (on the part of the school), ACLU's action here seems a little foolhardy. If schools can't discipline kids for what they say on social media, etc., then how are they meant to respond to cyber bullying such as that has led to however many teen suicides? What about defamation of teachers/students (I'm not talking about the usual Mr. So-and-so is a poopoohead, but what about calling him a pedo or something)? What about cyber-stalking or threats of physical violence against teachers/students?
The alternative would be to deal with those issues through more judicial means, and that isn't necessarily better.
... freedom of speech ...
Never use hate, k@@@, or any derogatory term, ever. That's what children should be taught.
The best response, e.g. would have been -
It's a shame that the hall-monitor's treatment of me could not have been more Christian like and dignified;
I guess she can't overcome her upbringing. I'll keep her in my prayers. But if she continues to violate statute
X.XXX.x for harassment, I will ask my parents to petition for a criminal complaint against her
This will garnish the most hate from the local police since they can't easily justify any retaliation against the child.
But schools are reluctant to teach Children their rights and the courts are less inclined to man-up to this issue as well.
The camera on the laptop voyerism case is a perfect example - no jail time, fines, etc. Teachers should be accountable
through their home-owners policy, not the School District (which basically comes out of the local residents pocket anyway).
This is a bigger problem then drugs, IMHO...
When I was in high school (in the mid 90s), a teacher was hit with and egg as part of a senior prank. I posted on a local BBS (yeah, that's how long ago) that I thought it was funny because I thought she deserved it. This teacher was either on the board, or knew someone that was, because the following day I was called down to the principal's office and confronted with a printout of my posting. Threatened with disciplinary action, the principal tried to coerce an apology from me.
I looked her right in the face and said, "I don't think I should have to apologize for something that I said outside of school on my own time."
The principal said that she strongly suggested that I apologize anyway, and then dismissed me. That was the end of it. Kids may not have the same rights as adults in all situations, but until they are instructed by their parents, they should assume they do, and defend them as necessary.
In Canada, I've never really had to experience some of these blatant violations of privacy. No school I've went to has attempted to extrude information like that in this matter, no theatre I've gone to has required me to have a TSA examination before I watch a movie, and so on and so on. Please, unless it directly harms the students (like, if you said on Facebook that you were going to burn down the school, that's obviously cause for concern), keep our personal lives out of this.
This is a legal term which basically means that schools have the right to act as parents while kids are within its boundaries. Generally it's been citing and upheld by the courts in cases like searches of property such as back picks and lockers without needing a warrant. There have been several cases where it has been used to limit the rights of students.
Yes I can see the argument that the school would make: a parent could demand the child's creds therefore the school, by acting in loco parentis, can demand such information. And that may very well hold up in court as a defense against the ACLU.
I think about schools today compared to when I went through. Those 5 years before me learned to shoot .22 and shotguns in the 5th grade. When I went through we still learned archery with real bows and arrows. We were even allowed to bring our own bows to school for class. My parents generation would even bring guns to school so they could go hunting after class. They didn't have school shootings.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
So being specific is completely fine with NORMAL people.
PS How do you prefer being called Yankee?
We will call you what we want to call you. If you don't like USian, then stop calling your country the United States of america. See, that has "US" in it.
The thing people who don't work in schools need to realize is that there is legislation out there that covers cyberbullying. Even if you ignore cyberbullying for a second, at least here in Oregon, kids can be punished at school for interactions they have with other classmates outside of school grounds....anytime something involves another student, the school can get involved "in loco parentis, which also covers other things schools do that bug people.
Also, even in public schools, students really don't have freedom of speech...and people always forget that your exercising of your rights don't apply the moment you start infringing on the rights of others.
12-year-old girl
Good heavens, at least it wasn't a boy in a black trenchcoat, a 12-year-old girl makes a much more charismatic exemplar for the ACLU. Have we forgotten the Hellmouth already?
I decided to ask the assistant principal/disciplinarian at the school what the guidelines were. He pointed me to the "Student Code of Conduct" (SCC) (it's a
(On a side note, Group 5 offenses are considered those that "most seriously disrupt" school functioning, and include aggravated assault, inappropriate sexual conduct battery, criminal damage to property/vandalism over $500, and physical assault to a teacher. Does social network bullying really belong in that list? ...discussion for another time...)
Still, I wondered how the school could enforce that regulation outside of school hours, off school property, on a privately-owned computer. The disciplinarian told me that they were allowed to, and again pointed to the preface of the SCC:
Now, I don't know what kind of standard is required to be met to say that something "may disrupt the orderly educational process." I'd suppose that calling a kid a name on the playground could accomplish that, but there's no written proof of such events as there is on Facebook. Sure, the bullying kid should have gotten a tough talking to about appropriate behavior. Probably the school should have called the parents of the bully to deal with the situation. Maybe they did those things too, I don't know. But they definitely disciplined the kid in school because of something he did outside of school.
It still kind of boggles my mind that we give teachers and administrators (who are largely untrained in such matters) the power to enforce school discipline outside the purview of their schools. But that's the system we have in the city I live in.
It's a violation of the terms of services, and violation of federal law:
18 USC Â 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers.ahref=http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030rel=url2html-19895http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030>
Cops need a warrant to obtain a password. Even if the person is a child. Schools are forbidden from doing so even with a warrant.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I keep hearing about stories like this from my mother about my old school, as well as other schools around the country. Schools need to realize that they are there to teach as their main function not to discipline. If a kid is acting out on the school grounds and breaking the rules, then they can discipline the children. Anything that happens outside of the school is none of their business and they should butt out. Activities outside of school grounds should be handled by the parents or police if it is that serious. The school is meant to teach that is it.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
With the recent school shooting again and all the harassment bullying issues schools have a hightened awareness and sensitivity. I would say that the schools cant be too careful and take any threatening or harassing comments made by any memebr of the school seriously students or faculty.
So, what would you call people from the Americas? You know, North- and South America?
"North Americans", for people from North America.
"Central Americans", for people from Central America (unless included in the term above).
"Middle Americans", for people from Mexico and the nations of Central America (and possibly West Indies, Colombia and Venezuela; depending on the definition used).
"South Americans", for people from South America.
"Anglo Americans", for people from countries in the Americas with significant British cultural or historical links.
"Latin Americans", for people from Latin America.
"Ibero Americans", for people from the former colonies of Spain and Portugal in the Americas.
and so on and so forth...
While the commonly used term for the whole "greater" American continent is "the Americas", There is too little in common between all the people of the region to warrant a specific term just because there's a narrow land-strip connecting the sub-continents.
After all, how often do you hear the term "Afro-Eurasians"?
Wow, so basically now the US is saying you don't get free speech? As long as this girl didn't make a direct and pointed threat to this hall monitor then she did nothing wrong and shouldn't get in trouble. Of course like I just posted, she put it online with the intent to show off what she thought and she wanted people to read and react, but this still doesn't violate free speech.
zero tolerance policies might blame those who fight back as well as or instead of those who started it. Is that BS? Yes. Does it happen? yes.
or in sports terms, the ref gets the second guy
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Breaking ToS "You will not use Facebook if you are under 13" [https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms]
Also from the article "The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages" all I can say is, if those "unspecified damages" are in any way monetary I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
Repeat after me, young lady, "You guys can go fuck yourselves!"
I8-D
I see a couple unexpected consequences
although not at issue in this particular case, the gay rights movement seems to contribute to general anti bullying sentiment because of non-heterosexuals driven to suicide
also, ridiculous zero tolerance policies after Columbine
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Anywhoo I'd just chalk it up as an important lesson about ever cooperating with authority figures. And yeah, suing them, just to prove a point.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Considering Mexicans are citizens of Los Estados Unidos de Mexico (aka United States of Mexico),
Mexicans are citizens of Estados Unidos Mexicanos, which translates to United Mexican States.
If you notice in the name it actually says it uses the word MEXICAN implying they're mexican. However USA has the proposition "OF" America, which actually means it belongs to America.
A latin american can trabel to europe and say he/she is American, and people will understand know he/she refers to other country besides USA. The only time europeans will have trouble is with canadians and that is because US and Canadian english accents are almost the same.
Why does a 12 year old need Facebook, and how was that authorized? I question any adult letting children use Facebook as a substitute for normal personal communication with their friends. Should banter between 12 year olds be recorded for all time and unknown audiences? When a 12 year old says 'i hate someone' to a friend in a casual conversation, the meaning and context is very obvious. Even an adult overhearing the conversation would probably be able to know if there was a threat involved. Put that same statement into Facebook, and context and meaning is up to wild interpretation. No-one should use Facebook to communicate unless they are mature enough to understand that. Not implying the ridiculous level of escalation in this case is the fault of the parents. The original parent that reported the statement and the school administration both escalated the situation dramatically. Either could have stopped the escalation by applying some reasonable judgement.
Minnewaska School District
25122 State Highway 28
Glenwood, MN 56334-3390 map
Phone: (320) 239-4820
Did they talk to the hall monitor they were mean?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The ACLU routinely wins these cases. See "A federal judge today ruled that a local school district violated the free speech rights of a student when it kicked him off the volleyball team because he posted an Internet message from home criticizing an art teacher." The controlling Supreme Court decision is Tinker vs. Des Moines.
Children do not have the right to free speech. They are minors with a legal guardian responsible for discipline in the case of bad behavior. When a child mouths off to a parent, the child is punished. When the child mouths off to a school administrator, the child is punished. Parents are responsible for teaching their children proper behavior. When the child is no longer a minor, then he or she can mouth off and find out the hard way that needlessly pissing people off is not in their best interest.
My only problem with this is that the school is doing the discipline and not the parents. The school should inform the parents, and let them work it out.
You beg the questions, "Was the listener's understanding of the term incorrect?" and, "Is the way 95% of other people use 'begs the question' actually incorrect?"
For that matter, is there a "correct" way to use language in an informal context? I think Lewis Carroll covered this already:
Through the Looking Glass
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Irrelevant comparison, as parents are not actors of the state.
It's also a jurisdictional issue - what happens off of school grounds and outside of school events is none of their damned business. The only thing they can do is report the issue to the parents or to law enforcement.
Welcome to false talking points. The school is overreaching their authority where it doesn't belong.
You can email the principle at pfalk@minnewaska.k12.mn.us and tell him to start respecting students rights. Maybe he should be forced to disclose his email password to the public.
Well besides the potential criminal charges the school administrators should face, but won't, perhaps Facebook could step in.
The administrators and others present likely violated Facebook's TOS, section 5. Under such, I think Facebook could disable any accounts for any administrative personnel involved, as well as give them legal notice that they may not ever again open a Facebook account. Might be a slap on the wrist, even comical to some, but it's probably the best which could be hoped for. Facebook could choose also not to disable the girl in question's account pursuant their investigation.
Not all children are created equal. Attempts by anyone to intimidate my 12 year old girl are met with a stubborn streak comparable to Jason Bourne... She has asthma. Her PE teacher apparently does not believe asthma is a real disease. He told her as much and ordered her to run with the rest of the class. She refused, and when he threatened to have her punished, she pulled out her phone, and while standing there in front of him turned it on (phones required to be off at this school) and called me. Stared him in the eye while she asked me to come take care of this fascist pig. I came to visit with her, principal, and the PE teacher. He was apparently set to intimidate me as well, but as soon as he stepped close to me I asked him politely to step away, as my USMC training and war experiences make me unpredictable when threatened. Mr tall, dark, and pudgy decided to re-think his tactics. I did have to discuss the fascist remark with her. Really, know what a word means before using it in an insult.... He's clearly a despot wannabe. the principal is the fascist. The principal took her out of PE, something she swore was not possible at the beginning of the year, state requirements prohibit it. I took my daughter out to dinner of her choice and we discussed how she was right to stand up against an authority figure in the wrong. Pride flowed from me in copious amounts.