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Student Expelled From Indiana High School For Tweeting Profanity
First time accepted submitter OopsIDied writes with the story that high-school senior Austin Carroll of Garrett, Indiana was recently expelled after tweeting profanity from his own home, writing "Supposedly the school has a system which tracks students' social networks after they have logged in at school. Although the tweet was done at home at 2 AM, the school decided that such behavior was unacceptable and that the most fitting punishment was expulsion. He did use a school computer, but it was set up to use the school network even when used outside the school because the school claimed the tweet was associated with the school's IP address." As usual, TechDirt has some biting commentary about the expulsion. But Hey, at least they didn't throw him in jail.
Sounds like the school is really behind. They need to get themselves in gear and expel the 90% of the student body that says "fuck" on a daily basis in the halls, in the cafeteria and on the buses.
Where does it say it was school equipment? The linked article mentions "Carroll says he doesn't think he should be punished by the school for what he posts on his own time and on his own computer. " and I find no other mention of the computer's ownership.
Phone 260.357.4114 press 3 for the principle's office
Here's the original local story:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120325/LOCAL0201/303259931
It appears the confusion all over the place here derives from the fact that there were two separate incidents. First, last year, he used school equipment to post a profane tweet and was suspended. Then, recently, he posted the above linked profane tweet, but it was from home, on his own computer, not on the school's network at all. They just saw it because they were examining his Twitter account because of the last incident.
Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion.