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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.
They can enforce the rules as they wish (just like employers). Student should have used a private ISP, instead of the government-owned school network.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
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.
They can enforce the rules as they wish (just like employers). Student should have used a private ISP, instead of the government-owned school network.
Perhaps. But should a high school student have been expected to know this?
Maybe they should have opted for jailing him for life. After all, isn't tweeting "fuck" an incitement to the masses to commit rape?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Using profanity in the halls, cafeteria, and buses is safe, because such incidents are not visible to parents, school board members, or the general public.
Twitter, however, is visible to the whole world, so anything undesirable must be just as visibly punished.
All issues of who own what aside, honestly, who gives a fuck what the kid said unless it was like...death threats? Seriously...why would you expel someone for using profanity in the first place? A stern talking to, perhaps, but expulsion for this? Good lord.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
Actually this is interesting, the school has clearly established the punishment for doing this. So the easy way to protest this would be get a sizable percentage of the student body to swear on their twitter accounts. What is the school going to do? Expel 30+% of their student body? If they did, it would make national headlines and the people that run that school would become a laughing stock. It would also energize the debate enough where we could finally sort this out. And if they don't expel them, they can't expel this student.
Schools loaning computers are still a relatively uncommon thing. These kids are being given an opportunity to learn to use a tool that will greatly increase their future opportunities. Encouraging the kids to use it wisely is a good thing. How many reports have we seen about an employee misusing equipment and getting into big trouble, including a ruined reputation through reports in the press.
Sure kids are in rebellion and think that they can do anything they want. They have not yet understood that gifts come with strings. They think that by taking a computer they are doing the school a favor. That education is favor they do for their parents and a favor that society gives to them. Sure, it is cheaper than jail, but we are more than willing to pay for and put them in jail.
That said expulsion might seem a bit harsh, but we really don't know what else this kid has done or not done.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Of educators, lawmakers having no idea what the internet is. "Hmm, since he said it from our address, it's like he's speaking for the school. The whole internet is going to thing we use bad language. It reflects poorly on me!"
Be very, very careful when pulling a "they can't punish everyone" stunt. Sometimes it turns out that yes, they very much can.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I'm sure you've all heard this before, but it bears repeating here:
...fuck is the only word referred to as 'the f word... It's the one magical word. Just by its sound can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love. Fuck, as most words in the English language is derived from German ...the word fuieken, which means to strike.
Perhaps one of the most interesting words in the English language today, is the word fuck. Out of all the English words that begin with the letter 'f'
In English, fuck falls into many grammatical categories:
As a transitive verb for instance.. John fucked Shirley.
As an intransitive verb... Shirley fucks.
Its meaning is not always sexual, it can be used as...
An adjective such as... John's doing all the fucking work.
As part of an adverb... Shirley talks too fucking much.
As an adverb enhancing an adjective... Shirley is fucking beautiful.
As a noun... I don't give a fuck.
As part of a word... absofuckinglutely -or- infuckingcredible.
And as almost every word in a sentence... Fuck the fucking fuckers.
As you must realize, there aren't too many words with the versatility of fuck...such as these examples describing situations such as:
Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot.
Dismay: ahhh fuck it.
Trouble: I guess I'm really fucked now.
Aggression: Don't fuck with me buddy.
Difficulty: I don't understand this fucking question.
Inquiry: Who the fuck was that?
Dissatisfaction: I don't like what the fuck is going on here.
Incompetence: He's a fuck-off.
Dismissal: Why don't you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself...
I'm sure you can think of many more examples.
With all these multi-purpose applications, how can anyone be offended when you use the word. We say use this unique, flexible word more often in your daily speech.
It will identify the quality of your character immediately.
Say it loudly and proudly: FUCK YOU!
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
Remember kids, wiretap laws and the Bill of Rights don't apply to you when you're enrolled in school.
Anyone agreeing with the school here really needs to read TFA (specifically the TechDirt article). Apparently he Tweeted while at home, and the school had a system set up that tracked all Twitter logins, recording all Tweets on those accounts. The kid must have logged in subsequently to posting the Tweet, and their spy system picked it up.
I mean, what the fuck. The school is literally spying on its students' private accounts. I bet their system picked up Direct Messages too, all in the name of anti-bullying. I really hope this kid calls the ACLU and gets this shut the hell down. This is a huge violation of his and the other students' rights. If he had posted the Tweet from the school it may have been slightly different but still an overreaction. This is outright wiretapping, unauthorized use of an account, a declaration that students' private lives are subject to the school's rules... what the hell is going on here?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
It's not just the fact that he was punished for posting something that makes it seem idiotic to me. It's the fact that their reasons are always extremely petty. "Profanity." "Swear words." "Someone could get offended!"
Who cares? Are you seriously so oversensitive that you cannot handle the mere mention of a word?
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the opportunity to expel their low-scoring students, simultaneously increasing their federal budget due to federal test-marks-for-dollars guidelines and lowering their costs due to having less students to serve.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Perhaps, but you don't get rid of racism by removing opportunities for education. This isn't going to stop people from being racist, it will just make them internalize it and express it even more viciously in their private lives.
Now, if this individual is an impediment to good order in a school, it may be tactically necessary to remove him to prevent strife, but as an impediment to racism, such a punishment would be ineffective. The vocal racists likely are not the ones you really need to worry about. I know a number of people who would never swear or utter a racist epithet in public who are perfectly happy to countenance nuking the Middle East and turning it into a parking lot. Some of them even vote Democrat and call themselves liberals. Not to mention their opinions about blacks or asians or whatever. People shouting "niggerfaggot" in public are just the tip of the iceberg.
Education is the only way of decisively defending against racism, and in this case, I feel removing that opportunity and throwing a kid in with the other miscreants in the alternate school/holding tank for expelled students is not going to help that issue.
Very much this.
Firstly, the kid posted from 2am at home. That's hardly "on school time." I'm an aerospace engineer, and there are people with whom I work that have trouble distinguishing home networks from VPNs. Expecting a high school kid to fully grasp that concept is ridiculous.
But aside from all that, the punishment does not fit the crime. The kid cussed. Kids do that all the time, and they usually get detention. I could even see a suspension, if the school wants to set a precedent... but expulsion? That's just asinine.
This signature is false.
...and stories like the assistant principal at a Lower Merion PA school district spying through the webcam on student issued laptops (remember that?), I have to say one thing about student-issued laptops:
Laptops are cheap enough. Use your own. Treat the school issued one as toxic. Refuse it.
They are simply too dangerous to even turn on.
And those in authority wonder why they are distrusted.
--
BMO
Last I checked profanity was not illegal and generally protected speech.
You surrender a lot of rights when you enter a school. He was only there virtually, but he was using the school's network none the less.
On top of that, yes you have free speech, but there are still consequences. I can't run into a crowded theater and yell "FIRE" and expect to get away scott free.
schools are not the place for indoctrination of any sort
You're kidding, right? The whole point of the American school is to turn you into a boring, uncreative, mindless drone.
If that doesn't qualify as indoctrination, what does? |:
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
They seem to ignore that the environment where they live has rules set and enforced to ensure stability.
You mean like pointless, arbitrary rules against 'profanity'?
Now, if as per HuffPost, he did it on his own time using his own equipment; then the school is way out of line.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Schools can't really expel a lot of students because the state funding formulas are by student-days - the number of students attending the school. If they expelled a significant number of schools their funding would be cut noticeably. Poor things.
Phone 260.357.4114 press 3 for the principle's office
As someone who has dealt with the enormity of school idiocy, let me just state that a quick call to the family lawyer will get all this straightened right out. If threatened with a law suit, the school will buckle. Also, if this is what constitutes an expulsion these days, I never would have made it out of grade school.
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.
If they were to choose to enforce it nonuniformly, when it clearly was something that everyone was violating, I expect that some of the people expelled might make a compelling discrimination suit.
They probably wouldn't be able to lower their operating costs as most of them are fairly fixed (i.e. building, power, heat, cooling, salaries for staff, and staff benefits) so if a large fraction were expelled over this then their funding source would dry up (money based off the the number of student days) and they couldn't correct for it until the next school year. This really would hurt the school.
Time to offend someone
In my HS, if they booted everyone who swore, it would have been one damn, fucking, empty building.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Using a expletive as a means of emphasis is far far away from crying fire. I think my point is were loosing more and more rights etc when you enter a public school, and that's inherently broken since the majority are forced to send there children there. Again with indoctrination it's not supposed to be the reason for them existing and people need to push that to not happen.
Personally I've chosen private school for my child, good contracts and reasonable staff seem to make for better schooling. Perhaps it's time for school choice and to close / severely reduce the public education footprint, I know the local public pay 3x per student per year than the private school and the private schools appears to give a better education.
No sir I dont like it.
My brother is currently in highschool and they have a laptop program there too. I got a chance to inspect his laptop. Students are encouraged to use their laptops not only at school, but also at home. They're allowed to take them home, over spring break, over summer break, and they have a trade up program.
However, all traffic from the laptop is routed through their VPN, you can't even shut it off or edit any system settings. They have the OS completely restricted. If you install anything on the laptop without their permission, they reprimand you for it. They have unfettered access to the embedded webcam (I told him to put a piece of electrical tape over it and if anyone questions it ask why he needs to remove it) and they also have complete remote access abilities to monitor his laptop.
Honestly this is all pretty sick. A school isn't a business. While it may be appropriate for a business to protect it's assets and make sure they aren't being misused, the school is run by the government, which is in turn (supposed to be) run by the people. A simple reimage of the computer would wipe anything the user has done. As long as they don't physically break it then there shouldn't be any problems. Instead they are not only going out of their way to lockdown the OS (which prevents any sort of meaningful learning experience outside of a handful of software suites they deem worthy), but also patrol what their students do, which in turn opens up space for liability as well. Whatever happened to parents doing this sort of thing anyway?
If he didn't HAVE to use the laptop, and oh yes, they are required, to use the laptop in school, outside of school, and they can't buy their own, I would suggest him using the home computer. They are required to essentially funnel everything that is school related through the device. There aren't ways to access the in school programs outside of the VPN, like the drop box.
This is exactly how NOT to do a laptop program if you give a shit about the people actually using them.