Student Suspended For Posting On YouTube 375
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."
Re:Not funny (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Happens every time (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Fuck everything about this (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you point is then. It's not like there's anything wrong with that
Anytime someone gets in trouble just for expressing themselves, you mean? I think a lot of people get tired of hearing about "authorities" trying to stop people from expressing themselves. I suspect you are the only one who is tired of the "excuse" that people need to be able to express themselves in order for society to function.
On an unrelated note, if this kind of thing really does bother you, why did you even read the fucking summary?
Re:What kind of punishment is a "suspension"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, if a student missed any essential classes because he is suspended, wouldn't it make all subsequent classes pointless because student won't be able to understand them (or, worse, misleading because student will misunderstand them)?
Right, so in order to combat this, a student has to either:
a) Work extra hard in his free time to study the topic enough to understand them
b) Fail miserably and have to resit/restudy or waste a year.
Both of which are punishments.
Its also rather symbolic. Kinda like being "Suspended from work with pay". Its meant to warn you that you might end up permanently like that.
I hate this summary (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Happens every time (Score:3, Insightful)
By that logic we should all be medicated and brainwashed to all behave exactly the same, because of the minuscule risk that someone someday might do something to someone that isn't NORMAL.
Please count the number of school shootings in the past twenty years in America and compare it to the number of children/young adults who have attended an institute of education during that time frame. I'm sure you'll find that children suffer far greater risks in life than another child snapping and shooting up his school.
You either have it or you don't (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're the kind of person who gets fed up with this whole tired Freedom of Speech thing when you don't agree with what's being said.
Either you have freedom of speech or you don't. You can't pick and choose.
I live in Europe where there are many restrictions on what can and can't be discussed in public. I don't admire much about the politics in the US but one thing I very much admire is that if someone thinks something they have an absolute right to say it out loud.
I can't see the point of urinating on religious symbols but if the symbols are owned by the person doing the urinating then let them. If a lot of people admire such action they will get a large audience and if nobody is interested they will have wasted their time. It is the people who would ban it that I am most concerned about because it is those people who don't have an interest in free speech.
Re:Fuck everything about this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
All these things need to be protected In order to promote reasonable discourse. If you take anything off the table you risk marginalizing legitimate viewpoints and ending discussion. Expression is much more important than people's desire to go through life un-challenged and un-offended. Anything can be considered offensive or subversive or dangerous or pornographic by the right person. You have to accept the viewpoints of others if you are really want to peacefully coexist with them. Just because people don't say something doesn't mean they didn't think it, and it's better to know what someone thinks than to stop them from talking, even if they are just trying to offend you. Too much goes unsaid already.
His mature and level headed reply (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Re:His mature and level headed reply (Score:4, Insightful)
Forcing conformity and creating social pressure groups, while quietly feeding the students nationalist propaganda?
Re:His mature and level headed reply (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about Canada, but down here in the US the schools' primary purpose seems to be removal of all traces of curiosity and creativity. Ever notice that when budgets get cut, the first things to go are art and music, but never sports?
Re:Not funny (Score:4, Insightful)
What changes magically in a human being in those few nanoseconds before and after the 18th birthday? That's something nobody ever managed to explain to me sensibly.
We want to put a discrete point in time on something that is a gradual process spanning years. I know people who were responsible and mature before they were 14, and others who might have a chance to reach it should they live to 40. And while both are certainly the extremes, 18 will at best be the median age people mature at.
And since we put so much emphasis on this special quality "maturity", and so many laws, regulations, duties and privileges hang on it, from voting to driving to sex and criminal offenses, simply doing a "one size fits all" is most certainly going to end up with a lot of wrong decisions.
Re:It's super effective! (Score:2, Insightful)
schools, like governments, big business and other bad guys, only understand one thing. POWER AND FORCE.
they are thugs and they only understand thug language. hit them with a painful lawsuit and they'll 'learn'.
thugs won't learn any other way; their way is that of the street or violence (physical or economic). so throw some econ hardship their way. perhaps they'll think twice next time.
the same goes for suing your local police when they step out of line. a nice heavy lawsuit can change a lot of things (if you can afford lawerpower, that is).
hey, I'd donate some money to the kid's 'suit the shit out of the school' fund. seriously, I'd donate. nothing makes me happier than see false authority have their hats handed to them.
a message needs to be sent. its time.
Re:His mature and level headed reply (Score:4, Insightful)
Sports bring in the bucks. Segmented academics (i.e. gifted/avg/remedial) costs money, art costs money, band costs money (though sometimes brings in money). This is real life, I don't agree with it, but it's good preparation.
Also down here in the US, our employers can suspend/terminate our employment for very similar reasons if our names are associated with them somehow. My former employer was well known for terminating employees for any number of out of work/no-work-related offsenses such as: getting in a bar brawl at the local titty bar (purportedly regarding one man banging the other man's wife), publishing some anti-Chinese government screed after having been sent there for 6 months by said employer, and expressing displeasure at the termination of another employee for recreational marijuana use off-campus and after hours.
I think the kid is getting a taste of what being an adult is like, and I hope he likes it as poorly as we do. I don't know what legal protections are offered in Canada for this sort of thing, but this is what freedom of speech really means, at least down here. It's free assuming you can afford it.