Teachers, Students Fight To Be Facebook Friends 286
An anonymous reader writes "State Governor Jay Nixon recently signed Senate Bill 54, making it illegal for students and teachers to be friends online as of later this month. Now, a Missouri teachers group is fighting the state's new law that prohibits them from being Facebook friends with their students by filing a lawsuit. From the article: 'The Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) filed a lawsuit on Friday, challenging a new law. MSTA is specifically asking the Circuit Court of Cole County to determine the constitutionality of the law’s social media portion.'"
Re:Question comes to mind (Score:4, Informative)
You're welcome.
OK its even worse (Score:5, Informative)
For a teacher who works in a small town for a few decades that will be a large number of people they can never friend on facebook. It could even prevent someone friending their husband or wife. A teacher/pupil can have an age difference of four years, which a few years after they younger one graduates will seem an insignificant difference.
More importantly... (Score:3, Informative)
On Slashdot, not only can you be his friend - you can be his FOE.
AND we have "I hate" buttons too.
They come in flavors of "Offtopic", "Flamebait", "Troll", "Redundant" and "Overrated".
Freedom of Association (Score:4, Informative)
The United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama that the freedom of association is an essential part of the Freedom of Speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others:
"We hold that the immunity from state scrutiny of membership lists which the Association claims on behalf of its members is here so related to the right of the members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing as to come within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment" ( NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 US 449 - Supreme Court 1958 )