School District Sued By ACLU Over Student's Free Speech Rights 466
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."
What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Fire them All (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
ACLU (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
Freest country in the world (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but this isn't even about that. A school isn't a court. If she'd refused to give them any information, what could they do - jail her for Contempt of Principal?
Re:What are the adults' priorities? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are thinking that the columbine kids said they hated people too. And that the admins from that school have a terrible reputation for failing to pay attention to a serious problem.
Re:ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
Damned if they do damned if they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it you don't have much experience talking to the police?
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
dunno.. call the deputy? that's what they did anyways? and the deputy promptly went and gave access to the school "officials" to those accounts.
the deputy should be fired and the school staff too. they fucked up.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ambassador Londo Mollari: My shoes are too tight and I have forgotten how to dance.
I believe that quotes sums it up. The people involved have committed a great evil to someone less powerful than themselves, preying on the very being they were charged to protect; but it doesn't matter to them, because they've already forgotten what it was like to be a child.
No doubt the kid will continue to be ridiculed and besmirched for some time, and the wounds will heal, leaving only scars. A few decade's time, she will want to become a teacher / administrator, so she can right the wrongs of her predecessors; and after many years of being pushed around by a system that frankly doesn't care about her now anymore than it did when she was a child, the light will go out in her soul at an inopportune time, during which she will commit a similar act to some young thing, and the cycle will begin anew. She will realize her mistake all too late to correct it, and spend the rest of her life trying to come to terms with an opportunity come and gone.
I wish I had advice to dispense here, but I haven't found any that works in circumstances like these. I'd like to say that something will come from this, that there will be no scars, that good will triumph over evil, that everyone will learn some sort of valuable lesson, and that it will be the right one, but experience has taught me that good only triumphs over evil in fairy tales.
Kids - if this happens to you... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
EFA. I mean, after a fair and impartial trial, which is more than this girl got.
Re:Freest country in the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about the parents? (Score:2, Insightful)
Spanish for persons from the US is 'Estadounidoestes." Thank you for playing, please try again.
Re:What are the adults' priorities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Years and years of political pressure for "zero tolerance," a.k.a. "zero intelligence." The idea that most of the things kids get up to are individual incidents and should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis is anathema to this mentality. But it sells well to parents (until their kids get caught up in it, anyway), to legislators, and to voters in school board elections.
Not to mention the state prosecutor (Score:5, Insightful)
Accessing computer systems with stolen passwords is a crime.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but this isn't even about that. A school isn't a court. If she'd refused to give them any information, what could they do - jail her for Contempt of Principal?
Nothing, but it is a 12-year old girl. If they had invited one of her parents (in addition to the sheriff's deputy), the parent would certainly tell them to shove it. A 12-year old girl is easy to intimidate.
I think every administrator involved should be re-purposed to janitorial duty as a more appropriate venue. I do hope ACLU includes that in their lawsuit demand.
Re:Freest country in the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Freest country in the world... Whenever I hear Americans make that claim, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
I fail to see your point. This was a shitty thing that someone did and they will be smacked down by ACLU. Your comment would be appropriate if this was an accepted behavior with no recourse.
Re:Damned if they do damned if they don't (Score:3, Insightful)
+1 for a think of the children post done right. People, this is what thinking of the children is all about. If you want to know what it's like when someone really thinks of the children, here it is.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:3, Insightful)
Americans is the accepted term. Using any other term like USian or USAn is idiotic and tries to solve a problem that does not exist.
It is always clear from context that Americans refers to people from the USA, not lease because it is the only country that has the word America in it's title. Mexico doesn't count as we are talking about English here.
In the rare times you need to refer to people from both north and south America it will be clear from the context, otherwise prefixing north or south to Americans makes it clear.
There is really no problem to be solves except by pissy PC people who think the US somehow claimed a title it doesn't deserve.
disclaimer: not american in any sense of the word.
Re:Incredible (Score:5, Insightful)
And the correct fix for this is to fire the involved parties with cause. To insure that that principle and cop never work in there respective fields again. They each knew what they were doing and exceeded there powers. Hell the principle should have been informing the kid that they did not need to talk to the officer without there parents and should not do so, they have a responsibility to act in the parents stead in there absence, that's where a lot of there powers come from in the first place.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, they are so worried over a kid hurting themselves that they take away the monkey bars, or sand pit; but see no issues with forcing them to hand over login creds, or activating webcams in supplied laptops.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:3, Insightful)
And then they could be rightfully sued for any of those punishments as well. The issue in dispute here is whether a school administrator has the power to punish speech which is engaged in outside of a school-controlled environment.
If they have the legitimate power to punish this then students have no other rights either, whether at school or not. Since speech and behavior codes in a school do not distinguish between staff, students, and visitors, it means they are claiming the authority to punish a student for any speech, in any context, at any time. No, they're not doing it explicitly, but it is certainly implied based on the logic they use to enforce rules in this manner.
Re:Dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
The short answer is that they aren't, unless those things happen in a realm that falls under their authority. Schools are not the "child police". Their job is not to discipline children when they do things wrong. Their job is to educate children. Period. Now, if "cyber" bullying happens on school grounds, using school equipment, etc, then by all means they should discipline. If not, they have no standing to say word one about it, any more than if I, as John Q Public, call you a poopoohead, do you get to run off to my employer and tell on me.
It really doesn't matter that you'd rather the schools handle it than the judicial system. The schools don't have the authority. The judicial does. Schools have gotten worse and worse at educating students due to the plethora of things which are not their job that they insist on doing instead.
Re:ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
In a perfect world, I'd agree with you. In the real world, it's fairly rare for an on-duty cop to be anything resembling "the voice of reason" when it comes to someone showing the slightest defiance to an authority figure. Whether that defiance is warranted or not is usually not ever something that would even cross the mind of most cops I've met.
Re:Incredible (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't just exceeded their powers. They were accessing a computer system with stolen or coerced passwords. This is a federal crime. They are just criminals.
Re:Freest country in the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. The US is not free because no one tries to curtail our freedoms. The US is free because when people try to curtail our freedoms we have strong recourse.
You actually believe this?
A strong recourse would be the school admin losing his job and the cop going to jail. Please post back to let us know when this happens.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
"We" being pedants who have no interest in being clearly understood?
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well here is your counter story. When I was all over 9 years old I suffered from bad handwriting called by small-muscle coordination problems. I still haven't got great handwriting to this day.
But with teachers lumping me under "doesn't bother to be a neat writer" there came a day when I had to erase something (at that stage we only wrote in pencil). The eraser I used had, unbeknownst to me gotten some pencil soot on it and left a big black mark in my book. Like a good little boy I went to my teacher to ask for advice. Instead of advice I was shouted at for making a mess in my book before I even finished my sentence... then sent to the teacher next door to be further ridiculed. ... and she said "I think 'varkie' would be a better name for you." (Varkie in my language literally means piglet - but without any of the 'cute' connotations... little swine is a better translation).
A ridicule process that continued for some time all the way back to my own classroom where she then proceeded for the first time to ask my name. I told her my name
The nickname stuck with me until I finally left for highschool - I got into fights all the time against kids calling me that, but nonetheless made it onto the student council in my final year of primary school and ended it as one of the top-scorers - but make no mistake that my social life was irreperably harmed and my ability to make friends suffered greatly.
Like most kids in such a situation, I felt ashamed and didn't tell my family, big mistake, I told my dad some 4 years later (just before I would leave primary school) and then he was furious and told me if I had told him the story on the day he'd have had that teacher fired.
That message changed my life... for the first time I understood that shit happens, but you don't have to be a victim - you can make bad people pay, you can hold people to account for their actions - even if they are authority figures. I went through high school a great deal happier, and made some real friends. I went to University where I was very successful and today I am 32 and I can say that I earn more money in a day than that teacher likely earns in month.
There's a last little tail to the story. Just before I left primary school I bumped into that teacher one day, and she spoke to me, and talked of how "you don't like me because you're afraid of me" ... in retrospect, I hadn't fully understood why she chose to stop me and say that, nowadays I would outright have said to her "no, I don't like you because you horribly abused your position of authority and ruined my childhood you fucking bitch" and dared her to do anything about it.
The thing is - your fairytale happened. I'm a happy and successful person. I remember these events, but they didn't define me - except to give me a perpetual soft spot for the underdog. The good guys won - even if the bad guy wasn't punished, it was the LAST teacher who did something wrong to me and didn't get in deep shit.
There is a massive culture of power-abuse by teachers who think discipline is their job. I don't agree. Their job is to educate. Discipline is at best an evil they require to do their jobs and should be minimized not maximized. Their power, like that of any authority, should be the LEAST amount with which they can do their jobs, not the most.
But don't think she's doomed. Her parents are doing exactly the right things. She may suffer a while but don't be surprized if she comes out stronger - and with a lifelong belief in being a champion for those who are stepped upon.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead of suing the school. try suing the administrator specifically. True the school has more money. But if you really want to stop this. Sue the people that specifically did it for violating the policies of the school on a personal agenda. Every school administrator that thinks they may get sued instead of the school will follow the line quite well. Right now the administrator will think the school will take the brunt for their every action. I'm willing to bet there are many state and school policies that were violated. If the administrator has to take responsibility based on his actions he is going to think twice in the future. But as I said its less money.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I don't want to do that unless you call my parents"
will it result in false positives? Maybe. Will I honor that phone call? ABSOLUTELY.
Kids don't actually have many rights, especially during school hours. They are not protected by our laws because they can't vote. The only ones that can protect them from abuse of power is their parents, so whereas you are entitled to trial, counsel, not incriminating yourself, children are only really entitled to not being denied access to their parents. It is my job to extend my civil rights to my children in this situation, because they have none. So the earlier I am involved in an incident, the better.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ACLU (Score:4, Insightful)
The very blog article you have linked has an "update" at the bottom wherein the writer also says he thinks that CAN-SPAM might be too restrictive! His exact words are "too broad", but his description of the broadness is actually criticising the broadness of the restrictions. (ie. "criminalize the sending of “multiple” deceptive emails or the creation of more than five separate email accounts for sending commercial emails.").
Anyhow, even if your description of the ACLU's position was true (which your reference does not seem to support), don't you think it more credible to give the ACLU the benefit of the doubt that they may have a point, given the vast amount of experience, expertise and examples of them standing up for freedoms?
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about the parents? (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF did the last fifty comments on what to call "Americans" have to do with passwords, law enforcement, or free speech?
Re:Freest country in the world (Score:5, Insightful)
We have no recourse. If there were recourse in the US we'd have never have gone to Iraq, our jails would be stuffed with bankers, and we'd all be buying pot OTC. What we have instead is tyranny.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. It's that corporate (or government) shield thing. The people directly responsible aren't paying to defend the lawsuit, and they won't pay a single penny of any damages that may be awarded. They certainly won't do a single day of jail time if they are found to have broken some law. At best, they may get some extra training and be reassigned.
Since there is no real risk, they have no reason not to step out-of-bounds.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
I had something similar happen to me in... 6th or 7th grade? Might have been 8th. (So we're talking late 90s, early 00s.)
I was doing arts and crafts at some... library thing. Might have been boy scouts. The point is, it was also an out of school function. We were making our own bookmarks and then laminating them. I made one that said something like "Some people are nice..." on one side and "...and I'm not one of them!" on the back. Just something silly and teenage-y.
I go to school the next day, and I find out that I had left my stupid little bookmark there. The person running the class (who also happened to be my school's art teacher) showed it to my teacher, and my teacher talked to me and stated how it was inappropriate. I replied with it was none of her business at it had taken place outside of school. I suppose she was power tripping or one of those "think of the children" people, but she was really fishing for me to apologize or admit guilt or something. She threatened to escalate it to the principal. I said "Go ahead," sat down, and went back to my schoolwork.
Still have that bookmark somewhere...
Long story short, make sure you teach your kids how to deal with authority figures who are asshats. Teach them to say no to the authority when they make an unreasonable request. Teach them to stand up for themselves like my parents did.
Re:What about the parents? (Score:2, Insightful)
He can even use coercion, threats, and lies during the interrogation.
Oh, I see. So for normal citizens, that kind of thing usually isn't allowed, but for cops, it's perfectly okay!
Re:What about the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
As a west coaster, Yankees mean is a hated baseball team. *shakes fist eastward toward yankee stadium*