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Student Faces Expulsion for Blog Post
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu May 25, 2006 01:58 AM
from the complaining-only-makes-things-worse dept.
from the complaining-only-makes-things-worse dept.
ThPhox writes "A student in the Plainfield School District in New Jersey is facing expulsion from the school district for a post made on his personal blog during non school hours. From the article: "A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week, a local attorney said.""
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Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if he wasn't being bullied by the school district before, he sure is now. They just proved his argument for him!
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Common sense dictates that they can only sanction you for what you do/say in school. If they feel their image has been affected they can sue you. If they feel threatened they can notify the authorities.
However, they should not be able to unilaterally act as judge and jury of your actions outside the school.
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was in high school, a mere twelve or thirteen years ago, I was suspended for a party I had when my parents were out of town because it was rumored that there was (gasp) some marijuana there.
To their credit, my parents went to bat for me, saying it was none of the school's goddamned business what I did outside of school hours. They were royally pissed off at me, but they understood that the school's underlying premise was flawed and stupid.
To make a long story short, the suspension was cut in half as a compromise.
If the system wants to fuck you, it will find some excuse. It's a lesson I learned young, and a lesson that kid in New Jersey is learning now. I feel sorry for him, and I hope it turns out well for him. Hopefully the media coverage will cow the school enough that they back down, but they will probably find some absurd reason to press on.
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Informative)
FWI, you can't be found guilty of any of these things unless the other party proves they were somehow harmed by the slander or liable speech. If they can't prove it, you can still say it, even though its not true.
conspiracy
I believe most conspircy laws state that you must go beyond talking; you actually have to take some step to executing your conspircy.
Same goes for the infamous desire to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire!
Search Wikipedia for this; there are some interesting facts. FWIW, it shouldn't be the act of yelling fire that should be illegal; causing panic, wasting emergency responders' time, etc. is what should be illegal. I know, I'm splitting hairs, but I think its important to make the distinction so we don't undermine the right to free speech.
Wasting money and time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How exactly is this a 1st amendment case? (Score:5, Informative)
An example:
From: http://www.webstreetcafe.com/news/4_1_JO23_FREESPE ECH_S1.htm [webstreetcafe.com]
Everything he did he did outside of school. He used a computer from home. He used an account he created from home what was clear it was a personal activity," Yohnka said.Re:How exactly is this a 1st amendment case? (Score:5, Insightful)
At home, you can call the president a Nazi. You can mock spiritual leaders all you want. But for Christ's sake, don't say your school principal wears a dumb looking suit.
Re:How exactly is this a 1st amendment case? (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally did this for my child, she was to be suspended for "pushing" and after talking to her and her friends and who was involved (I.E. I Did the principals job for him) I informed my daughter to ignore the suspension notice and gave verbal notice to the principal that I will not honor his suspension request and I will bring lawyers into it if he chooses to ignore me.
She does not have a suspension on her record, Another fight of mine to inspect her record for errors once a year, and she recieved an apology from the principal.
You can not treat the people that run the schools as professionals because they typically are not. They shoot from the hip and make broad assumptions in order to make it a very easy day for them. Teachers typically do not give a rats ass about teaching and the administrators simply get "annoyed" when something is brought up to them for attention. Many cases of hallway mugging and other incidents come home with the kids, the teachers care less that it is happening so I did 2 things. 1- teach my child to defend herself very effictively. 2- she is going to a private school for the rest of her grade school time.
Public schools in America = lowest quality education you can possibly get for your child. Yes there are exceptions of teachers that do care and make a difference but they are outnumbered by the crappy ones 20 to 1 and it is getting worse as the years go by. EVERYONE remembers the teacher that was retiring that year. You did nothing in his/her class. It was either nothing but movies or "self guided study" and the tests were all open book.
Re:How exactly is this a 1st amendment case? (Score:5, Interesting)
This was not my experience in public school. In fact, I received a generally excellent education and attended a private college where I did just fine keeping up with the students who had attended exclusive private schools for their pre-college work. In fact, with the Advanced Placement credits I had earned, I entered with nearly a semester of college credit.
I also was taught by two retiring teachers. Both changed nothing in their grading policiees or teaching methods in their respective final years. Hell, my physics teacher actually enjoyed teaching that he applied to for an exemption to the mandatory retirement which was never processed as he managed to die over the summer vacation after I graduated.
There. Now we have dueling anecdotes, which is one reason that anecdotal arguments prove nothing. I learned that in a public high school logic class.
Re:Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
BZZZZZZZZZT - WRONG. It is all about distribution of wealth.
The rich have power to decide where the money of the poor must flow. They (banks, insurance companies etc) take money from the poor by raising high interest on loans etc, making the rich richer and the poor poorer- effectively *causing* poverty. This is a very desireable situation for them because more people will need loans.
If you're saying the poor are to blame for this, you're either happily ignorant middle-class or your rich daddy never told you where the money came from.
Re:Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, that may not entirely be true. I come from a very poor family. My grandparents were sharecroppers (they worked other people's land for a share of the yeild) and my parents struggled to make ends meet. We were evicted from a half a dozen homes, and moved from a dozen or so before we could be evicted, because we could not pay the rent. I clearly remember wondering if we were going to eat on Christmas (much less get any presents,) one year.
Still, even with alcoholism, prescription drug addiction, infidelity and the inability to keep jobs, my family worked it's way out of poverty to a decent middle-class life.
My sister left home at 15, got pregnant by 17 by a resident-alien (here legally, but not a citizen,) and was married and divorced before the baby was a year old. That baby is now 16, is an honor student at a decent high school, dances classical ballet, tap, jazz, etc, and was awarded the "best student of her year" by her principal last week.
With a little hard work and some principles, anyone can work his way out of poverty and into a decent life. Children who are cared for and taught the right principles can excel, even in public schools.
I ended up joining the armed forces, then getting out and using the Montgomery GI bill to go to school. I'm now a professional with a Masters degree, earning a six figure income and have a bright future ahead of me. Don't say the poor are being univerisally exploited by the rich. They are being held back by their own habits.
America is the land of opportunity, where anyone can be rich. No one is going to hand it to you, it takes hard work and perseverance, and a clear understanding that one's choices define one's circumstances, not the other way around.
It's true that it's harder for someone with no resources to climb out of poverty. I'm not claiming that isn't. Also, I acknowlege that there are plenty of soft rich kids out there who will do just fine because they had every advantage given to them. Also, I will be a working stiff all of my life, where some people will get to dabble in whatever suits their fancy because Daddy gave them an huge inheritance.
All of that having been said, there is some truth in the statement, "The rich are getting richer because they are doing those things that made them rich, while the poor are getting poorer because they continue to do those things that made them poor."
There is a growing descrepancy between the rich and the poor in this country, but it is NOT because the poor are getting poorer. The poor are not any more poor than they were in the 1930's, the 1940's or the 1950's. In fact, when was the last time anyone has seen mass starvation in the US? People boiling their shoes for the leather? The biggest problems among the "poor" in America seem to be obesity and drug use.
The rich are getting richer, and it is primarily because they can invest their money in business, and the value of business is growing. Their investments grow, so EVERYONE who has invested in them gets richer. That includes people in the lower middle class who invest what little they can, and the "merchant class" who own small businesses or farms.
When someone comes to me and says, "the poor are only poor because the rich made them that way" they are also saying, "anyone who has achieved a comfortable life is evil, because they are repressing the poor." Does this mean that all of my hard work and sacrifice have been a sham, and I'm really part of a secret conspiracy to exploit the innocent poor? I beg to differ. We have to get away from cult of the repressed, and start encouraging "the poor" to do those things that will make them more productive and more comfortable.
In an ideal world, we would not have a "poor" class. We would have a baseline of people who live a simple, yet comfortable life and a rising level of families who strive for more. We would stop using the word "poor" to describe an economic status, because it would be recognized that the people in t
Re:Wasting money and time (Score:5, Insightful)
Bold/italic emphasis mine, since this is probably the part that allowed the small-minded administrators at the school to take action... Since when is BRINGING UP Columbine automatically a veiled threat? In the context of a threatening message, it could be considered that, certainly. Yet, if you read it in context here it doesn't seem threatening at all. It seems like a statement of fact: The kids at Columbine were bullied, and there's very little difference between bullying committed by students as opposed to faculty/staff. Telling somebody to shut up for criticizing you could be described as bullying...
Certainly, what he has written here is not fine literature, but hardly a "Veiled threat." He was, inartfully, making the point that by punishing students for blog posts in order to "protect the kids" the school administration might, ironically, be creating the very problem it seeks to prevent. He explicitly says they didn't intend to threaten anybody, simply posting reactions to events from their own lives as an act of free expression.
This is a clear over-reach by the school system--He didn't post the page from school on their computer or internet connection, he did it from home. Further, other media sources have indicated that Xanga/MySpace/Friendster (the "social networking" sites) aren't accessible from the school, so there is no chance of this kid's web-site being "disruptive to the educational process," which was the last standard I am aware of for determining whether a school can abridge student civili rights or not. The school's claim that the message was threatening is dubious at best when taken in context.
It seems more likely that some administrators came down hard on somebody this person knew, and he wrote a scathing (in its own way) response that depicts those administrators as ogres. Instead of disrupting the school with a protest, he went home and wrote constitutionally protected editorial article on his web-site. Administrators decided to further-overreact by suspending him and threatening expulsion. Now they're really up shit creek, because if they back down they're "caving" in the eyes of everybody because of the previous hardline stance they've taken. If they go forward and expel him, it essentially validates everything in the kid's post--that they are taking away kids educational opportunities.
thats all right (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
Illinois state law says that schools are allowed to act in the best interest of a student, as a parent when the parent is not around (ie, during school days). It does not say schools can discipline students for their thoughts and actions outside of school and not during school time. However, schools are taking it upon themselves to do this regardless.
I find depriving a student of his 1st ammendment rights or his education not in his "best interest."
This must stop. The only way it will happen is having cases like this go to court, and schools finally exposed for what they are doing.
Re:Nothing New (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it is. There's nothing that will teach students the importance of civil liberties the way a case like this does.
In my high school there was an official school paper (De Tand) that toed the party line. Students started producing their own paper(Bernrode Actueel), but after some criticism of teachers were forbidden to hand them out in school. They just started handing them out just outside the school gates. A few years later Bernrode Actueel replaced De Tand, and to the best of my knowledge it still has that place, 20 years later.
Stuff like that has taught me a lot about the world in a setting that is relatively safe.
Regards,
Tob
Similar event here in Georgia recently (Score:5, Informative)
One other area brought up is that not only would the student have problems but as they are minors it is possible that the parents would have to bear financial responsibility.
I wonder how long before public school students are no longer allowed to post on subjects that are not life threatening but school threatening like vouchers and such?
Apparently not long...
In Chicago, Community High School District 128 voted unanimously on Monday to require that all students participating in extracurricular activities sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of "illegal or inappropriate" behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action.
Re:Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they don't.
The First Amendment, as extended through the Fourteenth and interpreted by the Supreme Court, bars government institutions from punishing or rewarding anyone on the basis of almost all speech. Note that the school in question is a public school, and thus is a government institution and bound by that law.
Compared to overseas (Score:5, Informative)
It's in IL, not NJ (Score:5, Insightful)
Clue: it's in the CHICAGO Sun-Times.
Further clue: from TFA - "Joliet Police".
I live near there - Plainfield is where the big Tornado disaster occurred about 12-13 years ago.
I know where this mentality comes from (Score:5, Interesting)
Left and Right -- The Odd Couple (Score:5, Insightful)
Odd how these threats to basic rights seem to come from the Left and the Right equally. Nobody in the extreme can ever stand dissenting opinion.
Not Surpised (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, one of the books I had to read for high school was "All Quiet on the Western Front". The drill sergeant in the book was a postman prior to the war so he felt the need to abuse the recruits. He knew that outside of his position in the heirarchy, no one respected him as a person so he abused his powers as a drill sergeant to make himself feel better. Reminds me of some school administrators... Sad bastards.
Power (Score:5, Insightful)
The student should be commended for what he did. If he is genuinely being "threatened" and "bullied" by his school then he not only had a right but something of a duty to inform others of that, and yes, he should be in court, but as a plaintiff, not a defendant.
bullies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:bullies (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe this is a good lesson on how the world works (as a previous poster mentioned).
How about this lesson? "This is how it is" does not mean "This is how it should be".
Strange, I never seemed to get taught that in school either.
Re:bullies (Score:5, Insightful)
Wildly Wrong, Probably Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools are mandatory. School attendance is not optional in the US. Kids have to go. There are a few who have the means to attend alternatives but those who don't are forced to attend public schools no matter what.
Schools are part of the government. Like police and judges our schools are government bodies. You can not give schools the ability to force the removal of fundamental rights. Judges can't. Police can't. Schools *MUST* be bound by the bill of rights including the right to free speech. They don't have the right to take that away much like they don't have the right to take your life away (forget detention.. you're going to the gas chamber.) You could argue that schools should be allowed to control speech in school creating short periods of time when their rights are suspended, although it's probably a bad idea. To say they have the ability to remove fundamental rights from people altogether is completely ludicrous. No federal, state or local government body can have that power. Granted, the bill of rights only specifically mentions federal government, the trend lately seems to be ruling that the 14'th amendment extends the bill of rights to state and local government. This would include schools.
The other thing that it's important to note is that speech restriction is essentially creating thought crimes and the effects are usually precisely the opposite of what was intended. Discouraging open exchange only worsens the problem that we are trying to ignore or make invisible. The first amendment exists for this reason and it's for this reason we should defend it absolutely without question always. Everyone has a right to be heard.
So glad I'm no longer in HS... (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be like going to a prison camp, being afraid of what to do, how to act, and what to say for fear of suspension and expulsion.
Thankfully my school had a program where you could go to community college instead of taking high school classes, so I didn't even spend my last two years at my highschool.
Happened to me (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/incident.txt [textfiles.com]
The public school system is used to maintain social control, not educate. No one will stand up for the free speech rights of young people, and these rights are necessary for an informed and free society. The only solution is abandon compulsory education. Kids would be better off without being forced to go. Access to public Libraries would allow them to read; (at my school "unauthorized reading material" was banned). Libraries or homes would also give us free uncensored access to the Internet. Many leaders in unions, business, and non-profits are more then willing to hold workshops and lectures for high school aged kids. Their real world experience could replace incompetent teachers. There is nothing wrong with using public resources to teach young people, but forcing kids to spend their days being coerced into memorizing minutia, and detaining or expelling anyone with the capability for independent thought, that just further perpetuates the sort of passive obedience that makes American workers and consumers so easily manipulated.
Re:Happened to me (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose you feel like the Chinese dissident, smashing the opression of the schools internet filter (i.e. "combatting censorship on the internet). Of course unlike chinese dissidents you can go home to an unfiltered internet and read whatever you want. The only thing you accomplished was thumbing your nose at authority by jumping the little kiddie fence they erected. Filters are in general a bad idea, and will always be able to be bypassed by people with minimal knowledge. But bucking authority isn't going to get that policy changed one bit. More likely it will only strengthen the resolve of your enemies.
If you really wanted to change the policy you'd investigate what sites are blocked by the filter and started writing about it. Appeal to both sides. Does it filter out Planned Parenthood or the ACLU? How about Rush Limbaugh or the Christian Coalition? Many people hear filtering and only assume they're filtering out porn sites. A more stark comparison of the reality of filtering is far more convincing than hearing about some dumb kid who thinks he's smarter than the school administrators (even if that does happen to be true in the case of networking technology).
Here's his website (Score:5, Informative)
Talk about over reaction though. Why not just bug the police to bust his ass for underage drinking? If that's what the district really wants. Or, why not just take this to its logical conclusion and expell almost every teenager for, well, being a teenager.
Gee, This Sounds Familiar... (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually was a student in the Oceanport School District not all that long ago, and lived not all that far from Plainfield; let me tell you, there's nothing unusual about these towns at all. They're your average run-of-the-mill suburbs. I point out just how normal these towns are to underscore that this kind of free-speech-violating-bullshit can and will happen everywhere unless we actually shout and scream and go out of our way to stop it from happening.
Same Here (Score:5, Interesting)
Mmm, I wonder if the reverse is true (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell the world he didn't bring a date to the prom?
Freespeech always seems to be onsided.
Frankly in this case I don't know what to think. I myself have once done a school project where we had to make a brochure about something. I parodied the school brochure but highlighted stuff like the fact the computer room could not be used outside class hours and other lacking facilities.
Got called into the directors office but nothing major, he just wanted to ask wich of them were true, and they were corrected. Turned out that the stuff I found stupid were never intended to be that way but had just evolved over the years.
Granted this was holland and nobody had heard of school shootings. Then again I used humor and didn't insult anyone.
As always there is probably a fine line with the case of what people are allowed to say, I just wonder if all the people defending the right of students to insult teachers feel that teachers have the same right to insult their students. Cause I am pretty sure that if teachers were allowed they have some real cursing to get off their chest.
Re:Mmm, I wonder if the reverse is true (Score:5, Insightful)
I work at a high school (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The school can't suspend a student for what they say in a blog, UNLESS the student was using a school computer during school time to do the blog. If he wasn't, they can't probably legally do anything unless the student's charges are disprovable, in which case they could sue him for libel, maybe.
2. It IS true that schools do NOT fully understand the Internet and they ARE afraid of it. In many cases they are overreacting to issues such as kids talking to each other on myspace. But part of the reason for that is that if a kid were to get into trouble outside of school because of something they read or did on myspace on a school computer, the parents would attempt to sue the school. Folks are really quick to point blame the schools for their kids making stupid decisions.
3. It's popular to hate schools and teachers here on slashdot, and I didn't really think too highly of my high school education either, but really most of the people I work with care about their jobs, and they're good people. I feel sorry for them, because they teach all the students - not just the bright, well behaved ones but also the obnoxious surly defiant unthankful disrespectful teens who think they know everything and don't care about anyone but themselves. They know that this stage of life is notorious for testing boundries and rebelling against authority. And they come into work each day and do the best they can, most of the folks. Most of the people here on slashdot couldn't do their job for a week without running home and crying into their huggy pillow. Blame the curriculum, or blame the bad teachers, but please don't lump all teachers into that category. Seeing posts saying all teachers suck get moderated high makes those of us here who are mature just sorta shake our heads. Slashdot readers and mods will argue for logic in one sentence and fail to apply it in the next.
School systems empower the bullies (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools, the press & the public are so concerned over issues like Columbine that they still just don't get it. These poor kids keep on getting abused over & over again. The teachers won't do anything, the principal won't do anything even when you bring it to their attention.
Being at the bottom of the pecking order at school, no one ever told me it was OK to fight back (except for one gym teacher & that was later in my school career when. I was afraid I would get in trouble. Which I would have, but the end result would have been better. Back then I didn't have the perspective that a detention here or there would not have been that big of a deal. It certainly doesn't faze the bullies.
If you are young & in school & being bullied. Here is what I suggest:
1. First stop go ahead & tell a teacher & your parents.
2. If that teacher does nothing, tell another teacher. Keep on telling all the teachers you have until one listens to you.
3. If that fails, tell the principal.
4. If that fails & you go to a religious school tell the pastor, rabbi, priest or whomever is in charge of the congregation. This is essentially going up the chain of command.
5. If you are being physically assaulted in any way off of school grounds & the school does nothing call the cops. The cops might try to blow you off, but insist on filing an assault complaint. Do the same if the assault occurs on school ground and the school refuses do anything about it.
6. Keep a log of the abuse. Who you told about it & what that person did about it if anything.
7. If you have run through all these options, start fighting back against physical abuse. Yes. You will get in trouble. But bullies prefer to go after the ones who don't fight back. You will probably get pummeled. Just make sure you get in a good right hook. Try not to be a spaze. Bullies love to get a reaction out of you.
8. Don't become the bully yourself. Fight back is defense, not offense.
9. Consider some self-defense classes (For defense, don't become the aggressor). Bullies will pass you over for easier targets.
10. Do something about your social awkwardness. Get involved with some clubs. Being social is a skill to learn. Bullies prefer victims who don't have friends. Boy scouts, soccer, gaming clubs, archery, swimming, find a way to interact with more people. You'll get better at it.
11. Keep in mind that you will grow out of this. As people get older, they tend to appreciate other's differences. What made you the bottom of the gene pool in grade school will probably be really cool in college.
Re:schools don't offer "rights" per se. (Score:5, Insightful)
But schools CAN'T dictate what dress the students wear at home, and can't dictate what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity when they are sitting at their dinner tables with their families.
My reading is that the Columbine post was posted AFTER the school threatened expulsion, though the article is very unclear.
In my opinion (only) I think it's disruptive.
How so?
In what way does a post on a website that probably can't be visited on school property disrupt classroom activity?
Let me clear something up for you... (Score:5, Informative)
"Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion.
The court also cleared the way for Frederick to seek damages, saying Morse was aware of relevant case law and should have known her actions violated his rights. Courtesy of MSNBC.com. (OK, I did Google for that).
The principal, Morse, was upset that the banner undermined the schools anti-drug message, among other things. The point being that a school, as a government entity, doesn't get to pick and choose what speech is permissible and what is not off of school property and not on school time.
Re:schools don't offer "rights" per se. (Score:5, Interesting)
Schools are government bodies and attendance is mandatory. All children in this country who don't have the means to attian an alternate education are forced to be subjected to public school's rules. That makes your exmampeles irrelivant. The appropriate analogous situation would be prison. We do not allow prisons to remove inmates free speech rights, why would we let schools.
This is legal. Schools are allowed to have dress codes. Schools are allowed to decide what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity to the learning environment.
These things are pseudo-legal and only involve behavior while within the walls of the school. To extend the schools reach to everything a student does all the time is pretty obviously wrong. You wouldn't think it was right for schools impose a dress code on kids when they were at home would you?
Some people still don't get Columbine. The lesson there is trying to suppress issues and make them go away quietly is exactly the wrong thing to do. It makes things worse. The great thing is that lots of people did learn the lesson and started to listen to kids who didn't think everything was just perfect in their schools. Sadly this seems to be a school that has forgotten the lesson and is comfortable insisting students shut up and pretend everything is great.
Re:schools don't offer "rights" per se. (Score:5, Interesting)
In either case, flying off the handle and jumping directly to expulsion doesn't even address the problem of an implied threat. At best, it removes the "problem", at worst, it exacerbates the issue. Maybe some counseling to make the kid think he's at least got the school's respect? Maybe they could pull the old, "Hey, we're just following the rules... we really are sorry. I'm sure there are more constructive ways to criticize the system. Would you like to attend a PTA meeting and see how this stuff works?"
There is such a thing as basic human decency. Yeah, the Columbine kids were dicks ot the highest order. Sure, this kid made a giant mistake in invoking their names. Think about his age, though. Was he even in elementary school when Columbine happened? Does he really understand the impact? Haven't you ever gotten so frustrated you just shouted out the most shocking thing you could remember in attempt to make an impact?
Here's an anecdote. Back in college, we got some new network administrators that were being asses about running services on the network, and were continuously port scanning to find offenders. I was on the college's webteam, so I had apache running, and got flagged. They told me to shut down. I told them, "How many people have to die before you notice I make the school's damn website, so I need a development system!?" Or something to that effect, I don't remember and it was quite a while ago. This was of course after they had taken away our keys to the lab we used to make the website, and imposed many other arbitrary elements that did not apply to previous years.
Did I have any intention of hurting anyone? No. Was I pissed and just as equally an ass for reacting to their prodding? Yes. Could both of us handled the situation in a better manner? Hell yes. The point here, is that had they respected the students that they depended on, and I respected their abilities as administrators, there would have been no cause for frustration, and nobody would have felt bullied or threatened.
People have their foibles, especially teenagers. I for one, am glad the admins and I later had a discussion and came to a mutual agreement, where I also apologized for blowing-up. Could they have expelled me instead? Maybe, but only if they were trying to prove some point.
Re:Organizations behave like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Organizations behave like this... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Organizations behave like this... (Score:5, Funny)
Harvard? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He does make an implied threat... (Score:5, Insightful)
When he wrote that, he was making a comparison to a group that was pushed so far, and couldn't stand up for themselves in any other way, that they simply had nothing left to lose. I think this context is pretty clear in his words.
Do you have any idea what it's like to feel that you're being opressed, and there isn't a thing in the world you can do about it? It grinds down your soul, until there is either nothing left, or you are forced to make a (often terrible) stand for what you believe in.
Your interpretation of what he said says just as much about YOU (and the school district, which clearly took the same interpretation) as what he wrote says about HIM.
The answer here is not to shut him up, it's not to expel him, and it's not even to suspend him. It's to properly address his complaints, preferrably in a public forum, until both sides are happy.