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Judge Munley is So Out of My Top 8
from the surprised-he-was-there-in-the-first-place dept.
Apart from the politics of minors' free speech rights in general, I think there are at least three logical problems with the ruling. The first is the judge's argument that even though on-campus speech and off-campus speech are separate, if the off-campus speech is offensive enough, that elevates it to the point of giving the school jurisdiction over it. The second is the judge's comparison between a student's parody MySpace page, and the mock-threatening rap lyrics that got a student expelled in another court case -- a court ruled that the school overstepped their bounds by expelling the student for the rap song, but Judge Munley said that a MySpace page jokingly calling the principal a "sex addict" was actually more offensive than the violent rap lyrics. The third is the argument that because the student's conduct was so offensive that it could have theoretically been criminally punished if the principal took her to court, that made it acceptable for the school to take the easier route of suspending her.
All right, all together now: I'm not a lawyer, and probably neither are you. But as I've said before, if you put 10 judges in 10 separate rooms and asked them to decide this case (or any other case) independently of each other, you'd be very unlikely to get a consensus anyway. The importance of courts in a civilized society is that they provide a peaceful means of settling disputes, not because we expect that the judges will actually get the "right" answer -- that's why we don't have a crisis of faith in the system every time the Supreme Court splits 5-4. (By contrast, when physicists work on problems involving car safety and satellite trajectories, we do care about them getting the "right" answer, and so physicists are held to a higher standard than judges -- we expect that 9 physicists working on the same problem in separate rooms would all get the same result.) That goes for the rest of us too -- I have no independent confirmation that I'm right, and anyone ranting with supreme confidence that I'm wrong, has no independent confirmation that they're right, either. The best we can do is try to make arguments that are logically consistent, and check that even if they are free of internal contradicions, that they also can't be carried through to an absurd conclusion.
To wit: Judge Munley's decision cites four prior cases that involved students making offensive or disruptive speech (although still not as offensive as the MySpace page in this case calling the principal a pedophile) while on school property or at school events: Bethel School Dist v. Fraser, Hazlewood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, Morse v. Frederick, and Klein v. Smith. In those cases, the courts ruled that the discipline did not violate the students' rights because the students were at school events or on campus when they made the statements at issue. Judge Munley then cites another list of cases in which students published speech that was generally more offensive than the incidents in the first list, but did it on their own time, away from school: Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. Dist., Latour v. Riverside Beaver Sch. Dist., Killion v. Franklin Regaional Sch. Dist., and Layshock v. Hermitage Sch. Dist. In all of these cases, the courts ruled that the school districts violated the students' rights by punishing them for off-campus speech. So far, all eight of these cases cited by Munley, followed the rule: on-campus or school-affiliated speech is punishable, off-campus speech is not. (Munley cites only one case that was an exception to this rule: Fenton v. Stear, in which the court upheld the punishment of a student who was off campus when he loudly referred to a teacher as a "prick.")
But then, Judge Munley argues more or less that the speech in this case is so offensive (calling the principal a sex addict and a pedophile), that you're allowed to lift it out of the category of off-campus speech and treat it by analogy to earlier cases involving on-campus speech. Munley wrote:
In the instant case, there can be no doubt that the speech used is vulgar and lewd. The profile contains words such as "fucking," "bitch," "fagass," "dick," "tight ass," and "dick head." The speech does not make any type of political statement. It is merely an attack on the school's principal. It makes him out to be a pedophile and sex addict. This speech is not the Tinker silent political protest. It is more akin to the lewd and vulgar speech addressed in Fraser. It is also akin to the speech that promoted illegal actions in the Morse case.
The content itself is "akin" to the offensive speech in the earlier cases, but what difference does that make, if the speech didn't take place in school? Getting back to first principles: Why does the First Amendment generally grant the freedom to call people "dick" and "tight ass"? Because it doesn't hurt anyone except to the extent that it hurts their feelings, and you don't have a right to unhurt feelings. Because the remarks can be made in the context of general legitimate criticism of someone, which might motivate them to change the behavior that led someone to call them a "tight ass" in the first place. Once these premises are accepted, it doesn't matter if you ratchet up the offensiveness from calling someone a "dick" to calling them a "fucking dick." It does change the analysis if you move the speech to a different setting, e.g. standing up in class when people are trying to learn, and shouting that the principal is a "fucking dick." But that's not what this student was doing.
After all, if the regulation of off-campus speech were justified in order to prevent harm or embarrassment to the principal, carry that through to its logical conclusion: Suppose a former student, who had since graduated, created the parody MySpace page and e-mailed it to friends at the school. The school's "interest" in preserving order and protecting the principal's reputation, would be exactly the same -- and yet no court has ever suggested that the government can punish a former student for speech outside of school (unless the speech rises to the level of threats or libel, which anyone can be punished for, regardless of the former student-principal relationship). To be punished, the former student would have to bring the speech into the school, where it could cause a disruption (and where, as a non-student, they could be banned from the premises anyway).
As for the second problem, apart from the issue of whether offensiveness alone is enough to give the school the right to punish a student for off-campus speech, there is the question of what criteria Judge Munley used to determine that the MySpace page was more offensive than the student off-campus speech in previous cases. In Latour v. Riverside Beaver Sch. Dist. , the court found that a student's rap lyrics which made mock threats toward another student, identified by name, could not be treated as a true threat because they were the kind of boastful posturing that rappers are known for (apparently including the ones in junior high school these days). Similarly, the MySpace page created in this case, began with the words:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy,
expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world
with a small dick PRINCIPAL
and hopefully the principal would agree that any reasonable reader would know this was not written by him. So if the content of the speech in both cases was clearly not meant to be taken seriously, a fair apples-to-apples comparison would be to ask which is the more offensive topic: violence, or a joke about a principal listing among his "interests": "detention, being a tight ass, riding the fraintrain, spending time with my child (who looks like a gorilla), baseball, my golden pen, fucking in my office, hitting on students and their parents"?
What Judge Munley seems to be saying is that joking about murder is more acceptable than joking about a principal hitting on students. While I think this is absurd and offensive to victims of violence, I have to admit that this is at least consistent with standards of censorship in the U.S. It's a tired old complaint, but it's never been satisfactorily answered: Why can you show a character being killed on television, but a sex act is taboo? Why are the most offensive swear words derived from sex acts and sex organs, but there are no equivalent words for murder that are banned from the airwaves? What's worse?
Third, the judge seemed to adopt the position that because the student could theoretically have been prosecuted for creating the fake MySpace profile, that made it acceptable for the school to impose a milder punishment that circumvented the court system. Judge Munley wrote:
The speech at issue here could have been the basis for criminal charges against J.S. Additionally, the state police indicated to McGonigle that he could press harassment charges based upon the imposter profile. (Dep. McG, 98- 99). McGonigle indicated that he would not press charges, but asked the police officer to contact the students involved and their parents to inform them of the seriousness of the situation. (Dep. McG at 99, 163-64). The officer summoned the students and their parents to the state police station and discussed the seriousness of the profile and that McGonigle would not press charges.
It's at least debatable whether the MySpace page, which was an obvious parody, could have been the basis for criminal charges. But suppose we grant the judge that point. In that case, even if we know that someone's actions would have gotten them a more severe punishment from the courts, is it acceptable to give them a lighter punishment for something else, just because that's simpler for the school?
No. First, because it fosters disrespect for the rule of law in general: If you committed X, then you should be punished for X, according to the rules set up for punishing X. When Judge Jackie Glass began O.J. Simpson's trial this month for robbing two men at gunpoint, she told jurors: "If you think you are going to punish Mr Simpson for what happened in 1995, this is not the case for you." She, like most sentient beings, probably believed privately that O.J. committed the murders in 1994, but she knew the rule of law was more important than the outcome of any one case, even a murder trial. Second, lighter punishments (such as a suspension from school) often come with a lower standard of judicial review, so you could end up getting an undeserved punishment, in cases where a proper trial for the actual crime at issue might have found that you should not have been punished at all. (Al Capone did get put away for tax evasion, but the court found that he was in fact guilty of tax evasion -- they weren't reaching that as a compromise to avoid trying him for his crimes as a gangster.)
To come clean, however, I have to admit that I have tried to egg judges down that route occasionally. I've taken spammers to court and gotten them to say, under oath, that they never sent any spam and didn't know what I was talking about, before I revealed a tape-recording of a conversation (recorded legally) in which they offered to send 5 million pieces of spam for $500, that the spams were routed out through a server in China to help defeat spam filters, etc. The idea was that the judge would get pissed at the spammer for committing perjury, but realize that it would be too much paperwork to prosecute that, so just bang them over the head with a thousand-dollar judgment for spamming, which would go to me. Unfortunately this can backfire if the judge is so opposed to anti-spam suits that no amount of evidence will convince them anyway. But even if it had worked, it would not be strictly correct to say that justice had been done -- perjury should be punished as perjury, even if only with a slap on the wrist.
So, I'm sure that Judge Munley was trying in his own way to do the right thing by preserving order in the school system, but he probably decided in advance what conclusion to reach, and came up with the arguments after the fact. Still, it may not be a loss for student rights in the long run. The ACLU, which represented the student, has not said whether they will appeal, and anyway, virtually all other caselaw so far has said that student speech off campus is protected, as Judge Munley himself pointed out.
This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
Better for the kid to learn now that "free speech" is (and always has been) a crock of shit in the U.S. It's just one of those terms that we throw around to make ourselves feel superior to other countries. But when you take even the most cursory look at it, you realize it's as hollow as a reed. "The right to free speech" in reality translates to "The right to conventional, relatively non-controversial speech in a setting that will not upset anyone or be particularly noticed by anyone who might be offended or threatened by said speech." The second you attempt to break out of any one of those tight boundaries, you WILL find yourself in jail/kicked out of school/fired/persecuted or in some way silenced or punished.
That kid just learned one of the most important lessons in life: That what people SAY and CLAIM has little to do with what they DO and how they actually ACT. And that goes for the government, politicians, and just about everyone else. Just because some civics class says you have "the right to free speech" does not mean that you can actually ever speak freely in any real world environment without fear of persecution.
Consider it the first of many disillusioning life lessons, kid.
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I feel dumber for having read your response ...
"Free Speech" doesn't mean that you get to say whatever you want to say all the time without consequences. Realistically, what was the worse outcome, being suspended for a couple of days or having the principle sue her and her parents for slandering him?
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
"Free Speech" doesn't mean that you get to say whatever you want to say all the time without consequences. Realistically, what was the worse outcome, being suspended for a couple of days or having the principle sue her and her parents for slandering him?
Not only that, but the student only got suspended. I didn't find anything to support the claim that the student doesn't still maintain the right to keep the myspace page up. So she still has the right to free speech, and also the right to suffer the consequences for he actions. Do you think it would be a violation of your free speech rights if you got fired for putting a myspace page up with slander or libel about your boss?
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
What catches my attention is that the student didn't merely call the principle names, but also accused the principle of engaging in a felony (chile abuse; aka "hitting on kids"). It is never "free speech" to accuse someone of a crime; especially, as is now the case in our society, a crime where society consistently considers the accused to be guilty until proven innocent.
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
No we have the right for controversial speech. We don't have the right to personally attack people without good evidence to back it up. Free Speech has a limit when you use it to Harm someone(s).
Parent
God, enough of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh huh.
Um, of course they will. You see, those are the consequences of your free speech. There has never been any real disagreement on this issue, you have free speech, and you have the responsibility to use it wisely.
Pretending like "free speech" means "say whatever the fuck I want with impunity, while simultaneously forcing others to accept my speech without exercising their own free speech (which is your primary complaint)" is bullshit.
Free speech never meant "say what you like with impunity" and anyone claiming otherwise is full of it.
Parent
Re:God, enough of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Funny)
I have it on good authority that elrous0 is a pedophile. He has repeatedly propositioned me for sex (I'm a 12 year old boy), and has harassed my family when I've rejected him. Also, he has B.O.
Any down-mods for this post are an attack on free-speech and I will respond by murdering the president.
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a "crock of shit". Free speech (in the U.S.) doesn't mean one can say anything they want about someone with impunity. Unless the site was *clearly* a parody, calling someone a "sex addict who 'hits on students'" is slander - or libel when written.
I haven't seen the student site but can't really imagine why it would be considered a parody. Is the principal famous or a otherwise well-known or out-spoken person with a position on the subject? Is the student obviously poking fun at the person and/or his position, or just making stuff up that another, uninformed, person may take to be truth?
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
"The right to free speech" in reality translates to "The right to conventional, relatively non-controversial speech in a setting that will not upset anyone or be particularly noticed by anyone who might be offended or threatened by said speech." The second you attempt to break out of any one of those tight boundaries, you WILL find yourself in jail/kicked out of school/fired/persecuted or in some way silenced or punished.
I think that we need to look at the right to free speech in the context it was originally added in, and is still relevant in other places in the world. The fact of the matter is, you are free to say whatever you want, but not without consequences. When "the right to free speech" was made a Big Thing, and again, in other places in the world, you could be deprived of life/liberty for saying anything remotely against the $LEADER (Monarch, Church, Dictator, Baron).
While I do think that this, and many other judgements go against the spirit of the "free speech", I think that we need to be careful to avoid hyperbole about just how much it's curtailed. You don't have roving squads of government sponsored thugs taking/torturing/killing people for speaking out. You don't have to watch every word you say to your friends/neighbours, you don't have to be careful about what you write.
So, while we have free speech, that doesn't mean "speech with no consequences". In this case, specifically, the student was probably a little out of line, but is allowed to be. However, there were consequences, and none of them involved an overly harsh punishment (oohh, suspended!).
Don't take this as me saying it's ok for this to happen, but simply as me saying "lets put things in the right light". Lets avoid the OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS ENDING hyperbole that is so popular on these threads, and speak reasonably, because honestly, things could be a lot worse.
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to explained out-right that we cannot live by our professed and proclaimed ideals. Our politicians suppress peaceful protests during political rallies often resulting in violent conflicts, abuse by police and false imprisonment.
The lesson should be that position and authority trumps the rule of law. We are seeing that all over in spite of constitutional law to the contrary.
But in looking at the case in hand, I have to wonder what the "best" course of action should be. Accusing someone of professional misconduct and of being a pedophile [starting a witch hunt under the notion that there must be a 'grain of truth'] is a very damaging act.
I think the "right" thing to do would have been to first demand a retraction, removal and apology. Failing that, the principal should have filed his own individual suit against the student. "Free Speech" does have its practical limits after all. Using the force of the principal's authority in this way sends a message that reflects a deviation from our social ideals. And ultimately, the parody was a personal attack and should be responded to personally, not professionally. Words like "Abuse of position, power and authority" come to mind when the individual attack is responded to in this way.
I think the principal should "fight back" but should also "fight fair." ...and this doesn't bring up the shadowy question of whether or not there is a grain of truth in the parody.
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an interesting case because the submitter is correct. There's no jurisdiction for a school to be regulating speech outside the school. If the principal has a problem with something said about him outside of his little sphere of influence, then he isn't God, nor a king. He should press charges for civil libel, which would surely be dropped because there's no arguement for damages.
There was a case in Alaska which was tried by the Supreme Court of the United States, and they spent the entire discussion phase trying to determine whether the acts had taken place during school time, turning it into something the school has jurisdiction over.
The ruling which says the principal has jurisdiction over a student's free time is simply extending a despotic bureaucrat's powers far beyond what they ought to be. It's bad enough that we subject our children to the tyrannical reign of the school administration, which exists without any checks or balances, without any due process or practical restraint on abuses of power, for 8 hours a day. Allowing them power over children fully 24 hours a day is placing children fully into the custody of the school. We might as well stop asking parents to watch their children at all, because the "benevolent" god-kings in the school administration can act as judge, jury, and executioner in all cases, on and off of school property.
Parent
Re:This is actually quite educational (Score:5, Informative)
If I were to call you a motherfucking dumbass, cock-licking asswipe, I'd be legal and in the clear, as they represent opinions.
However, if I were to call you a pedophile kiddie-diddler anal-raper, I'd be breaking heavy libel laws, as those are legal devices only found as such in a court room under "Guilty".
It's the same reason why Rosie O'Donnell could have gotten in a lawsuit with Donald Trump. She said that he went bankrupt. He filed no bankruptcy proceeding. Because bankruptcy is a legal device, and she was falsely claiming it, she was breaking slander, in that case (was on TV when she said it: library-books-libel)
Parent
Schools and Office Politics (Score:5, Interesting)
The school's responsibility is to prepare you for life after you are finished school. Office politics play a huge role in that kind of development, because you cannot escape office politics -- they permiate every infrsstructure, at every level. It's a large part of the game and there is no getting around it, sorry.
Furthermore, I can guarantee that if you made fun of your boss as being a sex addict who hits on employees, you would be fired immediately. You might have a case for wrongful dismissal, but your lawyer would tell you to drop it and get another job (because even if the boss hit on you there are better options than public mockery -- judges tend to dislike that).
Not seeing the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds like blatant libel.
The stupid girl should consider herself lucky for having it settled with a simple suspension rather than being taken to court.
Re:Not seeing the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
But then again, little Johnny(or Suzie) School Kid doesn't realize that it could be worse. If I were the judge, I would have asked which way they wanted to defend it.
Do you want to defend this as a "School Matter" or under "Criminal Justice or Civil Court" rules.
Parent
Since when was Slander and Liable free speech? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't satire, this isn't parody, this is just abusive stuff out of the mind of a teenager, they might think its "cool" but in fact accusing a principal in this heavily sensitive times of being a paedophile is just about as low and threatening as a student can get. This isn't free speech in the same way as a John Stewart gag is satire this is just abusive rubbish out of the mind of an immature kid.
Getting kicked out is the least of this kid's problems, they are lucky that they aren't looking down the barrel of a lawsuit with lots of damages attached.
Free Speech is critical to a well functioning democracy and its worth defending, but it isn't a license to just spout off crap. Hell even Spiderman movies know that "with great power comes great responsibility".
Re:Since when was Slander and Liable free speech? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter; if a teenager libels the principal outside the school, the principal's legitimate response would be a libel suit. NOT to take on the role of judge, jury, and executioner himself. That's corruption on the principal's part, using his official power to address a personal wrong.
Parent
My son, my responsibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree that a suspension is an easy break for the kid, but...
Look at the precedence. If this ruling goes unchallenged, what's to prevent a school from suspending any student they like for posting something on their my-space page? A student could post a valid, non-libel complaint about one of their instructors, and get suspended for it even though the comment was made off school grounds/times and was not in violation of the law. And what if it gets into even more heated topics. A white girl in a southern Georgia town post pictures of her date with her new black boyfriend to a social networking site and gets a 3 day suspension from School, why? Because the principal is a racist. Take it to court, and he'll site this case as precedence. Given power and time someone will abuse it.
This is a pretty significant power grab being made by the school that dramatically shifts the existing boundaries of power. As a quasi-conservative, I can't fathom why anyone would want to have such a result. I mean, I entrust the school system with my son during the day. I expect that they will keep an eye on him and make sure he performs well and integrates with society. When he leaves school, he is my responsibility, not theirs. And if he posts some crap like this on the internet, it is MY job to discipline him, not the school's. If the Principal wants to be responsible for disciplining my son for things that happen out side of the school environment, he can talk to me, or he can talk to a lawyer.
-Rick
Parent
Freedom of speech.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of speech.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course freedom of speech means freedom from consequence -- at least, official governmental consequence. If it didn't, it would be meaningless. The government could pass a law saying "Anyone criticizing a member of Congress, Senator, President, or Vice President shall be executed", and it wouldn't violate "free speech" as you've defined it.
Parent
c.f. sexual harassment law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of IANAL, since when did Slashdot publish essays on law from someone who explicitly states he's not a lawyer (although he's taken people to court under very different circumstances from the article)? What makes them qualified to get a whole Slashdot article to themselves?
IANAL and IANAT (Score:5, Interesting)
I love free speech as much as the next Yankee, BUT...
Let's ask this question: what would happen to a school kid if he/she directed the same kind of provocative language at the principal or a school teacher, IN PERSON, either in the hallway or in a classroom?
How long would it take to slap down a suspension? It would probably happen before you or I could finish saying the word "suspension".
For right or for wrong, pure "free speech" in this case is going to take a back seat to order and discipline. It's a necessity IMHO, in order to allow a school to carry out it's primary mission of teaching kids the classic "three R's".
Putting comments out on the web, whether on a blog or social site or a standalone web site, as far as I am concerned, is no different than uttering the words in person. What point does this kind of disrespectful behaior have, other than to disrupt the educational process? And don't give me this "harmless prank" nonsense - accusing a professional of criminal activity online, even if "joking" about it - there's nothing funny about it whatsoever.
I'm neither a lawyer or a teacher, not even a parent, but you can bet I would support a schools suspension of any student who pulls this kind of stunt.
Libel/slander (Score:5, Insightful)
To prove libel/slander, you have to prove three basic things:
1. The accusations are false
2. She knew the accusations were false
3. She had malicious intent
All three seem pretty easy to prove in this case. The girl's lucky the principle isn't suing her. Free speech is great, but kids like this ruin it by spouting off malicious garbage.
Re:Libel/slander (Score:5, Informative)
Parent