Students Suspended, Expelled Over Facebook Posts 669
An anonymous reader writes "Two students have been suspended, and one student has been expelled, over negative Facebook postings they made about a teacher. The individuals are in seventh grade at Chapel Hill Middle School, meaning they are either 12 or 13 years old, according. The children are accused of violating a portion of the school code that is a "level one" offense, the worst possible: 'Falsifying, misrepresenting, omitting, or erroneously reporting' allegations of inappropriate behavior by a school employee toward a student."
Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, this story has nothing to do with Facebook and really doesn't belong on
Re: (Score:2)
Wait... pedophile + rapist = suspension, while bipolar = expulsion? Where is the logic in that one?
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
Levelling 'paedophile' against a teacher is insanely damaging. They work with kids. As soon as the accusation is made it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. The media latches on to child abuse cases like leeches and while they'll say 'alleged' a lot you can guarantee the public won't think much of that teacher afterwards.
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Levelling 'paedophile' against a teacher is insanely damaging.
Only in an insane, hysterical society that encourages witch hunts. Blame your culture, not the words.
you're absolutely right (Score:3)
Imagine: you're a 12 year old asshole with parents that don't properly care for you and you're presented with the following choice
A) Admit your accusations were lies and everyone is pissed off at you and your parents punish you and you get expelled.
B) keep lying your lie and you get sympathy, "free" days off school, everyone makes a big deal of you, you get 15 minutes of fame, and your hated teacher goes away.
Which would you do?
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
And suspending them for a few days is all good and well, although a parent-teacher conference was really intimidating for me back then, and frightened me enough. Point is: When you are 12, do you really necessarily know what a pedophile is and that is not just another name you can call someone to piss him off?
Re: (Score:3)
I guess they're learning that it's not just another name you can call someone to piss him off, aren't they?
I'm not sure why people seem so forgiving of this. The kids shot their mouths off, and made comments that could be very damaging. They are now bearing the consequences of their actions.
Seems like this is pretty much how we expect the world to work, isn't it? You mess up, you're punished, you learn & grow?
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Informative)
Freedom of speech is about being allowed to say "pedophiles should be hanged".
False testimony/libel is saying "mr. teacher x is a pedophile".
Former is legal. Latter is not. Do not mix one with the other. Location the libel is irrelevant - internet is governed by same laws as everything else.
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It might frighten you to discover a similar anti-defamation policy buried deep on page 174 of your employee manual
No, it's on page 3 of my employment contract. Not a surprise, and something I do take seriously.
Of course, my employer has to be careful what it says about me too, which feels fair.
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a free speech issue and it isn't a threat to posters on Slashdot. It's a centuries-old rule being enforced in a way that accords entirely with common sense: making false allegations of extremely serious crimes can completely destroy a person's career and life, especially when it's an allegation of pedophilia against a teacher. Teachers have been murdered or committed suicide over exactly these sorts of allegations. The ability to spread malicious falsehoods about people is not a protected category of free speech; it is in fact a type of speech that has been prohibited for centuries.
I really can't imagine it will surprise anyone to find that they are not allowed maliciously to claim that their coworkers are guilty of exceptionally serious criminal conduct. Not only has it been in every employment manual I've ever had it's also actionable at law without any employment manual being necessary. And even if it were not, does anyone seriously expect to be able to claim that their boss is a pedophile? The idea is ridiculous.
Legal precedent with a profound and rippling effect? This is a violation of a school's code of conduct, it will almost certainly be settled out of court and even if it goes to court it will be decided at the lowest level and create absolutely no precedent with no effect whatsoever. Even if it did go to the supreme court the only way the ruling could be in any way surprising would be if they did not hold a person responsible for malicious defamation.
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is to any who are still in the hell we call the primary and secondary education system.
It is, but there's more to the question than that. For instance, in libel law, one is not eligible for more than token damages if nobody who read the statement took it seriously.
Furthermore, there's the question of how much control a school has or should have over a student's life outside of school -- including posting on Facebook. To assert that the school has the power to require a student to show the principal the contents of the student's facebook account, and further to require the student to delete any offending posts, is going way too far, IMO.
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It really isn't a threat to anyone. Unless students were previously labouring under the misapprehension that they were free to tell people that their teacher was a paedophile because he had told them off this changes nothing. Everyone was aware of this rule anyway, and no-one had any trouble following it because it is absolutely common sense: you can't accuse people of serious sexual offences in order to get back at them.
What I think you have to bear in mind is that this wasn't the start of the investigatio
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Nothing to do with Facebook? Yes, you're right. It has to do with all social networking sites, websites, blogs, etc. and our ability to exercise free speech. Perhaps you would realize how close this hits to home right here on /. with that, for one of us could be targeted next.
It might frighten you to discover a similar anti-defamation policy buried deep on page 174 of your employee manual that you never knew about, or perhaps it will be an amendment to said manual next month because of this.
...which are all good reasons to not post stupid shit like that "on the Internet".
Re:Good. Deserved. (Score:5, Insightful)
...our ability to exercise free speech.
Your ability to exercise free speech does not absolve you of responsibility for the content and consequences of that speech.
Calling an innocent teacher a "pedophile" and a "rapist" - which is what these kids did - is the educational world's equivalent of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater. Spuriously accusing someone else of any crime is bad enough; falsely accusing someone of being a child molester is beyond the pale; leveling such an accusation at a teacher - who would tend to face immediate suspension during any investigation, followed by dismissal and blacklisting, not to mention torches and pitchforks - is appalling behavior. Many jurisdictions have zero-tolerance, zero-discretion policies for responding to these types of claims, and school board officials have no choice about whether or not to investigate and take immediate action.
It might frighten you to discover a similar anti-defamation policy buried deep on page 174 of your employee manual that you never knew about, or perhaps it will be an amendment to said manual next month because of this.
For the reasons I mention above, there's no need to mention these things in the school's rules for these actions to be punishable. If anything, I suspect it's in there to try to protect the students and manage expectations -- if they get an explicit reminder that this type of defamation has serious consequences, they might be less likely to go ahead and do it without thinking.
By the same token, if your coworker falsely accused a manager of raping one or more of his subordinates, how well do you think that would go over? Would your HR department shrug it off as a bit of harmless fun if it was just because "I was mad that day because of what he [did]" (in the words of one of our students). To take a less emotionally-charged crime, if someone accused the company accountant of embezzling funds, would that be okay? Really? Is there so little maturity and sense of personal responsibility that every company now needs to add "You shouldn't baselessly accuse your coworkers of serious criminal acts" to their handbooks?
Parents need to remind their children that the Internet isn't some special place unattached to reality. That glowing box connects you to real computers operated by real, physical people in real, ordinary places on the physical planet Earth. Actions taken on the internet have repercussions offline, and vice versa. Defamatory statements are not magically protected just because they appear on 'teh internets'. Disappointingly, it seems that certain Slashdot posters are also unaware of this reality.
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No, it really isn't. Not that the case in question was a paragon of wise Supreme Court decisions anyway. What's missing is the emergency nature of shouting "fire!" -- those hearing the cry must respond immediately, without time for critical thought or investigation, or risk serious harm from the fire. In the case of calling someone a pedo
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There is nothing different than a group of kids in the park bitching about their teacher.
It's VERY different. Facebook postings aren't available just to the people standing there at the time.
makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
'Falsifying, misrepresenting, omitting, or erroneously reporting' allegations of inappropriate behavior by a school employee toward a student."
This is a SERIOUS offense. For a student doing this to a teacher, it's no wonder he's expelled. If an adult falsifies or erroneously reports serious allegations like that, it's a felony! I'd say the kids should go to juvenile detention if they lied and said a teacher did serious stuff to kids.
She accused the teacher of being a pedophile (Score:3, Insightful)
They deserved it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They deserved it (Score:5, Insightful)
Posting on the internet that someone is a paedophile can have some very serious repercussions even at the wild accusation level. Why is there shock horror at the decision to refuse to allow a pupil that falsely the staff paedophiles to attend?
How is it that we as a society have become to treat anything posted online as the gospel? It kills me that people stand there and laugh at the "nonsense" that is on the front page of the National Enquirer or The Sun these days, and then go home and believe everything they ever read on Facebook because well, a "friend" said it.
Bottom line is people need to stop being so fucking ignorant of what is posted online, and perhaps at least TRY and assume some wild accusation is false before perpetuating the lie like wildfire. And I'm not talking about 13-year old kids here with their gossip, I'm talking about adults doing the same damn thing.
I mean hell, innocent until proven guilty is only the cornerstone of our legal system...
Re:They deserved it (Score:4, Interesting)
You are missing a big point here. Saying somebody is a pedophile or rapist in ANY public forum whether it be the internet or a posting on the bulletin board at the local grocery store, is a VERY serious accusation that can cause lasting repercussions for the person. If that person happens to be a teacher it makes it greatly more amplified. The internet hasn't changed that, just made it easier to spread the word.
Something else the internet does is remove a lot of plausible deniability. If you scribble it on a bathroom stall wall, it's much less likely to come back to bite you - and is also less likely to be taken seriously because well, it's anonymous. If you post it on your password protected facebook wall? Prepare for the pain train.
While I'm generally on the side of freedom of speech and lack of censorship on the internet, there are still some lines that can be crossed. This is one of them. And these kids need a lesson in what not to say to blow off steam about a teacher or your school.
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A child accusing someone of being a pedophile WILL NOT be treated lightly. Nor will it be ignored. There will be an investigation, even if the allegations are wildly false. The teacher's reputation will be damaged, and the school will most likely have to fire the teacher to appease the torch-and-pitchfork crowd.
It's not a matter of legal justice. It's a matter of popular perception. In cases of children accusing teachers of being pedophiles (especially if the teacher is male), it doesn't matter whether the
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Wow!
You see an article about two girls falsely accusing the teacher of being a pedophile, and you say: "it should be obvious the girls were lying".
The father of one of the girls sees the posts. Do you think he says: "It is obvious my daughter is lying"? And at least he knows her, and can ask her first about if it is real.
The father of other girl at the same school sees the posts. Do you think he says: "It is obvious that girl is lying"?
A police officer of the town sees the posts. Do you think he says: "It
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How is it that we as a society have become to treat anything posted online as the gospel?
I think it was Francis Bacon who made a case for the prosecution of witches.
Not because he believed in their magic.
But because they were driven by malice. Hell-bent on causing mischief. Playing on people's fears. Disturbing the peace.
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Right, that would work well. So the headline would be "Alleged Pedo Teach Sues Student" so now, not only is he an asshole for diddling kids (in the public mindset), he's an asshole for suing kids. Do you like to encourage suicides or something?
From TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
So irresponsible name-calling because of a low grade or something is now expressing oneself and an example of free speech? Nice.
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
When did it stop being free speech?
The instant libel and slander laws were enacted. We are not free to call the teacher a pedophile, and neither are the children in question. By their age (13) they know enough about right from wrong to know not to lie about people. This student went ahead and no only lied about her teacher, but made a false claim about her teacher behaving in a criminal way. If she had gone to the police, it would have been the criminal act of filing a false police report. As it stands, expulsion for something potentially is libel seems appropriate.
The only thing that I had a problem with in the article was that the school administrators forced the student to log into her Facebook account. That seems, as the article claims, to be a gross violation of privacy.
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, how did the teacher fail in this case? The students clearly failed because at age 12 and 13 you should know enough to not tell lies about people just because you're angry.
School district may have failed by actioning on a Facebook post not made on their computers. That's up for debate, but it is perhaps understandable that they acted to both protect the teacher and their reputations and send a message to other students that this level of name calling is not acceptable.
Parents definitely failed in not monitoring their children or teaching them appropriate impulse control. If you're going to turn control over your children to a school, then you can't act shocked when the school disciplines your child. It's great that some of the parents are considering getting lawyers and giving their children a chance to experience how the legal system works, but perhaps had the parents shown this level of interest in their children to begin with, it wouldn't have happened.
But the teacher here was just doing his job teaching students. Call a teacher stupid? Well, I suppose, although even that shows a distressing lack of respect for an authority figure who, by all accounts, hasn't done anything to warrant it. Call them a rapist, a pedophile and accuse them of mental illness? All of those are career enders for teachers (again, generally because of parents who are only involved in their children's lives when they smell a payday with a lawsuit) and, unless the student has a legitimate accusation, should require consequence.
So I see student fail, school fail and parent fail, but how the hell did the teacher fail? The teacher was maliciously and slanderously attacked for doing his job. Seriously, we've gotta stop treating teachers as second class citizens. Just lumping everyone into the blame game to seem fair or even handed is bad critical thinking and neither fair nor even handed.
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those kind of accusations can ruin someone. I'd be beating my kid
Priceless
I did RTFA, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
...remember that there is no violation her if what the kid says is true.
I know, unlikely in this case, but it's something to think about. Seems like a way that "policy" could be used to cover something up since kids are usually assumed wrong at school until they are proven right (at which point the administrator starts to ignore them).
At any rate, in the U.S. we've given school admins the right to pretty much create law by creating a "policy." I am not comfortable with that. It can and has been used as CYA too many times.
The beginning of the end... (Score:5, Interesting)
"...We’ll definitely be hearing more about this one as Facebook and other social networks continue to grow in popularity."
Grow in popularity? Uh, no, I doubt it. This is yet another nail in the liability coffin that is Facebook.
Not long ago I read how Facebook is being used to decide who should be selected to sit on a jury, with potential jurors being "coherced" into befriending the court in exchange for free wi-fi service in the courtroom, allowing the court to "see all".
Also not long ago, I read how Facebook is responsible for quite an alarming number of cases of infidelity, leading to divorce, with divorce lawyers practically drooling over getting their hands in their opponents juicy Facebook tidbits.
Schools. Potential employers. Current employers. What's next, will Military background investigations be done from an office chair instead of getting out in the field and actually interviewing someone, relying on social network "profiling" instead?
As more and more people realize that social networking is a liability in their lives, they'll realize it's not worth it.
Then again, with the air of ignorance around the law these days, maybe people won't give a shit until they have to hire a lawyer to defend what they've posted. Free speech...isn't free.
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I really hope you are right.
The other scenario is even more scarry. In order to be hired for that new job, you are required to have at least 100 friends and a wall full of messages.
Sounds strange? It already happend with the credit rating. You are forced to have debt in order to get a positive rating.
Geez, could you at least put the accusation (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting response (Score:4, Insightful)
This was a response to the article on zdnet, written by "stevey_d":
Lawyers make every argument adversarial. This is unethical and divides people whereas they should learn to live better with each other.
Children often talk in terms like this about teachers, it's normal. What isn't normal is for the teacher to overhear it (or, if they do, they have the nous to develop bad hearing). This is the same for management in an organization. The only thing here is that the kids didn't figure any adults would intrude on their personal conversation.
The school and the teachers have been ill advised here, someone could have quitely taken the kids to one side, explained the public nature of the chat, and helped them make it hidden or deleted. (enforce privacy).
This whole case is ridiculous. Kids are kids, they don't always know how to behave, they make mistakes. The adults in the situation were clearly not mature enough in their response. Adversarial relationship no, should very rarely have anything to do with school/kids.
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Children often talk in terms like this about teachers, it's normal.
Except this isn't analogous to talking about a teacher during recess, it's more like posting flyers on telephone poles near the school.
Re:Interesting response (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole case is ridiculous. Kids are kids, they don't always know how to behave, they make mistakes.
Punishment is an accepted step in teaching children how to behave, last I checked. If the children didn't know right from wrong, that would be one thing. But they were all 12-13 years of age, which should mean they already know that lying about their teacher being a pedo/rapist is wrong. Once you have gotten past the point of knowing right from wrong, we move to the step of teaching the consequences of doing the wrong thing. That is the punishment step. The kids did wrong, they know it, and they were caught. Now they get to face up to the consequences. Hopefully this will teach them further how to behave in the future, since simply knowing right from wrong wasn't enough in this case.
Re:Interesting response (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? "Kids are kids" is the reason why it's okay for one to accuse a teacher of being a pedophile? Really?
I overhear (and see) a lot of student conversations. "Mr. So-and-so is a loser" isn't that uncommon. "I hate Mrs. X" happens fairly regularly. But "Mr. Y is a pedophile" is and should be in a whole different category (e.g. a criminal one).
Suspension? Yes. Expulsion? No. (Score:3, Interesting)
People should be allowed to be young, make mistakes, face consequences of their actions and learn from them. It's called growing up. This is not the way to go about it at all.
Re:Suspension? Yes. Expulsion? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Previously if you were caught writing such a message on the walls , you would have to erase it and then were suspended for 10 days for the action
You can't possibly be so obtuse as to not recognize the difference between something on a wall that a small number of people might see, and which can be removed, vs. an online posting that can take on a life of its own and become essentially permanent in a venue accessed by billions of people.
Facts v. Opinions (Score:4, Interesting)
Had the kids posted opinions - IE: "My teacher sucks" - No biggie, and totally protected.
Instead, they posted factual allegations.
"My teacher is a pedo/rapist" is Libel, which is not protected, and clearly actionable.
It also has consequences. Erroneous accusations like that ruin careers, and send people to jail. A few hundred years ago it was "Witch, Witch!" Today it's "Pedo, Pedo!"
If you want to see scary, look at the OP comments - "That teacher should be investigated, the cops should be all over his house!" is the meme there.
Finally, for those saying "not the school's place to get involved." Actually, it is - the school has standing to take unilateral action here in order to protect itself and its employee. Period.These posts were retaliation for official acts. Left unaddressed at the institutional level, it becomes an effective method of blackmail. Yeah, the teacher can sue too, but then you've got the boatload of issues that come with litigation that I for one would never want to entertain. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be Cost Effective. Cheap harms are best countered by cheap deterrents, otherwise students have an incentive to hedge, and kids are intuitively good at gaming incentive structures. Besides, I can just hear the whining now -
"Teacher sues for being called a pedo on the internet."
Comments:
Litigious bastard, he's probably a pedo.
Why's everybody suing all the time.
etc, etc
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the most important parts of libel, and one that you overlooked, is that libelous statements have to be believable. Would anyone in there right mind believe that this teacher is really a pedophile, based on a bunch of students calling him a "pedophile", "bipolar" and other statements in that vein?
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Well, he does work with kids, which gives him an ample supply of victims, so yes, I'd say the possibility of the pedo claim being believable and plausible to be true. The kids should be run up the flagpole. I'd freakin' go nuclear on my kids if they pulled this kind of behavior.
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You could stop at "he" for the possibility of the pedo claim being believable and plausible to be true.
What is the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
While I do agree that what these students said was wrong, I don’t believe they should be punished for what they did. They need to be disciplined, sure, but the school should not have a right to get involved. This is a very fine line we’re talking about.
So somehow discipline is not punishment? Tell that to my Mom when I did something stupid like talking back to her. Soap on the tongue sure felt like punishment to me.
Having read TFA, the issue I find most jarring is that the parents of these children are considering suing the school for their actions. Really? Now that's a grand way to teach children right and wrong. "Gee Johny, you called your teacher a pedophile and got suspended because it was a false claim? Lets sue the bastard instead.". I don't see the argument as being over whether the school had the right or not, the core issue is that kids now feel free enough to use words, to "ink" words like pedophile, rapist, bi-polar as weapons. "Ha, you can't touch me because I am protected". Instead of taking the school to task for taking action to protect their employees, how about we take to task the parents that create children with little to know awareness of basic respect to adults. I may not have liked my English teacher in high school, I certainly may have said to friends, I cannot stand that lady, but had I called her a rapist, my parents would have applauded the school and added further "discipline" to make their "punishment" seem kind.
Re:What is the difference (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, they're going to sue. It's one of our core values you know? Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the Ineffable right to drag anyone you disagree with though court, beat them up with your abundant supply of money and time until you get your way or they give you a fat check to make you go away.
It's the schools job to keep the place safe and clean and educational. That means they need to kick out asshats and verified wolf criers, and they had damn well do their job or they'll end up with a wholly different six-pack of lawsuits when then fail to kick a real pedo teacher to the curb.
My favorite part is where they're saying the principal violated their privacy by making them log in to facebook at the school. You posted a severely damning lie about an agent of the school on a pseudo-public social website and now you're worried about your privacy?
Suspended for 10 days is a puny slap on the wrist. Yes Honor Roll students screw up too, and just because they generally do the write thing doesn't mean they shouldn't be punished, people need to wake up, children need appropriate and sane levels of discipline or they turn in to jack-asses later in life.
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What should have happened is that the teachers or their union should have sued the parents for defamation.
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In any case the response of the parent has done more damage to the child than the suspension. By telling t
witch hunt (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch the documentary Witch Hunt (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196112/ , it is on netflix streaming) to see how incredibly destructive these kinds of claims about pedophilia can be, even if the facts in the accusation are completely absurd. (In another case not covered in the movie, very young students claimed that teachers used a system of underground tunnels to get to a secret dungeon, and this was accepted as fact.) Communities can very easily enter into a kind of mass hysteria and put innocent people in prison. Given the history of things that have happened to teachers in this country, the school policy is not unreasonable.
what happenend to the spanking? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It was likely declared to be a barbaric practice. I'd say that abusing someone else to get your way is far more 'childish' than the alternatives. If your argument is so weak that you're have to use violence to defend it, then you have already lost.
Why the misleading story? (Score:3)
They deserve the full might of the disciplinary hammer in this case.
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Torts, in most states, including Georgia. Which means that the statement isn't criminal.
For more information (Score:3)
The parents quite clearly can't see any problem with their children's behaviour, so presumably this is another case of bad parents making bad children. Which is a shame, but there's no reason why the school should have to put up with it. And Alesjandra is quite the moron, isn't she: she thinks that if she goes to another school she might start to make bad decisions. Has she looked in a mirror recently and considered how her recent decisions have gone?
And by the way, unlike I suspect a lot of slashdotters, I've got 12 year old children. If mine behaved like this, a lot of things would happen. But lawyering up and demanding my child's first amendment rights to call named people rapists wouldn't be one of them (because, aside from anything else, it isn't protected speech, and might indeed constitute fighting words). Oh, and isn't the minimum age for Facebook 13 anyway?
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Insightful)
Against making executive decisions based on Facebook posts. It's getting ridiculous.
What these students did was a jailable offense if only they were old enough. Doing things that would land an adult in jail is a fairly good reason to expel someone.
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Informative)
What these students did was a jailable offense
Maybe in North Korea or China. In America something like this is at most a civil tort of libel.
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Informative)
2 things you never throw around lightly: Pedophile & Rape.
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Where exactly is the line on this? If the students had made the statements verbally at a city park should they have been suspended after being ordered to repeat the conversation? If they'd emailed each other from home, should they have been ordered to show their emails by the principal?
W
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Insightful)
The line is pretty obvious:
NOBODY who is a government employee has any business reading private facebook or emails w/o first obtaining a warrant issued by a judge, and naming the reason for the search, backed by articulatable evidence why said person is a suspect.
Get over yourself. The courts have already held that not only are facebook posts are public, but also that even deleted posts can be turned over [ericgoldman.org]. Besides, you agree as part of your terms of use that facebook can reveal all sorts of crap. Don't like it - don't use facebook.
And having at least a dozen other students posting comments shows the posts in question were far from a "private communication" (who knows how many other students viewed the posts w/o commenting).
Re: (Score:3)
Fine.
Then the facebook posts should have been procured only as part of a criminal investigation by the police after justifying the reason for the search, only with articulatable evidence why said person is a suspect, after a *subpoena*... instead of a warrant... is issued, and Facebook has had an opportunity so consult with the subject and determine if they want their own lawyers to fight it.
For a public employee to abuse his position of power over someone to demand that they log into their personal... inst
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Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), when the Supreme Court decided that "conduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason - whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior - materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech."
This is with respect to the schools right and duty to act in loco parentis - in the place of the parents. What they did certainly invaded the rights of the teacher, etc. It also threatened to turn the school environment toxic for all the students.
So, when you write:
If I were the parent of any of these children, I'd *already* be lining up a lawyer to sink his talons into every vermin involved... the teachers, the principal, their various supervisors, the school district as a whole... everyone. They all need to be brought down over this.
... you're totally, TOTALLY, in the wrong. And you'd deserve to have to waste money on a lawyer to explain to you that you're acting like a jerk. These k
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Informative)
You're taking that bit of dicta from Tinker v. Des Moines completely out of context. The phrase "in class" is a reference to the classroom as opposed to the larger school campus, not a reference to at the school rather than completely off the grounds of the school. Here's the whole paragraph:
Re: (Score:3)
Or don't we care about
Re: (Score:3)
You're still taking it out of context. That whole paragraph is referring to
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Insightful)
You are joking right? There is NOTHING private about FaceBook! It's a damned website designed to be viewed, searched, etc. Don't post there if you don't want others to view it. I never did understand this fascination with people posting every drib and drab of their pathetic lives there... And worse, expecting it to be "private" when they have friended everyone under the sun. If you don't want something leaked, then don't post it there plain and simple.
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Funny)
screw these kids
If you try, I suspect you will be the one labelled a pedophile.
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Haha
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Insightful)
I was about to side with the kids on this until I read TFA. They called him a pedophile... screw these kids, expel 'em! 2 things you never throw around lightly: Pedophile & Rape.
If you read the other article, they not only called the teacher a pedophile, but also a rapist and bipolar.
The sort of damage that could do to a teacher's career is unbelievable. And the parents are saying "my children shouldn't be punished so harshly." And threatening to sue the school.
Maybe the parents need to do some parenting. Or get a dose of their own medicine (set up a fake facebook page accusing them of being a pedophile and rapist, and see their reaction).
And maybe a more appropriate punishment is NOT suspending kids, but making them stay LONGER in school. Wash some of the graffiti off the lockers, etc. I could never figure out how suspending a kid was a punishment.
Princpal: "You skipped school yesterday, so we're suspending you today"
Student: "So what you're saying is I have permission to skip school today too? Works for me!"
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Insightful)
The sort of damage that could do to a teacher's career is...
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In my school district, miss more than a certain number of days on a year, and you automatically fail a class. I believe there are some workarounds for kids with long-term illnesses, but they're pretty strict otherwise.
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Exactly - based off the biased summary I was thinking "Yet another instance of schools being assholes" - until I read the post. Kids are well aware that even so much as calling a teacher a pedophile or rapist without proof can not only get them fired and barred from teaching ever again, but can also lead to jail time.
These kids are getting off very, very light.
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Insightful)
It this is starting to happen all the time, perhaps all the more reason to start being more strict.
Problem is that these accusations are often taken as truth by the public, despite it being one of the worst things you can call another human being.
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" It doesn't take much to ruin someones career given that a lot of kids have more than 1k "friends"."
No doubt. But where the problem is? In boys callling names to an adult, or a society so ill that it will make this adult life's a living hell without a skeptical research on those childs assertions?
This society where *just* calling someone "turrist" or "child molester", can ruin one's life, where Interpol calling on Assange is of higher level than the one over Gadaffi, remembers me of other times: "she's a
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IANAL but I think there is a difference. From what I've read on the subject, it appears you have to prove that your reputation has actually been damaged. It's not likely that anyone who reads some kid's facebook status saying "Mr. Teachername just gave us a pop quiz - she's such a pedophile" and interpret that as an actual allegation of pedophilia. Now if the kid had said "Mr. Teachername raped me the other day and nobody believes me. Please help me." or something like that, then I think the teacher wo
Criminal Libel In The States. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe in North Korea or China. In America something like this is at most a civil tort of libel
It is never safe to generalize about U.S. state law.
Colorado is one of 17 states with a criminal libel statute, which is different from the civil libel laws in all 50 states that allow victims of allegedly defamatory statements to seek compensation from speakers. Criminal libel laws allow the state to fine or imprison speakers of defamatory statements.
Former high school student pleads guilty to criminal libel [splc.org] [2006]
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Interesting)
In today's legal and social environment, what these school kids did is sufficient grounds for the slanderred adult male to be fired, jailed, and be barred from contact with their children; all without any presumption of innocence (on the part of the justice system). In this case, the principal intervened and instead of the male teacher being persecuted the school children were punished.
Society has to make a choice: adults accused of sexual crimes against children must either be presumed innocent until proven guilty; or, those falsely accusing others of such crimes must be severely punished. At the moment, society is chosing the latter course; and so, explusion of the child is the minimum punishment one should expect.
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State constitutions cannot remove rights granted to individuals by the US constitution. We have Supreme Court rulings on this matter going back 100 years.
Then maybe you should read the Supreme Court [wikipedia.org] ruling (1968)
Wearing an armband call
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However, a claim of certain acts -- including pedophilia (and domestic abuse, etc) -- instantly initiates criminal proceedings, starting out with separation and investigation. They are engaging in acts that do have very serious immediate consequences that involve law enforcement and the courts. These procedures are increasingly mandatory in many locales, with an assertion of "I made it up" being insufficient to stop investigation and/or prosecution. For example, had they made these claims against their parents, they might well have been removed from the home by the courts (and almost certainly would have been in California, according to a child care worker I just IMed this link to; she notes that forwarded communication is a fairly common reason to start investigations, and removal is a precautionary measure).
That is problem. We have a justice system set on a hair trigger for certain crimes. We should not throw out the constitution, or limit what school-aged people can do outside of school. Instead, we should stop going on witch hunts at the mere hint that someone may have done a certain act. Yes, child molestation is a terrible crime, but so is ruining someone's life with to a false accusation. The pendulum has swung far too far toward protecting the victims of these horrible crimes, at the cost of not pr
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Insightful)
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Even as recently as 10-20 years ago, you would have been disgraced as a parent if your kid did most of the "normal" stuff that teens do today.
FTFY.
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Agreed, now get off my lawn!
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Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to be the one to do this but it is in fact already illegal to publish such things about a person and yes the kid should be expelled (and then sent to a boarding school).
Slander/Libel is illegal and in this case you can be sued over it.
Facebook 15 years ago would have been a Bulletin Board at the local arcade/kids hangout.
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Insightful)
Public school teachers only work/teach half as much as they did 25 years ago.
Who will sue them for STEALING an education from students for their own personal comfort/laziness?
And you think the right punishment for being lazy is being jailed on a false accusation of pedophilia?
Tell that to your boss next times he catches you reading Slashdot at work.
Re:They are going to have to pass a law (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling people on their failings is fine. But if Obama decided to skip work for a day then someone reported him for being a "seal-killing lobbyist-appeasing-warmonger" then that report would still be wrong, and it would be less then half as serious as what these girls did.
What these kids did wasn't the same as calling someone a jerk or an idiot on a public forum. They accussed him of being a pedophile, probably the worst false accusation you could have leveled against you and if any inquiry were made then it wouldn't matter if he was found guilty or not this teachers career would be over right there and then. This would be like calling someone a communist 60 or 70 years ago.
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Re:My Cousin Posts Stuff Like This (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:question (Score:5, Informative)
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I'd hope that a school district can refuse to allow a child convicted of murder to enter the premises of a normal (not special) school.
Spreading libel about a school teacher creates a hazardous working environment for the teacher and the students.
There are some basic rules like "Don't falsely shout fire in a crowded theater" [1]. And then there's The Boy Who Called Wolf [2].
There's an article on the subject [3], but you might want to consider what the EEOC has to say [4], it basically says that the teacher'
Not crap at all. (Score:3)
How does the school district even have jurisdiction in this case? It might be libel, but unless the school actually has jurisdiction this suspension and expulsion is a load of crap.
This example is from Conneticut:
You asked what authority a local school board has to expel a student from school for conduct off school grounds. You were especially interested in whether a school board may expel a student for a sexual assault that occurs away from school.
Connecticut's school expulsion law provides for both mandatory and discretionary expulsions for out-of-school conduct (CGS 10-233d (a) (1) and (2)). School boards must expel students for carrying a weapon, or selling or distributing illegal drugs, whether the activity occurs on or off school grounds. For other types of conduct, including sexual assault, a school board has the discretion to expel a student from school.
In order to impose a discretionary expulsion for out-of-school conduct, the law requires a school board to show that the student's actions not only violate a publicized school policy but are also "seriously disruptive of the educational process.â In 1998, the Connecticut Supreme Court construed the latter phrase to mean that, to warrant expulsion, the out-of-school conduct must (1) have a direct connection to the school's operations and (2) "markedly interrupt or seriously impede" the school's daily operations.
Within these requirements, a school board may expel a student who has been convicted of an out-of-school sexual assault. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, a hearing officer upheld the Trumbull Board of Education's expulsion of a high school student convicted of sexually assaulting another student at an unknown location outside of school. The hearing officer found that, based on the facts of the case, allowing the convicted student to attend school would severely disrupt the educational process in the school.
EXPULSION FOR CONDUCT OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL [ct.gov]
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It might be libel, but unless the school actually has jurisdiction this suspension and expulsion is a load of crap.
In many jurisdictions, school officials are constrained by zero-tolerance, zero-discretion policies when faced with these sorts of accusations; they are compelled to investigate whenever these sorts of claims - however spurious or implausible - arise.
Consider the alternative-history headline to this story: "Students identify teacher as pedophile, rapist; School declines to take action--says cannot investigate reports made after hours".
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Re:Cellphones (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe next time they can record audio/video of said allegations. Wouldn't be the 1st time that would show the kids were right on their claims. Then again if it's just audio they could still claim its falsifying the teachers voice or something of those lines of thought.
Furthermore, if it is more than one kid claiming bad behaviour from the teacher part, i believe the chances of being true claims are quite higher.
It's people like you who make the draconian decision by the school necessary.
People's lives have been destroyed [wikipedia.org] by false accusations. Hysterical parents who should never have had children, greedy lawyers, those are worse than pedophiles, because they can cause more harm to more people.
The punishment against a false accusation should be at least as severe as the punishment against the crime itself.
Re:Public school? (Score:5, Insightful)
First Amendment, blaw, blaw, blaw... These children said these things out of school, it's none of the school's business.
Did you "read" the article? No, of course not.
They made false accusations of serious criminal activity. Is that sort of thing protected by the First Amendment? I'm not a lawyer.
Please get off your soap-box and live in reality. These children's little prank could have had (and possibly still can have) serious life-changing consequences for their falsely accused teachers.
Re:Public school? (Score:5, Informative)
I'll assume this is a public school, in which case they don't have any choice but to follow our Constitution, namely the First Amendment.
The first protects your right to free speech, however you are still liable for any consequences of exercising that right. It does not grant you any immunity from being punished for what you said.
These children said these things out of school, it's none of the school's business. If they go snooping and find out, then they can't do anything about it.
They can - schools have the right (and responsibility) to provide a safe working environment for students and staff. If something is said or done off campus hay can certainly take action as a result of what was said.
Bottom line is kids say things about teachers they don't like. They always have and always will. Punishing them for exercising their freedom of speech will only cause further resentment towards the school and teachers which will result in more severe verbal bashing of the institution.
Maybe they'll learn that their free speech rights come with responsibilities as well.
Not surprisingly, the article doesn't mention what the teacher did that may have resulted in this type of reaction from the students.
Yea, it's probably something as horrific as giving them a bad grade because they didn't do their work or separate them in class because they were talking to each other.
Re:Expelled for calling the teacher a bipolar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Expelled for calling the teacher a bipolar? (Score:5, Insightful)
OMG, Really?
Sure. Since we do not know the disciplinary history of this involved it may have been the next step in a series of punishments.